A Study Of The Effects Of Sunlight On Landscape Photography:
Before:
After:
Results: Inconclusive.
I got distracted into going down to that park. There’s one small load of stuff left to move out of the house, and then I’ll be done, but on the way over, I saw two red tailed hawks doing a dance over the water. I had to pull over and try to get a picture, but by the time I had parked, the crows had chased them away.
I did get some nice pictures of ducks, however. W00t!
I must have been 6 or 7. I built lots of models when I was a little kid; I wish I still had them. But I must have been 6 or 7 when I got the model car that had the big plastic bubble on top instead of a roof.
In fact, they weren’t model cars, they were modelcars. They existed in their own right. They served no function other than to be built. They came as kits, so that obsessive little kids like me could glue them together. This is one of the reasons I don’t have them any more; once they were built, their usefulness evaporated, and they’d end up broken from being played with a little too rough.
I had a high opinion of my ability to build modelcars. Or model anything for that matter. But I really wasn’t all that good. I remember one in particular… The Mr.-Spock-shoots-a-three-headed-snake-with-his-phaser model. It was gawdawful, but I was so proud of myself. And what I really wanted was approval from my brother. He was the one who really built these things right. He had a great deal of patience, more than I did, anyway. I showed him my Mr. Spock model, and even as a pre-teen, he was very diplomatic. He must have seen the desperation in my eyes or something.
But the modelcar with the bubble roof… Somehow that model is indelibly linked to a certain summer. I couldn’t tell you which year, or how old I was, just that there’s a range of associations around it. The bubble car, the monster movie ‘Kronos,’ (which I’ve since seen again, and it’s terrible), going to the swim club in my flip-flops, eating popsicles and frito pie, and getting to walk back alone. ‘Pomple’ trees (my made-up name for the kind of tree I can never remember the real name for, because I always think ‘pomple’)…
Maybe these are all different summers and they get smashed together in the vice grip of nostalgia. I dunno. But those summers going to the swim club are one of the best things I took for granted as a little kid. I don’t remember ever looking forward to the pool opening for the summer, or being exceptionally sad when it closed, just that summers at the pool were something that occurred naturally, like flowers blooming in the spring.
Then there was that time, years later… One of my high school friends came home from college for the summer. We were just under 20 at the time. His parents were out of town. I went over and we watched movies until very very late and ate Whataburgers, because the Whataburger drive through is open 24 hours. And he had the keys to the pool; his mom did volunteer work there. He lent me some swim trunks and we hiked the five blocks through the suburban lawns and quiet streets.
We had to be very, very quiet because the neighbors would surely call the cops. So we floated around, not talking, but exchanging the kind of shit eating grins you exchange while doing something illicit. He was tall, slender, in shape. I… er… wasn’t. He swam like a dolphin. And thinking back on it now, he might have been aware of something about both of us that I wasn’t allowing myself to see. Or maybe not. I haven’t really had a chance to ask him about that.
Anyway. We played the silent diving game in the deep end near the diving boards. Drop something, retrieve it, surface silently. That went on for a little while, and then it was time to go. We wandered off. I changed into my clothes at his parents’ house and went home.
I’ve written here about my dreams and fantasies of finding a place to live. Well, here’s the story of a guy with Environmental Illness, which is basically an allergy to everything modern. It’s a ‘blog called Shelter, and it’s his quest to find a place to live.
In a recent ‘blog, lionne bemoaned the low state of affairs in rap music.
And even though I agree with a lot of what she’s saying, I thought I’d introduce Exhibit A in the not-all-rap-is-so-bad court of public opinion. And here it is:
The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy tryin’ not to be ‘Famous and Dandy (Just Like Amos and Andy).’
You’ll recall that Amos and Andy were two white guys pretending to be black, who had a radio show and then later a TV show where they performed in blackface.
(Yup.. I was wrong about the blackface. I’ve failed black history month.)
Here’s an Ebay auction for the service of ghostwriting the winner’s memoirs.
