Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Kodachrome

Doesn't this make you want to take it in your hand and capture something?  Isn't there something fundamentally appealing about its shape, its color, the function for which it was designed?  This vintage Kodak Brownie is for sale on Etsy, so if it makes you happy, too, you might go pick it up.  The price is very reasonable. All the others you see in this blog are also from Etsy, too.  If you click their images, you should be able to go to their listing, I think....

These vintage cameras are very cheap right now, most of them costing less than $25, and I'm thinking of collecting a few just for the beauty of them.  I love vintage items, love the stories that cling to them, and cameras somehow seem as though they might have some of the happiest stories to tell, I think.  Maybe it's all the trips and birthdays, weddings and holidays they've seen....  Now, though, they seem a little sad to me sitting and waiting to be purchased, sort of like something waiting to be rescued and reclaimed, slightly scuffed around the edges, but still waiting with that cheerful smile to be picked up again.

So many of them have been abandoned not because they no longer work but because they've become victims of the great march of technology.  While many of them are still functional, the film they were made to use no longer exists.  In fact, the film most of the cameras that use it were designed to use is becoming a historical notation instead of a part of daily life.

I recently upgraded my camera equipment from a film body Nikon to a digital one (which you know if you read this blog very much).  That change was partially one I made because of the ease of dealing with digital images, but it was in no small degree one that was increasingly necessary.  Film is getting hard to find.

It has always been hard to deal with.  Whenever images were shot, I, a person with less control of my camera than I should have, always had to pray that the shot was there.  With the digital, I can more or less know.   Getting the film to the processor and then remembering to pick it up was also a hassle.  Now, I can also be my own photo studio for prints that aren't archival, and that's a wonderful thing, too, since the vast majority of what I do with my photos are use them in digital media anyway.

The change is universal.  Everywhere that film once reigned is slowly becoming digital.  I noticed that even things like x-ray at hospitals and in dentistry that used to produce large film negatives have gone to all digital images instead.  For them, I suppose digital is probably instant, modifiable, electronically archiveable and shareable in a way that hard copy film is not.  I think that is largely good.

And yet, I couldn't help but feel a little sad when I saw the NPR article about the end of Kodak's production of the famous slide film Kodachrome.  It was inevitable with so many people, so many professional photographers even, using only digital cameras.  This is just another step toward an altogether filmless world.  There are already so many little orphans out there like the cameras I'm showing here that no longer have a place as technology advances.  Indeed, my beloved F80 lies with its body cap attached, its strap wrapped neatly, in the bottom of its gear bag, another more recent casualty of the same process.  I guess time has to march on, but it makes me a little sad and nostalgic all the same.  I think a collection of these bright curving cameras would be a nice way to commemorate what's gone before, repurpose and honor them, give them a way to continue to share all those smiles they captured during their years of useful service.

Monday, July 26, 2010

All Is Well

The surgery is done, and Dad is now in the CRU recovering.  We are hopeful that with this, all the pain he's been having with every step is going to disappear, and he can start to return to full activity again.  He's hurting now from the procedure itself, but he already seems better than he did this morning before he went in.  I think it's just the knowing that the actual surgery itself is done now, the part we all feared is over and now the healing can begin. 

For all my fear yesterday, I felt so calm this morning when I woke up.  I just knew somehow that things were going to be okay.  Everyone I met at the hospital today just reinforced that.  I felt blessed.  I still do.  I think I'll sleep tonight and sleep well.  This is the first time I'm saying this in more than a month.  It feels good to say.  It will feel even better to experience.

The Night Before

Stress is winding me up like D.'s guitar strings on that old Martin of his.  Keep turning that tuning key, and sooner or later, even metal snaps....

I went to get lunch for the family today at a local Quizno's.  On the interstate, there was a terrible wreck.  A pickup truck had overturned somehow, completely flipped and crushed the front portion of the cab.  I don't know if the people inside survived or not.  I can't see how they did, if they did.  It was in the eastbound lane and I was headed west.  It had happened not long before I came through.  I cried the whole way to get the food.  Nobody should die on I-20 on a sunny Sunday afternoon.  Or any other time.

I know I'm on edge because of Dad's surgery tomorrow.  Everything has been putting me on the verge of tears:  those poor unknown people in that truck, the last prayer at church tonight when they unexpectedly mentioned Daddy by name, everything. 

