Snow globes have been on my mind recently. And not just mine. Our office assistant was rather upset we didn't win the office decorating contest this year. My office has many windows facing out to the reception area. She told me next year she is going to buy a Santa suit for me and place a lot of fake snow in my office and some fans. She will turn on the fans when the judges come by and I will wave to them from my office turned into a snow globe. At least, that's the idea.
Snow globes have been on my mind, however, because they seem to be the perfect analogy for Occupy Wall Street and its iterations in our American cities and landscape. The news the last several weeks from the parks and encampments is that the occupiers are thinking of fresh places to occupy and creative ways to occupy. Events happen such as occurred in
A snow globe is a self-contained sphere, usually a miniature landscape. There is no communication from the snow globe to the outside world except visual. There's no interaction. I think I first thought of the snow globe analogy when I read Michael Moore's proposals for the next steps for the Occupy movement. People take him seriously. He was asking the occupiers to build more snow globes. Mr. Moore must own stock in confetti. The kind that is used in snow globes to imitate snow.
I have read the declarations that have been issued by some of the encampments. They are documents created out of horizontal decision making and speak to the people who created them. If they were meant for a wider audience, it doesn't show. They, too, are snow globes of a sort. The words fly around the page, angry, resentful, blustering, swirling about until they are done. The declarations do not communicate with the outside world. They are the summation of hundreds of people talking in their own heads and to one another.
I've always thought that snow globes are kind of kitschy. They never seem to be made out of any natural substances and typically have dollar store paint jobs. Some have music. And I think about that confetti. The kind Michael Moore thinks is a good investment. There's never quite enough of it in the snow globe if you ask me. I wonder if Mr. Moore could ask the confetti companies to push the snow globe makers to add more confetti. Of course, that won't solve anything.
Meanwhile, the Occupy movement builds their snow globes. They have some plans for more snow globes in 2012. If they think more snow globes will bring change to
The minute our program assistant orders that Santa suit next fall, I'm going to ask for the month of December off. No way will I wave from a snow globe. Let's hope snow globes are out of fashion well before then.
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