Archive for December, 2009

When I was 10 or 12 years old, my mother read the short story ‘Buffalo Gals’ out loud to my sister and me. It seeped into my subconscious. I remembered little of the plot as my life stretched on, but recalled nuance, shapeshifting, dreamlike visions and a near worship of the Oregon high desert landscape I would, as a teenager, come to see as my spiritual mirror.

I have a bit of a star-struck love for TC Boyle, but this novel made my head buzz with the pestering question: ‘Why?’
The tale, told in reverse-chronological order, unwinds the dramatic coil of Wright’s libido, which apparently ran rampant and unchecked through the first half of the 20th century.

A mystery based on real events set during the senescence of Victorian ideals, starring the real human Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, “Arthur & George” combines literary suspense with the themes of slowly declining empire. It explores what it means to be English at a time when what it means to be English is changing faster than it has ever done so before; it glances at the accelerating evolution of change in the time of full-steam-ahead Edwardian idealism.

Far eastern Utah, almost Colorado. How I wish the sky were always this interesting. Shot on film.

And oldie-but-goodie? I’m surprised at the relative caliber of photos shot on my honeymoon, all on film, of course. This is one of them. Sunset in the mountains south of Walla Walla, Washington.

I was so busy being in Chicago that I barely took any photographs. And I certainly didn’t do any writing or blogging. Yet the Daily Shoot assignments kept me a bit honest. Here’s a daily shot (assignment: blue) that turned out decently.

I pass a store on my way to work that sells commercial storage fixtures: carts, ladders, pallet racking, etc. On this day they had a grey plastic cart that had created a lovely, still droplet pattern. The apparent vignetting on this shot is actually not post-processing–it’s the edges of the shelf on the cart.

Cats that sit like people? Creepy or cute?

I know–so many photos of the cat (her name is Tephra, by the way, despite her sticky “the cat” moniker) lately. But she is a veritable ham. She is now ready for her close up, thank you very much.

Taut and engrossing, Steven Johnson’s ‘The Ghost Map’ is a rollicking multidisciplinary romp through Victorian London’s scientific, cultural and medical evolution. Johnson’s focal point is a devastating–indeed, decimating–1854 cholera outbreak in Soho, which becomes a crucible of the nascent field of epidemiology and highlights the stark changes in science throughout the mid-19th century.