Exhibit 2.8

Stock Photography Review

First, go here. (Ed note: see update). Because we're going to be talking about this photo:


Ah, Reuters (which, until I read Tony Kushner's directions in Homebody/Kabul, I always pronounced Root-ers. I love that this was a big enough problem that it was one of two pronunciations he felt the need to point out [ed note: the other was Wodehouse]). Apparently when this story about reproduction slid across the editor's desk the conversation was:

Editor: Great. Do we have any pictures?
Reporter: Of what?
Editor: The production of these so-called "kids."
Reporter: You mean, the sex?
Editor: Yes, get me some 'the sex!'
Reporter: We can't publish that, sir.
Editor: Well, get me something that suggests as much in the most obvious way possible.

Hence a small child and rockets. Look at the father's slack-jawed awe at the sight of these explosive (and in no way suggestive) shafts. And the child who despite being identified as a boy is wearing a very effeminate pair of pink pants. Geez, I wonder if Dad picked those out...

Why not have another fake conversation?

Man with son on shoulders: So this picture isn't going to be used in any kind of sexually suggestive way, right?
Photographer: Nope, we're just going to use it for today's event.
Man: Good. I'd hate for anything to ruin our day at this year's Phallus Expo.

Then the photo wasn't used and here it is as a file photo the first time someone needed to fill space in a story about procreation. This isn't stock photography per se. (In fact, it works in the exact opposite way of stock photography on the viewer, leading to enforced, ill-fitting specificity while stock photography is about creating unnatural anonymity). The idea of using people as furniture is the same, however, so I think it counts.

UPDATE: They changed the photo! So I posted this and went to get some pepper coffee before deciding I should check the link, and they'd changed it to two people's mouths. Rest assured, this was the photo this morning.