I played "I Must Tell Jesus" for my offertory, and every note of it was the truth, every note of it was a prayer.  I cannot bear these burdens alone.  In a few hours, I'll be getting up to start this new day, whatever this new day is going to be.  I'll have to get my mask out, dust it off, and put it on very carefully for the rest of my family and for all the strangers who will be around.  It will be a massive effort of ignoring elephants made of worry standing in the middle of tiny rooms.  It's all I know to do. 

Time to try to sleep.

Friday, July 23, 2010

Typewriter

After being inspired by items on Etsy, I decided that I wanted to try to take some photos of meaningful objects.  I decided to start with my mother's old typewriter.  I found it out in the storage van here at the house.  It's an old Underwood.  Her office was right next to my bedroom when I lived in their house, and the desk she kept that typewriter on was on the wall the two rooms shared. 

If you've ever heard anybody type on an old-fashioned manual typewriter, you know they have a very distinctive sound.  Mom could type very fast on it.  I woke many mornings to the percussion of that Underwood coming through the wall, including the light ding of the bell indicating the carriage return was needed.  She fought the computer revolution a long, long time, not even switching over to an electric typewriter until long after I graduated from high school.

I was fairly happy with the pictures. I left most of them natural, but as you can see, I took one of them and modified the crap out of it just to see what I could make. I may use them as a computer background or on a journal cover or something.  They may not be very artistic, but they satisfy me because I know the backstory.  I think that's the most important thing.

Excuse Me, Please.....

I did try to mow the grass today.  Really.  I ventured out into the oppressive heat, went out and got the Husqvarna ready, and turned and turned the key.  Nothing.  Whatever has been keeping it from starting quickly has graduated to keeping it from starting altogether, and not all my cursing it and futile flailing at what parts of it I knew were safe to wiggle and adjust did any good.  Tomorrow, it will go on the new trailer my parents bought when they got their RTV and it's going to some repair shop somewhere.  I'm tired of playing lawnmower roulette every time I need to mow anyway.

After that fell through, I decided to refill my birdfeeders.  I did that, but it was so hot that I got overwhelmed with it.  Topamax reduces my tolerance to heat dramatically, and I haven't been out in the heat lately much, either, so I went to sit in my lawnchair for awhile after I got all the birdfeeders filled and the big storage container for the leftover seed stored again.  I brought out my red Camelback bottle full of ice water to try to cool down some, and I sat and read for a little while. 

I was sitting there reading, and all of a sudden, a hummingbird came zooming up at my elbow to inspect the Camelback.  He levitated there a minute, kind of stabbed at it lightly with his beak, and gave me a look before flying off.  Well, inasmuch as a hummingbird can be said to give someone a look, anyway.  There was definitely frustration in him.  I had to laugh.  It was funny in a sad way.  My feeders were all empty, and I guess that was his subtle way of trying to tell me to get off my backside and do something about it.  Hummingbirds are so feisty.

After I cooled down, I went in and filled the new feeders I got to replace the ratty, faded, broken old ones.  I had just about enough time to get them up on their hooks and get out of the way before the feathered parade began.  It was good to see.  I'll try to be more careful about that so they have full feeders from now on.  I'm scared to think about what they might do if I don't.  I'm picturing having to run a gauntlet to get to the car in the mornings....

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

It's as If It Were Made for Me

I need this.  On payday, I think I'll have it.  Especially if you read the description, it sort of sounds like something I'd say/do.  Plus, how can you resist the giraffe?  Too funny.  I love Etsy.

The Amazing Disappearing Past

I went out to take pictures today.  That Nikon calls to me almost constantly.  I had the same issue when I lived in Japan.  Of course there, you could pretty much close your eyes, point the camera in a random direction and push the button and get something interesting on film.  I routinely just got on a train and went on photo trips.  If I also came back with some pottery in my backpack, too, well, that was just a hazard of living in Japan, wasn't it?  I have tons of photos from Japan.  Travel was easy, history was everywhere, and the sorts of things I enjoy photographing, the old, the odd, the rare, and the sacred, abounded.

