I don't know what happened to me the last month. I became infatuated with this #AFC3E8 pale shade of blue. The whole site is slowly turning blue. What would you call it - China Blue? I also became overly infatuated with the ads to the point where I plastered them up on the sales pages. It didn't really seem to hurt sales but I removed them. They were ruining my own enjoyment of viewing the images.
My bedroom, as I remember it (probably faulty) was this shade of blue when I was a kid. So maybe it's some form of regression. I'm thinking that hex RGB colors might be good for domain names. Please visit #AFC3EB to view Dave's Blue Period.
I might go and get the Epson Scanner tomorrow. I don't usually act this fast with a piece of hardware but more and more of my medium format stuff is being ordered and and the 1600 is not up to the job. Besides, I have about 30 MF shots that I've never been able to do properly with the 1600. I'll let you know if I get it; how it works out; and then if anyone in New York wants to pick up the 1600 - let me know.
Everything has worked out well so far this season. I also have a couple of offers from retailers from various places around the country wanting to know if I'll sell prints wholesale. I have to figure that part out. Definitely cheaper mats (thanks for the mat tip John C.) if I'm going to do that sort of thing. As is it - I'm printing away as fast as I can. That will end in a week I'm sure and I'll be back to shooting. I see things all the time these days as I walk around - but don't want to think about shooting. I mostly think about ordering packaging supplies and drudgery like that lately. Should I get the 200 lb carton or the 150 lb carton.
The weird thing is that I seem to relish the rote work. Maybe it's a Zen thing. I don't know.
There's a passage in the new book by Frank McCourt (Teacher Man) where one of his students tells how he went to learn Karate and the teacher only told him to go and clean the toilets during the first session (which the kid did). Next week, the kid comes back and the Karate teacher tells him to clean the toilets again. Only after several weeks of this did the karate teacher begin to get into Karate technique. Zen, Zen, Zen. The sound of hands folding cartons and slapping tape around same.
P.S. Barrett recommended trying VueScan with the 1600. Wow. Very promising. That's what I call a driver.
11/29/2005
Epson Scanner
Was this the scanner you guys were talking about a while back:
Epson Perfection 4990 Photo, 4800x9600 dpi
I need to get something better than the Epson 1600 I'm using now for scanning medium format negatives. I see it listed at B&H for $409. I've never been happy with the d-max of the 1600 for negatives. I'm too pooped to go back through the blog and look for what you said but I remember things like: it's almost as good / as good / as a drum scan. Things along those lines.
For $100 more you get:
"With an included professional software suite including LaserSoft Imaging SilverFast Ai, the Epson Perfection 4990 Pro provides a total digital imaging system right out of the box. It also offers expansive color management with an IT8 target to consistently color match photos. And, it incorporates leading-edge image acquisition software for maximum scanning control, plus high-speed connectivity options."
Do I need any of this extra stuff?
Epson Perfection 4990 Photo, 4800x9600 dpi
I need to get something better than the Epson 1600 I'm using now for scanning medium format negatives. I see it listed at B&H for $409. I've never been happy with the d-max of the 1600 for negatives. I'm too pooped to go back through the blog and look for what you said but I remember things like: it's almost as good / as good / as a drum scan. Things along those lines.
For $100 more you get:
"With an included professional software suite including LaserSoft Imaging SilverFast Ai, the Epson Perfection 4990 Pro provides a total digital imaging system right out of the box. It also offers expansive color management with an IT8 target to consistently color match photos. And, it incorporates leading-edge image acquisition software for maximum scanning control, plus high-speed connectivity options."
Do I need any of this extra stuff?
Hey Dave
what happened to that print you had of the guy walking through the gate in the snow by the river. i wanted to purchase it but can't find it anywhere. j.b.
That's my bad. When I began to redesign the site, a bunch of old prints got lost in the shuffle. Here you go:
The Road Ahead
That's my bad. When I began to redesign the site, a bunch of old prints got lost in the shuffle. Here you go:
The Road Ahead
11/28/2005
Yosemite after Rain
Yosemite after Rain
If you've ever gone on a vacation with someone who isn't a photographer - and is impatient to boot - you sort of know what it was like. I kept wanting to stop to shoot stuff and my friend who had just left a programming job was depressed and wanted to explore the edges of cliffs. It was a tense time all around. I was afraid that only one of us was going to come back from this trip.
