Taking inspiration as it comes

Wash: "Would be you get your most poetical about your pecker"
- Firefly, "Heart of Gold"

Or, in my case, when it comes to toilet humour. At this point in my life, I just go with it. Take the inspiration when it comes and all that.

A few days ago, I woke up with this song in my head. No reason, but there it was:



I started to get dressed, and within about 10 minutes, had new lyrics for the chorus. I feel the world is a lesser place without them in it, so I will share.

----
A Single Pair
(sung to the tune of "I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts")

I've got a single pair of underpants;
The loneliest underpants you've ever seen.
Sad ones, grey ones, elastic giving way,
don't really fit, I hesitate, but there's nothing else that's clean!

I'm down to a single pair of underpants.
Riding up my bum in uncomfortable ways.
Fit me like a thong, shifting 'round the whole day long,
Roll the quarters up, it's laundry day.

But when I'm not working...

I've always had a love affair with the darkroom. I first started developing my own black and white in high school, under the guise of working for the school newspaper and yearbook. A guy I had a huge crush on taught me how to develop film and print photos using the enlarger, and I spent many happy hours in there, under the red light, sometimes with friends and sometimes alone. My first real job was doing shift-work in a large photo-processing plant the summer after my first year of college. Fun times.

I did a quick refresher black and white workshop last summer (whee! developing film on a warm August afternoon in the alley behind Queen Street in Toronto, the smell of drunk barf from the night before still lingering in the air... if you can develop film there, you can do it anywhere, I promise). I don't print my own, just develop the negs and scan them. Yay, technology! Progress! Maybe some day I'll play with doing my own colour film, but right now that's too fiddly for me.

When my long-time hobbyist photographer father-in-law heard that I was now developing my own black and white, he dug out and gave me a couple of his old film cameras (he went digital in the late 90s). They are wonderful things, and I love them. Here's a couple shots from the first few rolls I've run through his old Minolta Autocord II (all black and white are home-processed in Rodinol). I have another black and white roll from this camera drying right now, yay! (Upcoming post: the other adopted vintage camera, the 1946-47 Argus C3 Brick.)

There are two seasons in Toronto. "Cold" and "Patio Season"
(March 2012, Ilford HP5+ 400)

Shopping on Queen Street West
(March 2012, Ilford HP5+ 400)

Cherry Blossoms at U of T
(April 2012, Lomography CN400)

CN Tower in Redscale
(June 2012, Lomography Redscale
XR 50-200, shot@50iso)

Still Here, Still Working

I work with words,
but maybe not the way you do.
For me, they are sounds and symbols,
bits and pieces,
some parts visible, some parts not;
parts
to be taken apart
and assigned some kind of meaning.
Social, grammatical — sometimes it's the same.
It's meaning.
Quantify it, code it, count it, run it, explain it.
My life is with words, and their tiny bits and parts.

Shiny Happens

Made on Thursday, April 12, 2012:

 

















Unlocking a Bit of My Inner Lioness (*waves to Elise*)
A yellow-green stone that I love (no idea what it is, I bought a full strand of them from Arton over a year ago), faceted carnelian beads that I've been hoarding a full gorgeous strand of forever, base metal and plastic findings & charm.

Thanks to Michelle and Ailis for organizing the workshop, that was tons of fun to watch everyone's creations take shape. I finally made something with some of my bead stash, and I was able to trade and give some beads away that I'll never use - bonus bead stash clearance!

Days like today

Some days... are not good days.

Some days, even when you have accomplished things — good things — all you can feel is the weight of the things that you haven't done pressing down on you.

Today was one of those days. You know how sometimes when people ask you if you're able to see the light at the end of the tunnel yet? And if that light is likely to be a train?


Sometimes I think the damn light is just unplugged.

So, let's have some pictures that make me happy.


Bullwinkle, is that you?


Only the finest severed heads will do here.

And finally, for Lady S:


They're not daffodils, but they sure are fantastic, no?

Today sucked balls. Let's try again tomorrow, shall we?

Coffee and the Nature of the Universe

When and Where: A city morning in October, going to my favourite local coffee shop.
Music: "Java Jive" (the Inkspots), because duh.
Disclaimer: Not a commercial or intended to be one. It's just a goofy-ass little video shot on my goofy-ass Super35mm camera. I wanted to see if I could put something together in IMovie and sync up sound.