Friday Surprise!
FRIDAY SURPRISE: The story behind an iconic photograph.
Friday, February 03, 2012
Dorothea Lange made what is perhaps her most famous image, "Migrant Mother", in 1936 while working for the Resettlement Administration. What is often overlooked is her interaction with her subjects, particularly Lange's reported use of a variant of the phrase "I'm from the government, I'm here to help."
Here's a great story and video from the Library of Congress on Lange and the making of that famous photo.
-=[ Grant ]=-
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FRIDAY SURPRISE: Amelia.
Friday, January 13, 2012
Though I'm an admitted fan of jazz and certain eras of what is colloquially called "classical" music (I’m especially fond of Baroque and much of what is labeled "20th Century" music), I also like to listen to marching bands (good ones - a rare commodity), bluegrass, Scottish pipers, and lots more (you can keep the hip hop/rap stuff to yourself, however.)
I'm also a fan of unknown local music, as that is where one finds new artists and musical styles, new interpretations and compositions regardless of where that “local” happens to be. One of the Oregon bands I've listened to for a while, mainly because I like their sound, is called simply Amelia. Have a listen, and check out more of their songs on their YouTube channel.
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: Jack Delano returned. And stayed.
Friday, December 23, 2011
Jack Delano produced some of the better-known photographs at the Farm Security Administration, and during that time he visited Puerto Rico and fell in love with the land and its people.
After WWI he and his wife moved to the island, and Jack continued to make pictures of his new home. The Lens Blog at the New York Times has a nice selection of photos from his Puerto Rico work. No overt political or propaganda messages here, just a nice pictorial made from the heart.
Enjoy, and have a good Christmas holiday!
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: To me, he'll always be Mayor Perkins.
Friday, December 09, 2011
A couple of days ago I heard the sad news that veteran actor Harry Morgan had died. Most people remember him as Colonel Potter from "M*A*S*H", or possibly as Joe Friday's partner from "Dragnet". When I think of Harry Morgan, though, I think of my absolute favorite movie of all time: "Support Your Local Sheriff!"
It was a late-60s western spoof starring James Garner, Morgan, Bruce Dern, and Joan Hackett. Surrounding them was a panoply of character actors including stalwarts Jack Elam, Walter Brennan, Henry Jones, Walter Burke, and Kathleen Freeman.
Morgan plays Ollie Perkins, the slightly goofy mayor of Calendar - a gold rush town where his daughter (Hackett) is the largest mine owner (and, according to her, "THE richest" girl in the entire state.) In rides Jason McCullough (Garner), who takes the job as the town's Sheriff, and spends the rest of the movie dealing with a gang of outlaws and the odd residents of the town he’s protecting.
Morgan gets the majority of the great one-liners in the movie, and he delivers them with aplomb. Take the scene where he's trying to get his tomboy daughter married off to the new Sheriff:
Ollie: "She's a rich little ol' gal in her own right, Sheriff - sole owner of the Millard Fryemore Memorial Mining Company."
Jason: "Meaning...whoever marries her gets the mine?"
Ollie: "Shaft and all!"
One of my favorite scenes is when Jason has just taken the job of Sheriff and asks the Mayor if there is a badge that goes with it. Perkins hands him the badge, apologizing that it's all bent up:
Jason (fingering the dent in the badge): "It must've saved the life of whoever was wearing it!"
Ollie" "Well, it sure would've - if it hadn't been for all them other bullets flyin' in from everywhere!"
Another gem comes when the Mayor is showing Jason around their new jail:
Jason: “Well, everything seems to be in order.”
Ollie: "Our last Sheriff was a good organizer. Yellow clear through, but a good organizer!"
I've made no secret of the fact that I've worn out multiple VHS copies of this movie over the years and am now testing the lifespan of a DVD. I've seen it hundreds of times and have the dialogue memorized, which my wife can exasperatingly confirm.
Even after all those viewings I never fail to start laughing at the opening scene. The dialogue is crisp and witty, with nothing extraneous, and delivered by pros. Morgan's performance is one of the reasons it's so memorable, and the reason I will always think of him in this role.
If you've never seen it, sit back and enjoy.
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: A short history of Unix, and a caution for the future.
Friday, December 02, 2011
A couple of months ago I brought you the news of the sad death of Dennis Ritchie, the co-developer of the Unix operating system. As it happens, his death occurred just before the 'official' anniversary of the birth of Unix - the publishing of the first Unix manual in November of 1971.
Spectrum, one of the publications of IEEE (the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers), has a great article of the birth and impact of Unix. It's a must-read for anyone interested in computers or the history of technology.
One thing in the article struck me: that an original copy of Unix did not exist until it was recreated (and only then after great effort) by some software engineers. It's interesting to think that a vital part of technological history was essentially lost, and might have remained that way had someone not cared about it.
Electronic creations are fleeting; they're jettisoned wholesale when new and better creations are introduced, and nowhere is that more true than with software. We upgrade our software and throw out the old versions; the media deteriorates or the ability to read it is lost. It's hard, for instance, to find an actual copy of any early software for any computer, let alone the more obscure stuff. Software is planned obsolescence in its highest form, and one where the old literally disappears permanently at a keystroke to make room for the new.
The topic of preserving our technological heritage is one I think about frequently. There are many early and important computers which no longer exist; in a few rare instances, like the first version of Unix, enthusiasts have taken it upon themselves to build replicas. The Colossus project in England is a perfect example, without which we would have no record of the pioneering machine or the people who built it.
There is only one SAGE - the largest computer ever built - left in existence, and it is non-functional. These and many more achievements, and the people who made them, are fading into obscurity.
This is of particular interest to me as an author. My work here on this blog (and the rest of my site) exists only as ones and zeroes on a computer somewhere. At some future point all of what I've done will simply disappear; electronic copies of my book can disappear too, no longer left to future discovery on the dusty shelves of some thrift store.
Nooks, Kindles and iPads may in fact be the future of reading, but I'd still like to see paper books available if for no other reason than to serve as a marker to future generations: we were here, this is what we did, and you don't need to restore some ancient device (if it's even possible) just to read them.
'Ephemera' is the term used to describe things that weren't meant to last, things that were never expected to leave an imprint on the world. If we're not careful, everything we do - and our very existence - will end up in that category.
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: Another blow to film.
Friday, November 18, 2011
Many years ago I was sitting in a small room at the Eastman Kodak Marketing Education Center near Rochester, New York. In that room were a number of movers and shakers in the photographic industry, talking with some Kodak VPs about the state and future of the business.
At one point they asked us what we felt was the biggest threat to photography. When my turn came, I told them that in ten years photography would cease to exist, to be replaced by what we then called electronic cameras. My belief was based on the fact that video cameras had, in less than five years, destroyed the home and serious amateur movie business. I reasoned that the same would happen to film photography, and for the same reasons.
The Kodak folks were nothing if not self assured, and they told me I was dead wrong in both my analysis and predictions: "people will always want to hold their memories in their hands", said one executive, and another chimed in that "real movies will always be made on film."
I was wrong about the timeline - it took twice as long for digital photography to take hold as I had thought, and the last bastion of silver halide on acetate as a common imaging medium has in fact been the movies. But that, too, has changed. Another era is ending before our eyes.
That’s because the major makers of movie cameras - Arriflex, Panavision, and Aaton - are now focusing exclusively on digital, and are no longer making film cameras. These companies have discontinued the production of all film cameras simply because no one buys them anymore. The rise of HD video, and their immediacy coupled with lower production costs, is making video the dominant form of movie production today.
There is certainly a place for film, and film production itself has not completely disappeared, but the used market is glutted with 16mm, 35mm, and even 70mm cameras - enough so that the makers of these things, according to an article in at collider.com, have decided that there is no longer any need for new examples to be produced.
It's fun to be vindicated, at least occasionally.
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: That first step is a doozy.
Friday, November 04, 2011
I've never been interested in skydiving. My personal excuse is that one would have to be nuts to step out of a perfectly good airplane with nothing but a knapsack on one's back.
Note the term "perfectly good airplane". If you've got an aircraft which retires itself while in flight you don't really have much of a choice: you bail out or die.
Those were the choices William Rankin faced in 1959, and the results of his decision make for Damn Interesting reading.
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: Another notable passing.
Friday, October 21, 2011
This week I got the sad news that Pete Rugolo has died. Rugolo was a composer, arranger and bandleader, and an influential figure in modern jazz.
Rugolo is probably best known for his iconic work with Stan Kenton. Rugolo's tenure marked the band's transition from playing simple dance music to being one of the most progressive big bands in the history of jazz. Rugolo wasn't alone; Bill Holman and Bill Russo were also actively writing for Kenton in those years, but it was Rugolo who became perhaps most closely associated with the "Kenton sound" of that era. He combined elements of jazz and 20th century symphonic music to produce works that were quite sophisticated and complex.
When June Christy left the Kenton organization to pursue a solo career she called on Rugolo to do the arrangements and lead the band for her first album, “Something Cool”. Rugolo's distinctive style was as important to her sound as it was to Kenton’s, and they recorded a number of albums that together define her best work.
He also worked with Nat King Cole, Billy Eckstine, Mel Torme, and many other notable performers during his long career.
Rugolo did a stint in Hollywood doing film scores and television themes. One of his most well known arrangements was a jazzy reinterpretation of the "Leave it to Beaver" theme song, used for that show's final season. His Hollywood work was not as inventive as what he did for the great jazz bands and singers, but they still stand out amongst the tepid work normally associated with that town.
One of my favorite Rugolo arrangements for Stan Kenton was "Love For Sale." He did the original arrangement in the 1950s, and Kenton would perform it regularly over the years. Here is Kenton's 1977 version of Rugolo's work:
In this arrangement of "Lazy Afternoon" for June Christy you can clearly hear the influence of modern classical music on Rugolo's work:
Here's a sample of some of his Hollywood work, "Who's Sam" from the television show "Richard Diamond":
Here's Rugolo's modernistic interpretation of Claude Debussy's "Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun", performed by the Knoxville Jazz Orchestra:
Finally, one of Rugolo's most well known compositions for Stan Kenton, "Artistry In Percussion":
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: The Bell tolls for one of its own.
Friday, October 14, 2011
A couple of weeks ago I posted about one of our country's greatest research facilities, Bell Labs. Yesterday came the sad news that one of the Lab's shining lights has died.
Dennis Ritchie started working for Bell Labs in 1967 after graduating from Harvard with degrees in both physics and applied mathematics. This wasn't a tremendous surprise: his father Alistair was a scientist at Bell Labs and a seminal figure in switching circuit theory. The family business, and all that.
Dennis migrated to the relatively new field of computer science, where he made a name for himself by creating the 'C' programming language, co-authoring the definitive book on 'C', and - most dear to my heart - co-developing the UNIX operating system.
That dry list of accomplishments may not mean much to you, but a large part of what your computer does has roots in Ritchie's work. If you have a Macintosh computer, an iPhone or iPad, you owe him a special nod of appreciation: UNIX is the underpinning of the OS X operating system, which (in one form or another) is what runs all of those devices.
The development of modern software and the existence of the web as we know it wouldn't have happened the way they did without his work.
Thank you, Dennis.
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: The Great Communicator.
Friday, October 07, 2011
President Reagan was given that nickname during his tenure in office, but all Presidents before and after have needed to stay in touch with the world around them. Lots of stuff to deal with when you're the CEO of a superpower, and being able to reach out and talk with anyone and everyone is pretty high on the priority list.
Seems simple in the days of cel phones, but it's not. The President needs fault-tolerant communications that work even where he can't get any bars on his iPhone, which is why he’s usually accompanied by a communications team. Back in the 1960s, that team - and their huge amount of radio gear - took up an entire rail car. And then some.
These pictures, from the JFK library and hosted at cryptome.org, are of the Presidential train communications car shortly after President Kennedy's inauguration. The White House Army Signal Agency, which in 1962 was eliminated and its functions transferred to the Defense Communications Agency, was responsible for the operation and upkeep of the assets.
Known as the General Albert J. Myer Car in honor of the first commander of the Army Signal Corps, it contained all of the radio and telephone equipment needed by the President and his staff while on the train. When stopped at a station the car’s switchboard was hooked into the local telephone exchange. While underway, all communications were handled via high frequency (HF) radio. It even had a separate (locked, of course) cryptography room!
Presidential train travel had effectively ended during the Eisenhower administration, and I was unable to find out of the equipment was ever actually used by Kennedy's staff. The Myer car was still being held in a ready state in Harrisburg, PA as late as 1970, but its fate beyond that point is uncertain.
It was reported to be awaiting restoration at the Gold Coast rail museum in Florida when Hurricane Andrew hit in 1992, and later was rumored to have been transferred to the custody of the National Park Service's Steamtown historic site. Today no one seems to know where it is or even if it still exists.
(To correct a piece of misinformation: the train itself was NOT called the Ferdinand Magellan. That was the name of the President's private Pullman car, which was sold to the Gold Coast museum in 1959.)
It is a fascinating glimpse into state-of-the-art communications in the early '60s.
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: The Bell tolls.
Friday, September 23, 2011
When I was growing up, one of the foremost research labs in the country (and the world) was Bell Labs in New Jersey. They had all the cool toys to play with, and a large amount of both pure science and technological research was being done there. The Bell Laboratories logo was a familiar one to science geeks like me.
When the Bell System was broken up by the government in 1984, Bell Laboratories became AT&T Bell Laboratories. That didn't have any effect on the quantity (or quality) of work coming out of the Labs, and even the mid-90s spinoff of the Labs into Lucent Technologies - with AT&T retaining some of the best staff for themselves - didn't stop their progress.
A complete list of all of the innovations that came from the Labs would fill a book, but just the stuff most of us know is impressive: the C programming language, cel phones, UNIX, modern solar cells, radio astronomy, wireless LANs, and more came from the fertile minds at the Labs.
Sadly, an eighty-three year legacy of top flight research ended in 2008 when the new owners - the French communications conglomerate Alcatel - decided that things like basic science and material physics were not remunerative enough and dismantled most of what remained of Bell's history. Today what's left focuses only on things that can be commercially exploited in a rapid manner. What was once a shining example of American leadership in the hard sciences was reduced to a 'profit center' of an offshore corporation.
It was a phenomenal run though. Luckily the AT&T archives contain a number of videos that the Labs produced over the years to help educate the next crop of American scientists and engineers. I remember seeing some of these when I was in school, and they always fascinated me.
You can peruse them yourself, but I'll start with one of my favorites: "A Sense of Hearing", which begins with a ultra-cool demonstration in what was once the world's quietest room - using a revolver, of course!
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: You could always count on Hank. Not easily, though.
Friday, September 16, 2011
The latter part of September marks the birth - and the death - of an immensely influential, if not terribly recognized, musician: Hank Levy.
Hank started out as a baritone sax player but made his mark as a composer/arranger for Stan Kenton, Don Ellis, and Sal Salvador. His specialty was 'odd' time signatures that often changed during the song, making for very complex compositions. It was his association with the extremely forward-thinking Ellis that perhaps most influenced his love of unusual times, where Ellis was a true pioneer.
Ellis' compositions tended to be raw, obviously difficult yet still exciting, still 'swinging'. Levy took that same energy but put it into compositions that were a bit more subtle. I remember reading a comment that Levy was the 'commercialized' version of Ellis, a criticism I think unfair particularly given the number of his charts that Ellis recorded. Take 'Chain Reaction', from Ellis' 'Connection' album:
Levy wrote quite a number of songs and the last few Kenton albums were heavily populated by them. I featured a live Kenton version of 'Chiapas' in this blog some time back, but that was far from his only contribution to the Kenton legacy. One of his more sedate compositions for the Kenton orchestra, in the unusual-for-Levy-becuase-it's-not-unusual 4/4 time signature, transforms from a plaintive ballad to an absolute burner: 'A Smith Named Greg', from the superb 'Kenton '76' album.
Some of his compositions are rare; I'm still looking for a copy of his only work with Bill Watrous, titled "Bread and Watrous". Luckily, though, the bulk of his work with Ellis and Kenton is generally available. I'll leave you with my favorite Levy tune and one of my all-time favorite Kenton recordings, 'Time For A Change' - which (if memory serves from personally playing it back in '79) was actually notated as 6+3. Enjoy!
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: I don't often like singers, but there are exceptions.
Thursday, September 08, 2011
The reaction to last week's Surprise was, well, a little surprising. I had no idea there were so many June Christy fans out there, and not all of them old geezers like yours truly. (Can someone of barely 50 years legitimately call himself a geezer?) I'm really quite happy about that, as it shows that perhaps the unadorned human voice may yet win out over AutoTune!
In reality there aren't many singers I like listening to, making her one of a very select few. I should clarify: there aren't many jazz singers I like listening to, because jazz to me is about the music, not the lyrics. It therefore takes a very special vocalist to capture my attention and make me focus on the voice rather than the instruments. June Christy did that.
Another who can do that, and more consistently even than Miss Christy, is Stacey Kent. Stacey is an American who lives (with her musician husband) in Europe. She ended up there not because she intended to become a singer, but because she had just graduated with a degree in comparative literature and decided that England would be a nice vacation.
While there she started singing informally and, buoyed by the reception, enrolled in London's famous Guildhall School of Music. There she met tenor saxophonist Jim Tomlinson, whom she would later marry, and started singing with him. Her unusual voice and phrasing quickly garnered a devoted fan base and won over critics. She's been recording and performing non-stop ever since.
Stacey's style is unique and instantly recognizable. I can't recall ever hearing anyone quite like her, and I think she’s one of the best things to happen to jazz in a long time.
Her first albums were mostly of standards that were simply done incredibly well, making even an old Cole Porter tune like "It's Too Darn Hot" sound fresh and interesting:
A couple of weeks ago I talked about the movie "State Fair"; one of the best tunes to come from it is also one of my all-time favorites: "It Might As Well Be Spring". I wrote an arrangement of it in college, but my version was utterly forgettable; hers isn't. It's set with a bit of a lilting bossa nova beat that is incredibly effective (and something I wasn't creative enough to think of):
Kent doesn't just do the familiar; here she is singing "The Ice Hotel", an original collaboration between husband Tomlinson and novelist Kazuro Ishiguro. It's fast becoming one of my most-listened tracks:
Very few singers can take on the signature tune of another artist and make it their own. Stacey does just that on a song nearly synonymous with Louis Armstrong, who first recorded it in 1968. Fans of the movie "Good Morning, Vietnam" will instantly recognize "What A Wonderful World", but you've never heard it quite like this:
Kinda makes you forget ol' Satchmo completely, doesn't it?
There's lots more of her work on YouTube, and of course iTunes has her albums. Give her a listen, and I think you'll become a fan like me.
Have a great weekend!
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: The Misty Miss Christy.
Friday, September 02, 2011
In 1945 Stan Kenton's capricious vocalist, Anita O'Day, quit to rejoin Gene Krupa's band. Stan needed a singer, and out of the auditions he held one stood out: a girl name Shirley Luster. He hired her and after a name change to the more stage friendly June Christy, she would become the singer perhaps best associated with the avant-garde Kenton orchestra.
In the beginning the young Christy looked and sounded a lot like her predecessor, but without the drug problems and erratic behavior issues that plagued O’Day. Her resemblance (and reliability) may have had a lot to do with her being hired, but she soon found her own unique voice and became a favorite of both the band and the fans. Though she stopped touring with the band in 1953, she would sing with Kenton off and on until the mid-60s.
After her retirement in 1965 she recorded only a single album, a hard-to-find work that was released in 1977. She died in 1990, at the relatively young age of 65.
I've read interviews with her in which she downplayed both her abilities and her importance to the jazz world. She simply didn't believe that her work, both with Kenton and solo, was of great musical value and that attitude no doubt had a lot to do with her decision to quit singing. The ironic thing is that she was not only the singer perhaps most associated with Kenton, but her solo debut album "Something Cool" is today regarded as one of the seminal vocal albums of the cool jazz movement that swept across the country in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s.
Not bad for someone who insisted she wasn’t a jazz singer!
This 1963 recording of "Fly Me To The Moon" showcases her unique style most effectively (despite the bad audio quality of the YouTube upload):
Gone but hardly forgotten, her most recent gig was on the show 'Family Guy', where her recording of the song "Give Me The Simple Life" was presented to a new generation:
Haver a great (and safe) holiday weekend!
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: It's the best one in our state.
Friday, August 26, 2011
I've never made any secret of the fact that, basically, I'm a country hick. Of course that doesn't mean I haven't been citified just a little! For instance, I can't stand country music (authentic cowboy songs are another matter, though - they have no connection to the dreck which flows from Nashville.) I don't own a pair of cowboy boots as they're useless things unless one is riding (which I don't), and I don't wear one of those silly pre-deformed hats that are all the rage amongst the urban cowboy crowd (instead I wear a Stetson Open Road.)
Despite having my rough edges worn a bit smooth I still revel in the things that typify rural life. I've written before of my love of the old-fashioned county fair (something I look forward to with great anticipation each year.)
The way things used to work was that winners of the various contests at the county level would go to the state fair, where everyone would gather to enjoy a good time before heading back to their own county to resume working. Where do you think the sports term “farm system” came from?
County fairs near major population centers have long since abandoned their agricultural heritage, and because of the inter-tied nature of the system state fairs have changed complexion as well. Our Oregon State Fair has lost a huge amount of its rural focus, and today brings in acts more suited for Cirque De Soleil than Anytown, USA.
Still I can't help but feel a twinge of excitement on opening day - which, for us, happens to be today.
In celebration of state fairs everywhere, here is video about Iowa’s state fair and its relationship to the great 1933 film “State Fair”. (That movie would come back in 1945 as a musical, which was bad enough, but was remade again in 1962 to an even worse musical. The music was great, but the acting and modified story lines weren’t.)
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: Free radicals.
Friday, August 19, 2011
When you were growing up did you have a classmate who was, well, uptight? You know the type: boring, unimaginative, establishment, voted "most likely to become an accountant"? I sure did.
He was me.
I spent the first half (actually, more like the first two-thirds) of my life making Alex P. Keaton look like an anarchist. Hippies? Hated 'em. I liked symmetry (LOVED symmetry), predictability; I couldn't stand the new, the non-conforming, the different. (My fourth grade teacher could tell you stories...)
