Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Grandpa Internet



Another blog has died--591 Photography.  Almost every blog I spent time with in the past four or five years is gone.  There is a new world out there somewhere that I can't find or grasp.  Instagram, Twitter. . . they don't offer the same kind of substrate.  They are smaller, shallower.  But blogs are dead, I guess.    They have gone the way of CDs.  I understand the turning from CDs, of course.  Those blasted jewel cases sucked.  They were always flawed, never perfected.  They could have been thinner and unbreakable, I know it.  The ability to carry your music library in your hand is marvelous.  I even like my iPad for reading novels and, yes, even magazines (it doesn't work so well with the New York Times for some reason).  I guess the death of the blog was brought about, though, by iPads and smart phones.  Blogs aren't so easy on the smaller screen.

I must decide if I want to continue being Grandpa Internet or move on.  I feel like a fellow sitting on the stoop of a country store whittling on a piece of wood and making comments to people walking by.

I watched "Sling Blade" last night on Cinemax, I think.  1996.  Holy smokes, I hadn't seen it since it was first released.  I remembered it as being a crazy good movie.  It certainly was.  I won't be able to get that voice out of my head for some time.  Mmm-hmmm.  But Dwight Yoakam's portrayal of the bad boyfriend is the standout of the movie.  He nailed it, I think.  I think that it was the end of his sexy country singer career, though.  I remember never being able to look at him the same way again.

So, in the idiom of Karl Childers, I reckon I'll study on the future for a bit.  I'm feeling like the last full service gas station in a town full of minimarts.  On the east coast, anyway.  You got that other one out west, but who knows how long it will stay open.  I think he might be running out of money, too.

1 comment:



  1. I was on a college weekend tour. I'm just in from Upstate New York. What a strange and wonderful place. There was so much inspiration from the vast endless mountain farms -- tumbling down barns that turn into winding roads that lead you to the "most liberal town" in America and Cornell U. Home of the enlightened. The last land grant college.

    How is it so? That gem of genius set among millions of acres of nothingness? Which is preferred? I cannot lie I felt sad on the downhill drive --those Catskills sloping in gentle vees disappearing behind me. I wanted more -- what was going on in that farmhouse with its smoking chimney. Who lived there still -- what stories they must have.

    That.

    Juxtaposed against a visit to Cornell's Johnson Museum. Beautiful little museum. Saw a gorgeous print display -- really good exhibition by Roger Minidoka and a very intriguing Slater Bradley exhibition.

    I am full of inspiration -- too much so. I don't know exactly what to do with it. Or maybe I'm afraid of what to do with it.

    http://museum.cornell.edu/exhibitions/sequoia-recent-work-by-slater-bradley.html

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