Headline: GIANT PUBLIC SCULPTURE ATTACKS CITY! (Pigeons unconcerned)

Other stuff at my flickr site, too…

I haven’t been taking many pictures lately. Mostly going through old ones and figuring out which ones to assemble into a mini-portfolio. I’d like to sell some as stock, and there are a few reputable web-based stock agencies who could do it.

Last time I was at Ikea, I looked around their frameable pictures section, and made a mental inventory of which agencies Ikea was buying from. Alamy turned up a lot, so they’re my first choice. Now to get organized.

I’ve been taking the bus a lot lately, because my car’s having troubles. And I’ve been walking a lot, because I keep missing the bus, or because the bus that comes first is the one that delivers me to the top of the hill, rather than the bottom, closer to where I live.

All of this is exposition relating to the fact that I haven’t been sleeping very well. I’ll get super tired in the early evening and fall asleep watching a movie or something, and then wake up around 1 or 2 AM and not get back to sleep until, say, 5. Getting all this exercise has my body kind of confused about how my energy level relates to waking up. Or something.

I’ve been thinking about Ken Nordine, who made a semi-career out of writing weird little stories during his insomnia. He would write them at night and then record them in a studio, as a whole production. Some of them are quite good, and none of them are real duds. You can listen to some of his material here.

But Nordine always makes me think about recycling. Taking what you don’t want (insomnia) and turning it into creative output. It’s a kind of writing discipline imposed by the body. I’d rather get a whole night’s sleep at one time, but I might have to find something to occupy these nether-hours.

So, like, brendaclews just asked me to join her webring, Word Painting, and I wouldn’t mind joining. But Xanga tells me I’m subscribed to too many ‘blogrings.

Who decides how many ‘blogrings is too many? I’m a freakin’ paid-up lifetime member of Xanga, and I can’t belong to more than 8 ‘blogrings? Even if I created 4 of them? A limit of, say, 300 I can see. Don’t want spammers filling up the database with a million ‘blogrings per user. But why is *9* off-limits?

A trend.

I keep missing busses. I’m on time, but the bus is early, and the bus driver either doesn’t see me running to catch it or he doesn’t care.

Especially on the 75. They must hate me.

I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned her before, but you could do much worse than to start up your music file sharing software (Oh, come on.. you’ve got it.), and type in ‘Lhasa De Sela.’

And/or buy ‘The Living Road‘ CD.

Yacht Rock, the untold stories of smooth music. Start at episode 1.

(via metafilter)

A couple weeks ago I got a book at the thrift store with the express intent of selling it on Amazon. It’s a nice book, one of the standard texts of its field. It’s a field which interests me, too, but which I know I could never adopt as a career.

The book is ‘The Visual Display of Quantitative Information,’ by Edward Tufte. It sounds boring from the title, but it’s really a beautiful book; a nerdy work of art one might say. Tufte self-publishes, and in that regard it’s top-notch. Large format, wide margins, quality paper, excellent color plates. Nice to flip through and guess what it means. Easy to read and engaging, despite the focused field of interest.

I bought it for $1.99, and sold it today for $17.99. I’m Mr. Retail.

It has a companion book, called ‘Visual Explanations,’ which is equally excellent, and even more fun to read because it has pop-ups, like a pop-up book, which illustrate various points. And it can all be yours for a very reasonable price if you click through the ‘currently reading’ link.

The ACLU has been producing a series of videos about the current erosion of civil liberties.

They’re worth watching.

About a week ago, I went up to Snoqualmie, in hopes of finding something to photograph that wasn’t obscured by super-thick fog. By the time I found something, it was dark, and I was enjoying listening to a radio show (Open Source, I think), so I never took the picture. But that’s beside the point. Yes, I can be a lazy sumbich. Let’s move on…

Before I was distracted by Chris Lydon, I got to Snoqualmie via the little road that runs up the Snoqualmie River. I say ‘up’ because the river runs through a gorge between Snoqualmie and Fall City, and the road has to go up to the rim of this gorge.

And you might ask: What happens when you combine the Snoqualmie River and Fall City? Yes, you get Snoqualmie Falls. The head of the gorge is a tremendous waterfall, seen at least once weekly on national television in the ’90s during the title sequence for ‘Twin Peaks.’

The falls are real, and the Great Northern is actually there, only it’s called Salish Lodge. There’s a nice park on the eastern side of the gorge, where you can walk down an asphalt path, past a gift shop and snack bar, to an overlook.

And that’s exactly what I did the other night, in fog that was so thick you couldn’t see 15 feet in front of your face. If you ever want to approximate what it would be like to be blind, without actually having to hold your eyes closed for long periods of time, this is how to do it.

The roar grew louder and louder the closer I got. It’s winter, so there’s rain and snowmelt. Loud. Very loud. Maybe seeing the waterfall makes the sound seem less consequential… Finally I stood at the precipice, leaning against the railing, my whole field of vision occupied by a dull white fog. I seemed to be hovering, as if I had already climbed over the railing and jumped off, only to find that I didn’t fall.

And the roar filled the chasm, definitely coming from the left somewhere, falling from up and landing to down. But maybe… Maybe it was ten times more roar than I’d ever heard there before. Maybe the whole town of Snoqualmie was being washed downstream. Maybe the townspeople were drowning there, unseen in the foggy white void, their cries drowned by the roar as surely as their bodies were drowned by the water. Maybe…

Two guys showed up. They looked at me like I was from outerspace for enjoying myself. Which might be the case. One held a camera, and hurriedly took a flash picture of the other one standing at the rail. Then he said, “Ok? Good enough? Did I tell you? Can we go now?”

I always knew that if I ever visited New York City, I’d want to visit B&H Photo-Video. But I had no idea it was run by Hasidic Jews. The guys with the beards and hats can help you find your photographic wish. Yay Judaism!

Also: How to take pictures of hummingbirds.