Bidding starts at $4,975. Zero bids. I guess all it takes is one…
Update for more linkage:
Via boingboing, a steak knife set complete with violence.
I used to have an old computer fetish. I’d get old computers just to have them. I kind of have an old camera fetish, though I haven’t been picking many up. (I recently found an Aetna 135mm/2 M42 lens at a thrift store for $6 and got it, but mostly because it will be fun to restore once I get all set up in my new place. And eventually, I’ll be able to shoot through it on my digital Pentax.)
But the point here is that I’ve always had a microphone fetish, especially German tube mics from the ’40s. Maybe my fetish is really for old technology that’s retained its usefulness, having been well designed and well built. But regardless of which it really is, I’m delighted with this website about old microphones, obviously designed by another fetishist. 
I’m looking out my window. I’m in bed looking out my window; my bed is up high, like a bunk bed. They call it a loft bed. The room’s just not big enough, so the bed is on a shelf. It’s on scaffolding. There’s space underneath for a desk and other assorted.
I’m in bed and the covers are pulled around me, and the slight hollow bouncy sound comes from the mattress when I move even the slightest bit. I’m looking out the window, out the top of the window, the top of the window not covered by the safety rails and the top of the metal blinds…
I can’t sleep, and I’m looking out the window. It’s a new house, full of new people. Four humans, a dog, a cat, and a dove. The dove sings it’s song whenever people are moving around. It’s a lovely song, in and of itself, but I know that the dove is singing because it feels threatened. It is the proverbial caged bird. Sometimes it cackles at the dog and puffs up to look big.
I can’t sleep, because it’s all so new. It’s all so different from living alone. There are people in all the rooms around me, and they’re sleeping, so I’m self-conscious about the noise. The floorboards squeak, so a trip to the bathroom ends up being more stressful than holding it in. Not that it stops me, but that’s how it is.
I’m in bed, looking out my window, and down below I see the alleyway fence, and it’s wired-on case of hubcap-itis. I see the neighbor’s roofs. Can’t see in any windows. I see down the hill, and to water. I see Lake Washington. And following the silver path of the reflected full moon, I see the lights of the east side. Juanita and Kirkland, bedroom communities. A red light flashing on top of a building. The occasional car going up the far hill. Halogen orange halo.
I feel good in my up-high bed with the synthetic and goose down comforters, and the flannel sheets. Content. Warm and elevated. But I’ll never get to sleep.
(Note: This is not the view from my window. But it’s the view from the park down the hill from my window.)
Neal Stephenson interviewed in Reason:
It’s almost always a disaster when a novelist decides to become political. So let me just make a few observations here on a human level—which is within my comfort zone as a novelist—and leave it at that.It’s clear that the body politic is subject to power disorders. By this I mean events where some person or group suddenly concentrates a lot of power and abuses it. Power disorders frequently come as a surprise, and cause a lot of damage. This has been true since the beginning of human history. Exactly how and why power disorders occur is poorly understood.
We are in a position akin to that of early physicians who could see that people were getting sick but couldn’t do anything about it, because they didn’t understand the underlying causes. They knew of a few tricks that seemed to work. For example, nailing up plague houses tended to limit the spread of plague. But even the smart doctors tended to fall under the sway of pet theories that were wrong, such as the idea that diseases were caused by imbalanced humors or bad air. Once that happened, they ignored evidence that contradicted their theory. They became so invested in that theory that they treated any new ideas as threats. But from time to time you’d see someone like John Snow, who would point out, “Look, everyone who draws water from Well X is getting cholera.” Then he went and removed the pump handle from Well X and people stopped getting cholera. They still didn’t understand germ theory, but they were getting closer.
We can make a loose analogy to the way that people have addressed the problem of power disorders. We don’t really understand them. We know that there are a couple of tricks that seem to help, such as the rule of law and separation of powers. Beyond that, people tend to fall under the sway of this or that pet theory. And so you’ll get perfectly intelligent people saying, “All of our problems would be solved if only the workers controlled the means of production,” or what have you. Once they’ve settled on a totalizing political theory, they see everything through that lens and are hostile to other notions.