Somewhere along the line I snapped and tilted a little toward the wild side. While I'm still anal retentive about many things, I've learned to embrace my adventurous tendencies. I'll always love opera, but I also like to listen to The Fratellis. These days I'm a little less enthused with staid decoration and architecture and more interested in the crazy and creative ways some people find to enrich their personal environments.
That's why I found a recent entry on the Salvaged Grace blog most interesting. It profiled a fellow named Jesse Hartman and his site Shift Build:Industrial Reclamation. Jesse's passion is making interesting things out of non-interesting things. He's very creative, something I try to be but rarely manage to achieve. At least, not at his level!
Check out his reclaimed oak wall - then click on the '11' in the timeline to see its secret. Cool! I've GOT to do something like that, but I haven't figured out just where.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have a junk pile to explore.
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: I'm such a ham.
Friday, August 12, 2011
I have a geeky confession: my name is Grant, and I'm an amateur radio operator. (Yes, I do have a grid dip oscillator -- and I'm not afraid to use it!)
I mention this because this week I experienced one of the more interesting phenomenon of radio propagation: tropospheric ducting. This happens when a VHF or UHF signal, which is normally limited to line-of-site communication, is bent by a temperature inversion in the troposphere and is able to travel much greater distances than usual. In this particular case, it was nearly 300 miles from my house up to the other fellow's location in northern Washington.
'Tropo', as it's known amongst hams, isn't all that rare but it is a lot of fun. It usually happens in the summertime, especially near the coast where I am. Normally when conditions are favorable I can't find anyone who is also on frequency, and it was simple chance that I happened to be listening to the radio this last week when I heard the other party calling for a contact. When I got a chance to check the current Hepburn tropo forecast map for that day, sure enough conditions were favorable between our two locations.
Ducting isn’t limited to the ham radio bands. Television and radio broadcasts, in fact any wireless transmission in the 50 mhz and up range, can potentially be affected by tropo.
One of the fun parts of ham radio is learning about, and exploiting, atmospheric conditions. It's a little like sailing, I think, where you learn to use the air to take you places. In this case, I use the air to put me in contact with people I don't know but who share my fascination with radio waves.
Now, where did I put that 440mhz Yagi...
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: Yeah, it's uncomfortable. That's not an excuse.
Friday, August 05, 2011
This week marked the 10th anniversary of my father's death. That's not tragic; what's tragic is that he didn't need to die.
You see, my Dad had colon cancer. By the time his symptoms appeared it had metastasized and was essentially untreatable, and it didn't take long before he was buried - along with tens of thousands of other victims that year. Colon cancer is the second leading cause of cancer deaths in this country, and your chances of developing colon cancer are about 1 in 20. That's the bad news.
The good news is that colon cancer is incredibly slow to develop, and because of that it is the most treatable form of cancer. Caught early, the survival rate is better than 90%; caught in the pre-cancerous stage, it's damn near 100%. Because there are virtually no symptoms until it's too late, finding it early is the key to eradication. As my doctor says, it's the only cancer where the diagnostic tool is usually the cure.
That tool is the colonoscopy. A flexible tube containing a camera and a small scissors-like device is inserted into the colon; if any pre-cancerous polyps are found the scissors cuts them off and that's it! Having a colonoscopy every 10 years (twice as frequently if you have a family history or a propensity to develop polyps) is all it takes to keep you cancer free.
It's not a pleasant procedure, I'll give you that, but it's not painful nor terribly time consuming. It's uncomfortable, perhaps a little undignified, but it is the very best way to eliminate even the possibility of development.
If you're over 50, you should be getting regular colonoscopies. If you're under 50 but have a family history of colon cancer, you should get one too. It's quick, it's easy, and it can save your life.
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: Another musician I admire - Kei Akagi.
Friday, July 29, 2011
Kei Akagi, keyboardist extraordinaire, is a sadly under appreciated talent in the jazz world. He's not known as a leader (the Kei Akagi Trio being the exception, and a none-too-exciting one at that) but as a sideman for better-known acts. He played for many years with Miles Davis (where his talent was hidden behind Mile's banal compositions and overly amplified speakers) and Al DiMeola (who never excited me, but some people inexplicably love him. Then again, there are people out there who love Carrot Top.)
It's sad, because Akagi's improvisational talents are tremendous. Complex, insightful, and always interesting are his trademarks. I've found that he's at his best in small groups with lesser-known leaders, where he gets more solo time and a chance to really stretch his chops. This recording with Polish saxophonist Piotr Baron is a perfect showcase of his style and technique. Sadly, Baron is the weak link in this group - drummer Mark Ferber, who I remember from his time with Lee Konitz, is terrific, while bassist Darek Oleszkiewicz, formerly with Art Farmer and Toshiko Akioshi, sadly gets cut off as the video ends just as he starts his solo. Had the videographer heard of a new thing called "editing", he could have cut the minute-long silence before they started playing and gotten more in!
Enjoy the tune, and be sure to check in on Monday -- I'll have my take on the Chiappa Arms RFID dust-up, and I think you'll find it interesting.
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: Another musician I admire.
Friday, July 22, 2011
I haven't talked much about music lately, despite it being an important part of life -- not just mine, but everyone's. It's because of the importance of music to our social and intellectual development that I despair for the musical literacy of our country; American Idol has conditioned the population to consume the musical equivalent of fast food, substituting quantity and glitz for quality and interpretative insight. (It’s sad when a vocalist vying for national attention can’t sing in tune, a basic requirement that seems to elude virtually all of their contestants. Hey, but they look good on camera!)
While most apparent in the pop music genre, this lessening of audience discernment occurs in the classical and jazz worlds as well (though to a lesser extent.) There are musicians and singers who become sensations despite not being at the top of their game, and others whose prodigious talent goes unfathomably ignored.
An example of the latter is jazz trumpeter Claudio Roditi. Originally from Brazil, he moved to the U.S. in the '70s and has been hard at work ever since. Virtually unknown to the casual jazz listener but held in high regard by other musicians, he continually surprises with the complexity of his improvisation. While some players can concoct equally sophisticated solos, Roditi does it musically; in other words, his playing is still listenable, still "swings", while having great depth and displaying superb technique.
Still he remains a somewhat obscure. This might be because his subtle style gets lost when relegated to mere background music. To appreciate what he's doing one must actively listen (which is, in my never to be humble opinion, the case with all good music.)
Here for your active listening pleasure is Claudio Roditi at his best: "Gemini Man", from a great 2007 live session with pianist Helio Alves, bassist Leonardo Cioglia, and drummer Duduka da Fonseca. Happy weekend!
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: Yes, Ma'am!
Friday, July 15, 2011
Today is a proud day for our family: my cousin, Col. Julie Bentz, is being promoted to Brigadier General of the Army in a ceremony at the White House this afternoon!
Though she's achieved the highest rank, she's not the only family member to serve as an officer in our armed forces. Her brother, a West Point grad who also made Colonel, retired from duty just a few years ago; their father, who is unfortunately no longer with us, was a commissioned Army officer though it was not his career; our cousin Tim retired from the U.S. Navy back in the '90s after an eventful Cold War career (read Blind Man's Bluff. Wink-wink.) My father was a Sergeant in the Army Air Forces, and I have several uncles who served as well.
It probably shouldn’t surprise you, then, that our family supports the men and women who wear our country's uniform -- whether it be Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, or Coast Guard. Even when we disagree with their Commander-in-Chief, which we seem to do quite a lot these days.
I only wish I could get away to attend the ceremony (invitations with the White House logo at the top are pretty cool and hard to resist.) Congratulations, Julie!
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: Out to launch.
Friday, July 08, 2011
Today marks the final scheduled launch of our Space Shuttle. While one can argue about the merits of the program, it was a great example of what our country could do if we simply decided to do it. Back in '79 I could not have conceived that space launches would be so common that people would scarcely pay attention to them, yet that's exactly what happened.
As it turned out most of the Shuttle's jobs could be just as easily (and usually less expensively) be done using expendable rockets. Still, despite my avowed position as a critic of government involvement in most areas of life I'm glad that my tax dollars went to fund the Shuttle.
Sometimes, folks, you've got to do something outlandish just to prove you're alive. NASA has given us a collective way to be outlandish, the national equivalent of your local municipality's fireworks display.
Here is a great retrospective of the Shuttle program, via the LA Times. No matter how much a fan of space you may be I suspect you'll find many pictures that you've not seen before.
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: The rocket's red glare, and lots of it.
Friday, July 01, 2011
Down in Florida's Everglades, well hidden from casual view, is the remnant of an idea: to build solid fuel rocket motors for the Apollo space missions.
In 1963 the decision between solid or liquid fueled boosters for what would be the Saturn V rocket had not yet been made, and there was stiff competition between supporters of the two ideas. General Tire Company, which had a subsidiary named Aerojet General, was solidly (pardon the pun) on the side of solid fuel.
They put their money where their mouths were, investing millions to build a rocket assembly and test facility in what was the middle of nowhere. They built facilities to make the fuel and assemble the rockets, a 150-foot-deep silo to test fire the motors, and even a canal to transport the finished rockets through their swampy surroundings to the Atlantic ocean.
The Aerojet-Dade facility, as it was known, built and tested only three motors -- but they were the largest and most powerful solid fuel rocket motors ever made. Liquid fuel was eventually chosen for the Saturn V, and in 1969 the facility was abandoned. Aerojet walked away, leaving everything behind -- including the third rocket still sitting in the test silo!
Someplace Else has a great recap of the whole Aerojet story, including some pictures of the last rocket in the silo. Florida's Forgotten History has a wonderful gallery of recent pictures of the abandoned plant, including the silo. Astronautix.com has some more technical information and pictures, including one of Test #2 -- at night! (Think of the Independence Day celebration you could have with that thing!)
I'll leave you with this brief video documentary, shot by Coffee and Celluloid Productions. Have a good Fourth!
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: The power of the atom.
Friday, June 24, 2011
Here are some rarely seen images made in Hiroshima shortly after the dropping of the atomic bomb in 1945. The pictures were originally classified, but went missing some four decades ago and were presumed lost. The story is that they finally turned up in a suitcase in a pile of trash, at which time the International Center of Photography was able to acquire them for display.
Surreal stuff.
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: Get off my lawn or I’ll Photoshop you off!
Friday, June 17, 2011
Back in the 1980s digital imaging was still a laboratory experiment. Pictures were made on film, and if you wanted to do anything to the image after it was recorded you had to master (or know someone who had mastered) such arcane things as register masking, transparency stripping, and optical printing.
Toward the end of the decade very powerful (and expensive) graphics workstations came available that were able to manipulate digitized images. Note 'digitized', not 'digital'; the pictures were still made on film, and the negatives or transparencies were digitized on a drum scanner to be read by a computer.
The big boys on the block were Scitex, an Israeli company that made a name for themselves in the emerging field of digital pre-press equipment. Their digital imaging workstation was combined with a Hell drum scanner and a film recorder to provide a way to retouch and alter photographs. The negative or transparency would be scanned, manipulated by the computer, then sent to the film recorder -- which made a new negative or transparency which was processed and printed conventionally. The results were almost comically primitive by today's standards, but back then it was a viable alternative to having a very expensive stripped dye transfer made.
Scitex wasn't the only player in the market, but they were the best known. Eastman Kodak, in yet another of their half-hearted attempts to break into digital imaging, introduced their 'Premier' digital editing system in 1990. Like the Scitex it combined a workstation, Hell scanner, and film recorder. I never used a Scitex, but I did get some experience on the only Premier system installed in Oregon. At the time it was magical, but today we can do all of the things the Scitex and Premier systems did on an iPad -- only faster and easier!
Just a couple years later the Premier system I used was scrapped, already a victim of the emerging PC and Mac digital image applications. Cost was a factor in their failure; I seem to recall that the installation I used was well north of $200,000. About that time Scitex gave up dedicated workstations and develop a more cost-efficient system based around a Mac II microcomputer and Sharp scanner. That didn't last long, either; it was quickly surpassed by the emerging (and now ubiquitous) Photoshop.
Here's a great video from 1988 showing the then-amazing things a Scitex could do.
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: How to make an extreme sports video that doesn't suck.
Friday, June 10, 2011
I've mentioned before my annoyance with shooting videos that are accompanied by crappy heavy metal music. Apparently, simplistically repetitive bass lines played at ear-splitting volume keeps those with short attention spans from realizing they’re watching vapid footage. (Not that I'm thinking of anyone in particular...*cough*patrickflanigan*cough*)
It's not just shooting vids, though -- take a look at any random 'extreme' sport video and you'll probably hear the same thing. Skiing, snowboarding, skateboarding, it’s the same tired formula: often good video ruined by sophomoric music. I usually switch the sound off, which seems somehow counter to the producer's intent. Their loss.
Imagine my surprise when I got turned onto a biking video featuring not some synthesized garage band rock licks but original acoustic music -- written and played by a local group, no less!
The video in question is of Scottish rider Danny MacAskill, and features some of the most amazing bike riding I think I've seen. Here in the valley we have the nationally acclaimed Black Rock mountain biking area, so we have lots of really talented riders around, but MacAskill's street trials work is just in a different league entirely. He is scarcely believable.
The music is supplied by Loch Lomond, a Portland-based group that plays "raw symphonic chamber pop". Trust me, that doesn't begin to describe their unique sound! They were a perfect fit for the images of the Scottish towns and countryside in which MacAskill does his magic.
Watch the video, enjoy the music. Gee, what a concept!
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: Root beer revisited.
Friday, June 03, 2011
It struck me last night that I'd not talked about root beer in a while, a sad state of affairs that must be remedied.
You may recall my telling you that my wonderful sister-in-law provided me with a couple week's worth of previously un-sampled brews last February. I binged for two weeks -- one bottle every evening -- but since that time I've gone back to one bottle a week, enjoyed with my wife while watching British comedies on PBS. That's all my primal/paleo diet will allow me to have!
Prior to her gift my all-time favorite root beer was Sparky's from California. The treasure trove of brews provided pushed it down to third place, but that's hardly anything to be ashamed of: it's a close race and all of my top picks are terrific.
My rankings have changed a bit since that last update. At this point I believe my favorite has become Olde Rhode Island Molasses Root Beer. The name is perhaps a bit misleading as there is only the faintest hint of molasses taste, but the color definitely shows the ingredient. It is the darkest root beer I've seen; even the head, which is coarser but more fragrant than other brews, shows the dark blackish-brown color of the molasses.
The interesting thing is that Old Rhode Island wasn't my favorite in any one area: it's got good flavor, but from a purely objective standpoint Eli's is better. The head is good, but not the most impressive; the nose is pleasant, but there are others that are just as nice; the carbonation is darn near perfect, but so are others. In the competitive taste testing it came in a respectable tie for fourth place, but after drinking it a while it's popped up to the top of my favorites list.
It's the combination of things that makes it so pleasant, a case where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. It's just a very pleasant root beer to drink. Everything comes together perfectly to make a great root beer experience. It’s a good illustration of why I consider the question “what’s the best...” to be inane when applied to just about anything. “What’s your favorite and why” is far more useful and appropriate.
Since I only get one root beer every seven days, I want it to be something to look forward to. Olde Rhode Island is one I definitely do.
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: A re-purposeful life.
Friday, May 27, 2011
I've never made any secret of the fact that I'm basically just a dumb ol' country boy. Being from a farming and ranching family (with a smattering of logging thrown in for good measure) I look at the world a little differently than people who don't share that background. Certain things that the city folk do just amuse me to no end.
One of those things is the current 'green' movement. Particularly here in Oregon, this is a Big Thing; folks flaunting their green credentials and one-upping each other over their sustainable lifestyles. Trouble is, they can't see the forest for the trees.
Take, for example, an article I saw recently about how to remodel one's kitchen. Emphasis was placed on such things as making sure the cabinets were made of sustainably grown bamboo and picking appliances based on the energy used in their manufacture. Sounds great, except the article completely ignored the very greenest solution of all: not remodeling the kitchen in the first place!
Simply continuing to use those things which have already been made is far more green, far more sustainable, than gutting the place and starting over -- no matter how much one frets over the carbon footprint of the floorcovering. Replacing perfectly serviceable (though no longer fashionable) items with new items that must be manufactured from scratch isn't ecologically sound, but don't tell that to the people who desperately want a guilt-free way to keep up with the Joneses.
If one wants to truly live sustainably, one does what us poor country folk have been doing for ages: make do with what you have. Part of that is finding new uses for old items that might otherwise be cast aside, and here's where I must admit a certain lack of ability. I'm just not all that creative; I don't look at things and see new ways in which they might be used.
Luckily there are creative people in this world from whom I can steal ideas. One of my favorite sites for repurposing ideas is called Poetic Home; the author is more into the yuppie-chic aspect than the hardcore saving-money-while-not-contributing-to-the-landfills bit, but I'm cool with that because the ideas are pretty good.
A redneck like me reading an urban design blog -- what's this world coming to??
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: Maybe there is something at work today.
Friday, May 13, 2011
Not being triskaidekaphobic, I normally don't pay much attention to Fridays that happen to fall on the thirteenth of the month. This particular Friday, however, is a little different: it was Friday, May 13th in 1988 that the jazz world lost one of its more talented members in a very odd manner.
Chet Baker was a trumpet player of uncommon talent. His phrasing, often chided as being 'feminine', stood in stark contrast to the edgier playing of many of his contemporaries. His solos were deceptively simple to the uninitiated, but showed a sophistication that is intriguing even today. Miles Davis got all the attention, but it was Chet Baker who was more interesting to listen to.
Chet also sang, and in later years tended to do that more than play his horn. His singing was what attracted the crowds, but wasn't nearly as inspiring as what he could do with his horn.
He struggled with heroin addiction for most of his adult life, which drained him physically and landed him in jail on numerous occasions. He managed to get himself thrown out of a couple of countries, and at one point was reported to have lived on the street. Like Charlie Parker, he was known for pawning his horns to buy the drugs he craved. Despite all that, he managed several comebacks -- the most notable being in the late 1970s.
He fell to his death on this day in 1988 from a second-story hotel room in Amsterdam. The death was apparently accidental, and it was determined that he was high on both heroin and cocaine at the time.
Here are two clips -- one early, one late -- showing Chet at his best. Happy Friday the Thirteenth!
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: Clothes don't make the man. Neither does the wallet.
Friday, May 06, 2011
Back in the late '70s and early '80s I was working in a camera store while waiting my chance to make it big as a commercial photographer (which, in turn, was my backup plan if I didn’t make it as a trumpet player. Good thing I had that major in accounting to fall back on! Ironically, I ended up doing none of those things. Life is like that sometimes.)
But I digress. The employees in the camera store would regularly hang their own work on the walls, giving a chance to showcase their talent while establishing a baseline of credibility with the customers.
One of the most common misconceptions was that our photos were good only because of the 'fancy cameras' we possessed. Despite the availability of photography classes (many of which I taught), people would routinely choose to spend gobs of money on expensive gear instead of a mere pittance on developing their skills with what they already had.
Often such people would wander back after a few months and complain that, despite spending all of their savings on the latest and greatest gear, they still couldn't get good pictures. "Why won't a good camera take better pictures?" Sometimes we could get through to them, most times not. The American belief in equipment over ability was, and still is, pervasive.
There are still folks today who do what my colleagues and I did: attempt to educate rather than encourage consumption. Over at Fstoppers, they've posted a video about the making of some great photos using a camera many people have with them all the time: a cameraphone, in this case an iPhone 4. Watch it and see what they do with just a couple of reflectors and a cute girl.
(Think those reflectors fit the definition of ‘fancy gear’? You don't need a commercially produced item - a sheet of white foamboard, spray glue, gold foil from the craft store, and some aluminum foil from your kitchen will make a very serviceable two-sided substitute for a total investment of under $10. You can also use one of those reflective car heatshields, which come with silver on one side and gold on the other.)
The funny thing is that back in the '80s we did the same thing with a Kodak Disc camera. It wasn't about the gear then, and things haven't changed at all. Regardless of the topic at hand, opening a wallet is unlikely to make a person any better at anything -- unless the credit card is paying for an educational activity to help develop a skill.
Invest in yourself first. Always.
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: Mussolini had nothing on these guys.
Friday, April 29, 2011
How would you fill the blank in this sentence: "Accurate as a _____________ watch" ? If you're like most people, the word would be Swiss. To most people Swiss watches are the epitome of timekeeping, and have been since, well, forever.
But that's not entirely true. Today, perhaps, but for nearly a century the country that produced the most accurate portable timekeepers was the United States, and we have the locomotive to thank for it.
Back in the days of steam, in any given locale there would be but one set of track to carry all rail traffic. The rail line that went through town and country would carry freight in both directions, with the direction of travel being determined by schedule. There were no electric signals or radio in those days, so the only way to avoid a crash was to know who was supposed to be using a stretch of track at any given time. Thus, the rigid scheduling.
As tracks got more crowded with more trains, these schedules became tighter and tighter -- down to merely minutes in a lot of cases. The crews of the trains had to know where they were in relation to the schedule, because if they were off by a couple of minutes instead of clear track they'd run headlong into another train.
By the mid-1800s Increasing traffic meant ever tighter schedules, and with little room for error accidents increased. A head-on crash was very costly for the railroads, because not only did it destroy rolling stock and highly trained crews, it could close a valuable line for days or even weeks. Some method to increase safety had to be found.
The railroads figured out that what they needed was a better way to maintain schedules, and the only way they could do that was to give their crews better ways of keeping time. With watches being accurate to perhaps a couple of minutes per day, even a few days of accumulated error could result in death and destruction. The key, they decided, was to get better watches and make sure that they were always of a set accuracy.
The railroads generally agreed in principle, and though there were some differences early on between rival timekeeping administrators eventually everyone came around to pretty much the same standard. Thus the "railroad standard" was born.
The technical challenge was staggering. The goal was to get a watch into service that would maintain accuracy of 30 seconds per week. The best watches available at the time would generally do perhaps +/- 30 seconds per day; there weren't a lot of precision clocks that achieve the goal, let alone a portable timekeeper. American watch companies took up the challenge.
The first railroad approved watches were production models that were 'tweaked' by timekeeping companies that had sprung up to service this new requirement. Men like Webb Ball and B.W. Raymond opened firms that would manage the timekeeping for a railroad - a sort of 19th century outsourcing. They'd buy movements from various watch companies, do some work to make them more accurate and install approved dials, and then sell them to the crews who needed them. Over time the factories started producing their own railroad grade watches which met the stringent standards out of the box.
