They Can't All Be Winners

Look at that!  I hit focus on this one.  Exposure, too.  But. . . the lens was not wide open.  Shooting The Beast with the AeroEktar wide open may not be optimum for me.  Anyway. . . 

That was a horrible way to begin a post. . . unless it was going to become something else, a symbol or a bigger issue.  It isn't.  I've just made you sit through ten or so seconds of reading, time you will never get back.  

How about this?

Loneliness is rampant throughout the world, but the finding is important because people with obesity experience it markedly more, the report said.

There you go.  See?   It's science.  

Here's something else that might irritate you (link).  I'm staying ahead of the curve.  

In part and parcel, I did nothing of interest or importance yesterday.  I DID make four more exposures with the Liberator, but they were, as are the photos in this post, test shots.  Nothing.  

A funny if frustrating note; I sent John the portraits I took of him with a note about the focus and how hillbilly my getup looks now with the addition of the rubber band.  His comment?  

"I look like a grumpy old man."

"WTF?  What do you think you are?"

Comes a time when we just don't need our photos taken anymore.  I, of course, would have loved those of him had I not f'ed them up.  

I must say that getting my stuff together at night, loading the developing tank in the garage and then standing at the sink for twenty or so minutes developing film while I listen to music, helps make the evening seem somewhat more productive.  Every sixty seconds, I must rotate the tank for ten.  In between times, I dance.  The kitchen windows have no curtains, so anyone passing in the dark can look in and see me.  I try to imagine that, how weird anyone must think I am.  Especially when I am singing along with the music.  It's a scene from a movie.  Maybe I should set up a camera outside one night and record myself.  

"Quasimodo Fights Depression and Loneliness in a Dance Macabre"

The effect is both frivolous and terrifying, beseeching its audience to react emotionally. It [is] produced as moments mori to remind people of the fragility of their lives and how vain are the glories of earthly life.


Indeed.  I must. 

I, of course, represent my life here on the blog in/as a "reductio ad absurdum."  There are things I do not and dare not record here.  Private things.  Intimate things found only in my journals.  Terrible and terrifying things.  As I reminded one reader this week, do not confuse the narrator with the author.  

"Even when you're right?"

"Never."

It is the fiction that brings reality into focus, isn't it? 

Hey!  Look at that!  I did it!  I brought it all back around.  Sure, it was artificial and clunky and wholly without merit, but not every magic trick is as interesting as another.  The interminably long rope of scarves pulled from a magician's coat sleeve is not nearly as exciting as a dove flying out of a top hat.  It's like getting candy corn in your Advent Calendar.  

"Hey. . . somebody's been messing with my calendar."

"They can't all be winners, now, can they?"

Not by a long shot.