Category: photog’s Corner

Here you will find the stuff that shouldn’t be mixed in the other categories but interest me. caveat emptor.

I Have My Priorities

photog ArthurinCali, Chemist, Ed Brault, Life in Dunwich, Mr. Coffee, Neil Dunn, NostraDumbass, photog's Corner, Photography, pigpen51, Science, SubVet , , ,

So today was an early day because I had to head to the office.  I was already running late when Camera Girl walked out of the kitchen and said, “Don’t react or the dogs will start barking but there are a couple of momma turkeys at my bird feeder with about eight young.  Go take a look.”

So, they were under the bird feeders looking for seeds on the ground that the normal birds spilled out of the feeders.  But eventually they weren’t satisfied so they headed out into the fields.  Camera Girl saw them heading for the gardens and said, “They’re headed for the raspberry patch.  Do you think they’ll eat any of the berries.”  I answered knowledgably, “No they only eat bugs and small critters.”  Of course, they immediately attack the patch and clearly start picking ripe berries off the canes.  I didn’t look back at her but I think there was a look.  And I think there might have been a derisive sound.  I came back with her own famous statement, “Well, everybody’s gotta eat, right?”  So, I announced that I had to leave for work and made a show of ignoring the prehistoric creatures that had invaded my domain.

When I got home, I got the update.  They had not only picked all the ripe raspberries but they then cleaned up the ripe blueberries too.  Then they went down by the swamp and annoyed Moe and the rest of Camera Girl’s murder of crows that hang out there during the morning.  Finally, they walked the perimeter of the fields until they ended up near the road and then made a nuisance of themselves for the motorists until they finally crossed the road and headed for the next swamp in their path.

I’ve always been interested in the turkey population because they provide an opportunity for interesting photographs.  But here they were adding insult to injury.  They not only didn’t eat any of the copious beetles that are afflicting my vegetables and flowers but they went out of their way to pillage my favorite summer fruit crops.  This is the thanks I get for never hunting them or setting the dogs on them or even making fun of their homely appearance, clumsy walking style or spastic flying abilities.

Well, truth be told they’re still in my top five species of birds I like to see around the place.  I like seeing the vultures (turkey and black) in the trees.  I like to try and get a shot of a Great Blue Heron fishing in the swamp and I also hope one day to lure some of the local ravens into a closer arrangement.  I’ve always thought they were fascinating creatures.

But there’s something appealing about a flock of turkey hens with their young walking around in Dunwich in the summer acting like they own the place and livening things up.

Yep, that’s true.  However, if they come near the berries again, I may just get some rocks and help them to move along at high speed.  At this time of year, I have my priorities.

Maybe He Wasn’t Ready for His Own Show

photog Humor, Life in Dunwich, My Fiction, photog's Corner , , ,

So, the First Selectman heard about Stephan Colbert losing his gig with the Late Show and somehow got the idea that maybe he could end up as a replacement on CBS.  He called me into his cave and said, “Listen Appetizer, I want you to get on the blower with Bill Paley and tell him I have a great idea for a late-night comedy show.  I’ll call it “Late Night Selections.”

I said, “Sir I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news but William Paley died in 1990 at age 89.  And currently the parent company of CBS; Paramount Studios, is being acquired by another entertainment company Skydance Media and they have decided that the old-style late-night show is outdated and unprofitable.  They have not only not renewed Stephen Colbert’s contract; they have ended the whole Late Night production company.  They’ve effectively fired two hundred people in order to save $100 million.”

This outraged the First Selectman, “Who ever heard of anyone dying at 89.  Why I’m in excess of a trillion years old and I’ve never felt better in my life.  Sure, I eat healthy and stay away from fatty food like Mexicans and Italians but last time I saw Bill in 1948 he was the picture of health.  He was smoking a cigar, drinking a martini and pinching his secretary.  You don’t get much livelier than that!”

I interjected that notwithstanding his fond memories of Mr. Paley it was unfortunately true that new management was in place at the Tifanny Network and perhaps this was not the time for a new late-night show.  This got me nowhere and so yesterday I was assigned the task of putting together a stage for this dynamic new production.  As luck would have it, I read an ad for Colbert’s extra furniture going up for sale and picked it up for a song.  I think it was being sold hot by the disgruntled stage crew.