To put this into perspective, what the railroad demanded and got were watches that kept better time than some observatory clocks, were portable, could endure temperature extremes, would keep their accuracy no matter how they were carried in a pocket, and -- here's the real kicker -- were affordable enough that the working man could afford them. These were not issued, they were simply required. If you were an engineer, brakeman or conductor you were to furnish your own watch, and it had to meet 'standard'.
American watch companies were able to mass produce a product that just a few years earlier was literally a laboratory tool. There was no precedent, but they did it anyway.
That would be enough of a feat, but these watches had to be continually certified and checked by approved watchmakers. With railroads traveling all over the country that meant that this service had to be widely available, fast (a railroad man couldn't be without his watch), and (again) affordable. Watchmakers all over the country scrambled to become 'railroad approved' so that they could handle this regular and guaranteed business. (Not every watchmaker was, and it was a point of pride to those who had made the cut.)
In the space of a few years accidents had been dramatically reduced as a result of this massive system of technology and service. American pocket watches literally set the standard for portable timekeeping worldwide; though there were a few Swiss pocket watches which passed the exacting American requirements in the mid-1950s, most wouldn't. They simply weren't good enough. (Canadian railroad standards were slightly less stringent, and so Swiss pocket watches were able to make inroads into that market a bit earlier.)
Even though the Swiss were able to make a handful pocket watches which were approved for service, their vaunted wristwatches weren't able to meet standards. It wasn't until 1962, with the introduction of the Bulova Accutron, that a wristwatch was approved for railroad use.
It's really a remarkable story, even today. The railroads established unheard-of standards, spurred the development of the technology to meet those standards, and enabled the infrastructure to support and maintain compliance with those standards. It was a phenomenal technical achievement that today is barely a footnote in history.
The entire American watchmaking industry collapsed in the 1960s, and today essentially no longer exists. For that brief period of time, however, it was the best on earth.
Some background for the terminally curious:
Just what is a railroad watch? by Kent Singer
Making a railroad watch, circa 1920 by Edward Hahn.
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: Happy birthday, Giuseppe!
Friday, April 22, 2011
Today is the birthday of Giuseppe Torelli. The 353rd birthday, to be precise.
Torelli was an Italian composer who was a key figure in the development of the concerto form as we know it today, and particularly so with regard to the solo concerto -- where a single instrument is accompanied by an orchestra.
Up until the mid-17th century the concertino form was the norm, wherein a small group of solo instruments was accompanied by the orchestra. The solo concerto, which today is the dominant form, put a single performer into the spotlight. It was the new thing in Baroque music, and Torelli was one of the leaders in that movement.
Torelli authored a large number of major works, over a hundred of which are fairly well known, and was the most prolific Baroque composer of trumpet works (which is why he's a hero to me!) I've never been to the basilica of San Petronio to look at his archives, but I understand it contains many works which are no longer activel published.
Here's a great video of a performance of one of his best-known works, the Concerto in D Major for Trumpet and Orchestra. This is a performance recorded at the 15th century church of Chiesa del Carmine in Cagliari, Italy. The soloist is Giorgio Baggiani, one of the (oddly) few well-known Italian trumpet soloists. It's refreshing to hear his interpretation of this sometimes overdone piece. Note his rotary-valve trumpet, an instrument not commonly seen in this country:
Finally, a much rarer piece: the Sinfonia for 4 Trumpets, Strings, and Continuo. Torelli composed this just around 1702, and it went unpublished until after his death in 1709. He wrote it specifically for the basilica of San Petronio, and that is where this recording was made.
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: Rock-a-bye baby, in the treetops.
Friday, April 08, 2011
I'm entering my second childhood, though the fact that I haven't grown up yet makes it hard to differentiate it from my first.
I mention this because our property has a surplus of trees - and I've been itching to build a tree fort, or treehouse as some call them. I had one when I was a kid (I’m speaking strictly in chronological terms), and it was a marvelous abode suspended above the creek on our farm. Now that I think about it, that was prime real estate!
As an adult (again, in age only), my desire to once again enjoy sitting in the treetops was always stymied by lack of suitable timber in the suburbs where I lived.
What's odd is that when we moved back to the country I didn't immediately put up a tree fort. I should have; things like a roof on the house and proper septic system seemed to edge it out of its proper priority. Now that I have a little time between projects, I think about how I'd build mine.
Of course I need inspiration, and I discovered that there is a Flickr pool called "Treehouses of the World"! Excuse me, but I need to go back to, uh, work. Yeah, that's the ticket!
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: France in spring.
Friday, April 01, 2011
Joel Meyerowitz ranks as one of my all-time favorite photographers. He jumped into the spotlight with the 1979 publication of his groundbreaking book "Cape Light" and has been going strong ever since.
At the time that book came out I was shooting mostly B&W. As I'm now known as "the revolver guy", back then people knew me as "the black-and-white guy'. I tried to embrace color as a means to interpret a scene, but couldn't get past the concept that it was merely a recording tool. For me, B&W was the expressive side of photography; color was what you took boring vacation pictures with.
I’d been exposed to the work of acknowledged masters of color such as Gordon Parks and Ernst Haas, but neither really said much to me. Meyerowitz's work, on the other hand, resonated deeply. It changed the way I looked at color, even though my work and his look nothing alike. His work had feeling, capturing how his scenes felt rather than merely appeared.
Now, at 73 years of age, Meyerowitz has embarked on a new project. He's gotten a commission for yet another book, this time on Provence. He's spent a lot of time in Tuscany (and did at least one book there), but apparently this is his first time seriously photographing the French countryside. It will no doubt be a great set of images.
He and his wife Maggie are blogging about the project. Their blog is only a couple of weeks old, but I'm already hooked on charting their progress. Naturally it's liberally illustrated, and it will be interesting to see what makes it into the book.
That is, if he can just stay away from the hot water tap. (You'll have to read the blog to find out...)
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: Let's eat!
Friday, March 25, 2011
I read recently that a minority of the grand kitchens that are a staple of suburban houses are actually used to cook. By 'cook', I mean making food from scratch, as opposed to heating up pizzas or 'making' cookies from frozen pre-made dough. Given the pressures of careers and overburdened elective activity schedules, people don't take the time to cook let alone learn how to.
When I grew up that wasn't the case. Way back when (exactly how far back I'm not saying, in order to protect the innocent) schools had classes where students could learn to cook. Yeah, most of them were girls, but in the ‘70s you could find guys taking those classes too. Even if they didn’t avail themselves of those courses, most kids had moms at home who could teach them the finer points of preparing for human kind’s most basic need: to eat.
As it happens one of the girls I knew in high school had learned to cook, and she was very good at it. She got married and had children, which further necessitated the need to cook. Seems those offspring-things like to eat; who knew?
Unlike most, however, she wasn't content with a small collection of favorite and endlessly recycled recipes. She was always trying something new, always expanding her repertoire. Her recipe file became less like a cute box and more like a four-drawer lateral filing cabinet. And that was in 1995. I shudder to think what it's like now, but if you'll recall the final warehouse scene from "Raiders of the Lost Ark" I think you'll get where I’m going with this.
Thanks to the magic of the interwebs she's now sharing some of her bounty with everyone. In The Kitchen With Mummsie is her new recipe blog, and though only a couple months old she's off to a roaring start. Her recipes have always been delicious; take her version of roasted chicken, for instance. It’s quickly become one of my favorites (though my wife substitutes raw honey for the sugar; I hope she’s not offended!)
I just wish our paleo/primal diet allowed us to indulge in her Overnight Banana-Walnut French Toast. Oh, the agony!
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: Brian Lanker, 1947-2011.
Friday, March 18, 2011
Brian Lanker, Pulitzer-prize-winning photographer, died last week at only 63 years of age. He lived here in the Willamette Valley of Oregon, in the college town of Eugene.
Brian started out at the Topeka Capital-Journal, where in 1973 he shot a surprisingly controversial essay on childbirth. At that time there were almost no published pictures of a child actually being born, which might seem odd today. This was 1973, however, when a father's presence in the actual delivery room was still a rare occurrence. It was a time when mothers went in by themselves, and a nurse or doctor would walk into the waiting room to announce "Mr. Smith, you're the father of a beautiful little girl!"
That essay - featuring the woman who would end up becoming Brian's wife - netted him a Pulitzer Prize and catapulted him into the 'big leagues.'
After earning his Pulitzer Brian was hired at the Eugene Register-Guard as their Director of Graphics. His tenure changed the face of photojournalism across the country, affecting the ways in which much larger newspapers approached the use of visual information. What your paper looks like today can be traced directly back to the work that Lanker did in what many would think to be a ‘backwater’ of journalistic ability. He also mentored younger photographers, and there are a number of good photojournalists working today who got their start in his department.
Of course his tenure at the paper didn't stop his photography. He continued to do assignments for magazines, corporate advertising, and along the way published several books of his work. Brian was versatile enough to jump from shooting the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition (two years in a row) to doing “I Dream a World: Portraits of Black Women Who Changed America” with equally superb results. Very few photojournalists have that kind of ability (though they all think they do!), but Lanker did. He did it all, and did it well.
You can read more about his incredible legacy at the New York Times Lens Blog (which includes a great retrospective of his work), an interesting personal viewpoint from his lawyer published in the Eugene Register-Guard, and see a small sampling of his work at his own website, brianlanker.com.
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: Stuff happens. Don't let it happen to you.
Friday, March 11, 2011
I've been a little peeved this week at the news outlets. While the Middle East is destabilizing and governments here at home experience financial and leadership deficits, the main story for many 'journalists' has been of the most shallow nature: the mental and emotional short-circuiting of a two-bit Hollywood denizen whose initials are 'C.S.'
Sheesh.
In light of the incredible earthquake in Japan last night, the distraction that the Friday Surprise exists to provide seems a tad shallow as well. Today, I'd like to instead remind everyone that it's not always all about the gun.
Sometimes, it's about the first aid kit.
Sometimes, it's about the shortwave radio.
Sometimes, it's about the camp stove.
Sometimes, it's about the water purifier.
Sometimes, it's about the emergency generator.
Sometimes, it's about the stored food.
Sometimes, it's about the solar battery charger.
I know that your neighbors laugh at these things; heck, there are probably more than a few readers of this blog who laugh at such things. To those people I simply ask: if that happened here, would you still be laughing?
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: All steamed up.
Friday, March 04, 2011
On more than one occasion here at the Revolver LIberation Alliance I've griped that all of the 'cool stuff' seemed to exist back east. ("Back east", for a child of the west such as myself, might mean anything from ‘east of the Mississippi River’ to ‘all lands to the right of the Rocky Mountains’. Take your pick.)
I've lamented about the old subway tunnels we don't have, to the gigantic industrial machines that are absent from our part of the world. It turns out, though, that there is a very cool place darned near in my backyard: the last operational vintage steam powered sawmill in the United States lies right here in my own Willamette Valley!
Hull-Oaks Sawmill was built in 1938, a time in which steam was still a most viable way to power any large machinery. The main steam engine which powers the gigantic bandsaw blade, is an Ames Iron Works twin cylinder that was built in 1906. It's still running strong, and according to the mill's owner suffers fewer breakdowns than any other piece of equipment in the mill. So famous is this particular engine amongst steam aficionados that there are companies selling working models and kits.
There is a great story about the mill at thisiscarpentry.com. Lots of pictures! There are even multiple videos on Youtube of the mill in action - like the one below. Yes, I'm planning to visit the mill as soon as the weather warms up!
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: Hiding her light under a basket.
Friday, February 25, 2011
A couple of years ago one of those self-storage concerns in Chicago auctioned off the contents of one of their units. This is not an uncommon occurrence throughout the country; when a storage unit's rent goes unpaid, the storage company opens the unit and auctions off whatever they find. (I went to one such auction, and when the unit was opened it was discovered that the renter had disassembled an entire automatic car wash and stuffed it into the space!)
In this particular case the unit had been rented by one Vivian Maier, who - as it turned out - had died in April of 2009. Ms. Maier had no heirs, no one who apparently knew of this rental, and so her belongings went to the highest bidders.
As it turned out Ms. Maier was something of a photography buff. In this unit were hundreds of thousands of negatives and slides, and hundreds of rolls of exposed but undeveloped film. Several people bought several lots of this stuff, and there the story might have ended were it not for the fact that Ms. Maier was, by all appearances, a talented photographer - a very talented photographer.
The bulk of her collection ended up in the hands of two different gentlemen: John Maloof, described as an "eBay entrepreneur and real estate agent", and Jeff Goldstein, who apparently has a background in art galleries and shows. Maloof and Goldstein have become crusaders of sorts for their desire to expose Vivian Maier's talent to the world.
The NY TImes LENS Blog has a pretty good article about the discovery, along with some of her images, while Maloof's Vivian Maier Blog and Goldstein's Vivian Maier Prints site show some more of her work, along with their takes on her life and legacy.
And what work it is! Her photos are very compelling and show a photographer who is in full control of her craft. Technically and artistically, her work is as good - better, in many ways - as photographers who have made much bigger names for themselves. Her pictures are worth examining closely, because they really are a find.
There is, however, one nagging question in the back of my mind: was she for real? There's something I can't quite put my finger on, something that leaves me with doubts about the poignant picture that has emerged of Maier - unmarried, no children of her own, living out her life as a nanny while maintaining a secret identity as an ace street photographer. The thing that comes to my mind as I look through her photos is that they’re too good.
It’s not just the images. Her whole story just seems too good to be true, so like a movie plot that it could almost be a very slick viral marketing campaign for an upcoming Hollywood blockbuster. That she looks a lot like actress Nancy Kulp, best known for her portrayal of Miss Jane Hathaway on The Beverly Hillbillies, only intensifies the doubt.
Goldstein and Maloof, of course, insist that everything is on the up-and-up, but it's worth noting that they both stand to profit from their ownership of her work. I'm not saying that's their motivation (at least, not their sole motivation), but the possibility must be considered.
In the meantime, there are the photographs: undeniably good, wonderful to peruse. Whether Vivian Maier took them or not, they're still terrific. Go and have a look.
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: Nostalgia ain't what it used to be.
Friday, February 11, 2011
One of my favorite places to buy quality tools is the Harry Epstein company. They've been in business at the same location in Missouri for over 80 years, and though I've never been there (in fact, I've never been to Missouri) I enjoy shopping through their retro-themed website.
This isn't their first foray into mailorder, however. Back in the days before the internet, when Al Gore was still getting his privileged education at a private boy's school in D.C., Epstein's had a catalog from which one could order all manner of things: baseballs, wrenches, hatchets, rifle scopes, cleaning supplies, and all the other stuff a well-stocked homestead might need.
They recently scanned their 1965 catalog and put it up for viewing. (If you prefer, you can download a .pdf copy.) If you remember the 1960s, sit back and reminisce. If you were born after that time, read it with the understanding that the federal minimum wage that year was a whopping $1.25, making the surplus Enfield on the back cover worth very close to two full days of labor.
So much for reminiscing!
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: Giant Slurpee.
Friday, February 04, 2011
My buddy Hunter Dan sent this to me - a video about the phenomenon of 'frazil ice' in Yosemite National Park. This is so cool (pardon the pun.) Yet another thing to add to my list of places to go and things to see. Have a good weekend!
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: What matters to you?
Friday, January 28, 2011
David Friedman is one of my favorite bloggers. His posts, though few in number, are always thought provoking. (Just what you'd expect from "an academic economist who teaches at a law school and has never taken a course for credit in either field.")
This is a few months old, but it's worth reading. He wonders if, in the coming years, we will see the rise of yet another division in society: the real and the virtual. Which matters most?
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: The remains of the day.
Friday, January 21, 2011
Last week I linked to an article about an eery graveyard behind a sanitarium, and fellow gunsmith Todd Koonce wrote to remind me of the Library of Dust here in Oregon. It’s something we all know about, but sadly tend to ignore.
The Oregon State Hospital, the current 'PC' name for what was once the Oregon Asylum For The Insane, once boasted a cemetery of their own where unclaimed patient remains were buried. Around 1913 the hospital, occupying property close to downtown Salem, decided that they needed the real estate being taken up by those graves. They had the bodies exhumed, cremated, and stored in copper urns bearing a distinct resemblance to paint cans.
These urns were put on shelves in the hospital's basement, added to over the years, but largely forgotten until the mid-1970s. That's when public outcry resulted in the urns being properly buried in a special crypt on hospital grounds. This is Oregon, though, where it's tough to find a dry basement; water infiltrated the crypt, destroying hundreds of paper labels and corroding many of the cans. The patient's remains - some 5,000 of them - were exhumed again, and the corroded and sometimes dented copper cylinders were put back on shelves in a small room in the hospital.
BoxVox has a great story and many of the best pictures of these morbidly fascinating objects.
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: Things that make you go "hmmmm...."
Friday, January 14, 2011
A cemetery behind a former lunatic asylum is unnerving enough, but one in which most of the graves are...unmarked? Now that's just weird.
Picture courtesy of www.deenawarner.net
Creepy. Read about it at Deena Warner’s Odd Staunton blog.
-=[ Grant ]=-
P.S.: This one's for you, Gail!
FRIDAY SURPRISE: "What's a bathing suit?"
Friday, January 07, 2011
We learned this week of the death of actress Anne Francis; a little more than a month ago Leslie Nielsen passed away. What did the two have in common? Why, the great 1956 science fiction flick "Forbidden Planet", of course!
Forbidden Planet is one of my favorite films. As a kid I liked the adorable Anne Francis, the special effects (remember that this was made more than fifty years ago, but still holds up pretty well), and Robbie The Robot (I had a battery powered Robbie toy when I was growing up; too bad I destroyed the thing during adolescence.) As an adult I appreciate the story line and philosophical questions the film raises (and, well, Anne Francis. Some things never change.)
If you've never seen this classic film, here's the trailer to give you a taste. Have a great weekend!
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: This is end, my only friend, the end.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
If you've been reading this blog for a while, you'll remember that I've been following the demise of Kodachrome film with some interest. In June of '09 came the news that Kodak had stopped producing the stuff, and in August we learned that the last roll produced by Kodak had been processed at the sole remaining Kodachrome processor. We also learned that they would be closing that service at the end of the year.
Yesterday, December 30th 2010, the last roll of Kodachrome was processed and the machines were turned off for good. The complex chemicals necessary to take a roll of Kodachrome from exposed film to vibrant transparency are no longer made, and it's not possible to do the process in one's basement. Kodachrome is dead.
Non-photographers, or those who have come up solely in the digital age, may not understand the wistfulness of this subject. That's partly because Kodachrome's attributes can't yet be duplicated in digital. My 24mp SLR can beat the resolution, but it can't match the color depth, unique tonal rendition, or the enlargability of the image (a transparency gets grainy as it's enlarged, while a digital image loses resolution.) Many people have tried to duplicate the Kodachrome look in Photoshop, but no one has succeeded. Someday maybe, but for now that look is gone.
Lest you think I'm pining for the old days, think again. I never shot a lot of Kodachrome, because it didn't match the way that I saw my subjects. I was always looking for subtle tonal transitions, accurate color reproduction, and wide luminance ranges - all the things that Kodachrome couldn't deliver. (Digital has trouble doing so too, but that’s another topic entirely.) That doesn't mean I didn't shoot the occasional roll (or ten or twenty) when I wanted that look, but it wasn't often I did.
What bothers me about the death of Kodachrome isn't how it looked, but its accessibility over time. One can go to the Library of Congress and peer at many Kodachrome transparencies made nearly seventy years ago, and they're as vibrant today as they were then:
Digital images, being composed of ones and zeros, won't degrade over time, but the media on which they're stored will. More importantly, our ability to read that media may deteriorate faster than anything. Computerworld ran this great 2009 story of the difficulty of reading lunar images stored on tape a scant 40 years ago. What happens in the latter part of our century, when the hard drives and DVDs that are common today can't be read - because the technology has changed?
With a Kodachrome, all you have to do is look at it. That's what makes it special, and why its disappearance - as well as that of all the other analog imaging media - is so concerning to future history.
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: A great musician transcends boundaries.
Friday, December 17, 2010
Back in the '60s and '70s Maurice Andre was the preeminent trumpet player in the classical world. Those of us who seriously studied the trumpet held him in the highest regard for his light, airy tone and great technique, not to mention his promotion of the piccolo trumpet as a serious solo instrument. I had many of his records (yes, records - remember those?) and even attended his only Portland appearance. It was everything I'd expected from The Master.
When I got into college I gravitated to the record section of the library. There I was able to find obscure recordings that were unavailable from the record stores, even the massively stocked Tower Records. (Ahh, the good old days!) One of the records I found was an odd-sized LP from the Soviet Union featuring a trumpet player I'd never heard of.
Just to set the scene: this was 1979, and the Cold War was still raging despite overtures like 'Detente'. 'Glasnost' was still years away, and everything coming from the Evil Empire was viewed with a nationalistic revulsion.
(I can remember attending the 1974 World’s Fair and going through the Soviet Pavilion. Dad was curious to see it - no doubt influenced by the incredibly lovely young ladies that comprised their tour staff - but Mom wasn't as eager. There seemed to be more people outside the pavilion shooting pictures than at any other venue, and it wouldn't surprise me to find a shot of my family in some CIA file! That was the suspicion with which anything from the USSR was held.)
The recording I found was of the first chair trumpet in the Bolshoi Orchestra. His name was Timofey Dokshizer, and despite the incredibly poor recording technology (seriously - didn't the Russkies have electricity in their studios?) it was clear that this was a musician of stupendous talent.
After the USSR broke up more of his recordings made their way into this country, and we could finally get a good feeling for what Dokshizer could do. He started making more international appearances, though I'm not aware of any in the U.S., as well as better recordings. Though he never achieved the star status of Andre, he was held in the highest regard by those of us who knew the instrument.
Dokshizer was particularly known for championing the work of modern Russian composers. Beyond arranging solo parts for trumpet, he also commissioned many original works. One of his signature pieces was an arrangement of the haunting Concerto for Coloratura Soprano & Orchestra op.82 by Reinhold Glière:
The comparison between Andre and Dokshizer couldn't be more stark: Andre always played his solos in a manner that left him still a part of the orchestra; Dokshizer played as a standout, proud of the trumpet's ability to rise above the rest of the instruments. Andre was subtle; Dokshizer was powerful. Andre's interpretations were prototypically French; Dokshizer bared his Russian soul.