Here, it's a little trickier.  The South is like Japan in so many ways that it actually becomes frightening after awhile.  That comparison is a whole "nother" blog, though, so I'll leave it alone for now.  Suffice it to say, it should in theory at least be easy to find the sorts of things I appreciate shooting here, too.  But, outside of a few things that I knew I would be able to get because they are "Historic Landmarks" protected by megabucks and the strong, if largely inactive, arm of the Federal government, it hasn't been.  I noticed today that the things I love are disappearing.   Things I should have been able to find, signs, whole buildings even, are gone now.  Even here, in my lovely backwards rural South, everything is becoming homogenized, streamlined, sanitized.  Progress is marching forward with its steel-spiked jackboots.

The town I work in has an absolute embarrassment of history in it.  At one time, it was the largest city in the Southeastern United States.  It was a rival to, and even at certain brief moments in its glory days, surpassed, Atlanta.  I don't think one in five people here know that.  Traces of it, only traces are visible.  Actually, there is a lot of it left, much that could be unearthed, restored, reclaimed, shown off, revitalized as so many places I've been are doing.  Here, though, nobody much except for a local university seems to be interested in that in a big way.  It's puzzling.  What the hell are they planning to do with all that, then? 

The downtown area is chock-full of buildings that should be chock-full of businesses, professionals, restaurants, and so on. Yet, the businesses in the downtown area are ephemeral.  Very few of them manage to stay open long.  Just as one begins to get attached, they disappear.  There are a few foundation businesses down there that have been open forever.  They cling with tenacious determination, but even they are not immune.  I noticed a sign on one of the oldest in town, in business for 185 years, that they are "quitting business," their massive four-story building now going to be another of the blank-eyed ghosts staring out in quiet desperation.

I don't know much about business to be sure.  I will be the first to tell you that I have no head for money at all.  Look at the sad tragedy that is my personal finances.  However, I do know this:  every town that I've ever been in that has been vibrant, active, and pulling itself out of what I loosely term "urban slump" for lack of something more creative has been making the effort to do something with its past. and not just slam a giant wrecking ball through it or leave it to fall down bit by bit.  There has to be some solution.  Otherwise, how are all these other places doing it?

The Japanese valued both progress and tradition.  They might have a 500 year old temple nestled next to a highrise apartment complex that was just put up this year.  They know how to balance both and are interested in the preservation of both, at least as far as physical things go, exceedingly well.  They understand that the past helps to define a people, that it is worth looking at whether it is bad or good.

I don't think we do that as well here.  I don't know if it's because we have so much less history, because we have history that is full of so much strife (although, granted, Japan's has not been a cakewalk), or because we are still trying to figure out what our working definition of ourselves is, something Japan pretty much had nailed down a couple of centuries before we sewed together the first flag that flew over our infant nation on the day of its birth.  We frequently have to have our own history pointed out to us.  Things reach a point of total ruination before somebody sweeps in to "save" it or form some kind of restoration society to preserve it. Meanwhile, everybody sort of sits around going, "Gosh, that old thing was important/valuable/nice?  Who knew?  We were going to put the cows/tractor/hay in it/burn it down." 

I just hope we can find a way to reach that balance here.  Not just for the photographs or the economy, either.  Mostly I hope so because I think that one day, if we keep going the way we are, we're going to wind up wanting some of this stuff back again, and it's going to be gone for good.  Reconstructed history is nice, as far as it goes, but nothing compares to the reality of saving the authentic thing, especially when it's so possible to do if someone will just trouble to take the time and effort to imagine the beauty of it.

Sunday, July 18, 2010

Lately

Today I only had to kill off two Chinese Porno Spammers.  I think I shall begin to keep a running tally.  Maybe I can get some kind of widget, make a "kill" sign, post the score visually.  Jesus....

Anyway.

I got back from my second trip to Louisville yesterday afternoon.  It was a good trip.  I really like Louisville, and as I always say whenever I'm almost anywhere but New Orleans, I could see myself living there pretty easily.  It had that river town feel to it that I love so much.  It wasn't quite as steeped in it as St. Louis or Memphis, but it had both a feeling of age and preservation that appealed to me very much.  It was another city that was a perfect example of what a place can be when it cares for itself enough to renew itself not with random acts of stupidity but with careful planning and with preservation and restoration of its old treasures.  The downtown area was lovely.