Well with a little alteration to allow the five hundred foot tall First Selectman to interact with human sized guests on the stage we had it up and running this morning in time to go through some try-outs.  As luck would have it Adam Schiff, Nancy Pelosi and Elizabeth Warren were all hoping to get some extra face time during Trump’s problems over the Epstein case so the First Selectman was able to book all three of them for his trial run.

Well, there were problems.  During the first segment Schiff began banging the drum about Donald Trump being a fascist.  Now the first Selectman used to be a close personal friend of Mussolini so he innocently said, “What’s wrong with being a fascist.”  Well, Schiff went ballistic and started going through his talking points about Trump assaulting women and being a felon and starting an insurrection and before you know it, he was calling the First Selectman a reactionary.  Well, this didn’t sit well with the First Selectman so he ate Schiff.  And when Pelosi and Warren saw this from the wings, they came running out screeching at a very high pitch.  As it happens the First Selectman is very sensitive to the particular frequency so in self-defense, he quieted them by eating them.

Well, the booking agency was very upset and said they couldn’t provide any more guests, except maybe AOC and Mamdani because nobody likes them anyway but the First Selectman said Puerto Rican and Middle Eastern food gave him the runs.  So, he’s given up on the whole show idea.  It’s all very sad.

Lesson Painfully Learned

photog Current Events, photog's Corner , ,

So, what have we learned?  What have I learned?  After fifty years as an adult living in the United States I have learned one thing.

The only thing that counts from leaders is results.

In addition to that are all the other things you learn by living in the madhouse that was the last quarter of the twentieth century and the first quarter of the twenty first:

  • Talk, of all kinds, is cheap and almost meaningless.
  • Good intentions by themselves achieve nothing.
  • Action that is not informed by intelligence and purpose can sometimes be worse than inaction.
  • Most politicians are liars and crooks.
  • Those that aren’t, often are insane.
  • Everyone has ulterior motives. The trick is to align with those whose motives are compatible with yours.
  • There are no angels out there, only men. Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
  • Allies can come from the most unexpected corners.
  • Stay far away from really stupid people. They’ll get you killed.
  • Lots of conspiracy theories have turned out to be true. Be careful whom you talk to.
  • Just because you’re the only one in a dozen people who think something is a bad idea doesn’t mean you’re wrong. It might mean they’re feds.
  • Someone can be really smart and have all the facts and still come to the wrong conclusions. Use common sense.
  • There are nuts on both sides of the political divide. Use common sense.
  • Don’t let political differences destroy your family. Tread gently here.
  • Keep a sense of humor. You’ll need it.
  • Don’t let hate eat you up. Most of the people on the other side aren’t monsters.  A few are but don’t transfer that status to everyone.  Unless you live in some kind of red bubble you will meet up with the Left.  Don’t become unhinged.
  • Don’t become manic or depressed. There will always be victories and defeats.  Learn how to live in the real world not a wonderland that will never be.
  • No one is God except God. Trump is a man.  He’s just as imperfect and prone to error as everyone else.  He will not save us and one day he won’t be in charge.  Remember the big picture.
  • Figure out your actual convictions. What do you truly believe in?  What is unimportant?
  • Figure out what you want to achieve in your life and decide if this is likely under the current political regime.
  • Align your goals with the world as it really is. For example, cable news anchorman may no longer be a reasonable career path.  Whereas news influencer has some currency.
  • Don’t waste too much time agonizing over things you have absolutely no control over.
  • Spend the time prioritizing the actions you can achieve according to how much they will benefit you.
  • Spend as much time as you possibly can with people you like.
  • Learn how to communicate with people who hold extremely differing views from you. For instance, learn how to disagree with someone in a conversation without insulting him.
  • Find some friends out there and laugh with them when you can.

There, that was fun.