Listening to Andre makes me happy; Dokshizer is the only trumpeter whose playing can bring me to tears.
Timofey Dokshizer was born during this week in 1921 and died in 2005. He left behind a fraction of the recordings made by Andre, and finding them is complicated by variants in the spelling of his name: you'll see Timofey and Timofei, as well as Dokshitzer, Dokshizer, and Dokshutzer. It's worth the trouble to find his works, as very few trumpeters are capable of his kind of musicianship.
I'll leave you with a live recording made during a Japanese concert tour. Enjoy!
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: In praise of the M-1965.
Friday, December 10, 2010
The M-1965 Field Jacket, to be precise. Or, if you prefer, the ever-so-GI nomenclature of "Coat, Cold Weather, Field."
I'm not a general fan of, or expert on, military stuff. There are people who are, and more power to 'em, but I'm only interested in the gear to the extent that it benefits me. The M-1965, fondly called the "M65", benefits me greatly!
The M65 was the standard issue coat for the United States military from 1965 until 2009. It was the result of several redesigns to the original M-1943 field jacket that served our troops in WWII. The M-1943 got a makeover in 1950 and again in 1951, but in 1965 it attained the form we know and love today.
The M65 has four large pockets, all of which close with heavy-duty snaps. The cuffs close with Velcro tabs, which are my only complaint about the jacket. (You may recall me saying that I hate Velcro!) That's easily remedied by the installation of a couple of brass snaps, a modification to the original that I highly recommend. Other than the Velcro, the rest of the coat is pretty much bombproof.
I don't know how well it served our troops, but I can tell you that it makes the perfect knock-around farm coat. It's incredibly durable, wind resistant, and with the optional button-in quilted liner is very warm. The only real downside is that they're not terribly water resistant. The cotton in the fabric blend absorbs a lot of water, but a can of silicone waterproofing spray significantly improves the situation. This is especially important in the rainy climate of western Oregon!
One of the best things about the M65 is the freedom of movement it affords the wearer. I'm a short guy whose shoulders are broader than average for short guys, and I have trouble with arm movement on many coats. Extending my arms forward usually tightens the material on the upper back, while the sleeves slide up the forearms and the cuffs bind enough to severely limit the reach. This combination results in extremely uncomfortable movement, but the M65 is cut in such a way as to allow for that kind of athletic activity. If you have to actually do things outdoors, as opposed to standing around and looking pretty, the M65 is what you need.
The coat was originally made in olive drab, later in woodland camo, and finally in desert camo and the new digital (ACU) patterns. My favorite is the old OD color with the heavy brass zippers, though I have a couple of early woodland examples as well. I wear them for any dirty or rough outdoor activity, from building structures to cutting trees, and I have yet to wear one out.
The quilted liners, being of light and fluffy nylon construction, don't usually fare as well. That's not a problem, because liners are readily available on the surplus market and are cheap; I bought a very large box full a few years ago when my local surplus store had them for a buck apiece!
M65s are commonly available at your local surplus store and are still made and sold new on the civilian market by government contractor Alpha Industries.
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: Coping.
Friday, December 03, 2010
Twenty years ago this week a major figure in American culture died. So important was he to the musical history of this country, and of the American people, that I think it worth a moment to reflect on the work of Aaron Copland.
Whether you know it or not, you've heard Copland's music - from the opening ceremonies of political conventions to commercials for food products. Even if you've missed his actual works, you've probably heard his legacy through his many students, from Michael Tilson Thomas to Elmer Bernstein. Copland, it seems, is everywhere, even in death.
Why? Because Copland was at the forefront of a sea-change in serious music. Until Copland (and a few of his contemporaries) came along the symphony was a European property. We certainly had American orchestras and American composers of symphonic works, but their music sounded like that of their European peers. The symphony at that point was an elitist musical form, set on a pedestal and seemingly the province of only the cream of society.
Watch the full episode. See more Keeping Score.
These young lions approached the symphony form (and, by extension, all symphonic works) with a distinctly populist point of view. Together they’d forge what would become known as the "American sound" and bring music back to the people to whom it really belonged.
While a number of composers like Virgil Thomson were part of this movement, it would be Copland who would become most closely associated with it. His compositions were the most true to how America saw itself, because Copland’s style wasn't just about the American sound - it was about capturing the American attitude.
Copland's compositions are marked by an almost minimalist use of notes, in stark contrast to the comparatively florid works of his European contemporaries. He uses only enough instrumentation to convey the essence of the message, yet this sparseness is often incredibly powerful. His music is open, warm, and speaks to the large spaces and towering achievements that marked the United States of the 20th century.
His western ballets - Billy the Kid and Rodeo - evoke the vastness and ruggedness of the American west in a way little else did. How was a kid from Brooklyn able to write music that so perfectly captured the spirit of the West? Copland once said something to the effect that it was because every American boy simply knew what the West was like, and he composed to match that collective consciousness.
(Rodeo's lasting legacy is probably due to a particularly rowdy clip used as background music in the "Beef - it's what's for dinner" commercials. You know the music, and even if you've never heard the full piece you picture cattle and the West when you hear it. That's why it was chosen for the commercials, and I doubt there's another piece of music that evokes such strong images.)
From his Symphony No. 3 to Appalachian Spring to Lincoln Portrait to Fanfare for the Common Man, Copland's works are simple but never simplistic, stirring but not maudlin, patriotic but not nationalistic. I defy anyone to listen to any of his music and not feel the essence of this great country. Even if you're not be a fan of serious music, you'll find something in his work to stir your soul.
That's what music is all about.
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: "...nothing can stop the Army Air Corps!"
Friday, November 26, 2010
That line may not be familiar to you, but if you replace "Army Air Corps" with "U.S. Air Force" and start with "Off we go, into the wild blue yonder..." you'll probably recognize the tune.
Yes, the Air Force Song was originally written not for the Air Force but for the Army Air Corps, as what would become the fifth armed service was then called. (FIfth? Yes - or have you forgotten the men and women of the United States Coast Guard?)
I was reminded of this when reader Art Kramer passed along the link to his website with reminisces of the 344th Bomb Group during World War II. It’s filled with great pictures and short but moving stories about his time in the service of his country. The site is well worth your time to visit.
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: I need your help. No, seriously.
Friday, November 19, 2010
Anyone who knows me knows that I'm a little...anal-retentive about things. Like clothing, for instance.
I have my preferences about what I wear, and when I find something I like I buy several year's worth in various complementary colors. This way I don't have to worry about looking for something else I like (and spending money on stuff I don't like) for quite a long period.
For example, in this blog’s early days I mentioned that I really liked the Riggs Ranger pants. I bought many pairs, in three colors, and wear them to this day. Other than a suit, I have no other pants - these suit me just fine, thank you!
I wish I could say the same for shirts, and this is where I need your help. For a while now I've been wearing Cabela's Sarengeti Safari shirts, and I'm not at all happy with them. I'm looking for a replacement, but haven’t found anything yet. You’d think this would be easy, but it’s not turning out that way!
The problem is that I have several requirements, all of which must be met for me to buy: the shirt must have square-cut tails, two pockets with button closures, and be made of a medium to heavy weight cotton. Any other features are negotiable, but these are written in stone.
I want square tails because during the summer months I roll up the sleeves, unbutton the front, and untuck the shirt to wear over a short-sleeved Henley. The problem? I believe that contoured tails are meant to be placed inside of one’s pants. Wearing them outside seems somehow uncivilized!
I need the two pockets, because my iPhone goes in one and my ever-present notepad and pencil go in the other - and I need them to have button flaps so that neither falls out when I bend over. Why buttons? Because I cannot abide Velcro ("may it rot in hell") on pocket flaps! I might settle for a snap, but buttons are where it's at for me.
Finally I want it to be cotton of a heavy weight, for wear resistance, concealment properties during that untucked period, and overall comfort in a wide range of environmental conditions.
The winning shirt will be available in solid earth tones - tans, browns, greens - and preferably available online.
I've been looking, and I've found several products which meet two of my three requirements - but all three in one so far eludes me. The hardest part seems to be the square tails! I'm hoping that someone out there will have seen something suitable. If so, let me know.
Thanks for your help!
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: The President gets all the perks.
Friday, November 12, 2010
This week marked the 235th birthday of the United States Marine Corps! They've been around a long time, and by now we're all familiar with the rank and file as well as the various special units - RECON, Scout/snipers, FAST, MEU, SOC, and I'm sure I've forgotten a few.
One you may not know about, however, is assigned to the President of The United States. The members of this unit, constantly selected from the very best candidates from around the country, serve as a constant reminder of the dedication to excellence for which the Marine Corps stands. No, I'm not talking about the guards or pilots of the President's helicopter, or any of his security staff in or out of the White House.
The unit I'm referring to, one which you've no doubt been exposed to but have never really noticed, this elite group of seasoned professionals, is the official United States Marine Band.
Now every Marine base has a brass band, but only one represents the Corps as a whole. Often referred to as "The President's Own", the United States Marine Band is America's oldest continuously active professional musical organization, having been formed by an act of Congress in 1798.
If you've never heard the United States Marine Band, you should. It defines excellence for the genre. I find it distressing to listen to even the best brass bands; there is always a certain percentage of players who are slightly out of tune or slightly off beat, and though most people would never notice these things bug me to no end!
The United States Marine Band, in contrast, is perfect. Every time. On pitch, on time - would you expect any less from a Marine? (Do you know how hard it is to play a piccolo in tune? The Marines can do it.) They're a joy to listen to, and I envy the President for getting to see them live on a regular basis.
Getting into the United States Marine Band is not an easy task. I've seen their audition requirements, and there are some symphony orchestra tryouts which aren't as thorough. This really shouldn't be surprising - the Corps has always been tough on recruits, and they don't let down their standards for any of their jobs. They also field chamber ensembles and a chamber orchestra of the same high caliber.
Yes, they do play their share of marches, but that’s not their only forte. Listen to some of the mp3 recorded performances on their website. (I can’t resist pointing you to this rendition of the Marine Corps Hymn. You can even get ringtones!)
The United States Marine Band does a limited tour, every year traveling in a different part of the country. (They're sadly not scheduled for an appearance on the West Coast until 2014. Drat!) Tickets are usually hard to get, and they're often hosted as a fundraiser for a worthy cause. The typically reasonable admission is always a bargain for the quality of performance you'll experience.
Check their schedule, and if you get a chance to hear them live do so.
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: A fountain of information.
Friday, November 05, 2010
It has become something of a trend amongst the latest hipsters to declare an interest in the fountain pen. It might be said that I find this whole business a tad amusing, not because I think the fountain pen to be out of date but because my interest in them often goes back further than some of these newcomers have even been alive. (Get off my lawn!) Wait long enough, and everything comes back into fashion.
I received my first fountain pen as a high school graduation gift in the late 1970s. It was a Cross Century and came in a set with a matching ballpoint and a pencil. What happened to the latter two pieces is a mystery, but I still have that fountain pen. In fact, I'm looking at it as I type this. I've added more to my collection as time has progressed, but I still have that one.
Over the years I'll admit to not being completely faithful to the fountain pen, but in the last few years I've gone back to it as my primary writing instrument. My handwriting these days is all in printed letters (I long ago forgot how to write in longhand), and I don't do as much of it, but I still scribble notes and fill notebooks with bits of information, ideas, the occasional drawing, and sometimes a shopping list. I have perhaps four pens that I use regularly, and several more in storage that I ink up and use only occasionally.
Why a fountain pen? For me, it's the fact that they require no hand pressure. The nib of the pen simply rests on the paper, and no additional force is needed to get ink to flow. As I near the half-century mark I find that the joints of my fingers are not standing up to the kind of abuse they used to, and anything which reduces the wear and tear on them is most appreciated!
There is another aspect to the fountain pen, though I fear putting too much emphasis on it lest I be labeled as a closeted environmentalist hippy. (Tam and her eco-friendly bicycle currently have that schtick sewn up like a hemp shirt, and heaven forfend I should intrude!) The fact is, however, that disposable writing instruments are wasteful. A quality fountain pen is a lifetime purchase that needs only a supply of ink to keep working. Nothing ends up in the landfill or gets thrown away (except the ink bottle, which is usually glass and easily recycled.)
Of course, for a gadget freak like me the fountain pen provides limitless opportunities to indulge! There are perhaps a hundred (maybe more) fountain pen manufacturers around the world still making pens, with price points from a buck (I'm not kidding) to several thousand dollars. You can find nibs (the part that touches the paper) in sizes ranging from extra fine to broad; no matter how or what you like to write you can find a line width to suit. There is also a large quantity of vintage pens available should one prefer the ultimate in recycling with a retro flair.
Ink makers? There are probably fifty brands of ink that come in a literal rainbow of colors. I'll bet you never knew that black ink isn't just black, did you? Yes, black ink comes in shades. There must be a couple hundred different blue inks, more blue-black inks than you could probably ever use, forests full of various greens and browns, and reds that range from blood to fire - and everything in between. If you want the perfect ink to match your personality or mood, you can find it for your fountain pen.
There is, truly, something for everyone in the fountain pen world.
I'll leave you with some pen snapshots I did a few years ago. The first is a couple from the German maker Rotring (probably my favorite pens), the second is of a Duke (one of the better Chinese pen makers), and the last is a no-name pen that my wife likes (yes, she’s into them as well. Makes gift giving around our house easy!)
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: Finality.
Friday, October 29, 2010
FRIDAY SURPRISE:
Finality.
Todd Koonce is a very talented young gunsmith here in the Willamette Valley. His talent goes further than building great guns, however - he recently starred in a short film that has won an award!
Final Notice is a short film by Alex Castro starring Todd Koonce. It's the story of a utility worker (Koonce) who's fired for peeping in the windows of the houses he services. Earlier this week Todd told me that it won the "Best Emerging Artist" award at the Salem (OR) NW Film Festival.
Good job, Todd and Alex!
-=[ Grant ]=-
Todd Koonce is a very talented young gunsmith here in the Willamette Valley. His talent goes further than building great guns, however - he recently starred in a short film that has won an award!
Final Notice is a short film by Alex Castro starring Todd Koonce. It's the story of a utility worker (Koonce) who's fired for peeping in the windows of the houses he services. Earlier this week Todd told me that it won the "Best Emerging Artist" award at the Salem (OR) NW Film Festival.
Good job, Todd and Alex!
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: Ghost of the future.
Friday, October 22, 2010
One of my favorite PBS shows was "Connections", the ten-part series from British science writer/historian James Burke. In it, Burke looked at the often surprising interrelationships of disparate discoveries and inventions that invariably culminated in something no one involved in the process could have imagined. From those connections (get it?) we see that even small changes in the past would have made huge impacts in the present. It's a concrete, approachable explanation of the butterfly effect.
What brought this to mind was last week's surprisingly frank admission by John Sculley, the long-reviled ex-CEO of Apple Inc., that his tenure there was a "mistake." (As an aside, I gained new respect for Sculley for being able to judge himself so clearly.) While I agree with that assessment with regard to Apple, when I look further at the series of connections that occurred because of his position it's clear that something very good came of it.
You see, had Sculley not taken that job at Apple there would be no World Wide Web. Certainly not as we know it today.
Follow me: when Sculley took over at Apple, he and Steve Jobs clashed. A power struggle ensued which resulted in Jobs being forced out of the company he founded (and in which he held a majority of the stock.) Jobs spent the summer of 1985 contemplating his situation, and before the year was out had formed a new computer company: NeXT, Inc. NeXT's goal was to produce a very powerful personal computer that could be used in education and research, to simulate things like recombinant DNA laboratories.
Jobs put together a team of talented engineers who designed the hardware and software which would become the NeXT Cube. The operating system, called NeXTStep, would combine parts of BSD Unix and the Mach kernel to produce a multitasking, object oriented operating system. While it never achieved the market success that they had envisioned (for a host of reasons, not the least of which was a retaliatory lawsuit from Apple-led Sculley) it did make significant inroads in research labs around the world.
It was in one of those labs, at CERN in Switzerland/France, that a 35-year-old British physicist named Tim Berners-Lee came up with an idea: take the relatively new concept of hypertext and expand it beyond the single computer (or node of computers) to which it was then limited. His idea was to use the Unix Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) to allow computers across the internet to access each other's hyperlinks. That sounds dry to us today, but it was a breakthrough.
Hyperlinks and TCP are the basis on which the World Wide Web operates; without that combination, you wouldn't be able to click on the links in this article and go to other sites for more information - or even navigate www.grantcunningham.com. Without them, the web as we know it simply wouldn't exist. No Revolver LIberation Alliance, no online shopping, and no porn sites. (Ya gotta take the bad with the good.)
The computer that inpsired Lee, and on which he did his development work? The NeXT, running the NeXTStep OS. WIthout NeXT's heavily object-oriented development environment, Lee wouldn't have been able to design the ubiquitous "www". Would someone have eventually come up with the idea? Maybe, maybe not. Even if they had, though, it wouldn't have proceeded on the same path that it did. The web, if it even existed, would be a profoundly different thing than it is today. That's the nature of interrelationships: change one, and every other one changes. Some may not happen at all.
Whether Sculley knows it or not, the (unintentional) consequences of his actions in 1985 led to you being able to read about his self-assessment on your computer screen today. Ironic, isn't it?
-=[ Grant ]=-
Friday Surprise: Why didn't I find this earlier?
Friday, October 15, 2010
When I talked about tools a couple of weeks ago, a regular reader emailed and said that his father had owned a service station in the 1960s too. He asked what brand, and I told him Texaco. He then forwarded a link to this shot of an abandoned Texaco station somewhere in North Dakota.
The picture is hosted at a site called shorpy.com, and that link encouraged me to spend the next hour looking at the historic photos that are Shorpy's raison d'être. Shorpy is sort of a cross between a photo album and a blog, and with thousands of photos in their archive I’m going to need a lot more spare time! All pics have a small preview like this one, and clicking on any of them brings up a high-res version. Neat!
Very cool site that has become one of the few on my "daily read" bookmark.
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: A letter to the U.S. Postal Service.
Friday, October 08, 2010
Dear USPS:
I'm writing this open letter because I know you don’t read those that I send to you. How do I know this? I tried that already and nothing's changed.
Listen, I know you guys and gals are hurtin’-fer-certain these days, what with this newfangled email and all. The news tells me that your revenue is down, and because the unions won't let you do any commonsense cost-cutting your profit margins are getting squeezed.
I feel for you.
Well, I certainly would feel for you if I had any confidence that the people in charge had an inkling of what to do to turn your mess around. They've given little indication so far that they do, but I'm going to help you out. I like the Postal Service, I really do, even if I do think the title “Letter Carrier” is less noble than the “Mailman” I grew up with.
Because we have such a longstanding relationship, I’m going to give you two simple, low cost (one of them is no cost) methods that will add dollars to your bottom line. Not enough to save you from your skyrocketing pension costs, but every little bit helps - right?
Here goes:
1) Follow federal law with regard to shipping firearms. As it stands, federal law allows any private citizen to ship a handgun across state lines, as long as the recipient holds an FFL (Federal Firearms License.) The USPS, however, has this strange idea that BOTH parties need to have an FFL, precluding the private citizen from sending his or her package (much more profitable than those letters you're fixated on) with your service. As it stands, Federal Express and UP get that lovely business, and it's a shame because they charge three to four times what you do. With savings like that, people would be crazy not to use you!
All it would take to steal that business from them is a simple rewrite of your regulations to parallel federal law. That's it. It wouldn't even cost you any money, because you're already paying for those pencil-pushers to sit around in their offices. Might as well get them to do something useful for a change!
2) Your website sucks. I don't mean the design necessarily (though it does need some help in the usability and clarity departments), but its functionality. If I want to ship a package, it should be easy to do through USPS.com. Trust me on this: it's not.
First, you allow only specific browsers to work because you've used proprietary code that only they recognize. Hello, this is the twenty-first century! "This site optimized for Internet Explorer" is as passe as Motorola brick phones, no matter how cool you think Gordon Gecko is. Standards compliance is where it’s at these days.
The second problem is that printing a mailing label with postage requires the browser to download a little applet, which then requires a third-party program - namely Adobe Acrobat - to run the thing and print the label. Why? I have no clue, but it's what we call a kludge, and it's incredibly sloppy. FedEx doesn't mess around with nonsense like that to do the very same task, and neither does UPS. If your people aren't smart enough to figure out how to print from within the browser like those companies already do, fire them and hire someone who actually graduated from high school. (Oh, yeah, that pesky union thing makes it difficult to fire the deadwood. Sucks to be you.)
Why should you care? Listen, I use a Macintosh. Despite the fact that the Mac OS handles .pdf files internally, without the need for ANY third-party separate utility, your stupid website forces me to download Acrobat. The problem with that is that Acrobat is a buggy resource hog that tries to rewrite my system's preferences so that ALL .pdf files trigger Acrobat to start up. It's annoying, it's a security risk, it's not at all needed or welcome, and more than a few Mac users simply refuse to submit to such foolishness.
You're probably still asking why you should care. Well, Mac owners are now upwards of 15% of installed computers in this country, and the percentage online is a little higher. Marketing study after marketing study shows that Mac owners are better educated, make more money, and utilize online services more than users of other systems. Like it or not (and Michael Dell most assuredly does not), those are the facts.
So, tell me how a business plan that involves pissing away the most affluent part of your market, those most likely to use your services, is a good idea? It's not, and it's yet another reason your volume is dropping. Redesign your site, make it standards compliant, get rid of the proprietary browser code and that Acrobat nonsense, and you’ll probably find people using it more. (I assume that’s why you have the site in the first place, amiright?)
Hey, if you like the way things are going, ignore everything I just said. Otherwise, start acting like the independent corporation you keep claiming to be and put your customers first. You can win against the other guys, but you have to bring your "A" game. Right now you’re not.
Two simple things, with my compliments.
Sincerely,
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: The Wright stuff.
