Gates in the News

There a two gates in the news today: One, Christos' Gates in Central Park; Two, a movie project recording suicides on the Golden Gate Bridge. These gates sort of cover from the beginning to the end.

Christos' The Gates Central Park, New York 1979-2005 is the full and formal title for this new art work that is generating conversation. Googling "gates, Central Park" returned over 1.4 million references in less than 23 seconds.

A running buddy was there to see it yesterday and was thoroughly impressed with the gates. It was the highlight of her trip to the big city this week. She had just returned and talking about it carried our conversation for an easy mile. Yes, we can talk and run at the same time. These are the best kinds of runs.

I am making plans to visit the city to see this. The pictures are dramatic and yet the photography I know understates the event. The camera can not fully capture the feeling of the view, of the walk through the gates, through the park. Hopefully, if things work out, I'll get down there one of the next two weekends before the exhibit comes down (2/27/05).

The second gate in the news today is the more famous Golden Gate Bridge and its attraction as a suicide site. While the numbers are debatable, it is clear that the bridge provides some unique suicide opportunities. ''The railings are only 4 feet high. It's fast -- it only takes a four-second fall to the water -- and it's clean..." This quote is attributed to Dr. Mel Blaustein, president of the Psychiatric Foundation of Northern California.

Film maker Eric Steel set up two cameras and recorded over two dozen suicides in the course of the past year. He has plans to use the footage in a full length documentary. You can read the Boston Sunday Globe article here.

The footage has generated controversy. But I wonder if it is the footage itself, or the act recorded in the footage that is the real issue here. Americans do not like to talk about suicide. While there are many factors that lead one to end their life, I think that this is a topic that sits much higher on the taboo subject totem pole than race, politics, and how much money you make.

"Suicide is most frequently an impulsive act committed in moments of desperation, which mental health specialists say usually pass. A 1978 study by Professor Richard H. Seiden of the University of California at Berkeley tracked 515 people who had been restrained from jumping off the bridge, from its opening in 1937 to 1971. He found that 94 percent were still alive or had died from natural causes."

I applaud Steel's attempt to take this topic to a constructive discussion. He is quoted in an email as saying the documentary would ''challenge us to think and talk about suicide in profoundly different ways." I hope he follows through with this attempt.

The camera alone can not do justice to what goes on inside one's head.

The camera captures the outside, creates a perception, by capturing ones actions.

What was once an impulse and has been passionately delivered after many years in the making is now seen as the gates in Central Park.

What also was once an impulse and remains to be seen in some future cinematic event may help to open the discussion to save some lives.