Echoes of a Summer Night

photog Current Events, Life in Dunwich, OCF, photog's Corner, Reclaiming the Family , ,

Only a single week of July left.  One last draught of fiery perfection.  Drink deep the heat and light and dark of real summer.  The lightning bugs flash from the grass and trees and trigger memories of a young boy collecting those living phosphors and watching them far into the night.  Where do those memories reside in my old brain?  What other memories do they trigger?  People who have been gone from this world for decades.  But I can still hear their voices and see their expressions.  Kind and cruel, smart and slow, funny and humorless, warm and cold, sane and mad.  And all these traits mixed in many combinations and proportions.  All those summer nights, all those years ago.

All those parties and occasions where we talked about the future and all the things we wanted to do and all we hoped to achieve.  And some of it we did.  And some of it worked out as we hoped.  But so many things fell by the wayside and some spectacularly so.  But those of us left must keep moving forward because there is no other way.  We just keep time to the beat of the days and seasons ticking by cycle after cycle trying to keep up with the pace and maintain a relevance with the waves of younger and livelier participants in the dance.

I was talking to my young granddaughter about her vacation in Maine.  I asked her what she liked best and she said she loved it all; the sand, the water, the sun, the amusement park rides, the carnival foods, the ice cream shop.  So, I told her the story of how we came to pick that beach; how an old friend, an old engineering friend who was more than thirty years older than me answered a question.  I asked him where I could find a nice long beach with white sand that wasn’t horribly crowded, expensive and pretentious like all the New England beaches I had tried.  And once we gave his recommendation a try, our kids went there for years while they were growing up and now her mom was doing the same for her.

As I was telling her I could see she didn’t think it was that amazing a story.  But I wondered if in twenty or thirty years she might be reminded of this story while she was talking to one of her descendants.  Maybe she’d tell her kids about their crazy old great grandfather who told stories about even more ancient people and events and always made sure there was some extra rich ice cream available for dessert and always had time to push a kid on a swing, pick berries or provide a butterfly net for catching lightning bugs.

Yep, summer is reaching its crescendo.  A few more parties and outings and then fall and the great seasonal ritual of death.  The fall equinox and Halloween and battening down the hatches.  I see that Guillermo del Toro has a Frankenstein movie coming out in November.  Maybe I’ll give that a try.

19JUL2025 – Footloose and Fancy Free

photog Current Events, Life in Dunwich, OCF, photog's Corner, Photography , , , , ,

Okay, a break from the political stuff today.  Camera Girl and I took a day off (sort of).  There was an antique car show to go to and used that as an excuse to gallivant around and eat some bad food and visit some of our old stomping grounds.

When we got to the car show there were only two cars there; an ancient VW micro-bus and a not-so exciting 1980’s Chrysler of some sort.  We asked someone at a nearby business and they explained that the show builds up over time and if we came back in a couple of hours it would be much more substantial.

Okay.

There’s an old-fashioned food stand that’s only open in the summer.  It serves burgers, foot-long dogs, fries, fried onions and fried fish.  Many years ago, some of our kids worked there in the summers.  Well, suffice it to say, this isn’t exactly health food.  But, so what?  We were out and about and foot-long hot dogs with mustard and relish was exactly what I wanted.  The batter fried onions were questionable from my perspective but I followed Camera Girl’s lead on that front.  Well, no major gastroenterological damage was noted after this meal so we proceeded back to ground zero.

And, voila!  Classic cars from the 1940s, 50s, 60s, 70s and beyond.  And as a background for this automotive time machine was a loudspeaker blasting out the doowop hits of 1960 – 1963.  Of course, I was in kindergarten at that point but I of course recognize and enjoy these golden oldies.  If only I had my leather jacket and enough hair to sport a DA and if Camera Girl had been wearing her pink sweater and poodle skirt we could have danced the afternoon away.  Well, that is if I could dance.  But no, I settled for a few off-key falsetto notes to “Why Do Fool Fall in Love?” and left it at that.

 

Well, I put my 10mm Voigtlander super-duper wide-angle lens on my Sony A7IV and clicked away for an hour or so.  But then I was reminded that this show comes back every week so we left and headed home for a few more photos around the yard.  So far this year there haven’t been many prime butterflies.  Mostly only the medium sized ones, Fritillaries and Painted Ladies and such.