Friday, October 01, 2010
Whenever I buy a durable good, I make some hard decisions about what and where I buy. I start, as I've often mentioned, with quality; I buy not necessarily the most expensive, but not the cheapest either. I'm looking for value, that ill-defined but instantly recognizable point at which price and quality are optimized.
Of course there are other variables to consider. I'm growing more aware, with every passing day, of the social impact in the ways which I spend my money. No, I'm not talking about being a "green consumer" or other trendy tripe, but rather acknowledging that where my money ends up is important. The simple fact is that not all spending is equal in terms of economic or social value.
Assuming that I can get the level of quality that I seek, I prefer to buy American products wherever possible. Not just assembled here, but from American materials by companies whose home base is the United States. Perhaps even more importantly, I prefer to spend my money with the smallest possible company that can meet my quality, value, and origin expectations. That's not always possible, of course, but I'd rather have my money going to a privately held, family business than a faceless multinational corporation.
Why? Because I believe that such companies make better long-term decisions regarding their products and customers. I've witnessed, time and time again, the quality of a product decline precipitously (usually from being 'offshored') because a huge corporation is focused on quarterly profits and not on pleasing its customers. The social impact of lost jobs is an enormous problem, not to mention the decline in the real wealth that principally comes from making things.
Craftsman tools are a good example. Once the benchmark for decent U.S. made tools at an affordable price, in recent years Sears has cheapened the brand by importing more and more of their products from Asia. I've been in Sears stores where it was actually difficult to find an American tool, yet prices have not reflected the lower cost of the imported items.
Which, finally, brings me to the topic for today: I need some new tools. Not want, not desire, but actually need.
My general tool sets are a mish-mash of various manufacturers, conditions and levels of quality. I'm missing some pieces, and others I need but have just never bothered to pick up. I'm tired of wrenches that don't fit well and poorly made sockets that round nuts off instead of taking them off. It is an area of my life that is in stark contrast to what I insist on for my business, and it's time that changed. This summer I decided to finally use some of my savings to replace much of my crappy tool collection with quality examples, tools that I can use for decades to come. As I've said before, if I have to spend money I want to do it one time only.
Needless to say, I'm not spending any of that money at Sears.
I researched tool companies based on the principles I've outlined above. Quality first, American made wherever the quality is acceptable, and from a company who understands that their business comes from satisfied customers. As it happened, only one company met all of my criteria.
Wright Tools.
Wright has been in business in Barberton, Ohio since 1927. It is still owned and operated by the Wright family, and they're proud of the products they produce in America, from American steel. No other tool company can make that claim, and their pride shows in the quality of their tools; they are simply superb.
Once I'd decided that this company truly deserved my business, I had to find a place to buy Wright wrenches and sockets and all the other stuff I need. I ran into a little problem: there isn't a stocking Wright dealer anywhere near me!
It was then that I found an online hardware company in Kansas City called Harry J. Epstein Co. Like Wright they're a family owned business, and also like Wright they pride themselves on the quality of their product. For a retailer, that product is the service they deliver, and Epstein definitely delivers.
They have a neat retro-look website that clearly identifies the country of origin of all their products. (Love their animated/illustrated shopping cart!) The site has a very good selection of products that they keep in stock, but where they shine is how they handle special orders.
Most mailorder companies don't do special orders, and in fact it's hard to find a local retailer these days who will. Epstein's is the exception, and having used their service I can tell you that no one, and I mean do mean no one, gives the level of personalized service that they do. This is rare in today's world and should be celebrated!
Between Wright's products and Epstein's service my toolbox is slowly getting the makeover it sorely needs. For someone who doesn't like spending money, I'm a pretty happy camper.
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: Get bent.
Friday, September 24, 2010
Mike Jarvi, a contemporary furniture maker from Michigan, is famous for his signature Jarvi Bench:
It's made of a single piece of wood, and the construction method is ingenious. A reader sent me this video of Jarvi in action:
Sadly I'm not nearly so creative. That doesn't stop me from appreciating the genius that conceived it and the craftsmanship required to make it a reality!
Have a good weekend!
-=[ Grant ]=-
Friday Surprise: Rooting around.
Friday, September 17, 2010
It occurs to me that I've yet to write about one of my favorite things: root beer. I don't drink much of it anymore, as I dislike what it does to teeth and waistlines, but on occasion I'll treat myself to a single bottle.
By now you should know that I'm a little on the anal retentive side about everything, more so with things I'm passionate about. Root beer is one of those things.
My all-time favorite root beer is Sparky's. Brewed by a tiny company in California (one of the very few good things to come from our neighbors to the south), it's only sporadically available in these parts. It's worth seeking out because of the intense root beer flavor, perfect level of carbonation, and hints of mint in the aftertaste that covers up the normal sugar taste decay.
Because it's rarely available to me, I have to console my tastebuds with an excellent local brew, Crater Lake Root Beer. It is reminiscent of Sparky's, but not nearly as intense. It could stand a little more carbonation, but it's a very good root beer.
I could go on forever, but luckily there are other people who share my affliction and have done the work for me. My favorite root beer review site, authored my someone whose tastes run almost parallel to my own, is Anthony's Root Beer Barrel. Many people have done similar things, but my general rule is that a root beer reviewer who can't tell a corn-syrup-flavored drink from one made with cane sugar probably has no actual operational taste buds. I avoid them.
Hmmm....I just realized that I haven't had a root beer in a couple of months. Now I'm thirsty!
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: Flight time.
Friday, September 10, 2010
During World War II, my Dad was a flight engineer/2nd co-pilot on a B-29. He'd flown B-17s and B-24s, but loved the B-29 - and why not? It was a technological marvel, full of almost magical gadgets, and my Dad was - to the day he died - a serious gadget freak. There was more than enough interesting technology on a SuperFortress to keep a hyperactive 19-year-old mesmerized for his entire tour of duty.
Dad never stopped talking about Boeing's best, and in the mid-'90s the Commemorative Air Force (then referred to by the more whimsical "Confederate Air Force") brought their crown jewel to a local airport: Fifi, the only flying B-29 in existence.
My father heard about it, and called me with uncommon enthusiasm to tell me the news. Of course I couldn't pass up the opportunity to see one, so I took Dad to the airport. They were giving tours of Fifi, and we joined the small crowd for a chance the crawl through the old bomber.
We were all crammed into the cockpit while the pilot was explaining the layout. Dad sat down at the engineer's station, his old post, and while the pilot/tour guide droned on Dad sort of looked around, shrugged his shoulders and started flipping switches. "One. Two. Three - that's the wrong kind of switch, it's a replacement. Four - they moved Five - there it is - Five."
By this time the pilot had stopped, his eyes got really wide, and he said "what are you doing?" Dad looked at him and said "prepping for flight, sir. Six. Seven." The pilot got a big grin on his face and he and Dad shook hands and exchanged the appropriate pleasantries. The pilot hadn't even been born when the B29s were decommissioned, so it was a treat for him to run across someone who remembered flying one. I was impressed that even after all those years, Dad remembered his job to the letter.
(He also made me crawl through the crew tunnel that goes over the bomb bays, just to get a feel of what it was like. He said "now imagine it in the dark, with a sadistic pilot rocking the plane just to make your life miserable.")
What brings this up? I stumbled across the news that Fifi recently got four new engines:
Last month she took to the air again, her first flight since 2006:
Happy landings, Fifi!
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: One more time.
Friday, September 03, 2010
Since this is a holiday weekend, the customary end of summer, I thought a little more music was in order. Why not celebrate with another Stan Kenton piece?
This one, recorded in 1977, features my favorite incarnation of the Kenton group - with a number of local (to me) connections.
Lead trombonist Dick Shearer, as I mentioned last time, retired to my hometown - where I'd gone to high school with the brother of Kenton's baritone sax player, Alan Yankee. Stan's drummer, Gary Hobbs, also settled in Oregon. The trombone soloist on this piece, Jeff Uusitalo, eventually made his home just across the river in the Vancouver (Washington) area - where the sax soloist, Terry Layne, grew up and went to high school.
Small world. But, as Steven Wright reminds us, “I wouldn’t want to have to paint it.”
Have a good weekend, and don’t be surprised if I take Monday off!
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: Colored by a point of view.
Friday, August 20, 2010
In 1935, a fellow by the name of Roy Stryker went to work for the federal government. Specifically, he took over the job of managing the Historical Section of Roosevelt's Resettlement Administration. Almost immediately the organization morphed into the Farm Security Administration, and his section became the Information Division.
Without putting too fine a point on it, Stryker's job was propaganda - to give the Administration what they needed to justify spending money that they didn't have. To further this aim, he came up with an idea: he'd send out a bunch of photographers to make pictures that would both tug at America’s heartstrings and provide support for Roosevelt's policies. He gathered a bunch of talented people from varied backgrounds - writers, painters, and budding photographers - and sent them over the country to make pictures.
While we can certainly debate the means of the program, the ends were spectacular. Stryker's team shot over 164,000 pictures, producing hundreds of iconic images and launching the careers of many talented photographers. So good was the group that they would later be transferred to the Office of War Information to document the country’s entry into World War II, though their tenure would last only a year.
Of those hundreds of thousands of images they shot, only 644 were in color. Color film was quite expensive, even for the government's pockets, but more importantly couldn't be reproduced in the newspapers of the day. Its use was therefore quite limited, and the photos somewhat rare.
Here are 70 of those 644, including some from a couple of my favorite FSA photographers: Jack Delano and Alfred Palmer.
(What happened to Stryker? In 1943 he went to work for Standard Oil, who foresaw the need to polish their own public image. Several of the FSA photographers, now unemployed after the OWI cut them loose, went to work to make Standard look good. They succeeded, and the Standard Oil photographs of that period still stand as supreme examples of industrial photography. It’s too bad that Stryker died in 1975 - I’m sure BP could use his services right about now.)
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: It's fair to say.
Friday, August 13, 2010
I grew up a small-town farm kid, the son of parents who themselves had grown up on farms, and the major thrill of my summer vacation was always fair season.
Our county fair would come first, followed by the "big one" - the Oregon State Fair. (All the counties were pretty much the same, except Harney County. Their fair inexplicably occurred after the state fair. Always has, as far back as I can remember, and they're awfully proud of that.)
The county fair was a place where citizens could gather, interact, watch the local talent perform, and show off their produce and handiwork. It combined socialization and competition, along with some entertainment, and was a vital component of farm and ranch life in the 19th and well into the 20th century.
People from all corners of the county would bring their livestock, produce, and the things they made to display and compare to the same from others. Those items found superior would win their owners/creators a ribbon and a year's worth of bragging rights, while those that didn’t make the grade would cause a stern resolve to win next year. It was always friendly competition, but there was definitely an undercurrent of antagonism when it came time to judge the pies and preserves!
What I remember most from my childhood were the tractor displays. The various agricultural equipment dealers would bring a large selection of the newest tractors and implements, while the local farmers would bring in their oldest equipment for a taste of the "good ol' days." For me, if there aren't tractors it just ain't a fair.
Today county fairs have become caricatures of their former selves, many looking like a cross between Cirque de Soleil and a college dorm beer bust. Our modern State Fair? Well, the less said about that the better; the last time I went it was nearly unrecognizable, and I haven’t been back.
The rural county fairs, thankfully, have managed to hold on to their noble ancestry better than those closer to the metropolitan areas. In the outlying fairgrounds you can still get a taste of what a county fair should be.
I plan to do just that this weekend. While folks in the cities mock the "rednecks" of this country, I'll be celebrating the worth and dignity of those who produce the food that fills bigoted stomachs.
Another of life’s little ironies.
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: The Leopolds have left the building.
Friday, August 06, 2010
Last year we learned that the last roll of Kodachrome film had been produced at Eastman Kodak. This month, the Wichita Eagle informs us that final roll has been processed.
The roll was shot by photojournalist Steve McCurry, and the images on it range from New York to India to Parsons, Kansas - where the last Kodachrome processing line is located. It, too, will be going the way of the dinosaur this December, when the equipment will be shut down for good.
Bonus points: can you decipher the meaning of my title? Extra bonus points if you can do so without a search engine; super extra bonus points if you can tell me how 'Rhapsody in Blue' is related to Kodachrome.
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: "Your hand is staining my window."
Friday, July 30, 2010
Very busy this week, and I had a couple of articles I wanted to write but just didn't have the time. So today I'm just going to link to a site featuring images of abandoned hospitals and asylums across the country.
Creepy stuff.
(Bonus points for the person who can identify the quote in the title line without Googling it.)
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: Hoe, Hoe, Hoe!
Friday, July 23, 2010
My Father was a child of the Great Depression, as well as being a farm boy. He learned early on how to make a penny squeak, which unfortunately meant that he was always looking for the cheapest way to do anything. This trait was passed down to me, but I've learned something: there is a big difference between being frugal and being cheap. Frugality means looking for the best value, not the lowest price.
Buying cheap tools, for instance, is actually the antithesis of being frugal. If it's something that will be used frequently, the lack of quality that almost always accompanies a small price tag is reflected in durability. A cheap tool will be replaced more often, and will also frequently produce poorer results with more frustration.
Spending some money up front to buy a good tool is almost always repaid in faster, easier, better work. It also costs less in the long run, as you don't have to replace it on a regular basis.
It took me a long time to acknowledge this reality of the universe, and though sometimes I veer from this truth I do my best to return. I also preach it to my wife, whose parents were also products of the Depression with the same habits as my Father.
Yes, there is a point to this story!
My wife was complaining about her garden hoe recently (we have a large garden and she makes extensive use of things like hoes.) It wouldn't hold an edge, and was starting to crack where it was spot-welded to the pathetically undersized neck that went into the handle. She needed a new one, and on a visit to the local home improvement store she did some shopping.
Most of the garden tools were made in China and were no better than the one she'd already tried. She looked at some made in USA examples from a well-known brand, but they weren't of significantly higher quality - certainly not enough to make up for their higher price. Maybe the local hardware store would have something better?
Nope. If anything, they were worse (if made in China tools could get worse!)
When we got home I did a little poking around, and found a company in Missouri called Rogue Hoe. They make a HUGE variety of hoes, all crafted from discarded disc blades. Discs are made of top quality tempered steel, and Rogue cuts them into the proper shapes, solidly attaches them to quality handles, then sharpens them to a knife-like edge. My wife was very excited about their product range, and ordered a few to try out.
Rogue hoes are in a different league than those we saw in the stores. They're built hell-for-stout, with blades that are three times the thickness of your average hardware store variety. The designs are obviously the work of people who actually use these things on a daily basis, because they function well. They come super sharp and stand up to abrasive and rocky soils like nothing we've ever used.
These are tools for hard work, not ornaments to hang in a shed and admire.
Amazingly, the prices aren't much more than the lesser "made in USA" stuff we found in the store. They ship promptly, and I doubt there's a hoe you can't find in their vast selection.
My wife is already planning her hoe purchases for next year!
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: I want, I want, I want!
Friday, July 16, 2010
I mentioned that last weekend I was on the range for a defensive rifle class. The range is not too far from a small airport, and it's common to see all kinds of interesting aircraft fly overhead.
The students were preparing to shoot another drill when an autogyro passed overhead. I had to stop and watch it disappear behind the hills, because as a kid I was entranced by this movie:
Ever since then I've wanted an autogyro. It's not practical, but neither are 1911 pistols (that one's for you, Tommy.) I'm not sure what attracts me to the little machines, other than they're cheaper than a real aircraft and a lot more maneuverable than your average ultralight.
I also know that it wouldn't make me as debonaire as James Bond, but I could use all the help I can get!
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: Admit it - you've wondered about this too.
Friday, July 09, 2010
In 1791, the French Assembly decided that the purpose of capital punishment was to end a miscreant's life, not to cause him unbearable pain. A committee was formed for the purpose of devising a pain-free method of execution that was suitable for both upper and lower class undesirables. How egalitarian of them!
One of the committee members was a Dr. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin. While he was opposed to the death penalty, he believed that making it more humane would lead to its abolition. (The logic behind this escapes me, but apparently doctors often have this failing: one Dr. Richard J. Gatling, inventor of the gun that bears his name, believed that the creation of a terrible weapon would inspire people to no longer entertain the idea of war. Didn't work for him, either.)
The French committee eventually came up with a beheading machine, and because of the good doctor's promotion of the new "humane" method his name was associated forever with the contraption.
But just how humane is the guillotine? This article at Damn Interesting raises all kinds of questions about just what happens at the instant one's head is separated from its support mechanisms. Personally, I hope to never find out!
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: The lady in the lake.
Friday, July 02, 2010
Ronald Reagan was halfway through his first term as President when I took my first trip east of the Rockies. It was also my first trip via airliner, and though I'd flown quite a bit in small aircraft the view from 30,000+ feet was new to me. I was heading to Rochester, NY. Traveling from Portland to Rochester on Delta Airlines entailed a stop in Detroit, which also meant a trip over Lake Michigan.
If you've followed the story so far you'll deduce that I'd never seen any of the Great Lakes. Oh, I knew all about them; I'd studied geography in school. I knew that they were actually inland seas, that they had their own weather, that they were the largest group of freshwater bodies on earth. What I didn't know, or more correctly didn't fathom, was just how big they were.
As the plane crossed Lake Michigan I was struck by the fact that all I could see was water. I finally grasped the reality of the Great Lakes, and the stories I'd read about shipwrecks and lost souls suddenly became understandable. In that vast expanse of water, some of it nearly a thousand feet thick, it would be very easy to lose a vessel in one of the lake's infamous storms.
In 1898, that's what happened to the steamship L.R. Doty. She was carrying a load of corn destined for Ontario when a powerful storm armed with thirty-foot waves sent her to the lake floor. The 320 feet of cold, salt-free water that sat on top of her preserved her remains in almost perfect condition.
Those remains were just recently found, 112 years after her final trip. Great story from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel; be sure to check out the photo gallery of the wreck.
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: Cameras I Have Known - the Pentax KX.
Friday, June 25, 2010
I'm fickle, in that my favorite things change frequently depending on what's in my hands at the moment. "This my favorite! No, THAT'S my favorite! Wait - that one is REALLY my favorite!" Fountain pens, .22 rifles, hats, revolvers (of course), and cameras.
Especially cameras. It's hard to pick just one.
What I do know is that I've shot more frames through one model than any other, by a wide margin: the Pentax KX. I'm not talking about the modern digital incarnation, but the original, all metal, mechanical, manually operated film camera. It was, to my mind, one of the best products ever to come from Asahi Optical and one of the best 35mm SLRs that I ever used.
Images courtesy of Turbof (http://adsl-065-013-121-247.sip.pfn.bellsouth.net/camera_collector/pentax/k/k.html)
The KX is one of those machines that turned out to be a lot more than the manufacturer probably intended. Introduced in the mid-70s, during a time when many other legendary cameras were being manufactured, the KX proved to be a worthy "semi professional" camera of great durability and superb image quality. It was competitive with and contemporary to the Canon FTb, the Nikon Nikkormats, and the upper portion of the Minolta SR-T series.
The KX was a medium sized camera, and its features were common for the day: depth-of-field preview, mirror lock-up, 1/1000 second shutter, aperture display in viewfinder. What set it apart were a couple of things that its competitors didn't have: shutter speeds displayed in the viewfinder and a new, sensitive but linear silicon blue meter cell.
The only camera that really compared to the KX was the Nikon FM, introduced at the end of the KX model run. It was as if Nikon had taken direct aim at the KX, for their new model had features to rival the Pentax veteran (except, surprisingly, the mirror lockup.) The only advantage the new Nikon had was the MD-11 (later MD-12) motor drive. Even with that they were behind the curve, as Pentax had made a special edition of the KX that took a drive as well: the rare KX-Motor body.
Images courtesy of Turbof (http://adsl-065-013-121-247.sip.pfn.bellsouth.net/camera_collector/pentax/k/k.html)
The KX-Motor was exactly like the plain versions, with the addition of the mechanics and circuitry necessary to run a slightly modified version of the attachable motor from the Spotmatic MD model dubbed the Motordrive II. There was no external indication, other than the baseplate, which indicated that this was a special-order-only camera. Since the entire KX model line was only made for three years, that makes KX-Motor one of the rarer Pentax products.
I owned a number of KX cameras, and was fortunate to count two KX-Motor bodies among them. At the time I knew they were uncommon but only now realize how rare they actually were!
KX bodies came in both chrome and black finishes. The black bodies were enamel over brass, which was the common construction method of the time. I once stripped the worn enamel off the brass pieces of one of the bodies, polished them until they were mirror bright, then applied clear lacquer to keep tarnish away. The result was stunning and I became known as "the guy with the gold camera." I later sold that body to a friend to fund my move to Olympus OM equipment...a story unto itself.
In use the KX proved to be a true photographer's tool. Controls fell perfectly to hand, everything worked smoothly, and the silicon blue meter was accurate down to ridiculously low light levels. Of course the quality of Pentax lenses was never in doubt, and the images produced by the combination of body and optics were always superb.
None of that would mean much if the camera didn't hold up. I admit to being rough on gear, to the point that the guy who repaired my cameras regaled his customers with stories about damage sustained by my cameras in various mishaps. Twenty years later he’s probably still telling them!
The KX was incredibly rugged even in my hands, and it's one of the very few cameras that I was never able to break to the point that it wouldn't function. I've broken many others, but despite the heavy use to which I put them never had a KX fail. (Wish I could say the same for Pentax's "pro" camera, the LX.)
KX bodies accompanied me on both personal and professional assignments, from standing in the middle of rivers to crawling around the dirty confines of a foundary and everything in between. I knew that I could always rely on them to bring back the images I needed. They weren't the flashiest or most impressive bodies (save for my special gold model), but they always delivered top notch pictures.
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: Is it possible to stamp out philately?
Friday, June 18, 2010
When I was a kid my older sister, through the act of renting an apartment, made the acquaintance of a nice elderly couple. Mr. and Mrs. D had no children of their own and quickly adopted my sister (and the rest of our family) as surrogate offspring. They were what was known as "old money", but were devoid of pretension despite their wealth. It was always a treat to drive into the city to visit them.
Mr. D was an avid stamp collector. I'd never even known a stamp collector, and Mr. D was quite persuasive in his belief that it was the perfect hobby for a young boy. He gave me a number of books about stamp collecting, several large stamp catalogues, a couple of albums and a smattering of stamps to get me started.