My new Nikon and other assorted treasures were waiting on me when I got home.  I had been eagerly tracking the progress of the Nikon from the time it left Elizabethtown, NJ and Adorama by using an iPhone app called TrackIt.  I had to pay 99 cents for TrackIt, I think, but as much as I have things shipped to me, it's already been worth it.  I frequently need to know when something's coming in or if it's already been delivered, if for no other reason than to assuage my impatience, and this will track all my packages in one handy place.  Now everything I have coming from orders on amazon, Etsy, eBay, Levenger, or whatever can all be perused at the click of an icon.  Makes me feel almost like there is some order to my little chaotic corner.

I unpacked the Nikon last.  I forced myself to wait to open it until I had everything else opened, unwrapped, unpacked, and taken care of.  Then I cut that box open and ripped into it.  It's lovely.  Except for the fact that it didn't come in a box full of crap, I can't tell that it's ever been used.  I transferred my everyday runaround lens from my filmbody F80 to the D80, thus ceremonially passing the torch, as it were, and retired the F80 to a well-earned rest in its camera bag.

Then I ran around the house like a fool chasing the cats with the camera yelling, "Smile!"

It was a good afternoon.

Tomorrow, I have big plans to go to town and see if I can shoot some of the landmarks before they proceed to completely freaking destroy them remove them in the name of progress.  I may have missed one I really wanted to get already, and one I know I always wanted to shoot is gone for good.  There are several places, including my beautiful vintage theater, that will yield good results, so I will dress in comfortable clothes and go skulk around downtown tomorrow if it doesn't rain.  I may also go shoot a few things at the school if I can tolerate being there.  There are one or two specific things I've had my eye on for awhile, thinking, "Man, if I just had a camera that would get that..."  Well, now I do.

Sunday, July 11, 2010

Night of the Living Dead

(I just deleted two more faux Chinese comments, so either all my blog comments are being translated into Chinese, or the spammers are the world's most persistent and hopeful losers.)

Yesterday, I went back to our gorgeous theater for a classic double-feature of The Last Man on Earth with Vincent Price and Night of the Living Dead.  I'd never seen either of them, but I read reviews of both before I went, and they both looked really good.  I knew NotLD was was a classic, and I felt like I should have seen it by now, and the chance to see it on the big screen was too good to miss.

The Last Man on Earth was unexpectedly wonderful.  I should have known that it would be.  Vincent Price, when he was allowed to be, was a fantastic actor.  Even when they had him so deep in camp that only the barest of his cultured voice and acting skills showed, he still managed to salvage something.  TLMoE was as good as it was, I think because he was alone in it for the most part.  There was no Gothic castle, nothing Poe-esque lurking.  He got to shine instead of having to fight with the background.

Night of the Living Dead wasn't what I expected it to be.  There were moments of extreme camp, but by and large, it wasn't a camp film at all.  I don't know why I always thought it was.  It actually made several really good points.  I saw in it the beginning of so many other horror movie traditions, and of course, the origins of every zombie thing that is currently so popular.  It was full of stereotypes, too, but that seemed quite deliberate and sophisticated.  It felt much more like social commentary masquerading as a horror film than any other thing.  I really liked it.  There were a few images that I had to look away from because they were really disturbing and gruesome, but the final scene was the most disturbing one, and it didn't have a thing to do with reanimated corpses.  The ending was perfect and ironic and terrible.  I think I'd like to use it when I teach irony, in fact.  Well, if any of my students have seen the movie....  Maybe we could watch it for Halloween....  (ha.)

I'm so glad to get to see these films in our wonderful old theater.  I hope they show a million more.

Friday, July 09, 2010

Leave It Alone

I went in my classroom yesterday after the last part of a workshop, and the cleaning crew had taken everything out to do the floors.  That happens every year, so it wasn't unexpected.  What was unexpected was that they had also taken everything down from my window sills and knocked stuff off my shelves, I suppose in an effort to dust and clean.  They'd also wiped messages from my class last year that I had carefully preserved off the boards.  The last I have of that class is now gone, taken away by an uncaring hand.