Wink’s interpretation of the New Testament is that Jesus was not a pacifist milksop but (among other things) was encouraging people to resist the dominant power system of the era, that being the Roman Empire. Mind you, Wink is no fan of violence either, and he devotes a lot of ink to attacking what he calls the Myth of Redemptive Violence, which he sees as a meme by which domination systems are perpetuated. But he is clearly all in favor of people standing up against oppressive power systems of all stripes.
Carrying that forward to the present day, Wink takes a general interest in people in various places who are getting the shaft. He develops an empirical science of shaftology, if you will. (Of course he doesn’t call it shaftology; that’s just my name for it.) He goes all over the world and looks at different kinds of people who are obviously getting the shaft, be they blacks in apartheid South Africa, South American peasants, or residents of inner-city neighborhoods dominated by gangs. He looks for connections among all of these situations and in this way develops the idea of domination systems. It’s not germ theory and modern antibiotics, but it is, at the very least, a kind of epidemiology of power disorders. And even people who can’t stomach the religious content of his work might take a few cues from this epidemiological, as opposed to theoretical/ideological, approach.
Nice essay on primes versus zooms for the photographic enthusiast.
I want you to follow the bouncing ball with me, OK?
Bush and some Republicans propose to ‘privatize’ Social Security, a move they admit will not fix any problems the program might have, but which will bring it in alignment with an ideology they call ‘ownership society.’
AARP, the American Association of Retired Persons (that is: the old people lobby) say the privatization plan is an astoundingly bad idea, and urges its constituency (that is: old people who vote) to oppose it.
Next, however, we see something interesting happen. Rather than come up with a good reason for the privatization plan to offer to the AARP’s constituency, the Bush folks have decided to smear AARP. Yes, they’re trying to say the AARP (that is: our valued senior citizens, who hold untold wisdom within their experience, who fought and won two world wars, who made it through the Great Depression… you get the idea) they’re trying to say the AARP is anti-military, and pro-gay-marriage. Which is, of course, a lie.
But it doesn’t stop there… No, no. It turns out that these banner ads for web sites featuring a picture of a soldier with an X through him, and a kissing gay couple with a check-mark… These ads come from an organization called USANext, which is basically the same organization as USA, United Seniors of America. And who funds this USA organization?
There’s more, but I’m basically citing all of Talking Points Memo for the past few days. Go read it. I especially like the Focus On The Family connection. What would Jesus do? Lie about old people, that’s what he’d do!
What’s amusing to me, though, is the way in which ‘USA’ is willing to shill for privatized social security only because it hurts the AARP, which theoretically helps the pharmaceutical industry. And to do it in such a blatant and stupid way… You give the Republicans the White House, Congress, the judiciary, &c, and what do they do? Smash the AARP!
They really don’t care. They’re not happy with power. They want MORE power. They won’t play nice. They won’t meet anyone half way. Civility? A word in the dictionary.
Update: One commentor asks if it’s not only Republicans that are power-hungry, and whether or not it’s a generally universal human trait, showing up everywhere.
And yes, it’s an old story. The powerful get a hunger for more and more power, until power becomes an end unto itself. But here’s the thing: In the current moment, the Republicans are the ones playing that archetype. And it’s not simply to be expected. For decades, Democrats controlled much of government, but did you see them smearing all opposition, and furthering exclusionary rhetoric? No, we saw bitter rivalry, but in the end there was a certain respect and humanity.
All that has changed. I’m not ancient by any means, and my political sensibilities were developed during the Reagan years, but even those awful times were bi-partisan heaven compared to what’s going on now. Tom Tomorrow gets it right.
And just to reiterate: The White House wanted to SMEAR THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF RETIRED PEOPLE because they didn’t support the cockamaymee SS privatization plan. That doesn’t just ruin AARP members to their cause, but it ruins AARP members to the Republican party in general. It’s slash and burn, baby. It’s evil.