I dutifully pasted my stamps into their albums, and for a short while made an effort to search through the letters in our attic for hidden gems. Adolescence eventually put an end to my collecting activities, though I must confess a certain lack of interest in the whole affair to begin with.
Perhaps if I'd found really interesting stamps like these I wouldn't have given the hobby up!
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: A tangled web we weave.
Friday, June 11, 2010
Listening to Steve Denney talk about this blog (commentary at the beginning of the ProArms interview) reminded me that the Friday Surprise! has become somewhat less surprising of late. These off-topic epistles have started to be a bit predictable, and I feel the need to bring something new to the table.
Steve, this is for you!
On many of my bags and packs I have zipper pulls that I've made from paracord - that strong, cheap material often referred to by the name '550 cord'. I've got several favorite patterns, but the square weave is a staple. It's easy to do, and once you have it mastered you can make variations with different colors, or even a spiral version that finishes with a rounder cross section.
These can also be used as lanyards for small flashlights, pocket knives and other such objects. I won't use the cliche "limited only by your imagination" (darn, I just did!), but that's literally true. Go find some paracord and have fun!
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: A Poor SUBstitute for the real thing.
Friday, June 04, 2010
When I was a kid I dreamed of converting the fuel oil tank in our garage into a submarine. It was a 350 gallon flattened oval tank, no doubt familiar to millions of baby boomers whose furnaces ran on liquid fossil fuels, and I just waited for the day that I could get my hands on it.
I had big plans for my submarine: first I'd explore the depths of the pond on our 'back forty', then I'd take it down to the river and search the bottom for...I'm not sure what, but I just knew I'd find something. Little things like how I'd get air to breathe or how I'd see where I was going were mere trivialities. (After all, didn't Seaview have windows? I'd have them too!)
Naturally nothing ever came of my plans, but that didn't stop me from being fascinated with small submarines. The Japanese mini-subs of World War II were particularly interesting, and I read everything I could about them. It was known that five had attacked Pearl Harbor, but only four had ever been recovered. The fate of the fifth remained a mystery.
Perhaps not any more.
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: Cameras I Have Known - the Kodak Retina IIIS.
Friday, May 28, 2010
At one time I was a devoted fan of Leica rangefinder cameras. I owned many of them over the years, culminating with a beat-up example of the much maligned M5 (2-lug) model. Like many photographers I held a special place in my heart for the legendary Leica M3, though mine was the less desirable (and thus cheaper) double-stroke version. One could say that I was something of a Leica snob, and that wasn't too far from the truth.
This makes my favorite rangefinder seem somewhat odd, because it wasn't a Leica.
At one point I picked up a Kodak Retina IIIS rangefinder for next to nothing, largely because I thought it would be a nice decoration on my bookshelf. Along with it came a 50mm f2.8 Schneider Xenar, a superb 35mm f2.8 Schneider Curtagon, and a 135mm Schneider Tele-Xenar. The camera and lenses were in near-mint condition, having been traded in on a more modern 35mm SLR with zoom lens.
The Retina series of cameras were made in Germany by the Kodak-owned Nagel Camerawerk. Most of them were small folding cameras, but the IIIS was unique: it was a solid body rangefinder with interchangeable lenses. It was a large, heavy camera compared to the Leicas (or the rest of the Retina series), but it boasted a large, bright viewfinder with automatically changing framelines and parallax correction!
Courtesy of the superb Retina IIIS article at www.cameraquest.com/ret3s.htm
The viewfinder was terrific, but the really great thing from my perspective was the shutter. The IIIS had a between-the-lens leaf shutter sourced from Compur, which meant that it could flash synch at all shutter speeds. More importantly it meant that the shutter was quiet. Very, very quiet. Next to the IIIS, a Leica M3 sounded like a bomb going off. Those who know the Leica cameras and their reputation for stealth might be amazed, but it was true; even the photographer often couldn't hear or feel the Retina shutter fire.
This made it ideal for surreptitious shooting, but especially for such things as concerts and plays. While the lenses weren't terribly fast, thus limiting their indoor capabilities, it was possible to make very good available-light shots with the camera. I did so on many occasions.
I also loved the depth-of-field indicators. They were two red pointers on either side of the focus point mark, and as the aperture was changed they moved in or out (in sync, one moving left and one moving right) to indicate the zone of acceptable sharpness. This was similar to the way the lenses on the Hasselblad cameras worked, and to this day I miss that unambiguous display.
Over time I grew away from the rangefinder in general, finding the newer compact SLRs to easily take their place. Except for the noise, of course. Today I'd love to have a good digital rangefinder camera, but the only one currently being made is the insanely priced Leica M9. (A solid contender, the Epson RD-1, was recently discontinued and the prices have skyrocketed well past "reasonable." There are some others that boast add-on digital viewfinders, but they stink. The viewfinders, I mean!)
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: The day the internet died.
Friday, May 21, 2010
Yesterday was a monumental day in the history of the 'net: Duke University, the birthplace of Usenet, shut down its Usenet server some thirty years after it first came to life.
Citing diminishing use and rising costs as the reason for the shutdown, this comes as sad news for those of us who cut their teeth on newsgroups. While there are other servers still hosting Usenet traffic, the closure of the Duke server is a sign that the end is near.
I spent far too much free time on Usenet in the '80s and '90s. Before the World Wide Web, Usenet was THE source of information and interaction on the 'net. If you know what DoD stands for, you spent a lot of time on rec.motorcycles; if you know who the KoTL is, you spent too much time there!
There are people I "met" on Usenet with whom I still correspond. I first encountered Ed Harris, whose name should not be unknown to readers of this blog, on rec.guns. That was more years ago than either of us care to recount, and despite never having been face-to-face we've exchanged ideas, shared projects and even collaborated a bit on a training manual for emergency communications. There are others whose names would mean nothing to you, but mean a great deal to me.
With so many ISPs dropping Usenet access, people for whom the WWW is the whole 'net don't see the loss. For those of us who remember FidoNet gateways and bang paths it's like losing an old friend.
Virtually, of course.
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: I'd like a Meatball Marinara please. Oh, wait...
Friday, May 14, 2010
...wrong subway!
I found this some time ago, and thought it was an intriguing site in the growing "abandoned things" genre. It's not just about subways, either - photographer Shawn Dufour has lots of cool sites pictured: factories, hospitals, even a railroad yard.
Have a look at abandonedsubwaytunnels.com
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: Water in the New World.
Friday, May 07, 2010
I found this on Digg a few days ago, and thought it was intriguing. There is much about the Mayan civilization's technology that we still don't know, and this is opens up another set of questions.
Makes the dream of time travel all the more tantalizing.
Maya plumbing, first pressurized water feature found.
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: Cameras I Have Known - the Minolta XE-7.
Friday, April 30, 2010
The XE-7 is one of the cameras I've admired from afar, but never actually owned. This wasn't because of any lack of the camera itself, or of the superb Minolta lenses, but simply because it had been discontinued several years before I got involved in photography. The XE-7's successors weren't nearly as interesting, and their lack of a reliable "pro" camera throughout their history meant that there was no upgrade path. That left the XE-7 sitting on its own little photographic island.
But what an island it was!
Photo courtesy of Stan C. Reade Photo, http://www.stancreade.com
The XE-7 was rumored to have been developed "in conjunction" with E. Leitz, the makers of the famous Leica line of cameras. I'm not sure that was the case, as a tear-down reveals significant similarities to the XK model, introduced in 1972, and both preceded the rebranded Leica R3 version by several years. That assertion does, however, give one a good feel for just how well the XE-7 was built.
The shutter, sourced from Copal, was quiet and accurate. Film advance was as smooth as anything ever made in the 35mm field. Metering was predictable and accurate (as long as the aperture follower, which coupled the meter to the lens, stayed clean - a common weakness of all Minolta MC/MD mount cameras.) The camera was just a joy to use, and those times I took to the field with borrowed XE-7s were magical. The camera was responsive and easy to adapt to; the images were clean, clear, and had wonderful contrast.
Part of the stellar performance was, of course, due to the Minolta Rokkor lenses. Minolta produced some of the very best optics to ever come out of Japan; to this day, knowledgeable photographers wax poetic about the color rendition of their designs. (They were good enough that Leica bought several Minolta lenses, with no change other than mounts, to round out the lens line for their SLR cameras.)
The camera proved to be fairly rugged, the aperture follower issue notwithstanding. One of my colleagues had a pair of them that he used extensively while working as a photojournalist, and they looked like they'd been through a war zone. They still worked perfectly despite the abuse.
Sadly, the XE-7 was discontinued in 1977 to make way for the more modern XD series of cameras. While the XDs were certainly smooth, nicely functioning machines, they weren't the photographer's tool that the XE-7 was. It was because of the lackluster XD that I generally ignored Minolta, despite their uncompromising optics.
-=[ Grant ]=-
P.S.: Regarding Minolta "pro" cameras - yes, I know all about the XK and the XK Motor. I also know, far too well, how unreliable those cameras were in actual use. The XK Motor, in particular, was perhaps the least reliable "pro" camera I've ever seen, with many examples making multiple trips to Minolta for repeated repairs. I liked the XK, and to this day feel the XK Motor to be one of the nicest-handling large SLRs ever made, but they just didn't have what it took in the durability department. More's the pity.
FRIDAY SURPRISE: Cameras I Have Known - the ICA Universal Palmos.
Friday, April 16, 2010
You may recall that I spent some time as a commercial photographer (and general photographic genius) back in the '80s. During that period I used a wide variety of cameras and lenses, and probably spent an amount exceeding the economies of several Caribbean nations on my vocation/avocation.
Over the next few Fridays, I'll be talking about some of the cameras I've used extensively, or have had close contact with, during my career. For those who lived through the end of the film era, this will be a trip down memory lane. For those who came of age after the digital revolution, here's your chance to hear what things used to be like. (For your benefit, I'll work in a solid rant at the end of the series.)
The camera I've chosen to start is one which even hard core photographers won't recognize: An obscure ICA 9x12cm folding field camera called the Universal Palmos. ICA was one of the four European photography/optics concerns which, in 1926, merged to form Zeiss-Ikon. (Zeiss also marketed a model called the Universal Palmos, but it paled in comparison to the ICA model.) The Palmos utilized 9x12cm sheet film, which was sometimes referred to as "the European 4x5."
The Universal Palmos was reminiscent of the company’s better known “Maximar” model, but had a longer double extension track. The track had two focus knobs, one for the back and one for the front. They could be used singly, but in combination would extend the bellows to the full length of 16”, allowing satisfying closeup shots. Once focused, the knobs could be pulled out to lock the track(s) in place. Even with the tracks fully extended, the camera was still rigid. A better large format field camera one could neither want, nor find. The terminally curious can download the 1925 ICA catalog and see a full description of the machine.
Courtesy of www.liveauctioneers.com
Like all ICA products, it was superbly built. The range of movements on the front standard were greater than any "press" camera, and it had sported a real rotating back. The focus and sliding/rising front controls were gear driven, and machined to incredibly close tolerances. There was no backlash or slop in any of the controls. The metal was finished in a deep, glossy black enamel and the controls were nickel plated.
The 9x12 film was a bit of a problem. While not unknown here in the U.S., it wasn't available in the wide variety of our own 4x5" format. Luckily the two formats are very close in size, and I was able to fabricate a clever adaptor that allowed me to attach a Graflok back while retaining the rotating feature of the camera. I was even able to use a Grafmatic film holder for the ultimate in rapid-fire large format photography!
A slightly larger problem was the lens mounting plate. It was a circular sheet metal affair, which sort of bayonetted into three pegs on the front standard. I was able to demount the old lens and mount a slightly more modern optic, and an acquaintance with a metal shop was kind enough to fabricate a second for me. The small lensboard was serious restriction on the size and maximum aperture of the lenses I could mount, but this was a field camera, not a studio tool - the slower optics weren't a hinderance in the great outdoors.
I shot more 4x5" film through the ICA than through all of my other large format cameras combined. It was handy, compact, superbly constructed of fine materials, and boasted capabilities that no contemporary field camera could match. The fact that I got it for less than $20 was just icing on the cake!
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: A shell of former glory.
Friday, April 09, 2010
I usually eat my breakfast in front of the computer. I check my personal email, look in at Twitter and Facebook, read George Ure's blog, look at all the blog feeds to which I subscribe, and maybe even check what's for sale on Craigslist.
One of the Facebook updates this morning was from Rob Pincus, who is heading for Rochester (NY). That brought back memories, as in my former life I traveled to Rochester on an occasional basis, one time staying for the better part of two weeks. Astute readers will deduce that these trips had something to do with the Eastman Kodak Company (EKC, as it was known - Kodak was extremely fond of acronyms and abbreviations), and that deduction would be correct.
In the early- to mid-Eighties, which is when I visited, Kodak owned most of Rochester - and what they didn't, Xerox did. Kodak's facilities were huge even by Detroit standards, all based on sales of film and associated equipment and supplies. As digital photography eroded film's dominance, Kodak (which had been willfully dismissive of the digital threat throughout the period under discussion) saw their business decline precipitously.
Barely into the new century, Kodak was closing buildings at a rapid pace. They demolished a few, auctioned off some others, and sold what they felt they didn't need but which would still generate cash. One of the latter was a complex known as the Marketing Education Center, or - in EKC-speak - MEC.
MEC is where they held seminars, training sessions, and business meetings. Every time I went to Kodak, MEC is where I ended up. It was a gorgeous campus, looking more like a community college than a corporate office.
MEC sat next to the Genesee River, and featured a dining hall with floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over the river and a placid meadow. The view from the tiered seating was so perfectly New England, regardless of the season, that visitors joked the windows were actually Duratrans - Kodak's trade name for large, backlit transparencies. The food was't bad, either!
This little trip down memory lane got me to wondering: whatever happened to MEC? As it turns out, pretty much nothing. Kodak cleared out and sold it for about $3.5 million to an investment concern in 2004, and it appears to be sitting vacant today. The campus, with 120 acres and four buildings, is currently for sale at an asking price of only $9.9 million.
(In researching this, I came across the blog of a Rochester ex-pat whose family worked for EKC. She chronicles the decline of George Eastman's once-great empire.)
-=[ Grant ]=-
P.S.: Speaking of acronyms...at one point Kodak decided to do some corporate reshuffling, and the technicians who serviced their large photofinishing and photocopying equipment were inexplicably transferred to the control of the newly renamed Consumer Equipment Service. At roughly the same time, those technicians were given the title of “Field Engineers.” The in-joke was that since they were now FEs, working for CES, that their corporate acronym was to be FECES. Upper management was not at all amused.
FRIDAY SURPRISE: It certainly was.
Friday, April 02, 2010
I woke up this morning, completely sure in my mind that it was Thursday. As everyone else knows, it's actually Friday, which means I owe you a blog post, late though it may be.
TIME recently ran this great slideshow of old computer hardware, photographed in a way you might not expect. Very nice work, and some detail of a rapidly disappearing past. Enjoy, and happy Friday!
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: Malt-O-Meal??
Friday, March 26, 2010
Well, not quite, but a single malt being billed as the "world's oldest whisky" is now for sale.
A full bottle of Mortlach 70-year-old Scotch will set you back more than ten grand, if you can find one; there are only 54 full-size (700ml) and 162 small size (200ml) bottles from the single cask avilable. That's for the entire world, mind you.
(Unlike wine, Scotch whisky doesn't continue to age once it's been bottled. There are older bottles of various brands offered from time to time, but this is currently the oldest vintage available.)
Mortlach is a distillery in the Speyside region of Scotland, home to a huge number of other distillers. Glenfiddich, a more recognized label, is a close neighbor. Most of Mortlach's production goes to blenders, who combine their single malt with others to make blended Scotch whisky. Very little Mortlach gets into the market as a single malt, making this a particularly unique occurrence.
Many people automatically assume that the older the Scotch, the "better" it is. This is not always the case. As whisky ages in oak barrels, it takes on the taste of the wood - and whatever was in the cask before. Most whisky is aged in used wine barrels, as the winemaking process tends to season or "mellow" the wood. This makes it preferable for the long whisky sleep, as it reduces the bitter tannins that will inevitably seep into the malt.
If you have a relatively mild whisky to start - such as those from the lowlands of Scotland - the barrels tend to impart a huge amount of that wood taste relative to the taste of the whisky itself. Such vintages taste more like the barrel than they do the whisky!
This is particularly true if the barrels once held a more flavorful wine, like sherry or port. When a whisky is exposed to an extended stay in such a barrel, it comes out tasting (in my opinion) more like candy than whisky. Such malts are quite popular in the marketplace, as they tend to mask the whisky taste for less experienced Scotch drinkers.
On the other hand, a very powerful whisky such as those from the island of Islay will usually benefit from an extended stay in the barrel. The same amount of time which might overpower the taste of a milder Scotch helps to mellow the stronger varieties. An 8-year-old lowland may be perfect for drinking, but an 8-year-old Bowmore is enough to remove nose hair! By the 16th year, that same whisky will have mellowed to the point that it's merely very strong, not disabling.
That's why I can't get too excited about tasting a Mortlach that's spent the better part of the last century in an oak cask. It's a somewhat bland whisky to start, and I can just imagine how much wood taste has infused itself into the liquid. Now, if there were a 70-year-old Lagavulin, that would be interesting!
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: Space - the final frontier. But only if you market it.
Friday, March 19, 2010
While you may not be familiar with her work, Megan Prelinger has been busy chronicling America’s space initiatives, focusing on how they were sold to the public. She’s put together a great book: "Another Science Fiction,” which is largely a collection of advertisements for space contractors during the Cold War.
SImultaneously recruiting employees while dangling the lure of space exploration to the masses, these ads ran in such magazines as LIFE and National Geographic. I remember many of them, but Prelinger's book is the first to collect them and show how vital they were in shaping a new vision of space.
In this must-read interview at WIRED, Prelinger talks about the impact of space advertising, what could have been bigger than Apollo, and how countercultural utopias figured into the space race. Fascinating.
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: My dog has fleas.
Friday, March 12, 2010
Sadly, my dog's fleas aren't terribly talented, unlike the fleas chronicled in Dark Roasted Blend's entry on Victorian flea circuses.
That, however, isn't the end of the story. In the aforementioned article I learned of a blog devoted to flea circus research. No, I'm not kidding.
There are some really odd blogs out there. As I always say, though, “everyone needs a hobby!”
-=[ Grant ]=-
P.S.: It just occurred to me that there may be even odder blogs floating around the intertubes. Post your strangest blog finds in the comments. (No extremely profane sites or anything dealing with sexual fetishes. We want to see odd, not disgusting.)
FRIDAY SURPRISE: When in Rome...
Friday, March 05, 2010
My fascination with old and abandoned things often leads to dreams of great discoveries. Though I've been to a few abandoned places - all of which are pretty well known, at least locally - I'm handicapped by geography. Here in rural Oregon, there just aren't many such places.
There weren't enough people here to have produced a large urban/industrial base a century ago, our technological history doesn't go back much more than 175 years in any case, and we've never exactly been a hotbed of military activity. Thus my dreams of being the first (or, at least, one of the very few) to visit such a site remain elusive.
Other people are more fortunate. A British film crew just last year found the remains of the Aqua Traiana headwaters, the beginnings of a lost aqueduct that once supplied Rome with fresh water. It's beautiful and amazingly well preserved, and all lying below a pig pasture near the village of Manziana, just northwest of Rome.
What gets me is that they found it - in the best Indiana Jones style - by discovering a hidden door in an abandoned church.
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: Motor City throws a rod.
Friday, February 26, 2010
The decline of Detroit fascinates me.
For many years I've wandered the Northwest visiting ghost towns and abandoned settlements, and always in the back of my mind are the unanswered questions: why did people leave? What was is like to live in a dying town? When did people finally figure out that their town was destined for the dust bin of history? Did it happen suddenly, or was it a slow, agonizing extinction?
These questions come to the forefront as I watch the continuing downfall of one of America's proudest cities.
I'm not saying that Detroit is going to disappear like, oh, Bourne (Oregon) did. It might, it might not. But it's clear that the city's contraction leaves much doubt about its future, and the glorious past of the former powerhouse remains to confront and confound the present residents.
There are lots of great galleries of decaying Detroit around the 'net (I"ve linked to one or two of them), and Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre have produced some of the best.
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: Seedy characters.
Friday, February 19, 2010
Lots of folks, concerned with anything from global warming to economic collapse, are recommending that you have a garden. What's more, most of them say, you should be planting only non-hybrid varieties and saving the seed from those plants. Only by doing that can you hope to be self sufficient, or so the theory goes.
Whether you think such advice to be prescient or kooky, there are people who do this on a grand scale. Read The New Yorker's story about the global seed bank.
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: I miss the Cold War.
Friday, February 12, 2010
I really do.
Today a rogue regime can acquire nuclear force simply by writing a check. A really big check, no doubt, but child's play compared to the old days.
If you wanted an atomic bomb back then, you had to work a lot harder.
You see, we were absolutely convinced that our sole opponent in the Cold War - the Soviet Union - wanted to bomb us out of existence. We had our plans, our bombs, our missiles - and so did they.
We were always trying to find out what they were up to, and they were doing likewise. That tug-of-war gave us a time of espionage, spies and high intrigue.
Somehow, The Underwear Bomber just isn't as, well, romantic.
To illustrate my point, one of those Cold War skirmishes was fought by an Iowa-boy-turned-Soviet agent named George Koval. It's an interesting story.
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: Money makes the world go 'round.
Friday, February 05, 2010
Ahh, who can forget that classic song from the film version of 'Cabaret'...
The physical appearance of money changes from place to place, reflecting both local aesthetic preference and historical events. Dark Roasted Blend has an interesting collection of unusual paper money from various countries and time periods.
It seems fitting that, since we started off with a musical number set in inter-war Germany, that we see some money from that general time. I'll leave you with the infamous 500 Million Mark note, which by mid-1923 wasn't enough to buy a load of bread:
Today, you can buy one of those notes for less than $10.
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: I know where I'm going!
Friday, January 29, 2010
It's a Hollywood staple: man and woman driving down road. Obviously lost. Woman suggests man stop at gas station and ask directions. Man refuses, insisting he knows exactly where they are. Hilarity or tragedy ensues, depending on the theme of the movie/TV show.
As it happens, there are solid scientific reasons that humans can't navigate all that well. This article from NewScientist lays it out.
