New Camera!!!!!

With the sadness of the death of the old camera, comes the happiness of the new.  This one is another Canon.  It’s a PowerShot SX170IS.  I’m not in love like I was with my previous camera.  But I think we will like each other very much.

Let’s play!  Here is Antares, looking grumpy that I have taken his picture.
 

And again.
 
And here is how far away from Antares I was standing when I took those two pictures.  Excellent zoom!
 
Sentinel!  With flash.
 
Let’s test the fish-eye feature.
Normal.
 
Moderate.
 
Extreme.
 
Extreme fish-eye and Antares.
 
Back to normal.
 
Here’s a new feature I didn’t have before.  Timer, than three shots.  Here are three of Antares.
 
 
 
And three of Sentinel (with flash).
 
 
 
Three more of Sentinel (without flash).
 
 
 
Here is an early morning shot of Paul Bunyan peeking through the trees.

As soon as I read that owners manual (which I have to download as a PDF, it didn’t come with the camera) we will discover all sorts of interesting things, I’m sure.

Welcome Canon PowerShot SX170IS!

Requiem: Canon PowerShot Digital Elph

Oh beautiful camera, you are not fixable.  And this is a sad thing, because you have been my constant companion for the last six years.
 
I resisted getting a digital camera for a very long time.  I had always enjoyed film photography, though I enjoyed it less once everyone else was suddenly carrying around a camera.  Back in the day of print film, only the dorky film people with the big cameras could take the really good pictures.  I liked being one of those people.
 
But a strange thing happened when I got you, darling camera.  You were so small that I could carry you anywhere.  I never had to decide if I was going to bring the camera along because you were so small that you just came with me everywhere.  And, unlike all the small film cameras, you actually took good pictures.
 
And with the whole blog thing happening, and I had somewhere to put all those pictures I was taking aside from a drawer in my dresser.  So we spent our years together, until that dreadful day when I dropped you and you split open.

The loyal part of me wants to repair you, but the sensible part won out.  For less than the cost of repair, I now have a brand new camera.  But you were always my first, little friend.  And I won’t forget you.

Essay: On Not Going to Work.

I did not want to go to work today.  I’m sure you are familiar with the sensation.  I mean, that guy wrote a poem about it and everything.  I’m convinced that there are maybe five people on the planet who want to go to work every day and the rest of us sometimes just wake up in the morning and think, “Nope.  Don’t want to do it.”
Which isn’t to say that we have that thought and then immediately follow through.  There’s a trajectory, and it can go in a number of different directions.  In my own case, there are several levels to travel through several stages before reaching a conclusion.
Stage one:  General health.
Am I unwell?  Aside from the persistent skin thing that doesn’t keep me from working, I’m generally rarely unwell.  I (knock on wood) haven’t had the flu in ages, I don’t run fevers, my colds rarely progress to the point where I need to take a day off of work.  Usually after this general health check, I must continue on to other avenues.
Stage two: What do I have to do today?
Is there a reason I absolutely MUST be at work today?  Sometimes there is a staff meeting, sometimes someone is coming in and I have to meet with them.  Sometimes there too much work to do that day.  But if not, I spiral over to the next phase.
Stage three:  Will my not being there adversely affect anyone today?
I work in a small nonprofit, and we know when someone is absent, especially the three of us who can’t call substitutes.  If I don’t go to work, one of my coworkers will have to take my 45 minutes of recess duty and the other coworker will have to triage all the various “school office” things that happen during the day.  Mostly I don’t get past this stage, but if I do…
Stage four:  Will my staying home leave me feeling guilty and thus ruin the exquisite pleasure of not working on a work day?
Sometimes I can work through my stages, call in sick and not mind much that I’ve thrown a wrench in my colleagues’ day and am neglecting my work.  But mostly when I do it, I can picture how their days are going and how mine will go when I return the next day and it spoils the freedom of the day at hand.
I went to work today.  I knew why I didn’t want to go and it had more to do with the book I consumed the night before and the lack of sleep resulting from this consumption.  It was an okay day, plus it was a short day anyway.  I’ve noticed I take many fewer sick days since I reduced my hours from 40 to 32.  There is something about working 7:30-1:30 that is much easier to bite off than 8-4:30.

 

I suspect I won’t want to go to work tomorrow, either.  I know this has more to do with the un-done things at home than it does with work.  So I will do my best to crawl into bed at a normal time, work through my day in a diligent fashion, and come home and plunge into chores to regain my footing.

Postcard from Las Vegas, Nevada

I love this postcard, only my second in the mail-art category.  Is it not beautiful?  From the number of Postcrossers who request NO mail-art I assumed that I would be receiving a lot of it.  But it has shown itself to be rare, even though my profile says that I love it.
 
