I took this picture a few years ago during the big rally downtown. I can’t begin to explain how much it still cracks me up. I mean, the general surreality of it is one thing, but I just absolutely love the guy on the right. Everyone else is all like “SPEAK ENGLISH OR GO HOME!!”, “HELL NO TO MEXICO!!”. This guy, though — it’s not that he hates the mexicans. He just doesn’t want to learn Spanish.
“I don’t want to learn Spanish.”
I can’t stop laughing.
So, now that we’re 2 weeks out, I can deliver this rant briefly without raining on anyone’s parade:
I hate this fucking holiday. I don’t hate all pranks, I’m not a spoilsport or a curmudgeon or anything. In fact, Nick got me pretty good at work. It was subtle, and well thought-out. But here’s the thing. April Fools’ Day encourages a special kind of cretin that never learned the small detail wherein jokes are supposed to be funny. That is, a fucking april fools’ joke needs to be remotely plausible AND FUNNY, not just merely … plausible. That’s not funny. That’s stupid. It’s pretty easy to betray the trust of your common man. It’s actually pretty easy, watch: Hey, it’s raining out. Just kidding, it’s not. Oh shit, I got you good. This is merely an extension of the behaviour in general by people that never really Got humor. You know the people I mean. The guys who in grade school whose idea of humor was to “fuck with you”.
Them: Hey, we’re out of mayonnaise
Me: Shit, really? I just bought a new jar.
Them: Naw, I’m just fuckin with you. *asinine braying*
Me: …*
See Farva, Super Troopers for further examples.
These people are the reason that we now have to basically plug our ears and ignore everything and anything we hear on April Fools’ Day. Say it with me, people: more funny. I’m still, now, 2 weeks later, reading articles in google reader that are plausible, only to realize it’s a lie, because it was posted on April 1. Ha ha. You’re a fucking idiot.
An interesting juxtaposition of two very powerful pictures, pointed over at theonlinephotographer:
John Moore, Memorial Day at Arlington National Cemetery / Getty Images
Jim Nachtwey, Afghanistan, 1996 – Mourning a brother killed by a Taliban rocket.
Lately I find myself loathe to take out my Canon 20D for day to day picture taking. Part of this is because I’ve been trying to play around with film more, but lately I’m realizing it’s more than that. It’s not even the film at this point that is capturing my interest. Film certainly has its moments, but by and large, it’s still a giant pain in the ass. But what keeps me at it is not the film itself — it’s the cameras. By delving into the world of film, you basically have at your disposal a century (more if you have deep pockets, i guess) of awesome camera engineering. I have an aesthetic and maybe almost fetishistic attraction to these cameras. The nerdy engineer in me really loves all the different designs, contraptions and functional mechanisms in these devices.
Yashica Lynx 5000e
The Yashica (Lynx 5000e) I have, which I bought for a mere $15, is really a work of art. It’s got this gorgeous stainless steel top on the black plastic body. No matter how many times I’ve taken it apart and put it back together, all the pieces still fit snug, with very little give. It feels solid, heavy and dense. I used to joke with whatsherface about how we can always tell if something is good by whether or not it’s heavy/dense. I think this is an aesthetic qualification that probably goes back a long ways. Leaded crystal is very dense and thus heavy compared to regular glass, thus it’s better. We like a car door to have a heavy feel, with a solid thunk as it slams shut. Next time you’re out shopping for something — anything, really — pay attention to how you analyze it in a tactile sense. Ten bucks says you pick it up and sorta weigh it in your hands to gauge its quality. It’s almost a subconscious tendency. As we move increasingly into the digital age of the integrated circuit, this is a tendency that will probably increasingly go away, but with me, at least, it’s still alive and well. I feel like I could bludgeon someone to death with this camera and it’d still work.
