Quick Shots

Through a scheduling problem I ended up being the only guy with a camera to get some quick publicity shots of some of the restaurant's specials for this month. Was a fun change to hang out with those guys.

Amy and I have travelled west to South Dakota to see Mt. Rushmore, Crazy Horse, Custer State Park, Wall Drug and Deadwood. All in all a valuable, low key trip with my dear wife. The photo situation hasn't been great due to heavy rains or shooting at the height of the afternoon sun, but I snapped a few. Corn Palace

Custer State Park
Dancer at Crazy Horse
Crazy Horse Monument

Sunday

It's been a good weekend, I think. I burned yard clippings and branches early yesterday morning, mowed, took my laptop in for some servicing, etc. Got many things done. Amy and I went to Labriola and got wood burning pizzas, which is a minor passion of mine. I then lazed and wrote and listened to Duke Ellington last night while Amy went with a friend to House of Blues to see a show. Doesn't get a lot better than that.

I went on a bike ride this morning on the Illinois Prairie Path. I went west a little bit, caught the Elgin Branch north and then turned around. Maybe 12 miles, so nothing stressful. It's good to be so close to these things. I hate using the bike rack on the car, so it's always best to just ride right from the garage. There are a mad number of trails around here. Later I'm trying a friend's chicken recipe. Now off to yoga.

Further Galena

I got up early this morning and walked around the grounds a bit more to see where the flood had hit. I ran into a friend of the owners clearing debris who told me it had rained 18 inches in 10 hours and where we were standing had been under seven feet of water. There but by the grace of God, I guess. I am told two people in Jo Daviess County died in their cars. Any damage that I saw did nothing to detract from the beauty of the area.

I do recommend coming here to Inn at Irish Hollow if you get a chance. The food and accomodations have been very nice. I have spent my time reading, sleeping and wandering Galena with Amy. We saw a magician Friday night. I seem to have become a born again magic show junkie. Was like something out of a Woody Allen movie.

Galena

Amy and I took my last three-day weekend to go to Galena, IL. We're staying at the Inn at Irish Hollow, a country B&B located about eight miles away from the downtown. The area saw a flood last week in which 15 inches fell in eight hours. As you can see below, it was destructive, sending fencing, hay bales and other debris careening about their 500 acres.

Downton Galena. Very Pleasant.

Abbey of Ghethsemani

Historic photo

We had to choose a historic photo for my photography class to discuss. I chose a photo taken in-house at the Washington Post on April 30, 1973. In the center are Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, the two reporters credited with breaking open the Watergate Scandal and tying it to the White House, which in turn led to President Richard Nixon’s resignation roughly 16 months later. They are discussing the next day’s stories with publisher Katharine Graham; Benjamin C. Bradlee, executive editor, right; and Howard Simons, managing editor.

If you consider the far edge of the table as a horizon line, approximately two thirds of the photo is for the human subjects. The many shelved books rain down in vertical lines which are to some extent picked up again by the larger items on the desk coming in toward the lens. The books on the top shelf are parted with roughly half leaning left and half leaning right, which serves to create an arrow effect on the two young reporters.

Color news photos were decades way from being standard, but the black and white serves this photo well anyway by breaking a cluttered, paper strewn office down into simpler, less busy images. The loud, 1970s wide ties are muted into shades of gray as are the hundreds of books behind them.

I have a strong affection for this photo, even though I would have been about five months old at the time. I believe it captures in single moment the conflicting energy and fear that must have been running through those five people as they planned their next steps to report on Watergate.

While not an artistic placement of the people, they are caught at fortuitous angles and expressions that capture there various roles within a newsroom. Woodward and Bernstein’s lean frames are sitting very close to each other, suggesting that they are the young team on the front lines. Despite the seriousness of their siege on the White House, or more likely because of it, they appear almost giddy, especially when compared to the other worried people in the photo.

Publisher Katharine Graham is the severe matron. It’s her employees, her paper. She has already gone through a challenging period with the federal government in 1971 with the release of the “Pentagon Papers” by her publication and the New York Times. From another angle seated at the same level the image of an exasperated father figure, Howard Simons, with a less dark expression but with a look of warning.

