Friends who art, art art
February 7, 2011
(the title? Work it out)
I blow lightly on the glass wafers, watch them tremble, vibrating the shadowlines. I’m utterly delighted at finding a kinetic dimension to what’s been my favorite glass installation for awhile now. And that’s both the wonder and problem of this show, but more about that later.
I’m playing with Stacy Lynn Smith’s “Selection,” which made its “I have arrived” debut last Wednesday night at Bullseye Gallery’s inFORM* show. BE Gallery stuff hasn’t always been to my taste, but as far as I’m concerned they’re batting 1000 lately.
Selection first showed up a couple of years ago in a Bullseye Resource Center show for their employees, took the top prize there, and I remember thinking, “Why the HECK isn’t this in the main gallery?” about two seconds after I saw it. Well thank heavens, here it is.
Bathroom humor
February 3, 2011
You know, if I ever needed a standup comedy routine, I wouldn’t have to look far for material. Between Starbucks and the ladies’ bathroom at work, I’ve got it covered.
This morning I’m in a ladies’ room stall, contemplating life or whatever, when I hear the usual, i.e., sound of the door opening, footsteps into the stalls, stall doors close and latch (mercifully, I won’t go on). This morning’s performance took a tad longer, a bit more shuffling in the stalls, but nothing unusual.
Then a woman says: “Sweetie, my phone is in your stall. Would you mind reaching under and handing it to me, please?”
Verizon + iPhone =Cynthia?
January 17, 2011
Don't think the iPhone matters much to Verizon? Look at their home page.
So Verizon finally gets the iPhone. Does that mean Cynthia gets the iPhone, too?
Maybe not. Or at least, not just yet.
If you follow tech or biznews at all you know that last week Verizon FINALLY announced that it would be selling the Apple iPhone. Verizon stock went wheeeeeee!
AT&T stock dropped like a rock as it scrambled to remind folks that it had LOTS of new Android and Windows smartphones, too, and that its rock-bottom reputation wasn’t all AT&T’s fault.
Beauty break
January 14, 2011
Thought I’d insert a little beauty into an otherwise humdrum life, with one of the most beautiful pieces of machinery ever built: The 1957 Ferrari Testa Rossa.
Just look at those fenders. Sigh.
Just follow the bouncing ink…
November 2, 2010
I’m posting this for no other reason than it’s just incredibly cool. It’s just colored ink placed on a membrane, over a vibrating stereo speaker. High-speed cameras capture what happens when you turn the contraption on.
Makes me wanna go take apart a stereo speaker or two…
Blammomones
September 23, 2010
That’s what I’m calling those mysterious, deadly vapors that cause technology to explode. Some people send out blammomones like a skunk sends out stink, and when they do, you can kiss your gadgets goodbye.
Apparently I’ve been infected. It’s my 11th day on a new job and two computers have died horrible deaths in my office.
So far.
“What,” said Lloyd-the-IT-guy, wonderingly, “do you plan to do on Day 12?”
DroidX vs. iPhone: The decision
September 21, 2010
I’m not into suspense today, so I’ll get right to the point: The DroidX (on the left) is now my sole mobile phone, which frankly surprises me.
I thought about posting a bunch of feature comparison charts to show why I chose DroidX over iPhone, detail the myriads of ways that the winner offers a better, more cost-effective smartphone experience. But honestly? It really doesn’t.
In the end, I based my choice on just two words: Better network.
Whooda thunkit?
Backstory
A few weeks ago, disgusted with AT&T once again, I window-shopped at a Verizon wireless store and came home with a DroidX named Derrick. I had a 30-day return warranty from Verizon, so I decided I’d pit DroidX against iPhone and keep using whoever won. It was to be a two-week contest, but AT&T informed me that my contract was actually 30 days longer than I’d thought (long story). Dumping them early would cost big bucks, so I extended the trial to six weeks.
Color the hard way
September 10, 2010
There are perhaps ten cameras, or camera-incorporating devices, in my house right now, from Darius-the-IMPORTANT-camera to the oatmeal box pinhole sitting under my desk. They shoot pretty effortless color–in fact, shooting black-and-white takes a lot more work.
Which tends to make me forget that there was a time when a color photograph was a big honkin’ deal, and it wasn’t all THAT long ago. Nor was it necessarily a cut-and-dried process, i.e., “stick colored film in slot, shoot.” [Read more]
Shooting a spider
September 6, 2010
Given the number of spiders who’ve gone to their ultimate reward in my house, you’d think I’m one of those jump-on-a-chair-and-scream spider-haters.
Actually, I love OUTDOOR spiders, and spend a fair amount of time in the fall watching them festoon my windows, deck rails and garage doors for Halloween.
Photographing them, however, takes some thought. The golden orbweavers like this one are a gorgeous combination of color and texture, with a translucency that reminds me of amber or jade, or maybe pate de verre. When the light hits just right, they glow.
It’s hard to cram all that into a photograph, especially if you want to include the web and there’s no obliging mist or rain to outline it. When I saw this spider, hanging proudly between the rails on my front porch, glinting in the sun, I gave a long, low whistle and ran for the camera. She was beautiful.
She was also hanging on a dark porch in very flat mid-afternoon light. And I’d dropped a rock on my shutter release and not yet replaced it, so I’d be grabbing the camera to shoot from the dark into a busy, sunny background. that’s about the worst combination around for catching delicate detail like spiderwebs.
So my first effort sucked–they usually do.
Camera re-autofocused, missed the spider entirely.
Obviously, the spider needed a background. I tried a plastic sheet, but it cut out too much of the light. It also flattened the colors and lost the gorgeous translucency.
This looks more like a spider pinned to an antiseptic specimen card, and you can just barely see the web. The detail’s OK, but…ugh.
I switched to a single sheet of vellum for the backdrop, and tried raising it up a bit above the spider to let in more light, and hopefully backlight things a bit. I kinda like this shot, but it still wasn’t right.
It’s better, but there’s too much distraction, and you wanna know what the weird triangle is in the background. Still, the thorax is beautifully backlit, and the legs have some glow. It demonstrates why I think of these spiders as jeweled.
Finally I leaned ‘way over the rail with a single cut-down sheet of vellum, just wide enough to fill the field. Light still streamed in around the vellum, giving me the backlight I was looking for. I’ll probably go out there again and set up a couple of white cards to reflect light back onto the spider and emphasize her furriness, but otherwise the shot looked great.
I, on the other hand, looked pretty dumb. The neighborhood kids watched in bemusement as the crazy glasslady (me) removed her shoe and tried to hold a sheet of vellum steadily between two toes, leg flung over the front porch stair rail in what has to be the most ungainly arabesque in history. Meanwhile, my front half inched back onto the porch to delicately trip the shutter without shaking the camera or the web.
(And no, I do NOT have a photo of this. Thank heavens.)
The youngest girlchild stared at me a minute, then shook her head and headed down the street. I suspect I’m the most entertaining thing on the block.
But I did get my shot. I didn’t ask the spider what she thought of the human cavorting around her, but I do thank her for holding still.
Virtual librarians
August 22, 2010
Ever wonder what’s going on behind the eyes of your local librarian? Possibly more than you think.
I’ve always wondered what makes librarians tick. Certainly they must have a love of books, but I’ve always figured you had to be a frustrated writer to hang out in the stacks. Some of them are; Marian the Librarian-blogger frequently has a keen eye for the ironic and, occasionally, a wonderful writing style.
If I were to sum up many of the more prominent librarian blogs, though, I’d have to say that the sour, forbidding librarian of the movies isn’t that far off. These bloggers appear furious about being librarians, or at least about being librarians in a library that actually admits the public.