Reading the morning paper I came across the story (one I had read before somewhere) of a certain Joshua Michtom, who made it his mission to photograph all of the Madonna lawn statues of Somerville.

He is not religious, but had noticed that many of his neighbors in Somerville were.

He is not an artist, either. His photographs (like mine) are visual records, not works of art. Nonetheless, he is selling them on his website.

Michtom's site also has a "Learn More" page where he states his "mission" simply: "[to] photograph all of the Madonnas and other religious statues in the yards of Somerville, Massachusetts"—he has taken 234—and solicits (only half-jokingly) "Questions? Comments? Lucrative book deal offers?"

He's probably already planning the sequel: "Garden Gnomes of Connecticut," or "Lawn Jockeys of Virginia." How about "Garden Balls of Florida"?

If Michtom were at least a photographer of some skill, the photographs themselves could tell a story. But the story here is apparently supposed to be Michtom's journeying through Somerville (he is, according to the article, a native of Brooklyn and Portland, Oregon) with his kids, snapping pictures of lawn shrines. Neat. And?

When asked "What does the ubiquity of Madonnas or religious statues say about either Somerville or about Madonna?" his insights run the gamut from "There are a lot of Catholics [in Somerville]" to "For a lot of people, religion is an important
part of their lives."

And that's fine as far as it goes. But the goal of snapping shots of all the Madonna statues for no better reason than that they're there, and coming up with no better observation about it than that they're there, and that the people who put them there must be religious, does not sound like a best seller to me.  But then, heck, what do I know?

I'm not sure what the book would be about, exactly. Like I said, if it's supposed to be interesting that there are Madonnas on 234 lawns in Somerville, a not outrageous number for a town of around 75,000 with a large traditionally Catholic population, or that Michtom, who is not a native or a Catholic, decided to take the pictures of them on his evening strolls.

But it's not hard to see the wheels turning in Michtom's head. And this might be the difference between the new Somerville and the old. He started taking pictures, maybe with no particular plan for them in mind. Then the light bulb popped on, and the next natural thought: refrigerator magnets!

I could make some money off of this.

And what's wrong with that? It's a perfectly natural progression. The BVM is a religious icon that has certainly been exploited in all sorts of ways by people down through the ages.

Her appeal as a commodity in our own culture is two-fold: religious folks will buy trinkets and postcards of her, and the anti-religious or irreligious see the icon as an ironic statement that bolsters their worldview as well. For the post-religious, it's an aesthetic statement, or winkingly nostalgic, like a fetish from a primitive culture. The juxtaposition is irresistible: isn't it cute that right here in the hub of higher learning this quaint custom persists?

The Globe writer who covered the "story," such as it was, had to ask: "Has doing this project affected your spirituality?" Which would seem a reasonable question to a pre-postmodern sensibility. But of course here it's ridiculous. It was no more a "spiritual pastime" than stamp-collecting. What would the "story" have been if the snaps had been of 234 garden gnomes? "Has this project made you believe in garden gnomes?"

New Somerville is filled with people whose lives seem to be ironic depictions of other people's. Practiced observers with all of the high-tech tools of anthropologists in a primitive country, they become distorted reflections of the authenticity they gently mock.

And I don't think the mocking is necessarily malicious. In fact, being post-everything seems to engender a kind of pet pity for "real people." As Michtom says about the empty shells where Madonnas used to be: "I feel like people who are from Somerville don't really think twice about the empty shells. They just think, oh, somebody's Madonna was
there."

Michtom, on the other hand, one-ups them. He is conscious (and conscious of his consciousness) of the potential for symbolic significance which he assumes they do not see (he says "he feels like" they don't, at least), although he is beyond reading symbolism into the empty shells himself: "One could, were one so inclined, ascribe all sorts of symbolism and meaning to that."

Here I feel like he assumes his awareness of the possibility trumps the ability to do so. And maybe it does.  And maybe it doesn't. Who's to say? (Or is it "whose to say"?)

Belief is a kind of vestigial organ for post-people, who have evolved beyond the need for it. But what they do need are people who do believe to observe. Post-people don't judge other people on character so much, as they recognize the superficiality of culture, and that it is not the belief itself that matters but the urge and tendency to believe. Michtom: "To me, the essence isn't the Madonna per se, it's the custom of keeping statues in yards."

Just to be clear, I have no argument with Michtom or post-people in general. Michtom is obviously a clever lad who's taken his project to a conclusion which is natural for it and for him. As dispassionately bemused as one might be about the display of lawn Madonnas, another may be about those who find a way to make money without attribution off those who display lawn Madonnas.

But if he does make a killing, he should give some of it (a modest ten percent, say) back to the community he has personally profited from, to take the bite off any claims, however specious, of cynicism and condescension that come along with appropriating other people's property, not to mention their sincerely held, however silly, beliefs for his own personal gain.