Ben Bradlee looks on from an elevated position (I think that is him). Some of the people in this photo are old enough to see all too clearly the consequences of the series of articles they are running. The two reporters seem to understand they are working with something enormous, but perhaps don’t yet appreciate the ramifications of embroiling an American president, particularly one as notably vindictive as Nixon, in a scandal.

Or perhaps I read too much into things.

It's self portrait this week

Talk about a painful exercise. But instructive.

Where are they now?

As I get older, I find myself more interested in what happened to people after their 15 minutes than what actually made them famous at the time. When I was seven or eight years old, I watched The John Davidson Show, which came on in the afternoon right before cartoons and reruns of bad comedies. I also watched That's Incredible, which he hosted. I then forgot about the guy and assumed he'd retired or something. Thirty years later, he's still out there making out a living. I just saw that in March he played a "pop music show" at a local education center. Tickets were $25 at the door. For some reason, this is fascinating to me.

If you are a Mizzou fan, this is pretty great

Can't wait

Eventually, The Book of Mormon will make its way to Chicago, and I will buy tickets for at least two performances. Leave it to the creators of Southpark to come up with a completely original story for a Broadway musical. Not based on a Disney movie, not based on any other movie, not some hoary revival, but a new idea.

New Company

If I lived in New York, I think I'd spend a lot of evenings at the Philharmonic. I have enjoyed tuning in WMFT on Thursday evenings to hear Alec Baldwin's hushed introductions for their "Live at the Philharmonic" show.

I just came across this article about a concert production the NY Philharmonic is doing of "Company," one of my favorite musicals. Neil Patrick Harris, Martha Plimpton, Patty Lupone, John Cryer and several others are taking part. I'm hoping it might show up on DVD or on PBS.

Headlines today include "Japan sets Radiation Standard for Fish" and "Shutdown Looms as Talks on Stopgap Budget Fail." Other items on Libya, Yemen, Iraq, etc. Someone wished for us to live in interesting times.

It turns out that my photography professor collects fountain pens. I love fountain pens. I just can't use them because my handwriting makes Charlie Brown's look like calligraphy. I do own a couple, including a retractable Pilot that's pretty cool. He found a place in China (where copyrights and patents have never been considered) that makes beautiful replicas of nice pens for between $10-$30. He showed me one last night that was delivered to him for $8. The nib was surprisingly smooth. He also told me that a lot of people are cannibalizing antique pens for their gold, which, though sad, is making the remaining pens more valuable.

Lovecraftian Shots

This week we have two "odd" pictures due. I didn't have time to mess with it, so looked through some recent shots and worked with these. Maybe it's the H.P. Lovecraft I've been reading as of late, but they reminded me of one of his minor creatures.

messing around with iPhone

Crumley's eyebrows move in the direction he's looking. Wonder if mine do that.

Yoga Pics

I attempted some yoga pictures for my photo class. In order to avoid making anyone uncomfortable, I didn't stay very long, which was probably a mistake. It would have been fun to take shots of some of the more dramatic poses. I tried to play with colors a bit, but I fear the bottom pic looks a little like Yoga of the Dead around the edges.

At first I thought I would be pretty thrilled with the NY Times article on a supposed resurgence in manual typewriters. Upon reading it, it seems kind of stupid. Typing parties? Where people get together to see and be seen typing? Can't people just get into stuff without making such a big thing of it?

New buddy

Crumely has a new friend. Amy bought him a rabbit stuffed animal.

Sunday

So we moved starting Thursday. The company who did the main portion was great, and we tipped them well. I would recommend them to anyone. We have spent the last two days slowly unpacking. The dogs love the new fenced backyard, and it's been a pleasure to let them run around. Sadly, the weather is turning on us today (Sunday). It has gotten a little cooler (All relative, of course. Compared to the last few months, it's been balmy), and it's thundering heavily this morning.

So I devoted my customary 60 minutes to my photography class before the rain began. It's nature this week, so I went to the Arboretum. We visit the Morton Arboretum enough to justify our membership, but I wish we were there more. I caught a few shots below. I would have liked to play more with exposure to see what I could've gotten out of the overcast gray.

So this week has been a deluge of the worst junk food, no exercise and a lot of stress. I hope to reverse some of that this week.