This was shot while I was alone. Mamiya 6. I had borrowed wading boots and was in the muck waiting for the tripod to settle down.
Content Ads
Someone should write an article about how content-driven ads effect what you write about.
I'll give you an example. I was going to write an article about how I used to use a JOBO rotary tank on top of a Besseler (sp?) motor; sort of a hybrid thing to do rotary processing. Rotary processing is actually a great thing if you want to do a lot of film processing, because besides a certain amount of automation - you use very little chemicals since the tank lies on its' side and rotates the film through the chemicals. In other words the whole tank doesn't need to be filled up. I tried it on the cheap. Instead of buying the whole JOBO rig, I bought the rotary tank with their reels and put it on top of a motor made by Besseler that turned the tank.
The motor drive had a button on the front so that it would go first one way, than reverse itself. That broke the first day. But the basic concept worked pretty well, though you had to keep an eye on the tank that it didn't wobble off onto the floor. The other problem is that chemicals tended to leak out of the top, and sometimes get into the motor.
So one day, while the tank with six reels is spinning - the motor burns out. Dead. Not such a terrible thing if it was in the hypo stage - but it was still halfway through the developer stage.
What to do. Think fast.
Did the only thing I could think of: take it off the motor base and begin rolling it across the apartment floor (which at that time had a rug) trying to approximate the rotation speed of the motor. Bad for the rug. Well, that's what I was going to write my article about but then I'm thinking:
Is JOBO even in existence anymore? Does Besseler even make that motor drive? Do people still do rotary processing? This is like writing a story from the dark ages. Who's going to buy advertising for this?
So I hop on the web and try and find out what JOBO is up to. Like every other film-based firm, they are called JOBO DIGITAL now or something like that and their official distributor in the U.S. is so-and-so. I went to several official distributor sites they mentioned and either the processors were out-of-stock or a search of the site doesn't even mention the rotary systems.
So - I figure, this is stupid to waste my time writing about some system that isn't going to generate ad revenue. And this was conscious. I wonder - as I said before - what the effect of content-driven ads is on writers?
You can see it in action if you look at successful sites based on content-driven ad revenue. What do they write about? The latest and greatest digital products. They try to scoop their competition with the first review. And digital is perfect for this since new products are hatched quicker than you can write about them. New "content." New ad revenue. They feed well on each other.
I can't compete there. My pc is nearly five years old. My camera was made in 1965 or something. In a year or so they'll have a replacement for just about everything that I'm using.
But there is something pernicious about it; though no more so than the relationship that has always existed between advertising and magazine writing. Don't bite the hand that feeds you. I always felt that when I was reading reviews in Popular Photography. Very rare they'd say, now here's a product by a major manufacturer that buys tons of advertising space in our magazine and what they've just turned out is a POS.
Oh, about that article about the effect of content-driven ads on writing - maybe I just wrote it.
I'll give you an example. I was going to write an article about how I used to use a JOBO rotary tank on top of a Besseler (sp?) motor; sort of a hybrid thing to do rotary processing. Rotary processing is actually a great thing if you want to do a lot of film processing, because besides a certain amount of automation - you use very little chemicals since the tank lies on its' side and rotates the film through the chemicals. In other words the whole tank doesn't need to be filled up. I tried it on the cheap. Instead of buying the whole JOBO rig, I bought the rotary tank with their reels and put it on top of a motor made by Besseler that turned the tank.
The motor drive had a button on the front so that it would go first one way, than reverse itself. That broke the first day. But the basic concept worked pretty well, though you had to keep an eye on the tank that it didn't wobble off onto the floor. The other problem is that chemicals tended to leak out of the top, and sometimes get into the motor.
So one day, while the tank with six reels is spinning - the motor burns out. Dead. Not such a terrible thing if it was in the hypo stage - but it was still halfway through the developer stage.
What to do. Think fast.
Did the only thing I could think of: take it off the motor base and begin rolling it across the apartment floor (which at that time had a rug) trying to approximate the rotation speed of the motor. Bad for the rug. Well, that's what I was going to write my article about but then I'm thinking:
Is JOBO even in existence anymore? Does Besseler even make that motor drive? Do people still do rotary processing? This is like writing a story from the dark ages. Who's going to buy advertising for this?
