Hollywood Snow Falls In Boston

Hollywood's fake snow is usually shredded paper, potatoes, or soap. It looks a little like real snow, except it doesn't seem to fall right. The fans they have blowing to simulate wind tend to loft the light flakes and make them buzz around like flying insects, rather than just falling down slowly but inexorably to the ground, like real snow is supposed to do. It's too light, or not wet enough.

Maybe they use those fans to deliberely keep the fake snow swirling about, so that each flake remains in flight longer, and they have to shred fewer potatoes. Though I doubt that; potatoes are pretty cheap.

I mention this because a fake-looking Hollywood snow is now falling, sort of, in Boston. The flakes are very tiny and very light and are lofted on the strong wind, just like fake snow does in a movie. There is absolutely zero accumulation; in fact, there's very little snow at all. You could almost not notice it's snowing at all, except every once in a while you see what seems to be a white gnat buzzing around a hedge, not really falling at all, just flying around low to the ground.

If I were a poet I'd now link this odd meteorology to some human emotion and claim the snow feels like an indifferent sadness, or a futile attempt at winter's last beauty, or some crap like that. But that's just homo-shit, and I don't do homo-shit. It doesn't make me feel like anything, except I'm a little curious. I don't remember seeing this half-hearted weak-sister snow "fall" before. This isn't even a flurry. It's just a thin swarm of tiny flakes that are afraid to land on the ground.

The only time I've seen similar pale light flakes wafting in the wind is during fires -- as ash falls -- and the last time I saw that was on 9/11. But I have cleverly deduced it's not ash, because it's pure white, not pale gray, and because there is no screaming of big-bastard firetrucks anywhere to be heard.

Coincidentally, in Korea, a yellow snow is falling, and not because an archangel is whizzing into a cloud.

A meteorology department statement said the reason for the yellow snow could be due to sand or dust from the desserts in the north of China.

A forecaster told Reuters that they had not seen yellow snow before, adding, "It is difficult to say if this is a mixture of yellow sand with snow or vice versa."

He also added that one should not eat the yellow snow, but then, everyone knows that from an early age.

So there is strange snow falling here and in Korea, and you know what that means.

Global warming.

I'm tired of cold global warming, though. I want to get to that warm global warming we've had patches of through the winter.

posted by Ace at 05:49 PM

| Access Comments