Bulls

We also went to see the Bulls beat up on the Utah Jazz Saturday night. This was really Amy's deal, but I agreed to tag along. I did enjoy it, though. They have the 2.5 hours of entertainment down to a science. There isn't a ten second period that doesn't have some dancing girls, videos, giant balloons, video, something to keep you occupied. Was good to do. And they celebrated their 20-year anniversary of their championship that night, so we got to see Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen and several other people I knew nothing about. Was still awesome to see them all. The people right in front of us were really into it. I shot this one with my iPhone Hipstamatic.

Fooling Buddha

We went to see the one-man magic show, Fooling Buddha, at First Folio this weekend in the midst of our packing and moving. This had been a Valentine's gift to me from Amy. David Kovac was awesome. The show was a combination of personal stories, vaudevillian comedy, flawless juggling and legerdemain, all in the intimate setting of the First Folio Theatre, one of our great theatre treasures this side of Chicago.

The show leaves the viewer with an odd feeling. You know you have just witnessed clever patter and elegant slight of hand, but the character is so good that he walks away making you wonder if there might be something more to it all beyond prestidigitation (how often does a fellow get to use such a great word?). He seemed like a character out of Ray Bradbury's Dandelion Wine. I could have watched it again immediately. Great showman.

Spaceman Stu

Saturday

Big day today. The carpet people show up this morning to carpet two rooms of the new house. I will be repainting a closet and a wall in the garage. Also home to mend a tiny big of fence just to guarantee there is no way the dogs will get out of their new huge backyard. We took them over last night to let them acclimate a bit. They couldn't get over how cool it all was. We met some of the neighbors who were great. The entertainment center arrived yesterday. It seems to be going well.

So I'm off to 6 a.m. yoga, then home, then the hardware store and then over to the other house.

First Self Portrait

Cropping

I thought a little recropping made this kind of a fun photo.

Good Friday

I took the second half of Friday off and went downtown with my friend Pete. We’ve both had a hell of a couple weeks and agreed it would do us both good to chuck work and mess around downtown. And we were right. We started off at America’s dog where I forewent my usual Baltimore dog for a standard Chicago Dog (jumbo) and a side of sweet potato fries. Deep fried Twinkie for desert. The combined grease and sugar content sucked the life out of us for about ten minutes before we rallied and went to Graham Cracker Comics.

I saw much at the comics shop but only picked up the fifth trade of Grant Morrison’s Doom Patrol. I am actually down to a single comic every month now, The Boys. A coworker had asked me to be on the lookout for Millie the Model, an Archie Comics type comedy comic that ran for 25 years or so on Marvel. I had never heard of it, but the store owner had and explained any collected editions of this book—assuming there ever had been any—were out of print. Millie is a New York fashion Model dating her photog, Clicker. There were probably dozens of these kind of books, but I’m unfamiliar with them. I have only a passing knowledge of Archie based on watching the original cartoon when I was a kid.

Then on to Reckless Records. Was nice to browse. Pete found Revolver on vinyl. I found a very inexpensive disc of Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks, which I had lost a few months ago.

We then walked over to Printers Row and visited Sandmeyer’s Bookstore on Dearborn. Nothing wrong with this place at all. Really nice collection of current books. High Brow. Could have spent hours there. There was an interesting used bookstore across the street, but the guy closed (two hours earlier than his sign said) just as we were walking up.

A couple of friends of Pete’s from the Radio Station had been bumming around Wicker Park and joined us there. Good to talk with them. The Final stop was Garret’s Popcorn for Pete’s aunt. I picked up a caramel popcorn for Amy along with a bag of Chicago Mix, which is a mixed bag of cheese and caramel.

I caught the train back to the burbs and, on the way, met a lady from Oregon who was attending a conference at Wheaton College for World Relief.

It was pouring when I got off in Glen Ellyn, so Amy drove over to get me and we ate at a French place called Bistro Monet. I had a beet salad with walnuts and goat cheese followed by a cassoulet with a duck confit, a duck leg, a lamp chop and garlic sausage. Amy had the onion soup followed by the chicken coq au vin. It was good ruddy fare and combated the rainy cold quite well. To complete my day of gastronomic suicide, I had the bread pudding with dark rum sauce. I made it home and laid there contemplating the damage I'd inflicted on my body. I did not go to yoga this morning.

We're now studying at Barnes and Noble.