So I hop on the web and try and find out what JOBO is up to. Like every other film-based firm, they are called JOBO DIGITAL now or something like that and their official distributor in the U.S. is so-and-so. I went to several official distributor sites they mentioned and either the processors were out-of-stock or a search of the site doesn't even mention the rotary systems.
So - I figure, this is stupid to waste my time writing about some system that isn't going to generate ad revenue. And this was conscious. I wonder - as I said before - what the effect of content-driven ads is on writers?
You can see it in action if you look at successful sites based on content-driven ad revenue. What do they write about? The latest and greatest digital products. They try to scoop their competition with the first review. And digital is perfect for this since new products are hatched quicker than you can write about them. New "content." New ad revenue. They feed well on each other.
I can't compete there. My pc is nearly five years old. My camera was made in 1965 or something. In a year or so they'll have a replacement for just about everything that I'm using.
But there is something pernicious about it; though no more so than the relationship that has always existed between advertising and magazine writing. Don't bite the hand that feeds you. I always felt that when I was reading reviews in Popular Photography. Very rare they'd say, now here's a product by a major manufacturer that buys tons of advertising space in our magazine and what they've just turned out is a POS.
Oh, about that article about the effect of content-driven ads on writing - maybe I just wrote it.
11/27/2005
New Print
Funny how a new print makes it into the world. A couple of years ago I was doing my pilgrimage to the Bronx and figured I'd take in the 2nd most popular tourist attraction: Bronx Botanical Gardens even though flowers don't move me in the least.
My uncle Joe spent year after year at these gardens - returning with millions of flower slides which he'd then project for us in long boring sessions filled with Latin names. You know, sometimes photographers get caught up with one subject and just beat it to death. (Sorry Joe).
I've done it myself with benches. Can't pass a bench without wanting to take its' picture. I don't know why. Benches, trees, things made out of wood. Poor benches, out there in the elements all day. Splintering. Weathering. Getting darker with age. Gleaming when soaked. I'll have to get that part of my psyche analyzed someday.
So there I am in the botanical gardens - just as bored as if I were at Uncle Joes - and it starts to rain and I wander around with tripod and G2 - and find this wooden railing. So now I like this. I carefully setup the shot so that there's this trail leading off into the mist, and you are right above the railing (difficult tripod shot was it).
The Botanical Garden Trail picture is found on the site (somehow) by a design firm in Utah. Big hunt for the neg. And I mean big hunt. Took me longer to find that negative than to take or process same.
Then I don't hear from them for something like 4 months. Turns out that they would like it after all. So I finally print it and - the thing springs to life again.
You can see it here, but I don't think it would be interesting to you based on the web shot. But the print - it has that feeling of being etched in the paper - if you know what I mean. It must have been the 21mm lens which was really good with that G2.
Without the push from the folks in Utah (I bet they know their wooden railings out there) - the neg. would have just gone the way of all negs. - whatever that is.
My uncle Joe spent year after year at these gardens - returning with millions of flower slides which he'd then project for us in long boring sessions filled with Latin names. You know, sometimes photographers get caught up with one subject and just beat it to death. (Sorry Joe).
I've done it myself with benches. Can't pass a bench without wanting to take its' picture. I don't know why. Benches, trees, things made out of wood. Poor benches, out there in the elements all day. Splintering. Weathering. Getting darker with age. Gleaming when soaked. I'll have to get that part of my psyche analyzed someday.
So there I am in the botanical gardens - just as bored as if I were at Uncle Joes - and it starts to rain and I wander around with tripod and G2 - and find this wooden railing. So now I like this. I carefully setup the shot so that there's this trail leading off into the mist, and you are right above the railing (difficult tripod shot was it).
The Botanical Garden Trail picture is found on the site (somehow) by a design firm in Utah. Big hunt for the neg. And I mean big hunt. Took me longer to find that negative than to take or process same.
Then I don't hear from them for something like 4 months. Turns out that they would like it after all. So I finally print it and - the thing springs to life again.
You can see it here, but I don't think it would be interesting to you based on the web shot. But the print - it has that feeling of being etched in the paper - if you know what I mean. It must have been the 21mm lens which was really good with that G2.
Without the push from the folks in Utah (I bet they know their wooden railings out there) - the neg. would have just gone the way of all negs. - whatever that is.
