Have we reached Xanadu?

DDWs February 2014 Alphabet Challenge - X is for Xanadu
Bobsbitz59 Technique Challenge - Light Painting

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree
Where Alph, the sacred river ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea

I've loved that poem (Samuel Taylor Coleridge) since I was a child. It makes me think - we spend our lives reaching for our own Xanadu, but just like Coleridge himself, it often turns out to be an illusion. We speed along, living a 24 hour world, thinking we are reaching out Xanadu. But what we are really achieving is a chaotic spatter of lights on the inky canvas of time.

I took the monopod and compact camera to work. I knew I'd be late tonight (writing papers), so did this on the way back. The idea was to try to twist the monopod slightly to create an effect. Too much, and I'd get vertical wobble, so I was trying to do a very small movement, to a reduce the city lights to a chaotic speeding spatter to represent the people at night.