The Curry Cornfield never ends
O'er hill and dale the labyrinth wends
With row upon row of science dead ends
And Uncertainty Monsters 'round all the bends.
Eli calls them trainwrecks, but they remind Horatio more of the cornfields on his grandfather's farm.
With one difference: Horatio knew his grandfather's cornfield would end and that he would eventually emerge on the other side, having actually accomplished something.
With one difference: Horatio knew his grandfather's cornfield would end and that he would eventually emerge on the other side, having actually accomplished something.
Update: Oct 14
Horatio just discovered that there is another "Curry Cornfield" (pictured in the above painting "Kansas Corn Field", by John Steuart Curry) which actually conveys a message that is quite relevant to the current discussion on climate change. According to The Fine Art Diner (Corn Fields and Greed: John Steuart Curry),
"Curry painted Kansas Corn Field in 1933, when there had already been 3 years of no rain and severe drought was gripping the country's mid-section. It wasn't until November of 1933 that the first of the dust storms started, but a Dust Bowl wasn't needed by American artists like John Curry and Grant Wood, they knew what was happening. "Power farming" had been ripping up the native grasslands of the Plains and replacing it with crops demanding lots of water; coupled with over grazing by various herd animals, the result was catastrophe."
"What Curry is showing us in Corn Fields is not what one would call the quaint, rather, a tragedy, and it simply can't be looked at any other way: the ripe, yellow and green stalks of healthy corn would probably never be on the Plains again, and it was because of man forcing nature to do what it couldn't do, all for the sake of profit."
Though the conditions of the Dust Bowl were made worse by poor farming practices, many scientists believe that climate change will increase the likelihood of extreme droubts like the one that produced the Dust Bowl.