Weborial: Developing Film
Okay - one more. Feel free to let me know if I've made any major blunders or if you want more info. Oh, that's right. Faster film. Didn't do that. I will.
Developing B&W Film
Developing B&W Film
11/26/2005
Weborials
Every time I read through one of these articles I've written in the last few weeks some glaring mistake jumps up and bites me. No editor. A general problem on the web. Someone should start an editorial society for weborialists. I know there's no word like that, but after going through a thesaurus for synonyms for article, weborial was the best I could come up with.
Here are some of those synonyms for article:
beat, blurb, column, commentary, composition, discourse, editorial, essay, exposition, feature, item, paper, piece, scoop, spread, story, theme, think piece, treatise, write-up
- Hey mac, I cover the Photo beat for the Daily Gotham. Whaddya do?
- I write weborials for the Gotham Blogger.
- Huh?
- Yeah. I'm a weborialist. One of the first ones. You should try it.
- Yeah? Well what the hell is a weborialist?
- You write articles, reviews, opinions - but you work on the web so they call it weborials. It's great 'cause no one checks your spelling or anything.
- You're kiddin' me.
- Nope.
- Weborialist, huh? Maybe I'll give it a try.
- Definitely. The competing word right now is itorial - but it's hard to say.
Here are some of those synonyms for article:
beat, blurb, column, commentary, composition, discourse, editorial, essay, exposition, feature, item, paper, piece, scoop, spread, story, theme, think piece, treatise, write-up
- Hey mac, I cover the Photo beat for the Daily Gotham. Whaddya do?
- I write weborials for the Gotham Blogger.
- Huh?
- Yeah. I'm a weborialist. One of the first ones. You should try it.
- Yeah? Well what the hell is a weborialist?
- You write articles, reviews, opinions - but you work on the web so they call it weborials. It's great 'cause no one checks your spelling or anything.
- You're kiddin' me.
- Nope.
- Weborialist, huh? Maybe I'll give it a try.
- Definitely. The competing word right now is itorial - but it's hard to say.
Back to Shooting
I have about seven prints to mat - and I've done all the tinkering with the site that I'm going to do for a while - and then - gasp - I'm going to starting shooting again. It's true that I don't really like this season much. I didn't get half the stuff done that I was supposed to: didn't send cards out; didn't get calendars made; didn't get any books published; didn't do much shooting; but like a kid who's got his new pencils for the new school term - I'm ready again to start anew and begin the usual backsliding.
What I did do is figure out how to sell more prints than last year and how to pick up a little extra money with ads and whatnot.
My only new year's resolution is to get a freakin' photography book published - even if I have to rob the local bank to do it. But no Lulu.com for me. At least that's been ruled out. I think I'm going to take a trip to China and meet with the local printers who work in the shadow of the great wall. Or maybe visit Milan where they do some mighty-fine printing.
Oh - but one thing I am going to do - I'm going to send a small Bronx photograph - to everyone I know who was born in the Bronx. No profit in that - just the act of giving. So, if you once in lived in the Bronx - and I know you - I'm going to get something to you for the holidays.
What I did do is figure out how to sell more prints than last year and how to pick up a little extra money with ads and whatnot.
My only new year's resolution is to get a freakin' photography book published - even if I have to rob the local bank to do it. But no Lulu.com for me. At least that's been ruled out. I think I'm going to take a trip to China and meet with the local printers who work in the shadow of the great wall. Or maybe visit Milan where they do some mighty-fine printing.
Oh - but one thing I am going to do - I'm going to send a small Bronx photograph - to everyone I know who was born in the Bronx. No profit in that - just the act of giving. So, if you once in lived in the Bronx - and I know you - I'm going to get something to you for the holidays.
11/25/2005
Another Gathering
Last year the turkey caught on fire.
This year - it wasn't ready in time - so the lasagna was pulled out first and me and a couple of teenagers were devouring it while the traditionalists waited and waited for the turkey.
Dad takes a small piece and complains about how he doesn't like spaghetti sauce or cheese and my sister is trying to get him to wait for the turkey.
Finally same arrives and a lot of us were stuffed already. After the pre-teens analyze the latest Harry Potter movie - seems they didn't like it but I couldn't understand half of what they were talking about. The teens and younger kids retire to the bedroom where they attached some Atari game box to the t.v. and play a game about hijacking trucks. Lots of violence and bad language.