(For the record: as long as I have a map, I'm gold. If all I have are written directions, no matter how detailed, I'll get lost. Odd, huh?)
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: Angel wings.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Aircraft, as you may have heard, are vulnerable to missiles. Whether launched from the ground or another aircraft, even a small missile can easily down the largest plane. One of the few defenses to an incoming missile is the dispensing of chaff (small metallic particles/strips) and flares, both of which are intended to fool the navigation systems that guide missiles to their prey.
What's odd is how pretty those countermeasures can be.
Even odder, this pic - along with many others - can be found at a site called Environmental Graffiti.
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: All aboard!
Friday, January 15, 2010
The site English Russia entices me to visit the former Soviet Union - the sheer number of abandoned installations makes my head spin. Today the site beckons me with two related stories about abandoned railways in the former superpower.
First, a look at a never-operational line in northern Siberia, apparently built at Stalin's personal request. The reason for a railroad from nowhere to nowhere remains a mystery, though in all fairness we do the same thing with highways in Alaska.
The second is of a locomotive depot in the same part of the country, but these were all operational - until the USSR broke apart. At some point, everyone just walked away...
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: Good Morning, Dave.
Friday, December 11, 2009
Once upon a time, two geeks met in college. They had some neat ideas about the world of computers, and were anxious to put their ideas into production. They started a little company.
Shortly after they incorporated, they introduced a new computer - one that was more accessible, more flexible, and under the control of a single person. They didn't make many of them, and very few exist today, but with it they changed the face of computing forever.
No, I'm not talking about Jobs & Wozniak. I'm thinking of Ken Olsen and Harlan Anderson, and the company they founded - Digital Equipment Corporation. DEC, as it would come to be known, introduced what was really the earliest commercial incarnation of the personal computer: the PDP-1.
The PDP-1 certainly didn't look like what we've come to expect of the PC. Nevertheless, it started the downsizing of computing power, and introduced a concept critical to the modern PC: user interaction, as opposed to batch data processing. This shift was the necessary step to creating true personal computers, and DEC got there first.
Interactivity opened up huge new vistas for the computer. The PDP-1 has the distinction of initiating things we now take for granted: text editing, music programs, and even computer gaming. (The very first computer video game, 'Spacewar!', was written for the PDP-1. Yes, you have DEC to thank for your Wii.)
DEC only made 50 PDP-1 machines, of which only 3 are known to have survived. All of them are currently in the collection of the Computer History Museum. One is fully operational, and is demonstrated twice a month by running that historic computer game. They've got a terrific website that details the history and restoration of the PDP-1.
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: I'll take "Stupid things I've done" for $100, Alex.
Friday, November 27, 2009
Back in the early '80s, I lead small groups of advanced amateur photographers around the Portland, Oregon metro area at night. The goal was to teach them the fundamentals of available-light photography in an environment that was simultaneously familiar, yet unexplored. We'd gather at about 10:pm at a local Denny's, then head out for a few hours of shooting, usually getting home about 3:am.
Let me paint you a picture: say, 5 people. Camera bags stuffed with multiple thousands of dollars (in Reagan-era money) of easily pawned high-end camera equipment. Major urban center. At night. Sparse police presence. Before cel phones. Before SureFire flashlights. Even before our concealed handgun law.
Now I know what you're thinking, and in retrospect I agree with you. But it seemed like a great idea at the time!
The exact itinerary varied a bit, but a typical evening might find us wandering around the downtown core area, through alleys, construction sites, industrial areas, and perhaps even along the east side of the Willamette River. (Today area residents know it as the "EastBank Esplanade": a tribute to a ditzy mayor who was convinced the way to help "poor homeless people" was to build a boulevard for over-indulged yuppies to ride their bicycles between latte stops. Back then, though, it was just a rough industrial riverbank where bums set up camp once the longshoremen had gone home to dinner.)
These events were very popular - we always filled our limit of attendees - because they were, after all, the only way to get shots like this:
While some of the participants used fine-grained films, tripods and long exposures (giving me a chance to share with them the mysteries of reciprocity failure), others handheld their shots using fast films (often pushed in development) and fast lenses. Both approaches had their uses and limitations, and the facilitator (that would be me) had to be well versed in all of it - while simultaneously maintaining some sense of aesthetics. I'll gladly claim the former, and from the shot above you can judge if I have any business talking about the latter.
Today I wouldn't attempt such craziness without an armored personnel carrier and close air support, if at all. Back then, though, it was just us, our "steal me" bags, and lots of film. And the bums.
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: The Witch is Back.
Friday, November 20, 2009
Back in '51, the Atomic Energy Research Establishment in Oxfordshire welcomed a new member to their staff: a computer. Today we don't even bat an eyelid when a new PC shows up in the office, but back then computers were a Big Deal. (After all, how many new staff members get their own office - the largest one in the building?)
The Harwell Computer, later to be known as "WITCH" (Wolverhampton Instrument for Teaching Computing from Harwell), now occupies a unique position in computing history. It holds the distinction of being the world's oldest surviving computer with electronically-stored data and programs. All the original parts are present and it is capable, in theory, of being operated.
Though it hasn't been switched on for over 35 years, it is now being restored to operational status at the Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park. They expect the restoration to be completed next summer, at which point the WITCH will be able to claim another title: oldest operational computer, beating out the Ferranti Pegasus whipper-snapper at London's Science Museum.
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: Pipe dreams.
Friday, November 13, 2009
My sister is an organist, and one of her ambitions is to someday build a custom house - around a pipe organ. If you aren't familiar with what that entails, let's just say it would need to be a big house.
Pipe organs, even modest examples, are large instruments. As they increase in complexity, though, they grow seemingly exponentially. A large organ can have thousands - even tens of thousands - of precisely tuned pipes that produce notes when fed with pressurized air. Just the valving to make one of these behemoths work is mind-boggling in complexity.
Even the part you can see - known as the console - can make a 747 look positively simple:
Main console, Atlantic City Convention Hall organ, from http://www.acchos.org
For more great pictures of pipe organs, check out this Dark Roasted Blend story.
(Oh, for those who are interested - the Atlantic City organ is perhaps the largest ever constructed, but has never been completely operational. The largest working pipe organ in the world is the Wanamaker organ shown in the article. The building in which it is housed is now a Macy's store. No kidding.)
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: Morse code.
Friday, November 06, 2009
The LIFE website this week unveiled a photo retrospective of Project Mercury, America's first human spaceflight program. If you look at the picture captions, you'll notice one name on most of them: Ralph Morse. There's a good reason for that.
Ralph Morse was a staffer at LIFE (and later TIME) when he was assigned to cover a press conference in Washington in 1959. That event was the announcement of the Project Mercury astronauts. Sensing the long term importance of the announcement, Morse contacted his editor and told him that there would be a lot of public interest in these men. He suggested that the magazine assign someone permanently to NASA, which was then less than a year old. Morse got the job.
It was a good choice; Morse had already been with LIFE for over a decade, bringing back some of the most well known pictures in their archives. NASA was a fledgling agency, and Morse had gotten himself in on the ground floor of what would become the Space Race.
Over the next couple of decades, Morse would become an insider at NASA. He got exclusive access, and was even allowed to place his cameras in restricted areas his competition at NEWSWEEK couldn't even dream of. Along the way, he produced some of the most iconic images of the various NASA projects.
It all started at that press conference, where an idiot reporter (some things never change) asked the astronauts which of them expected "to come back alive." Morse grabbed this shot of the astronauts showing their mettle:
Some of his shots were very well known...
...while others weren't:
All of them, though, came from the camera of an inventive genius whose enthusiasm for his job knew no bounds. Were it not for his eye, his ingenuity, and his nose for news, we wouldn't have this great visual record of our nation's greatest achievements. George Hunt, at one time LIFE's Managing Editor, said “if LIFE could afford only one photographer, it would have to be Ralph Morse.”
Ralph is now 92, but unfortunately for us gave up photography some years ago.
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: It's Saturday!
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Yes, I know I didn't have a Surprise for you yesterday. I'd intended to present instead the latest installment of the Self Defense Thoughts, but fell asleep.
I write most of my blog articles in the evening, then finish them up and post them at breakfast. On Thursday evening I fell asleep, and Friday I had to get up very early (and miss my breakfast!) so that I could be somewhere first thing in the morning. The blog got ignored in the rush that ensued.
The latest installment of the series follows. Enjoy!
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: High water mark.
Friday, September 25, 2009
In 1874, The Netherlands had been only a few years divorced from Belgium. They had a small, weak army, no real allies, and not a lot of money. They did, however, worry about invasion from German, and so decided to fortify Amsterdam.
Remember the "not a lot of money" thing? Their poverty lead them to observe that concrete was expensive, but water was cheap. Their logical conclusion was to build a wall of water to keep invading armies out. They'd do this by purposely flooding the farmland around their own city. Seriously. They thought it was a great idea.
Of course, during World War II the Stelling van Amsterdam (Defence Line of Amsterdam) was obsoleted very quickly by mechanized armies and air power. All that's left now are a few national monuments and some parks.
Take a gander at well organized Defense Line of Amsterdam website.
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: Book 'em, Danno.
Friday, September 18, 2009
Just because something's old, doesn't mean that it isn't useful. That's the apparent philosophy behind one of my favorite places to spend money: Lindsay's Technical Books.
Lindsay's primary business is reprinting out of print and public domain books on a wide range of technical topics. If you want to learn how to run a lathe, construct things out of sheet metal, do chemistry experiments, build a radio, embalm a body, repair a locomotive, make paint, or just about anything else from the last century, Lindsay probably has a book on the subject. That book, most likely, will only be available from them.
Some of the titles are obscure while some are better known, and occasionally you'll find one that was once considered the standard in its field. One of these is the classic "How To Run A Lathe", by the South Bend lathe company. Many older machinists started their careers with that book, and Lindsay's is the place to buy a fresh copy.
(When I was barely a teenager and apprenticing as a watch & clockmaker, one of my primary references was a book called "The Watchmaker's Lathe" by Ward Goodrich. At the time it was widely available, but went out of print a number of years back. Lindsay acquired it, and now reprints that classic title. It's a bit disconcerting to see a book from my personal past being sold by a purveyor of "antique" information!)
A small selection of their books are current, commercially available titles, while others are specialized works that would have no other sales venue were it not for Lindsay's odd clientele.
Of course they have a website (www.lindsaybks.com), but don't expect much. First, only a small fraction of their titles are on their site - you need to request a printed catalog to see what's available. Even then, you won't receive a comprehensive catalog, but after a few quarterly issues you'll have a pretty good idea of what they've got.
You can order online, but it's in the form of a secure email: you type in the catalog number and part of the title - no point & click or shopping cart at Lindsay's!
They're not convenient, can be downright cantankerous (spend some time rummaging through the site for a taste of their collective personality), but they're always fun and educational. When the latest Lindsay's catalog comes in the mail, I've been known to drop everything just to browse their latest offerings. If you have even a passing interest in technology gone by, I guarantee you'll find a way to spend money with them, too.
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: It's all geek to me.
Friday, September 04, 2009
One might think that this era in history is the most well documented that has ever existed. Why, we have photography and sound recording and movies (and their digital equivalents.) Everything, it seems, has been saved for posterity. How much better preserved we are than our forebears!
Yep, you'd think so. And you'd be dead wrong.
There are huge gaps in our archival record, and oddly enough they have to do with the very things that should be most easily chronicled: our technology. Obsolete technology is disappearing, and with it a vital understanding of what we as a species have accomplished in this world. Decorative arts seem to be deemed worthy of perpetuation, no matter their relative importance, while everything else is consigned to the scrap heap.
Take just the computer - there are surprisingly few organizations who have made an effort to preserve this recent technology. With programmable computers being no more than about 60 years old, we should have a very good record of all that has passed in their development. We don't. Old computers are rare, and the earliest (physically largest) machines are virtually all gone. Of those first pioneers we have nothing but a few bad photos and the occasional fragmentary drawing.
That's just the tip of the iceberg. There are many other gaps in our historical records through which technologies, people, organizations, and companies have fallen. There are a few places attempting to preserve bits and pieces of our technological past, and one of them is the Southwest Museum of Engineering, Communications and Computation (SMECC).
SMECC maintains a fascinating site that gives a good feeling for the breadth of their collections. Particularly valuable are the first-person chronicles of the people who actually made the things in the museum's collection.
A warning: their site is perhaps the worst example of Microsoft FrontPage design. It's not nice to look at, not well laid out, and you'll have to poke around to find the gems. It feels like a throwback to the early '90s internet, which I suppose one could argue is appropriate for a museum. (With all that, it's still better than the average MySpace page.)
Any self-respecting geek could easily spend days there. Whether you're into computers, radios, or microscopes, SMECC has something for you.
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: All Jazzed Up, Part Deux.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
If you ever get to attend a major shooting match, one thing that will impress you is how accessible the top competitors are. If you want to meet Rob Leatham or Jerry Miculek, no problem - they're usually happy to shake hands and talk.
The same is true for the top jazz musicians. Jazz is a personal music, and because of the smaller fan base getting to meet even the biggest names is relatively easy. Imagine being able to walk up to a well-known pop or rock artist and being able to do that. Unless you're a buxom groupie with a purse full of cocaine, their security staff isn't likely to let you get within a country mile of the star! Jazz musicians aren't like that, and I've had the experiences to prove it.
My interest in jazz matured in high school, which is also where my first brush with fame occurred. I went to school with the brother of Alan Yankee, who at the time was a saxophonist in the Stan Kenton Orchestra. Kenton was my idol, then and now, and meeting Alan was a highlight of my young musical life. Little did I know that it was only the beginning.
When I was attending college in Portland (Oregon) in the early '80s, there were a bunch of jazz clubs in the city. Portland was known as a jazz town, and major players would often make a stop on their way between San Francisco and Seattle. We had not one but two jazz radio stations (one commercial and one funded by a local college), as well as an internationally regarded jazz festival. Life was good for a jazz musician and lover of the genre.
By the turn of the century, the Festival had been reduced to a weekend in one of the city parks, one of the radio stations was gone and the other played more blues than jazz, and virtually all of the jazz clubs were no more. I was lucky enough to meet quite a few notable jazz musicians before jazz disappeared from Portland.
Freddy Hubbard played a single set at one of the local clubs, to a packed house. Despite the cramped surroundings, he made sure that he got around and shook people's hands before jetting off to who-knows-where.
One of the high schools managed to snag the great Clark Terry for a benefit concert. The school was in a bad part of town, and the concert was not well promoted. Still, I was surprised at the sparse crowd. For a city with a jazz reputation, it was embarrassing. That didn't stop Clark from putting on a great show, and I told him as much when we met afterwards. "I"ve played bigger crowds, but that's not important - I'm just happy that people appreciate my music." Clark is known as a consummate gentleman, and his reputation is well deserved.
One summer a local college held a small jazz festival, and the headliners were guitarists Herb Ellis and Barney Kessel. During a break between acts, I went to use the facilities. Standing at the next urinal was Herb himself, and we started talking. I normally wouldn't remember a conversation from almost 30 years ago, but the surreal setting burned this one into my mind: gardening. After finishing our respective business, we went outside and sat at a bench, still talking gardening. Nice guy, that Herb. (For those who think the sun rises and sets on rock guitarists like Van Halen, check out the link - Herb is the gray-haired gentleman. Perhaps you'll learn something.)
The Woody Herman Big Band, one of the most popular in the history of jazz, made a surprise visit to Portland one year. I don't remember the details, but for some reason they unexpectedly found themselves in town. Somehow they managed to find a venue at one of the colleges, which had an open auditorium that day. Word went out on the jazz radio stations that tickets were available for that evening - dirt cheap, with all proceeds going to some charity. The place was jammed, and the band was in top form. Later I got to thank Woody for the unexpected treat, and expressed my appreciation to number of the band members as well. One of them was Frank Tiberi, who would later take over the organization after Woody's death.
Trumpeters Pete and Conte Candoli appeared in Portland one year, and of course I saw their show. At the time the Candolis were at the top of their game; it was virtually impossible to find a big band that hadn't had one (or both) in their trumpet section at one time or another. I got to meet Conte, but Pete disappeared somewhere after their set was over. The next day The Oregonian newspaper had a review of the show. The writer, who apparently knew nothing of jazz, lamented that when they soloed together they often hit "clashing notes." I wrote a letter to the editor that said something along the lines of "yeah, that happens with simultaneous improvisation, you moron!" They didn't publish it, which wasn't a surprise.
I remember taking my buddy and roommate, Ed, to see a then-unknown Diane Schuur. Between sets I introduced myself and told her Ed was dying to meet her. She giggled and I motioned Ed over; he was quite taken with her. That was understandable, as she was a terrific singer and a wonderful person. I hope she hasn't changed in the intervening 25-odd years ; she certainly still sings well.
Of course, there has to be the exception that proves the rule, and in jazz that was Maynard Ferguson. I found him to be the single rudest person I'd ever met in music. That attitude had rubbed off on some of his band members, as the rest of his trumpet section was as obnoxious as he was. (His sax players, who apparently didn't get as much attention, were nicer. I almost felt sorry for them.) I originally chalked the snub up to his having a bad day, but have heard from many people since who tell me that it was SOP with him.
If memory serves it was the second Mount Hood Festival Of Jazz that featured an appearance by a young and highly touted Wynton Marsalis. I ended up (unintentionally) running into him around the venue, and though he was polite enough, I frankly didn't find much in his music to be impressed with. I haven't heard anything from him since which changes that impression. My contrarian opinion hasn't seemed to hurt his record sales, though, and I hope he doesn't hold it against me!
My favorite trumpet player is the late, great Red Rodney. In the early '80s he had a quintet with the phenomenal Ira Sullivan, a group which to this day gets my vote as the most overlooked in jazz. They showed up in Portland once, and my buddy Bob and I were there front row, center. Between sets Red ambled over and introduced himself, and asked if I was a trumpet player. Confused, I asked him how he knew; he said that I was the only one in the audience who "got" what he was playing. I never did quite understand what he meant, but he sat down at our table to chat and eat his dinner. It remains my favorite jazz experience, and on that note I'll leave you with this video of Red at his best.
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: Motor City Mildew.
Friday, August 07, 2009
I've featured a number of decay-chronicling websites, but this one is unique. onlynDetroit.com doesn't just show the deterioration of a once-proud city, it gives the why and how of urban decay. In its many pages you'll learn the stories behind the landmarks, where they came from and how they happened to get where they are today. Along with the analysis is the occasional prescription for renewal, and a happy ending or two as some eyesores get refurbished and reopened.
The photography isn't of the same standards as some urban exploration sites, spelling errors abound, and the text sometimes describes scenes for which there are no pictures - but those are minor quibbles that only help prove that the whole is greater than the sum if its parts. onlynDetroit.com is obviously the work of people who have great affection for their city despite its flaws, and the same can be said of their site. A great place to kill some free time.
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: Smashing!
Friday, July 10, 2009
Heard of the Large Hadron Collider? It's the world's largest particle accelerator, located on the French/Swiss border. A particle accelerator, colloquially termed an 'atom smasher', is a device that uses electric fields to propel electrically-charged particles to high speeds. By colliding particles together - sort of a subatomic head-on crash - we can do all kinds of things. A low-energy accelerator forms the viewable image on a cathode-ray tube (CRT), medium-sized units are used to create isotopes for medical research, and the biggest, highest energy installations help scientists learn about the fundamental structure of the universe.
Long before the LHA was even conceived, the United States boasted the largest particle accelerator: the Bevatron at Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory. Built in the early 1950s, it had a nearly 50-year career before it was finally deemed too expensive to maintain. Mothballed in 1993, the decision was recently made to dismantle the gigantic machine to make room for new research facilities on the crowded campus.
Wired has a great article, with many pictures, on the continuing demolition.
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: By George!
Friday, June 26, 2009
We learned this week that Kodak finally pulled the plug on what was their signature film, Kodachrome. Photographers will fondly recall the fine grain, superb resolution, and vibrant color of Kodak's iconic product, while everyone else will remember Paul Simon's hit song by the same name:
Kodachrome
They give us those nice bright colors
They give us the greens of summers
Makes you think all the world's a sunny day, Oh yeah
I got a Nikon camera
I love to take a photograph
So mama don't take my Kodachrome away
Kodachrome wasn't the first time the company had influenced musical history, however. It's true that Kodachrome was invented by a couple of amateur chemists who were also professional musicians, but the influence I'm thinking of goes far deeper.
As it happens George Eastman, the founder of Eastman Kodak, was an aspiring flutist and music fanatic. His love of making and listening to music led him to found the Eastman School of Music, cementing his place in American music history.
Now you're probably thinking "Eastman School of Music? Never heard of it!" Most people, when asked to name a prestigious music school, immediately think "Juilliard." While Juilliard is a fine school and better known to the general public, those with a deep knowledge of musical education will often quietly refer you to Eastman. Since 1921, Eastman graduates have enjoyed a solid reputation for being "musician's musicians", which persists to this day - it is often ranked as the top music school in the country in major media surveys.
George Eastman was a remarkable individual who also gave major grants to engineering and technical schools such as MIT, and involved himself in a range of social and business innovations. It could be argued, though, that giving the world both Kodachrome and Frederick Fennell would have been enough for any one person.
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: Cassini, but not Oleg.
Friday, June 19, 2009
In 1997, NASA launched the Cassini spacecraft to study the planet Saturn. It finally reached the ringed planet in 2004, and started sending back some positively amazing images. The craft continues to work perfectly, and as a result the mission has been extended to 2010.
See more of these incredible pictures.
A quick synopsis of the craft and mission.
The Official Cassini website.
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: Down periscope, comrade.
Friday, June 12, 2009
In January 1940, the Soviet Union was at war with Finland. Just a few months earlier, the Soviets had signed a non-agression pact with the German government, which besides promising to be Best Friends Forever, divided up the countries of Eastern Europe between the two powers. The two chums lost no time in invading and carving up Poland, and that success prompted Uncle Joe Stalin to go for the first country on his own shopping list: Finland.
While his generals mapped out invasion plans, Finland was issued a set of demands to adjust their borders and "lease" part of their territory to Moscow. They refused, and in late November of 1939 the Soviets attacked.
