Wanted

Must be vinyl. I am making a parabolic microphone.

More Bird Books

Art on Paper

Have I mentioned this magazine yet? There is an article about us (New Catalogue: me and Luke) in it and the cover photo is by us. The article is by Karen Ervine, an insightful curator at the Museum of Contemporary Photography.

Newly Described Bird Species

Zosterops somadikartai, or Togian white-eye

Note my carefully worded title. I could have titled this simply, "new bird" but that is kind of like calling North and South America "The New World." The bird is just new to us, not itself. But, if it is so new, why is there a painting of it? Isn't painting a dead art? Didn't photography kill it about 169 years ago?
Thank you Jen B. for the bird alert.

Brake up

I recently broke up with Sprint. At least I thought I did. Yesterday I got an email claiming that we still had a relationship and they wanted to work on it and they were sure we could come up with a solution. Blah, blah, blah. It’s my fault really – and not in the “its not you its me” sense because it was definitely Sprint. I let a third party, Verizon, take care of the brake up. I suppose, am going to have to deal with this myself. I am not looking forward to it. This may sound crass but I am going to offer Sprint money to move on ($62.40 should cover it).

Not all of these are fake bird books

Again

Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me, fool me three times, shame on Eleanor Farnes (if that is your real name). There are a lot of commas in that sentence. I did not learn much about eagles or even valleys come to think of it.

More Literature

Another misleading title. Not a bad book, but if you were hoping to learn a thing or two about swans you'll be disappointed.

Philosopher's question time

Would you rather people hate you because you are beautiful or hate you because you are rich?

Not about birds

Which I should have guessed by the quote on the back:

Because no one hits birds.

Cover Design

This is the cover for my special, limited edition 4cd box set of songs that have something to do with photography. The image of the cassette is an authentic photogram made from a cassette tape placed on a sheet of black and white photo paper, and then exposed and developed like a normal photographic print. Some time later I will post a list of the songs. You now many of them like Girls on Film and Photograph (Def Leopard).

Now we have a choice

LP of the Week

Alphabetized to the letter M

Tucson

Last night we ate at El Charro , the oldest (1922 - same age as Berkeley Camp) family owned, continuously run Mexican Restaurant in the U.S.A. We watched the lunar eclipse while we waited.

LP of the week

I've started to alphabetize my records

Nicknames

Ivy Parker, Keen Kid, CC Newton, Billy Peru, Curly Monroe: people had good names back when photos were brown and cracked.

Letter (that never made it) From Camp

Click images to read.
Also, she did not leave. In fact, she came back year after year.

Yesterday actually

Today I went looking for somewhere to cross-country ski up near Idaho City. I picked up Steve who was hitchhiking up Centerville Road. He invited me to follow his snowshoe tracks up to his cabin. He said I should go ahead because I’ll “get real tired” of waiting for him as he has to rest every few feet. He also told me to call Leanne’s name when I get to the cabin and tell her that Steve is on his way and that I would like a cup of coffee. Before I had a chance to yell for Leanne, she came out and said, “Talk about catching me in the middle of a haircut…” I told her what Steve had said and she invited me in. She said, “I’m in the middle of getting a haircut.” It turned out that she was also giving a haircut. I drank my good, sweet cup of coffee while she stood over a bucket that was catching the drips from the leaking ceiling, and dropped locks of hair into it. She’d been cutting her own hair since she was ten years old. She also told me that she’d been taking cases to court since she was 15 years old. She grew up in a children’s home and sued said home for abuse. Some people do not take long to get to know. A good thing to know about Steve and Leanne is that there is always a pot of coffee brewing. I learned about Don, her ex-husband, Dotty, whose cabin was taken by the forest service, and what's-his-name who shot himself.
Steve and Leanne live in a hundred dollar house with a million dollar view. They are on top of a ridge with views of mountains and valleys and, on this afternoon, a beautiful snowstorm heading east. They share this house and view with five dogs, three little and two big. Two of the little dogs begged me for pets while the other stayed in a kennel and growled. One of the dogs was a Border terrier mix. I told Leanne that my friend Jon in Milwaukee was about to head to Tennessee to get a Border terrier. She looked disappointed and told me that her dog was just coming into heat. The big dogs were wolf mixes. The cabin was decorated with antelope heads, half a mountain goat and coyote pelts. Apparently Steve got them when he worked at Idaho Youth Ranch, a local chain of thrift stores. Leanne told me that taxidermy does not sell well so Steve had rescued it from the trash.
Oh yeah, one of the first things Leanne showed me was her portfolio of photographs on her cell phone. There were pictures of the dogs, Steve shoveling snow off the roof, the million-dollar view, etc. After I put her phone on the table she said with a knowing air, “So what do you think, could I make it in your class?” She’d been taking pictures since she was a kid. In fact her daughter took a photo class at Boise State and would take some of Leanne’s photographs in and claim them as her own – you know, to guarantee a good grade. I told her she would do fine in my class. She might have to get a phone with more pixels though.