The old folks came into the room but the kids wouldn't let them touch the game controls and the sound was turned down so they couldn't hear all the bad words. I got to play for about 30 seconds and drove my truck over a cliff into some water. I drowned.
In the living room - there were a lot of single 50-ish women talking about good places to go dancing and whatever happened to the Candy Stripe lounge that they frequented in the 80's.
The old folks couldn't get into that either. (Neither could I).
I had been instructed before hand to try and keep my big mouth shut and let the old folks control the conversation and not to bring up politics (which always leads to arguments). Fine with me. But it backfired when the talk was dominated by the ladies and their dance down memory lane and I was told afterwards that I should have brought up politics because those arguments are the highlight of any get-together. Oh well. Next time.
So my birthday is Dec. 1st - and every Thanksgiving I tell dad I don't want to celebrate it at Thanksgiving and sure enough there I am again with everyone surprising me with a cake and candle and me yelling, "God, how many times do I have to tell you - I don't want to do this at Thanksgiving."
One candle in the cake. I go to grab it to take it out and blow on it - and get into a control struggle with dad who wants me to blow it out while it's still in the cake. I make a grab for it again and a chocolate strawberry falls off, rolls under the table - and the dog goes for it. The dog isn't much bigger than the chocolate strawberry.
Chocolate (so they tell me) is poison for this breed of dog - so now there's a mad scramble under the table to get the chocolate strawberry from the dog with people surrounding the poor mutt and someone knocks over the coffee pot on the new white rug.
Oh the horror. Quick - use baking soda. No, use soda water. The women all advance their own secret formulas but the stain is spreading.
Why'd you knock off the chocolate strawberry?
Sorry.
Then someone starts singing: how old are you now? How old are you now?
"I'm 54," I say.
"No you're not," my middle sister says. She must be calculating her own age.
"I think I know how old I am. Do you wanna see my driver's license!"
Someone in the backroom must have hit the volume control because some very dirty words are filtering from the game into the living room. Horrified parents rush in to see what's going on and discover the obscenity filled game and want to know where this came from. In the confusion, they hit some other button and now all the bad politically unmentionable words are booming through the house.
I'm still thinking about how it feels to be 54. 6 years from 60. No way around that.
My uncle Hy was dead already at my age and had accomplished so much more.
Dad is wandering around looking for the check he was going to give me for my birthday. He can't find it. He's worried that he may have dropped it in the elevator because he was signing it as he came up. So out he goes to search the elevator. His eighty-year old companion is searching her pocketbook, either for her glasses or for the envelope.
And then it happens - the final coup de grace. Dad's companion asks me how I like the poster she brought back from somewhere as a gift. (I had passed it on to my sister for her house). Somehow, I know, by the way she was asking - that I had passed it on to Jean.
Now Jean is too cagey to have said anything - but her teenage daughter - she might have said something about the poster.
I excuse myself to go back to the other room where the hijacking game has been confiscated and ask my niece if she mentioned anything about the poster to anyone. She tells me that she might have mentioned the Van Gogh Bedroom print to someone dad's companion and sticks the iPod pods back in her ears.
Good God. Now what.
"I heard that you gave it to your sister," my father's companion is saying behind me. First time I've seen her move all night - and she's quick and silent as a cat and wearing magnifying glasses on her eyes.
"Well - I - "
Here eyes are huge.
"We brought it all the way back from Milan, you know. Especially for you. Your father picked it out. "
Meanwhile, dad comes back - unable to find the missing check. But he has a hat with him. Someone left their hat in the elevator.
The women are scrubbing the rug.
The kids are crying in the other room about the confiscation of the game.
I'm searching for an explanation for why I gave the poster away. Finally: "I didn't want to hurt your feelings, but I had that poster already. That's why I gave it to my sister."
"Really," she says suspiciously. She'd love to see the poster next time she visits me, so I'm going to have to get to the Museum of Art and get another one. I hope it says printed in Milan on the back.
As people are leaving - I'm invited to play anagrams. There are two anagram sets in the house. One is the actual real anagrams game (impossible to find these days); and the other one is just a bottle filled with scrabble tiles. The realanagrams set belongs to my sister's mother-in-law. I haven't mentioned her yet but she is not an old lady to trifle with (former high-school principal).
