There’s plenty to deride in the American Beauty-Style love of trash that is London Bananas, but without that pretentious nonsense about “so much beauty in the world I feel like I can’t take it,” the straightforward exploration of discarded food-scraps leaves itself open to interpretation, either as a haunting study in urban isolation or, as one Boing Boing commenter put it, “a slapstick comedian conspiracy.”
The “about” section is refreshingly brief and matter-of-fact: “I have lived in London, UK for about a year. When I arrived I noticed something straight away: there’s a lot of banana skins around…” The site’s creator soon got a camera and began photographing the skins, and by now hundreds of such photos make the site a way bigger time-suck than it has any right to be.
But you know there’s something totally fascinating and hilarious about bananas. Why, it was just a little over a month ago that we tried to remind the world how funny these fruits naturally are. Back in 2002 Slate ran a whole essay on the question of which end of the banana is the correct starting point (we personally prefer the center-snap, as it keeps with the fruit’s comedy background). It makes sense, then, that a site like London Bananas would have huge, um, a-peel, in spite of seemingly uninspiring subject matter.
Maybe there really is a whole lot of beauty in the world, but damned if we need Wes Bentley to lecture us on it.
London Bananas [Official Site]
Are You Peeling Bananas Wrong? [Slate]
Keeping Bananas Funny [MenuPages]
American Beauty [IMDB]
[Photo: Via London Bananas]