But as I walked around, I ran into a Monarch and I chased it around in circles for a quarter of an hour.  It was incredibly skittish and I was aggravated by its evasiveness.  Finally, I had enough and put my camera away and sure enough as soon as I did, that darned thing calmed down and almost seemed to be following me around, hanging at my elbow.  This ticked me off so I waved my arms and ran after it and chased it away.  Anyone watching would have assumed I was a hopeless idiot.  And come to think of it there may be something in that.

But all in all, a very enjoyable day out with the missus.  July in New England really is a pretty great time of the year.  Too bad it ends so quickly.  But all good things must.

Lost Histories

photog Book Reviews, My Fiction, photog's Corner, Reviews, Science Fiction / Fantasy, SF&F Book Reviews , , , , ,

Lots of fantasy and science fiction authors have used the rediscovered history theme.  I think maybe Robert Howard used it for Conan and maybe some of his other sword and sorcery stuff.  Tolkien sort of used it for the Lord of the Rings.  The Red Book of Westmarch is supposed to be the source from which he wrote his books.

So, the conceit is usually a scholar is searching through old manuscripts and suddenly finds stories that somehow no one has ever read before.  I guess maybe a case could be made that an existing manuscript might have a palimpsest layer that couldn’t previously be seen or read and now because of advances in sensing techniques it can.

But usually, this kind of text underneath text is limited to at most a few pages of written language.  But as anyone who has been a religious reader of this site knows, the Roman papyri from the ruins of Herculaneum are slowly and painfully being deciphered using a form of x-ray tomography.  These charred and unopenable papyrus scrolls are being read right through the other layers of charred plant material by an artificial intelligence that can scan the three-dimensional surface of the scroll in its rolled up and damaged condition.

Currently the progress is glacially slow.  And this is even though a million-dollar prize has been announced for the tech genius who can take the scans and turn it into text.  Currently the part of the library being examined contains the works of an obscure stoic philosopher which has extremely limited popular appeal.  But there have been claims made that the total library was an extensive collection of Graeco-Roman literature and history.

If this turns out to be true and the scanning technology becomes robust, there may be many lost masterpieces of ancient writing to be found.  Lost plays by Sophocles and histories of ancient peoples like the Etruscans.  Every classical scholar has a wish list of what would be wonderful to recover.

But what comes to my mind is what a perfect place to find some lost history with fantasy or science fiction elements.  Now exactly what they would be is something that will require careful thought.  As I said there have been a lot of stories somewhat in this vein.  The trick would be to allow this history to tie into the present day in some way.  There could be detailed information of something that’s been buried and could be retrieved.  Or maybe it’s something that’s hidden in plain sight and possibly still operating in the present day.

So, this is the vaguest of outlines and needs lots of thought but while I was out watering the vegetable patch and photographing half-grown preying mantids it occurred to me.  And since I never have an undocumented thought, lo and behold; here it is.  It occurs to me I’ve never written a horror story.  Mostly I just make fun of H.P. Lovecraft but a two-thousand-year-old Etruscan demon might be something I could get interested in.  And since we know next to nothing about the Etruscans, I could make up anything I wanted and no one could definitively call me out on any of it.  What could be lazier?

Happy Fourth of July 2025

photog Current Events, Life in Dunwich, OCF, photog's Corner , ,

I learned a lesson about planning.  It should be associated with thinking.  I had an auto maintenance appointment that I wanted to get done before last week’s big trip.  But because I’ve been distracted by unfortunate circumstances, I couldn’t get an appointment on time (bad photog!).  I said, “Well give me the appointment next week.”  So, I pick the day before the Fourth of July!  Well, you know what’s hard to get to work on the day before a long holiday weekend?  Auto-mechanics!  A one-hour maintenance job keeps me waiting there for four hours.  The sad part is I could watch all the lined-up cars sitting there for three hours and then they were all done in the last hour.  A nine o’clock appointment for a mechanic who’s showing up at noon is kind of a sad situation.  Of course, some people started flipping out at eleven thirty and by 1 pm they were demanding the site manager be summoned for the maintenance clerk’s summary execution.  Of course, the site manager was on vacation until next Tuesday but it was a noble sentiment.

