A Conversation: Gardening versus Porn
I am standing in front of a community garden taking photos when a youngish dude (I am not good at guesstimating age) holding a guitar and a large, open bottle of vodka approaches me.
Him: What are you doing?
Me: I’m taking pictures of these beans and bean flowers.
Him: Why?
Me: Because I think they are beautiful and I am impressed by this garden.
Him: Why are you wearing a bike helmet.
Me: I was riding by on my bike and stopped to take a few photos.
Him: [Laughing] Are you afraid you’ll fall off?
Me: I’m afraid I’ll get hit by a car. I value my life.
Him: [Takes a swig of vodka] What are you doing after this?
Me: I’m working. I’m working right now. This is my work. I take pictures. I write about gardening.
Him: Do you like your work?
Me: Very much.
Him: So I don’t get it. Why do you do this?
Me: Because I love gardening and I love good food. And I want to share what I know. Because people need good food but they can’t always access it either because it’s just not available or they can’t afford it. And because gardening makes people feel good and it makes them feel good about themselves.
[Long pause.]
Him: So you don’t make porn with that camera?
August 13th, 2008 at 4:40 pm
Oh, my. I guess some of us think of different things when we look at beans or cameras. I’m still giggling. A story well-told.
August 13th, 2008 at 4:41 pm
OMG! veggie porn? what a weirdo he was. i hope you dont come across these fools all that often while you are taking pictures.
LOL, shoulda told him you like watching the beans swinging from their vines, kinda like swinging from the chandelier. *giggle*
-Amy
August 13th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh! Oh my god people are so weird!!
August 13th, 2008 at 4:52 pm
Ha, that’s hilarious. You could could call it gardening porn. Naked plants and flowers reveal all.
August 13th, 2008 at 5:06 pm
That’s like ADVANCED men are from Mars, women are from Venus.
August 13th, 2008 at 5:15 pm
That is so awesome! You should have told him that you like to finger your pea tendrils though…that would get him fired up for sure. I love it when adults are completely freaken nuts. Speaking of which, better get my bottle of vodka, guitar and head out to the garden…
August 13th, 2008 at 6:05 pm
i have to admit i did photograph a freakishly “endowed” radish a couple of years ago. it’s naughty bits are on myspace…
August 13th, 2008 at 6:17 pm
To be fair, I recently took close-up photos of veggies I harvested, and I referred to it all as “vegetable porn.” :-)
August 13th, 2008 at 7:26 pm
i weird people. they make life interesting! :)
August 13th, 2008 at 7:36 pm
Your neighborhood has a very eclectic group of people living there!
August 13th, 2008 at 7:41 pm
Gotta love Toronto!
August 13th, 2008 at 8:52 pm
… then the guy walks into a bar - and we can only imagine what he told his friends - heheh
August 13th, 2008 at 9:52 pm
Ha, Ha! (I laughed out loud). I think this beats all of the conversations I’ve had with my neighbors/passersby. Thanks for sharing this story!
August 13th, 2008 at 10:04 pm
Back in the 90’s there was a guy who shot videos of vegetables that were strangely erotic. He called it Vegerotica. Every few years I try to google it, but I can never find it.
On another note.. I did post a phallic cuke on my blog last week. At least I thought it did. Now that I’m looking back at it, I’m wondering if I don’t need to get out a little bit more often.
August 13th, 2008 at 10:35 pm
Well…. To a true-blue gardener, there’s nothing more erotic that ripe, luscious vegetables, still glistening from their labour of ripening, and moist with the morning dew…
August 13th, 2008 at 10:38 pm
Actually, you are making porn with your camera. Flowers are the sexual organs of plants. ‘Nuff said. lol ;)
August 13th, 2008 at 11:34 pm
So many people have such narrowly-limited imaginations.
I recall when I was still in grad school the first time, and was working at a department store over Christmas break. I got into a conversation with one of the gals I was working with about what we did besides ring up sales. I said I was going to college. She gave me an odd look and asked what I was doing there.
“Studying botany,” I said.
She gave me a look of pure bafflement. “What’s that?”
“It’s the study of plants.”
Now she wore a look of complete incredulity. “What do you want to do THAT for?” And walked away.
August 14th, 2008 at 10:52 am
Ha! … large, open bottle of vodka … it doesn’t matter what you may have been doing Gayla, you were in for an odd conversation anyway. I’d bet he doesn’t even play guitar. Hee.
Seriously though, I’d rather have odd interactions with weird people than none at all. We’re all so isolated by technology today. I had an odd conversation with a lady in a Goodwill thrift store a few years ago. She obviously was sticking to a script, and it went on for more than a few minutes…
Odd Lady: Hey!
Greg: Hey.
Odd Lady: You like hockey?
Greg: Not really.
Odd Lady: You want to score?
Greg: No. No thanks.
Odd lady: You want to come back to my place to watch the game?
Greg: No thanks. I have to get back to work.
Odd Lady: I’ve got a lot of hockey on video.
Greg: You must like hockey. But no thanks.
(Greg walks away slowly, pretending to see something across the store.)
I love weird people because they make the rest of us look somewhat normal. -GAE
Greg
August 14th, 2008 at 2:12 pm
A-mazing. (Happy) drunk dudes can be so entertaining…I would have loved to see his train of thought. ;o)
August 14th, 2008 at 2:49 pm
For some reason, my husband didn’t laugh at this nearly as hard as I did. In fact, he stared at me blankly and said, “okay.” Oh, it cracked me up! What a random thing to say to a stranger. Maybe you do, maybe you don’t, but asking you outright certainly isn’t the way to woo a girl. That’s something you talk about a little later in the relationship.
August 14th, 2008 at 4:33 pm
This makes me miss Parkdale and not miss Parkdale, all at once.
August 14th, 2008 at 4:42 pm
You should of told him yeah okay and what vegetable would you like to be your co-star.ha-ha
Delia Welch
August 15th, 2008 at 12:58 pm
This question isn’t quite as odd as you might think. I work from home doing motion graphics and video editing. My husband is the IT guy at a local law firm and when people ask what his wife does, he says “she does video work from home.” And the next question is always- “like porn and stuff?”
Why do people automatically assume you make porn if you own a video camera?
August 15th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
Ha! That is so Parkdale! (I can say this as a long-time downtown dweller.)
And you were do wonderfully polite. How very Canadian of you.
August 15th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
Thanks to Gayla and her pictures, this hortisexual gets her fill of plant porn.
August 15th, 2008 at 10:44 pm
I just wonder why he was in a garden during the afternoon with a guitar & a bottle of vodka. No longer do I envy your job. I want his!!
August 19th, 2008 at 9:37 am
Melissa asked “Why do people automatically assume you make porn if you own a video camera?”
…refer to Kapor’s Law, which suggests that we can’t help it…
Kapor’s law was first stated at the January ‘92 Usenix Conference, most likely referring to p*rn on the internet -
“The first use for any new communications technology is sex.”
Greg
P.S. My Phone’s on Vibrate for You - Rufus Wainright, etc.
August 31st, 2008 at 7:29 pm
…and you weren’t even hugging a tree?
(A Long While Back, there was a film footage of Marylin Monroe dancing/circling a tree that raised objection, but the censoring body in question chose to back off on this front rather than lose all that censoring power.)
September 4th, 2008 at 1:29 am
My boyfriend refers to my gardening books/mags with the glossy pictures of vegetables or flowers as “garden porn.” I do look at the pictures with wanting so it’s not far off. It’s just a different kind of wanting… That’s an important clarification.