In honor of the many lives shattered and snuffed out by BP this time last year...

...I offer this beautiful and provocative video installation, by Swiss artist Pipilotti Rist.

Rist created the work in 1997, and I first saw it in New York's MoMA back in 2000, while touring the latest featured collection with my co-author Linda Lindroth, herself an artist whose works can be seen there as well as the Met and other art museums.

It's a violent, beauty-destroying world out there. As they have since time immemorial, the corporations are acting all corporation-y, and as the saying goes, one can either conform, go crazy, or become an artist.

I took a good whack at the first option for, oh, the first few months of my life. (Or so I'm told. That particular time is immemorial, ha!) As soon as I could form words and choose colors, though, the second and third options seemed both inevitable and a whole lot more appealing.

As Robert gets ever-closer to his goal of running an all-wind-and-solar-powered farm, I hereby pledge that when it comes time to retire my current vehicle, the next one will be a hybrid or, better yet, a slick little electric car that I can plug into my solar-powered outlet.

Pass the sledgehammer.

Also at litbrit.