I say, "Let's play with the real set." My sister says, "what real set?"
I say, "You know - the actual set - we played with it the other day."
Her mother-in-law says: "You have a real anagrams set? Where did you find it? Took me years to find one. Finally found an old one on eBay."
Well, apparently my sister - who is giving me signs to shut up - stole it from her mother-in-laws house.
"Don't you remember, you loaned it to us a while back," she stammers.
Mother-in-law doesn't remember and starts in on a story about how difficult it was to find that set. They don't make them anymore.
Sister continues with her fable: "Remember, we were playing at your house and you said I could borrow it for a while?"
The dog begins to cough. He's been licking whatever they've been pouring on the coffee stain and it's making him puke. He almost pukes on the anonymous hat, but misses.
So that pretty much wraps things up as we take care of the dog; and a big fat guy in a florid bathrobe comes to the front door - somehow he's heard that my father found his hat. I don't know how he found out - my father must have involved the doorman at some point - but he takes his hat sticks it on his head and as he wanders away I notice some specks of dog-puke on it.
This year - it wasn't ready in time - so the lasagna was pulled out first and me and a couple of teenagers were devouring it while the traditionalists waited and waited for the turkey.
Dad takes a small piece and complains about how he doesn't like spaghetti sauce or cheese and my sister is trying to get him to wait for the turkey.
Finally same arrives and a lot of us were stuffed already. After the pre-teens analyze the latest Harry Potter movie - seems they didn't like it but I couldn't understand half of what they were talking about. The teens and younger kids retire to the bedroom where they attached some Atari game box to the t.v. and play a game about hijacking trucks. Lots of violence and bad language.
The old folks came into the room but the kids wouldn't let them touch the game controls and the sound was turned down so they couldn't hear all the bad words. I got to play for about 30 seconds and drove my truck over a cliff into some water. I drowned.
In the living room - there were a lot of single 50-ish women talking about good places to go dancing and whatever happened to the Candy Stripe lounge that they frequented in the 80's.
The old folks couldn't get into that either. (Neither could I).
I had been instructed before hand to try and keep my big mouth shut and let the old folks control the conversation and not to bring up politics (which always leads to arguments). Fine with me. But it backfired when the talk was dominated by the ladies and their dance down memory lane and I was told afterwards that I should have brought up politics because those arguments are the highlight of any get-together. Oh well. Next time.
So my birthday is Dec. 1st - and every Thanksgiving I tell dad I don't want to celebrate it at Thanksgiving and sure enough there I am again with everyone surprising me with a cake and candle and me yelling, "God, how many times do I have to tell you - I don't want to do this at Thanksgiving."
One candle in the cake. I go to grab it to take it out and blow on it - and get into a control struggle with dad who wants me to blow it out while it's still in the cake. I make a grab for it again and a chocolate strawberry falls off, rolls under the table - and the dog goes for it. The dog isn't much bigger than the chocolate strawberry.
Chocolate (so they tell me) is poison for this breed of dog - so now there's a mad scramble under the table to get the chocolate strawberry from the dog with people surrounding the poor mutt and someone knocks over the coffee pot on the new white rug.
Oh the horror. Quick - use baking soda. No, use soda water. The women all advance their own secret formulas but the stain is spreading.
Why'd you knock off the chocolate strawberry?
Sorry.
Then someone starts singing: how old are you now? How old are you now?
"I'm 54," I say.
"No you're not," my middle sister says. She must be calculating her own age.
"I think I know how old I am. Do you wanna see my driver's license!"
Someone in the backroom must have hit the volume control because some very dirty words are filtering from the game into the living room. Horrified parents rush in to see what's going on and discover the obscenity filled game and want to know where this came from. In the confusion, they hit some other button and now all the bad politically unmentionable words are booming through the house.
I'm still thinking about how it feels to be 54. 6 years from 60. No way around that.
My uncle Hy was dead already at my age and had accomplished so much more.
Dad is wandering around looking for the check he was going to give me for my birthday. He can't find it. He's worried that he may have dropped it in the elevator because he was signing it as he came up. So out he goes to search the elevator. His eighty-year old companion is searching her pocketbook, either for her glasses or for the envelope.
And then it happens - the final coup de grace. Dad's companion asks me how I like the poster she brought back from somewhere as a gift. (I had passed it on to my sister for her house). Somehow, I know, by the way she was asking - that I had passed it on to Jean.
