Ash Wednesday

Last night, I spent two hours standing in Brooklyn's Atlantic Avenue-Pacific Street subway station reminding complete strangers of their mortality. Each Ash Wednesday, a small band of St. Lydia's community offers ashes to the people passing by. Last year, it was in Union Square (when I first saw them, but did not know who they

Seen in Union Square, NYC.

Ash Wednesday. And no one cares to make any money off of it. So it doesn't matter. There's no party. No consumption. In fact, the only consumption is lack. We take on emptiness to feel present and presence. And yet advertising is all about need - created need, commodification, distinction, distanciation, fear, insufficiency, desire. Is