I was spitting mad. All my blinds were pulled up where the sun was just streaming in to fade out every single thing in the room. They had knocked down student projects I've had for years, torn up one that I don't think I can repair, and generally left things strewn hither, thither, and yon.  I know we have a whole new crew of housekeeping this year, and I did come in during the middle of the process, so I didn't go find anybody and say anything.  I am hoping that when I get back, I won't find that giant mess waiting on me.

I am very fussy about my room, about what goes in it, about how it looks.  I know that may seem ridiculous to some people.  However, I am in that space much more, actually, during the school year than I am in my own home.  That room is also a part of the way I interact and instruct my students.  It is important to me that it look appealing, that it be filled with interesting and instructional things, displays that inspire curiosity and showcase the amazing work of which my students are capable. 

To have unfeeling hands generally smashing and tossing because it isn't theirs and because they don't care is infuriating.  I hope this is not going to be indicative of the rest of the year. 

Thursday, July 08, 2010

Dreams Again and Other Fun Stuff

A massive migraine yesterday equaled dreams last night of a horrid nature.  I actually had to email somebody today to check in on him just to make sure he was okay after one of them.  All the backgrounds were grey, rundown, and gothic.  Everybody in them was in despair.  My head right now is not a particularly happy place to be, I guess.

Aside from the always joyous wonder that is my job (students not included), I found out that my father is going to have major surgery in about a week and a half.  The blockage in his leg that they were going to bypass right before he had his heart attack has reached a critical point.  He's been on Plavix, though, and will continue to be, I suppose, for the rest of his life, so the surgery has not been an option until now because he will have to come off it to have the surgery, and they don't want him to come off it.  Pain and fear about circulation in the leg have outweighed the dangers of what having him off the Plavix long enough to do it and the dangers of doing the surgery itself and the recovery for a diabetic are, apparently, so he's getting ready.  All those finely meshed wheels of the hospital system have started to turn.

I'm scared to death.  I hate being afraid.  There's nothing that relieves it.  So, my head cramps, seizes, pounds.  I have nightmares.  I exercise the most rigid of mental protocols when it comes to future events, stopping myself from thinking about them, essentially.  There is no future past next Monday when I can manage it.  When I can't, well.  I suppose that's what there's Maxalt for.

Added to all this is the usual exotic cocktail of stupidity and uncertainty at work including less money in my paycheck now because of the tightened belt everyone everywhere is feeling.  Is it any wonder, then, that I want to run screaming through the darkness of the night, want to take up my shinai and hit something until there are nothing but bamboo shards left, want to curl into a ball under a warm, soft, old quilt where it's safe.  I miss that, sometimes.  I miss there being a place where it's safe.  Where did all the safe places go?

Tuesday, July 06, 2010

A Query

Somebody I know told me today that she'd left a comment on my blog recently.  The only comments that have shown up here are the ones that have been left by my Chinese Porno Spam buddies. (Oh, they're persistent.  Foolishly so, considering I just delete them out of hand whenever I see kanji and links...)  Her comment did make me wonder, though, if I am somehow missing other comments from legitimate blog correspondents.  Maybe if you wrote something and you thought I'd write back here, you might write me again?  Or email me?  Most of the time I assume nobody is listening, and that's fine, but I'd hate for you to have wanted to say something to me, and it have gotten lost in the great beyond....

Finally, DSL

I was in the middle of a meeting today when my iPhone went off in my pocket.  I checked it and was delighted to find that it was the one AT&T lineman with sense.  He actually came out a day early to do the repair on the house.  He's nice.  In fact, right now, he's my hero.  I may bake him a cake.  He got the jack fixed and the DSL restored, so I am typing this from the comfort of my usual perch on the couch instead of an uncomfortable chair in the back corner of the local bookstore where I've had to fight off others for access to a power outlet.  It can't tell you how nice it is.

I'm a hopeless technophile. I might even be a tech junkie.  I'm not going to worry about it too much, though.  At least not until the next time everything goes kablooey.

Friday, July 02, 2010

Trying to Blog with My iPhone

This will be brief because it's being done on an iPhone app. I'm in day 3 of no DSL due to an error made by the repairman who was out here on Monday. AT&T isn't coming until Wednesday to deal with it. If there were any other option for service here, I'd take it. I've been going to town to get to wifi or using my iPhone to the point of having to charge it twice a day. I hate this.