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Weak XXXI

30 July 2021

No. 4,911 (cartoon)

Where did all the time go?

Up your memory hole.

Up yours too!

31 July 2021

Seymor’s Custom Cameras

Seymor announced that he’s going to make cameras. I don’t keep notes about such nonsense, but that may be the dubiousest of his increasingly dubiouser ideas, given that it takes a team of engineers to even design a new camera let alone manufacture one. But ...

To my surprise, he actually had a plausible plan. He explained that he was going to make wooden view cameras that would accept any conventional lens and shutter made in the last hundred years. He admitted that he had no experience working with wood, but that wasn’t important at the moment since his first priority was to grow an oak tree to provide the wood.

And that brings us back to dubiousity. The wood for his cameras won’t be available until 2200 at the earliest, so sticking an acorn in the ground is all he can do to make cameras before he dies.

It’s a really stupid idea; I really like it!

1 August 2021

Exorcising a Photographic Demon

I don’t worry about my anxiety nightmares; I figure that’s the way my mind compensates for having almost no anxieties when I’m awake. For example ...

I haven’t even been in a darkroom for decades. I still have nightmares about ruining film by exposing it to light while processing it, though, so I decided to perform a photographic exorcism of my photographic demon.

It all started when Dr. Landweber exhumed five rolls of 120 film from the bowels of his freezer. I recreated one of my night terrors by hanging the rolls of undeveloped film, still attached to the paper backing, from the clothesline in the shower where the freshly developed film used to dry. Now that I’ve seen and photographed that horrorifical vision, I wonder if I’ll revisit it in a bad dream? I suppose it doesn’t matter; I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a long list of other worst-case anxiety scenarios on tap in my subconscious.

. . .

Technical details can be tedious, and since this notebook can be tedious, I shall conclude with one.

What with futzing with a plethora of pesky details and all, it took me almost two hours to come up with the high-resolution image I wanted. After archiving the twenty-four-megabyte file, I used less than half a percent of the visual data to make the tiny reproduction here, probably the only version of the photograph anyone but me will ever see.

2 August 2021

Remembering Enrico Caruso

Enrico Caruso died one hundred years ago today at the Grande Albergo Vesuvio in Napoli. I haven’t read or heard about anyone else even mentioning the anniversary, so I guess it’s up to me. But what to say?

Here’s my first draft ...

It may or may not be true that it’s not over until the fat lady sings. Enrico Caruso, who might be described as the fat man, stopped singing a century ago. Make of that what you will.

Not so good. I might come up with something better by the time he turns two hundred on 25 February 2073, but I doubt it.

3 August 2021

More Leica Follies

Leica Camera AG’s latest offering looks familiar: the familiar rangefinder windows above the lens, the same circular red logo, and the prominent “Leica Camera Wetzlar Germany” text. The most noticeable difference is that it’s an inseparable part of a plastic bear’s body. The device, a “collector’s item” collaboration with a Japanese company, Medicom Toy, does not take photos.

“So what?” you say. “Most new limited edition Leicas go from the factory to the owner’s display cabinet without a single shutter release.”

I admit you never said that, but you would have if you were me, since I just did. The difference with this Asian kitsch—it’s only available in China—is that it’s not a camera that will never be used. It’s not a camera at all; it’s a four-thousand dollar fashion accessory that features Leica trademarks.

Is that really different than a real Leica, a real camera that looks like a fashion accessory? That’s a marketing question for hucksters trying to relieve stupid rich people from their curse of too much money.

I’ve got better things to do than ridicule the latest Leica follies, so I’m off to photograph both sides of the same piece of string.

4 August 2021

A Titanic Opportunity

It had to happen and it did.

John Joslyn commissioned a half-scale replica of the RMS Titanic, complete with a fake real iceberg. According to a press release from The Titanic Museum in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, “Our iceberg wall collapsed and injured three guests, who were taken to the hospital.” (It’s warm there, so at least no one died of hypothermia.)

It had to happen; irony that powerful cannot be denied.

I hope the theme park hustlers learned a lesson: tourists want a more authentic experience. After a few people were hospitalized from a piddling chunk of ice, I think it’s time to provide more danger and excitement. The owners should have a mechanism that allows the ersatz boat’s bow to submerge in the muddy pond as the bow juts into the air at a forty-five-degree angle. Sure, a few people will suffer broken bones and one or two may drown on occasion, but the free publicity would be priceless!

That has to happen and it will, but perhaps not in my lifetime.

5 August 2021

A Failure to Understand Microphones

I’m trying to ignore the frantic shrieks coming from Ina’s room, but it’s not easy even though there’s no foul or fun play involved. Apparently the sports announcers on the telly don’t understand that they don’t need to scream into a microphone, a device designed to amplify the voice. (With enough amplification, I can shred someone’s eardrums just by whispering into a mic.)

I shouldn’t be surprised, and I’m not complaining. After all, athletic commentators are renowned for their ability to babble excitedly for hours; intelligence is surplus to requirements.

6 August 2021

A Quarter Century After The Ramones

’Twas twenty-five years ago tonight at the Palace in Los Angeles that the Ramones gave the last of two thousand two hundred and sixty-three performances. There was talk of a reunion, and it finally happened on 11 July 2014, when Tommy Erdelyi dba Tommy Ramone died from cancer.

Well dang! How did that get to be so long ago?!

(That was a rhetorical question. No one needs to point out that I’m getting older by the second and that I’m older than any Ramone ever was! Gabba gabba hey!)

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