Now Jean is too cagey to have said anything - but her teenage daughter - she might have said something about the poster.
I excuse myself to go back to the other room where the hijacking game has been confiscated and ask my niece if she mentioned anything about the poster to anyone. She tells me that she might have mentioned the Van Gogh Bedroom print to someone dad's companion and sticks the iPod pods back in her ears.
Good God. Now what.
"I heard that you gave it to your sister," my father's companion is saying behind me. First time I've seen her move all night - and she's quick and silent as a cat and wearing magnifying glasses on her eyes.
"Well - I - "
Here eyes are huge.
"We brought it all the way back from Milan, you know. Especially for you. Your father picked it out. "
Meanwhile, dad comes back - unable to find the missing check. But he has a hat with him. Someone left their hat in the elevator.
The women are scrubbing the rug.
The kids are crying in the other room about the confiscation of the game.
I'm searching for an explanation for why I gave the poster away. Finally: "I didn't want to hurt your feelings, but I had that poster already. That's why I gave it to my sister."
"Really," she says suspiciously. She'd love to see the poster next time she visits me, so I'm going to have to get to the Museum of Art and get another one. I hope it says printed in Milan on the back.
As people are leaving - I'm invited to play anagrams. There are two anagram sets in the house. One is the actual real anagrams game (impossible to find these days); and the other one is just a bottle filled with scrabble tiles. The realanagrams set belongs to my sister's mother-in-law. I haven't mentioned her yet but she is not an old lady to trifle with (former high-school principal).
I say, "Let's play with the real set." My sister says, "what real set?"
I say, "You know - the actual set - we played with it the other day."
Her mother-in-law says: "You have a real anagrams set? Where did you find it? Took me years to find one. Finally found an old one on eBay."
Well, apparently my sister - who is giving me signs to shut up - stole it from her mother-in-laws house.
"Don't you remember, you loaned it to us a while back," she stammers.
Mother-in-law doesn't remember and starts in on a story about how difficult it was to find that set. They don't make them anymore.
Sister continues with her fable: "Remember, we were playing at your house and you said I could borrow it for a while?"
The dog begins to cough. He's been licking whatever they've been pouring on the coffee stain and it's making him puke. He almost pukes on the anonymous hat, but misses.
So that pretty much wraps things up as we take care of the dog; and a big fat guy in a florid bathrobe comes to the front door - somehow he's heard that my father found his hat. I don't know how he found out - my father must have involved the doorman at some point - but he takes his hat sticks it on his head and as he wanders away I notice some specks of dog-puke on it.
11/24/2005
Dead Books
It's pretty obvious that the next step in the never-ending (seemingly) quest to monetize the site (I picked up that word in a late-night info-mercial for accordian players) is to redo my Amazon book listings which are so out-of-date that half the stuff on my photo book page is out-of-print. I think the last time I updated that page (which I won't even tell you where it is) was in 1945. I guess in all the excitement about the end of the war - I just plumb forgot.
Anyway - it goes along the same lines as vendors that I use, i.e. I'll only list books that sit at my side constantly - and are covered with spilt soda and cigarette ash. Well, don't think I have the latest edition of any of these Photoshop books - they come out with a new one every time the product changes.
But I could do a bird's eye shot of my desk and surrounding area and you'll see 'em scattered around. The cat likes to sleep with his head on the Adobe Photoshop for Photographers book and gets p.o.'d when I need to look something up in it.
Anyway - I'm re-doing the Photography Book pages with comments about what I found useful. Page One has to be Ansel's page. Then I'm going on to my favorite photographer's autobiographies.
Anyway - it goes along the same lines as vendors that I use, i.e. I'll only list books that sit at my side constantly - and are covered with spilt soda and cigarette ash. Well, don't think I have the latest edition of any of these Photoshop books - they come out with a new one every time the product changes.
But I could do a bird's eye shot of my desk and surrounding area and you'll see 'em scattered around. The cat likes to sleep with his head on the Adobe Photoshop for Photographers book and gets p.o.'d when I need to look something up in it.
Anyway - I'm re-doing the Photography Book pages with comments about what I found useful. Page One has to be Ansel's page. Then I'm going on to my favorite photographer's autobiographies.
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