Aside from creatively annotating the stamp, I learned that one of J.D.’s favorite places in the universe is Powell’s Books.  Also that Allen Ginsburg once had to physically move her out of the way because she was blocking the door to the men’s room and also that her favorite movie is Bull Durham. With her favorite line being “don’t THINK. It can only hurt the ball club.”

I kind of think JD and I could be friends.

Three sentence movie reviews: Don Jon

Important porn warning:  this movie is about porn and addiction, which I knew and was ready for, but I didn’t imagine that there would be so much porn imagery in the film itself.*  I liked that Joseph Gordon-Levitt was so tightly wound that he was hard to watch–kind of the guy version of the pretty girl making herself ugly to get the Oscar nomination.  I thought the addition issue was captured quite well and overall, this was a good solid film, and I heartily approved of the ending.

Cost:  free (early birthday present)
Where watched:  Living Room Theater with S. North.

*”I’m having porn flashbacks!” my movie-going companion texted me later.

Somewhat blurry images from Wordstock

Wordstock is Portland’s Festival of Words and I managed to attend this year’s event.  I always forget to put it on my calendar and then have too much going, but this year I made it there.

Walking around the exhibit hall, I saw the great scarves with words from famous literature on them.
 

I heard Whitney Otto discuss her new book.
 
Here she is.  Here novel is fictionalized portrayal of different women photographers in the 20th century.
 
This panel was called “A Songwriter, a Novelist, and Some Poets Walk Into a Bar.”  Great title, lousy panel.  It started off badly when one of the poets disregarded the question asked, said, “I express myself best through what I write.” She the proceeded to read an endless poem.  It must have been four single-spaced pages at least.  It went downhill from there.
From my notes:  the poet is pretty much confirming the general belief that poetry is inaccessible.  She is reading what she wrote and I’m not sure when she started writing this, but it is very long.  And it is not accessible.  We, in the audience, are lucky as we can process this out of view, but her four panelists are stuck in full view of us and are tasked with keeping a straight face.
Whew.  Over.
 

Karen Karbo and Kim Dower told us about Publicity and Publishing Secrets No Author Can Afford to Live Without (and Some Gossip, too!)  They were hilarious.  I was already a Karen Karbo fan, and I liked Kim Dower so much I bought a book of her poetry.

From my notes:

  • Every author needs a one-line description of their book.  Then figure out who is interested in it.  Then go and find those people.
  • When you start a book, put aside a little money every month to promote it.  Then you can pay someone to do the promoting things you are uncomfortable doing.  Plus, you will have a partner in crime and that will make you feel better.
  • Cooperate.  Be fun to work with.  (This is a Karen Karbo adage I learned years ago)
  • Keep a folder of anything in the news that is relevant to your book. When the book is published, these are your connections for promotion.
  • You must have a website.  On it should be:  who you are, what are your credentials (esp. for nonfiction), the cover of your book (if it exists), reviews, anything anyone has said about the book, a way to contact you or your representative, two minutes of you talking about your book–so media people can see you are articulate.

 

At the “Captivated by Contemporary” I noticed a local author. Laini Taylor.  I’m usually horrible at noticing famous people in my midst, but the hair helps.  That’s her in the pink.
 
“Captivated by Contemporary” was a great panel full of four YA authors, only one of which I have read, though I quickly remedied that situation.  Stephanie Perkins (Anna and the French Kiss) moderated and I was introduced to Corey Ann Haydu, Miranda Kenneally and Gayle Forman.  Remember Gayle Forman’s name.  She will come up again soon.  Stephanie Perkins was the best moderator of the panels I saw.  Her questions were insightful and fun.  She was also wearing a fabulous dress and incredibly cute shoes.

Here’s what she did to run such a fabulous panel.  She had four clear topics:  Parents, Friendships, Love Story vs. Romance, Sex.  (“I feel like we’re on a date” Gayle Forman quipped)  Those broad categories gave her panelists a lot of room to talk, so good things were said.  Then she opened it up for questions.
 

The crew waiting for the “Literature Online:  Publishing New Fiction on the Web” panel.  “All white dudes.” remarked the white dude on the right.
 
This woman was captivated by the words on the face.
 

The white dudes in action.
From my notes:

  • The thing about online is that you can take tiny steps toward your writing goal.
  • One guy used a Google Ad to name his character.  He had 10 possible names and a tag line. He then bought 2 hours of Google Ads for each name.  After the two hours were up, he was sent a handy graph of which name had the most clicks. I found this to be kind of genius, but he seemed a bit embarrassed by the whole thing.
  • During the question section a nuts-and-bolts-type person said, “But where is the literature published online?”  And then we got a list.  Here’s what I wrote down:  Jute, Hobart, Atticus Review, Slope, Front Porch Journal, American Short Fiction, New Pages.com, Review Review, Duotrope Digest.  There was also the suggestion to get the collections of modern fiction that are published each year and see where those works were originally published.


I then attended a hideous writing workshop which I paid for, but no need to go into that. Overall, it was a good day.