Tuesday, January 1, 2008

Cloudy With a Chance of Iconic Imagery

Welcome to 2008 and the start of this blog’s second year. There’s not a doubt in my mind that there will be ample grist for the Madonna of the Toast mill, like the following meteorological visual manifestation of the oft spotted Jesus Christ.



In New Orleans, Louisiana, Sean McCree was taking pics of clouds with his cell phone, finding one that looked like Jesus. This Christian condensation was viewed on Christmas Day, according to this WDSU 6 report. The article contains hardly any detail, but as you may know, I’m a sucker for cell-phone photographs and the stories behind them. More and more, people possess the whole of existence, even its spiritual and enigmatic aspects, in the palms of their hands. For McCree, it seems that either on a religious or commercial level, he had Jesus on his mind this past Christmas.



Seems like Alan Blacklock of Wellington, New Zealand, was thinking more about Santa Claus than the Bible when he spotted this Rudolph the Reindeer cloud prancing through the sky above his home. Sydney, Australia’s The Daily Telegraph reported the story in early December, describing the above image thusly: “With his head thrown back, and his antlers held high, Rudolph is captured in full flight, charging across a vivid expanse of blue.” Although the article does not name Blacklock’s job title, he does work for New Zealand’s National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research; presumably the guy spends lots of time studying clouds, in a secular-scientific way.

May 2008 be as dynamic as the clouds in the sky!