Being old I realized my own culpability in the whole idea of scheduling something involving waiting for the day before a major holiday.  I tried to do some on-line stuff over their customer wi-fi network.  But I got bored so instead I watched the people.  It had a certain entertainment value.  I guess the thought that I had was there are definitely two kinds of people.  The kind you would want in a lifeboat and the kind who will get thrown overboard.

Later on, we had one of those thunderstorm/hail storm/minor tornado/mini-monsoon downpour thingies here today.  It had been very hot and muggy and just walking around the yard was a major effort.  Then all hell breaks loose, the power goes off, the dogs go insane and suddenly the air is twenty degrees cooler.  And we’re watching from the window and saying isn’t it great to watch this from inside?  And it was.  The trees were whipping around and the sky was full of water and ice and the clouds were moving fast.  And then in fifteen minutes the sun was out again.  Well, no trees came down and the dogs calmed down so I went for a walk.  The air was sweet and there was a strong breeze.  Just an interesting kaleidoscope of weather.

And now we have the Fourth coming up.  Sitting in the service station watching their television I saw a news item about how some of the more progressive towns and cities were replacing their fireworks shows with a swarm of drones forming shapes in the air and changing colors.  It looked so incredibly lame and so sad I just shook my head.  The newscaster went out of his way to say how much more environmentally friendly and carbon neutral the lame drone show was than a fireworks display.  And I thought, this encapsulates the difference between people who enjoy life and people who do what they’re told is good for them.  These are the same people driving Priuses and getting their fiftieth COVID booster shot.

Well Happy Fourth of July.

I Feel Like a Phoenix Rising Over Arizona

photog Book Reviews, Current Events, Life in Dunwich, My Fiction, OCF, photog's Corner, Reviews, SF&F Book Reviews, Trump , , ,

The suffering is over.  The waiting is over.  The only thing I have left to do this week is get the oil changed on my car.  I can read, write, watch movies, sit in a hammock in the shade (well, if I had a hammock), write poetry (not good poetry), plot the overthrow of the Dunwich town government, laugh in the face of death, learn to play the piano; you name it!

Great Caesar’s ghost!  I’m exhausted just reading that list.

So, emerging from my forced isolation I see that nothing of note has happened in the last five days.  The endless jousting between the press and the Trump administration continues and Trump slowly accumulates small victories from the courts and larger ones from the Supreme Court.  Good!  I’ve declared victory (for the most part) and allow the world to slowly become Trumpified while I get on with my agenda.

I finished my re-read of the last third of my book and came to a few conclusions:

  • I like the writing. I like the way it reads.
  • I like the story line. It moves forward.
  • There is something missing to allow the story to end satisfyingly for all the threads of the book.
  • So, the good news of the first two points makes it worthwhile for me to tackle the bad news of the last point.

As I earlier stated it was weird to read the book after a good long time and read it as if I wasn’t the writer.  Of course, I knew the plot but the writing seemed fresh to me, like I was reading it for the first time.  Now, I did make some edits and even made some small changes to the wording during this read.  But I’m good with what’s already done.  So, I’ll kick around a few ideas to see which one makes the ending most satisfying.  Good.

The summer has gotten amazingly hot and humid.  And this has drawn the grandchildren to want to swim in the pool.  And this year the water is perfect.  Perfectly clear.  No algae.  Good pH.  No leaks.  There are a few small cracks in the liner above the water line.  So, I bought a patching kit and I will attempt to fix them myself.  If I botch it, I’ll call in the professionals and they’ll overcharge me but make the problem go away.  But it’s good to see this expensive hole in the ground get used by someone who can enjoy jumping in and swimming around.  I think in the fourteen years I’ve live here I’ve gone in once.  Oh well.

So, let’s see where Trump’s “big beautiful bill” is in a few days and where the various wars are in a few weeks.  But I’m ready to enjoy the seasonal weather and do some cooking out with friends and relatives and enjoy the only true summer month in the otherwise blighted New England calendar.  Because remember, July is the only month in which measurable snow has not fallen in southern New England.  That makes it sacred.  Enjoy.