But I digress. So I finally fixed the light sensor on this camera a few months ago. My dad long ago indoctrinated me into the “take it apart and put it back together” methodology for fixing something. You’d be surprised how often this works. So, after taking this camera apart, staring at it confusedly, and putting it back together around 5 or 6 times, I took it apart one last time. Though this time I pulled the cap a little too hard and ripped the wires for the light sensor clean off their mount. Re-soldered them back on, put it back together, and voila. Working light sensor. I guess the wires were just a little loose and/or corroded.
So I’ve been taking this camera out a lot more. Beyond my aesthetic attraction to it, I’ve discovered a newfound practical benefit. I love my 20D, but basically a DSLR is a magent for attention — negative or positive. Slap a lens as big as the 200mm 2.8L on it, and you may as well give up trying to be inconspicuous. Pretty much anywhere you go to take pictures you’re either going to intimidate everyone into submission or attract very annoying attention. (”Say, that’s a PROFESSIONAL camera, you work for the papers?!?”) Conversely, with a camera like the Yashica, I just look like any ol’ tourist, if people notice me taking pictures at all. Granted, it’s a camera with a 50 year old design, so you can always tell when some random photographer walks by and double-takes at it. But by and large, you’re just some schmoe taking pictures.
But, nonetheless, film is still a giant pain in the ass. This is why increasingly I have been thinking about buying some sort of pseudo “professional” compact camera — where “professional” just means manual controls and awesome performance. I don’t think there are any cameras that are quite there yet. The Ricoh GR-D II is pretty sexy, but it has an astronomical price, and is only marginally better than something like the Canon Powershot G-9. And that camera has some pretty serious noise problems at higher ISO. I guess I’ll wait. But I do see a market for an inconspicuous professional-grade camera, and I hope to take advantage of it if the cameras ever get bad-ass enough.
A chain of thought I had this morning:
Maybe?
My dallying with film continues unabated. The above shot was the only worthwhile result from 2 rolls of Kodak Portra 400UC that I ran through a Holga 120S that I borrowed from a friend. The Holga didn’t have the framing bracket on the first roll, but I shot on the 16 exposure setting, resulting in the overlap from frame to frame. When I had it developed, I had them scan it, and they made a pass at scanning frames from that roll, resulting in this, which was nice. But, I cut the film original and re-scanned it and got a nicer scan with more artsy overlap goodness. I like the result a lot, although I have mixed feelings about its conception. I don’t consider it to be indicative of any particular skills that I have. Holgas really are the original point-n-shoot, after all, having no manual controls … whatsoever. But hey, I’ll take it. I’m still getting the hang of using my scanner — I am gonna try my hand at scanning some more once I finish plowing through a roll of cheap Kodak color film in my Yashica, and some B&W Ilford 120 125 film in my Seagull. All in all, it’s been fun playing with film, but I’m still not convinced it’s worth it, much less making the leap to developing at home.
Speaking of my scanner, I went a little nuts this weekend and scanned some stuff.
It is a simple matter of arithmetic that change may be costly to the man who has something; it cannot be so to the man who has nothing. There is always, accordingly, a high correlation between conservatism and personal well-being.
…
As this is written, American liberals have made scarcely a new proposal for reform in twenty years. It is not evident that they have had any important new ideas. Reputations for liberalism or radicalism continue to depend almost exclusively on a desire to finish the unfinished social legislation of the New Deal. It was adversity that nurtured this program; with prosperity social invention came promptly to an end. On domestic matters, liberal organizations have not for years had anything that might be called a program. Rather they have had a file. Little is ever added. Platform-making consists, in effect, in emptying out the drawers. The Midwest and Great Plains, which once provided Congress with its most disturbing radicals, now returns its staunchest conservatives including also its most determined reactionaries. The political destiny of the United States does not rest with those who seek or who are suspected of wishing to repeal laws, withdraw services and undo what has been done. This also is change and unwelcomed. But, given peace and prosperity, it no longer rests with those who advocate major social experiment. In a country where well-being is general, the astute politician will be the one who stalwartly promises to defend the status quo.
– John Kenneth Galbraith, American Capitalism: The Concept of Countervailing Power
I am finally reading this. It’s only 4 years overdue from the library. Oops.
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