Though eventually negotiating a truce, Finland managed to inflict severe casualties on the Red forces. Nikita Khrushchev would later state that his country had lost a million soldiers, while the Finnish casualties amounted to 26,662.
Forty-six of that million were killed when their submarine, dubbed S-2, was sunk in the waters between Sweden and Finland on that cold January day.
The actual location of the wreck, and the precise cause of the sinking, remained a mystery until just a few months ago. After a decade of searching, a team of Swedish and Finnish divers located the S-2 and found out just what had happened.
Short CNN article on the find.
Absolutely terrific pictures at www.aftonbladet.se
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: A line in the sand.
Friday, May 29, 2009
Or, more precisely, forest.
Many people have heard of the Maginot line, a series of fortifications designed to protect France from invasion by Germany. As you may have heard, it didn't work all that well - the Germans simply went around it, through Belgium and the Netherlands, and right into Paris for coffee and gloating.
You may not have heard of the Mannerheim line. It was Finland's fortification intended to protect it from Russian aggression. During the Winter War (where the Soviets sustained losses heavy enough to make them wish they'd never set their sights on Helsinki) the Mannerheim sustained heavy damage. Unlike the Maginot line, the Mannerheim was very lightly constructed and took the full force of the Russian advance. The majority of the installations were destroyed, leaving little behind but memories.
This is one of the better-preserved pieces:
The Mannerheim Line website. (Has the most complete list of sites and current condition.)
Detailed history of the Line at winterwar.com
Quick overview of the line and its purpose.
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: Color me amazed.
Friday, March 20, 2009
During the 1930s and 1940s, the Farm Security Administration (FSA) and the Office of War Information (OWI) shot tens of thousands of photographs. The vast majority - and the images we most associate with their work - were in black and white:
However, there were a number of assignments which were shot in color. That number was far smaller, likely because of budget constraints, but produced some stunning images:
This article from Photo District News shows some of the portraiture from the collection. You can view the whole collection at the Library of Congress site for FSA/OWI color images. (If you click on the Subject Index, you can browse by categories.)
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: Gone fission.
Friday, February 20, 2009
Way back in the mid-70s I was a geeky high school student whose career dreams were split between playing trumpet in the Stan Kenton band, or designing optical systems for spy satellites. Kenton died in 1979, which quashed my first ambition, and a dismal showing in differential calculus (don't ask) convinced me that engineering wasn't my forte, either.
(What happened between then and now is a long story...)
Anyhow, back to high school. Our science teacher was an ex-JPL scientist who'd taken early retirement and ended up in our small Oregon town. This was a major score for a backward mountain community, and he was a wealth of information. I took every advanced physics and chemistry course our little school offered.
One day, he presented to the class what was then a very recent scientific find: the existence of a natural nuclear fission reactor. That's right, a nuclear reactor where atoms were split without human design or interference, and long before humans walked the earth. At the time, despite learning all the details, I found it hard to believe that such a thing had happened. I understood that it was theoretically possible, but it seemed fantastic that just the right physical conditions necessary to sustain natural fission had occurred anywhere.
But they had - more than once - in the tiny nation of Gabon in west Africa. Here's a great story about the reactors were discovered (warning: science content)
Here's a Wikipedia synopsis of what happened.
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: LIFE is what happens while you're busy making other plans.
Friday, November 21, 2008
In 1936, an audacious Henry Luce changed the way we looked at the world. He took a staid publication, gave it a new, photojournalistic makeover, and created the legendary LIFE Magazine.
Luce hired the best photographers he could find, and sent them out to cover whatever was interesting - if not always the biggest story. LIFE became the must-read periodical for the next several decades, owing to a combination of superior illustration and good writing. People of my generation, and those of the previous one, can easily remember at least one great LIFE photo - if not a whole bunch. That's what LIFE was about, and it is not too great a stretch to say that LIFE defined American photojournalism.
Many of LIFE's photographers would become well-known, like Margaret Bourke-White...
Alfred Eisenstadt...
Gordon Parks...
Ralph Morse...
Robert Capa...
Joen Loengard...
Co Rentmeester...
...as well as many more whose names weren't as familiar, but were stupendous "shooters" in their own right. LIFE was THE gig to have, and it attracted (and got) the best talent.
Now, in the digital era, Google and TIME have teamed up to bring the entire LIFE photo archive to the web. The hundreds of thousands of images in the LIFE vault are being digitized and indexed by Google as fast as their scanners will scan. At this moment, only about 20% of the collection has been archived - but more photos are added every day, and they hope to be finished with the project in mere months.
The collection includes everything - photos that have been published, and those that haven't. You'll get to see images that didn't make the "cut", those that weren't good enough to be published, as well as those iconic images for which LIFE was so well known.
Visit the LIFE/Google archive at this link.
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: A place you just won't believe.
Friday, October 10, 2008
So, where was this picture taken?
Italy? Scotland? Switzerland, perhaps?
Nope. This is the Middle East. Yes, it is! It's the beautiful country of Lebanon.
Hard to believe? What's hard to believe is that people go to Dubai instead of Baalbeck!
I have good friends who are from Lebanon; from them I've learned a great deal about the country, the people, and the history. Lebanon is truly the jewel of the Middle East, with a beautiful coastline, verdant valleys, and ski resorts. (Yes. Skiing. In the Middle East. With real snow on real mountains, unlike the artificial stuff that attracts crowds in Dubai.)
Why, you may ask, is Lebanon known for war and strife instead of scenery and recreation? The answer would take pages upon pages of explanation; let's just say that when a healthy national pride is replaced with violent sectarianism you get hell instead of paradise. The Lebanon of the late 20th century (and, it appears, the 21st as well) was closer to the former than the latter, which tends to explain why the mention of the country brings to mind bombed-out Beirut instead of the gorgeous Bekaa Valley.
Rather than dwell on the negative, run over to Dark Roasted Blend and marvel at the pictures.
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: Up, up and away!
Thursday, August 07, 2008
I've previously mentioned my appreciation for the work that NASA has done over it's 50-year history. NASA grew up right along with me - or me with it - and NASA was always doing the exciting stuff boys of that era were smitten by: Astronauts. Fast planes. Rockets. The Moon.
(It wasn't just spectacle, though; NASA was the catalyst for technological progress that continues to be felt today. A surprising number of the things we now take for granted can be traced directly back to some NASA project.)
We learned about the exploits of the engineers, technicians and astronauts through NASA-supplied pictures in the magazines of the day. My early interest in science was kindled by those pictures, and some of them I still remember.
NASA documented everything, but not all of their photos were of general interest. A large percentage of their images were never seen by the general public because the media was understandably reluctant to publish anything of interest only to nerds. Through the magic of the internet, however, we now have ready access to some of those great pictures.
The agency has launched a new site just for NASA images. You can search or browse and download your selected pictures, drawings, and illustrations - some of them of quite high resolution. You'll find lots of astronomical images, of course, but you'll find all kinds of other things too.
Two of my favorites from the 1969 launch of Apollo 11, taking the first men to the moon:
Saturn V rocket FTW!
If you're a science buff like me, you can spend large amounts of time on their site. I recommend that you not try this a) at work, or b) when your significant other expects you to be paying attention to him/her/the kids/household chores/your dinner guests. You have been warned!
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: "Ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille!"
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Portland, Oregon has for years had one of the highest numbers of movie theater seats per capita. Oregonians, it would appear, can't get enough of the silver screen. (Save for this Oregonian, who sees one theater movie every five years or so whether he needs to or not.)
It seems to have always been this way. Portland had a large number of neighborhood movie theaters up through the '60s, and many of those buildings are still standing. The theaters were converted to other uses, and some of them actually retained some of their former features. Finding and exploring those old locations is a hobby for some, an obsession for others.
Back in the early '80s, when I was doing some moonlighting as a commercial photographer, I was retained by an older gentleman to photograph the abandoned Egyptian Theater in northeast Portland. The theater, originally built as a vaudeville venue, had been converted to the newfangled "moving pitchers" in the early '30s. It operated until 1962, when it was closed and used as overflow warehousing space for the chemical company which had purchased the location.
The gentleman who hired me was a serious movie buff, and was writing a book on old Oregon theaters. He wanted me to shoot pictures of the interior of the Egyptian. (I got the job because i was the only photographer he found who could light an entire large interior without benefit of electrical outlets or a generator. The power in the building had been shut off for years, the wiring having been declared a fire hazard. I'll leave you to guess how I pulled it off.)
Once in the building we found many of the seats still in place; the entire balcony was intact, as were the Egyptian-motif decorations and appointments throughout. There were torn ticket stubs littering the floor and even remnants of coming attraction posters in the lobby.
When theater closed, the awning (shown in this 1933 photo) was removed, and the front of the building simply covered with a false wall. The ticket booth and original doors were still there!
It was a surreal experience, as if the building was simply waiting for the janitors to arrive to clean up for that evening's business.
The building was torn down in 1989; sadly, the book never materialized. I had a good time, though.
What brought this to mind was this article at WebUrbanist about abandoned movie theaters across the U.S. (Somewhere in storage I have my shots of the Egyptian, but exactly where is a mystery. Until I can find them, you'll have to make do with WebUrbanist's article!)
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: Rodents aren't just for felines any more
Friday, June 27, 2008
If you're under 40, the name Douglas Engelbart probably means nothing to you. It should, though, because a huge amount of the machine on which you're reading this sprang from his fertile mind.
Engelbart (yet another product of Oregon, having been born in Portland) worked at Stanford Research Institute (SRI) before the dawn of the personal computer revolution. Many of the things we now use without a second thought were developed by him, or made possible by his work: bitmapped screens, the graphical user interface (GUI), hypertext, and networking. The very birth of the internet occurred when his lab at SRI and it's counterpart at UCLA networked their computers to become the first two nodes of ARPANET.
His greatest moment would have to be his "Mother of All Demos" in 1968. In that presentation, he introduced to a stunned world the early working implementations of video conferencing, teleconferencing, interactive text, email and the aforementioned hypertext. It is, perhaps, the single most important event in the history of modern computing.
One of his inventions revealed for the first time at the Demo was a new invention: the computer mouse. It would take over a decade before his now-common pointing device finally reached the market (attached to the ill-fated Xerox 8010 Star Information System), and several years after that before it came to the notice of the general public (as an integral part of the original Macintosh.)
(John C. Dvorak, computer pundit, wrote in 1984 of the new Mac and Engelbart's invention : "The Macintosh uses an experimental pointing device called a 'mouse'. There is no evidence that people want to use these things." Dvorak is not known for his prescience, which surprisingly fails to deter his continued employment.)
YouTube has the entire Demo available.
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: The Big Five-Oh
Friday, May 02, 2008
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) recently turned 50. What's DARPA, you ask? Well, it is the agency that invented the network upon which you are reading this missive.
DARPA was founded to do fundamental, high-risk research into science and technology that could be used for military purposes. Today that sounds ominous and vaguely sinister, but in the 1950s it was exciting and patriotic.
One of their projects was called ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network), intended as a way for DARPA staffers and researchers to disseminate information and share computing resources. It introduced email, file transfers, and even voice protocols into common use, all made possible through the magic of packet switching - another DARPA innovation. This groundbreaking computer network would, with their guidance, evolve into what we now call the internet.
(Funny, isn't it - the internet upon which you can read anti-military and anti-American rants until your eyes launch themselves from their sockets is the product of an American military project. Euro-weenies will no doubt point out that the World Wide Web was the invention of an Englishman working at a Swiss lab, but his contribution - important as it is - was simply a way of easing access to information on the already vast internet. His work would not even have been necessary had it not been for DARPA.)
The computer network wasn't DARPA's only development, of course - the magnificent Saturn V rocket and the computer mouse both came from the think tanks at the agency. How's that for a wide ranging legacy?
Happy Birthday, DARPA - keep up the good work!
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: To boldly go...
Friday, April 18, 2008
When I was a wee lad, America was at the forefront of space exploration. By the time I was old enough to know what was going on, we'd recovered from the shock of the Soviets beating us into space, and had responded in a big way with Gemini and Apollo programs.
In those days, our grade school classes would literally come to a halt as we gathered around a television set to watch a liftoff or a splashdown. The mighty Saturn V rockets - spewing a fireball that remains unequalled for sheer excitement - would take our astronauts into space for yet another thrilling mission. Landing men on the moon was our crowning achievement, watched by just about everyone in the country.
Space flights were national events on a scale that I haven't seen since - and probably never will again. The SuperBowl and American Idol Finals may draw larger audiences, but in terms of captivating our collective conscious, of instilling pride in our country and what we were capable of doing, they will ever equal the NASA of the mid 20th century.
NASA has put together a little retrospective of their first 50 years, using photos that have rarely been seen publicly. If you are a child of the '50s or '60s, this will bring back stirring memories of what we briefly referred to as Cape Kennedy.
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: The Russians Aren't Coming! The Russians Aren't Coming!
Friday, October 26, 2007
Well, definitely
not in
these!
Owing to my unnatural fascination with old and abandoned things, I find the concept of an aircraft boneyard to be absolutely irresistible. The most famous of them is no doubt the Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Center outside of Tucson, but there are others.
The Russians have such things, too, and they can be a fascinating glimpse into the "other side" of the Cold War.
-=[ Grant ]=-
Owing to my unnatural fascination with old and abandoned things, I find the concept of an aircraft boneyard to be absolutely irresistible. The most famous of them is no doubt the Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Center outside of Tucson, but there are others.
The Russians have such things, too, and they can be a fascinating glimpse into the "other side" of the Cold War.
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: What Benito couldn't do, Carlo did
Friday, August 10, 2007
Before Honda, before Kawasaki, Yamaha or Suzuki, motorcycle racing was dominated by the great Italian marques. Legendary companies like Gilera, Moto Morini, and MV Augusta held consecutive world titles, some of which would stand for years. All of these makers had their adherents, but the undeniable "big boy" of Italian motorcycle racing was Moto Guzzi.
The company was formed when three friends - Carlo Guzzi, Girogio Parodi, and Giovanni Ravelli - were serving in the Italian Army during World War I. Part of a flying unit, they had complimentary skills: Guzzi was a talented, though as yet amateur, engineer; Ravelli was an up-and-coming name in racing before the war; and Parodi, like his successful father, had demonstrated business acumen. The three agreed to pool their talents and form a company to make motorcycles. Ravelli, sadly, was killed only days after the war was finished, but Guzzi and Parodi soldiered on to form the company they'd all dreamed about.
Guzzi designed the machines and Parodi (whose father financed the enterprise) handled the business aspects of the fledgling firm. They knew that the key to commercial success was a reputation in racing, and thanks to their combined skill they were almost immediately successful at both. Only four months after their first prototypes were completed, company rider Gino Finzi picked up first place at the prestigious Targa Florio - a win that surprised the industry.
The company rapidly expanded their pool of engineering talent, and they would flex their muscle by making amazing motorcycles: a magnesium-cased, supercharged 250cc; a 4-cylinder supercharged 500cc in 1930; and a 3-cylinder supercharged 500cc machine in 1940. Despite these advances, their racing reputation would be made with their more pedestrian - but wonderfully engineered - single cylinder twin-cam motorcycles.
Those bikes quickly came to dominate the 250cc and 500cc classes, racking up win after win. In 1934 they cemented their hold on the top 500cc class with their introduction of the two-cylinder 500cc bicilindrica, which allowed them a spectacular win in both the 250cc and 500cc classes at the Isle of Man TT race in 1935. in 1953 they entered the hotly contested 350cc class, again with a twin-cam single, and won every World Championship until 1957.
By the mid-50s, though, they were losing ground in the "top dog" 500cc class. The twin-cam singles were decidedly out of date, while the bicilindrica had been inexplicably killed off in 1951. Guzzi needed a new bike that could not just take on the increasingly successful Gilera and upstart MV Augusta designs, but would rule over them.
Chief designer Giulio Carcano put his considerable talent to work, and what emerged in 1955 stunned the world: a water cooled, 500cc V-8 motorcycle. With dual overhead cams and a separate carburetor for each cylinder, this audacious design pumped out a then-unheard-of 72hp at a scarcely believable 12,000 rpm. Guzzi was ready.
Sadly the tire, brake and suspension technology of the day weren't up to the demands of the magnificent engine, and the otto cylindri never achieved the success intended. Moto Guzzi retired from racing entirely at the end of the 1957 season, and the bike was shelved. This didn't stop it from leaving a stumbling block for its rivals, though - in its short 2-season career it set several lap speed records which would end up standing for more than two decades, a parting shot to those who would succeed them.
Today only two authentic examples remain, both in the possession of the Guzzi company in the picturesque Italian town of Mandello del Lario. They occasionally fire one up for a demonstration run on their test track behind the factory. The sound of the engine is unmistakable, and reminds us that there was a time when Italy did, in fact, rule the world - or at least a small part of it.
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: Do you know Nessmuk?
Friday, January 26, 2007
You know, I had a pretty darned
good childhood. I grew up on a small farm, outside a small town (I
remember when the town passed the 1500 resident milestone) that was
nestled in the foothills of the Cascade Range.
After chores were finished and if there were no other pressing jobs to be done (like hauling hay), I got to do what I wanted. I could go down to our pond and fish, or take off with my friends Dan and/or Tom for an overnight camping trip - all with very little administrative (parental) hand-wringing. Even a two-day trip up the river and into the woods wasn't out of the question, though such an outing did prompt some worrying from my mother.
Not a bad way to grow up!
Living as I do in suburbia, I long for the time when we would run into the forest with little more than a small tent, a blanket, a sheath knife, maybe a couple cans of baked beans, and a fishing pole. (If we planned our trip into a particular area that we knew contained several small caves, we didn't even bother with the tent.) Woodcraft, such as shelter building and fire making, was an expected part of any well-balanced upbringing. I miss those days.
I have found a way to keep the hunger for simpler times at bay: I curl up with Nessmuk.
What is a Nessmuk? Properly, the question is phrased "Who is Nessmuk?"
Nessmuk was in normal existence one George Washington Sears. Sears was a slight, asthmatic individual who was born in 1821 in Massachusetts, and spent much of his life - at least, that portion when he wasn't working just to finance his next adventure - in a canoe or on a boat or in the woods.
He was able to combine his love of the outdoors and his considerable talent as a writer by having narratives of his adventures published in Forest and Stream magazine.
He wrote two books, Woodcraft and Camping, which are still in print - combined into one volume titled Woodcraft and Camping (no surprise there, right?!?) It is still available to this day, which must be some sort of record in the publishing business. (Another book, called Adirondack Letters, is a compilation of his articles in Forest and Stream.)
Woodcraft and Camping is not a thick book, nor is it solely a "how to" manual. It is the collected wisdom and insights of a man who lived just to be able to commune with nature. Nessmuk wrote in a beautiful, lyrical style that makes the reader salivate with the desire to get out into the wilderness.
At only $6.95, I believe it to be one of the greatest bargains - as well as one of the "must haves" - in outdoor literature. I cannot recommend this book highly enough to anyone who enjoys living in and exploring the wilderness, or even just dreaming about it!
Woodcraft and Camping at Amazon.com
A short biography of George Washington Sears
The Adirondack Letters online edition (free!)
Wikipedia entry on Nessmuk
-=[ Grant ]=-
After chores were finished and if there were no other pressing jobs to be done (like hauling hay), I got to do what I wanted. I could go down to our pond and fish, or take off with my friends Dan and/or Tom for an overnight camping trip - all with very little administrative (parental) hand-wringing. Even a two-day trip up the river and into the woods wasn't out of the question, though such an outing did prompt some worrying from my mother.
Not a bad way to grow up!
Living as I do in suburbia, I long for the time when we would run into the forest with little more than a small tent, a blanket, a sheath knife, maybe a couple cans of baked beans, and a fishing pole. (If we planned our trip into a particular area that we knew contained several small caves, we didn't even bother with the tent.) Woodcraft, such as shelter building and fire making, was an expected part of any well-balanced upbringing. I miss those days.
I have found a way to keep the hunger for simpler times at bay: I curl up with Nessmuk.
What is a Nessmuk? Properly, the question is phrased "Who is Nessmuk?"
Nessmuk was in normal existence one George Washington Sears. Sears was a slight, asthmatic individual who was born in 1821 in Massachusetts, and spent much of his life - at least, that portion when he wasn't working just to finance his next adventure - in a canoe or on a boat or in the woods.
He was able to combine his love of the outdoors and his considerable talent as a writer by having narratives of his adventures published in Forest and Stream magazine.
He wrote two books, Woodcraft and Camping, which are still in print - combined into one volume titled Woodcraft and Camping (no surprise there, right?!?) It is still available to this day, which must be some sort of record in the publishing business. (Another book, called Adirondack Letters, is a compilation of his articles in Forest and Stream.)
Woodcraft and Camping is not a thick book, nor is it solely a "how to" manual. It is the collected wisdom and insights of a man who lived just to be able to commune with nature. Nessmuk wrote in a beautiful, lyrical style that makes the reader salivate with the desire to get out into the wilderness.
At only $6.95, I believe it to be one of the greatest bargains - as well as one of the "must haves" - in outdoor literature. I cannot recommend this book highly enough to anyone who enjoys living in and exploring the wilderness, or even just dreaming about it!
Woodcraft and Camping at Amazon.com
A short biography of George Washington Sears
The Adirondack Letters online edition (free!)
Wikipedia entry on Nessmuk
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: "What the hell were you thinking??"
Friday, January 19, 2007
That was my dear, departed
father's question whenever I was found to have done something that
wasn't all that bright. Of course, any self-respecting 10-year-old
knows how to answer: look at the ground, shuffle your feet, and say
(sotto
voce) "I
dunno."
Unfortunately, once you become of age and start asking yourself the same question that tried-and-true answer know longer works. As luck would have it, sometimes it takes a while before you ask. Sometimes, it takes years. The great part about this delay is that it allows you to once again say "I dunno!"
This is a story about just such an event.
Here in Oregon we're blessed with some phenomenal scenery. From our gorgeous Pacific Coastline to the high desert east of the Cascades (a treasure unto themselves), there is something here for every taste. One of the most visited natural wonders is Multnomah Falls, located just a short 45-minute drive from downtown Portland.
The spectacular waterfall - the second-highest year-round fall in North America - is fed by a spring way up on Larch Mountain. In fact, it's not the only falls served by that spring: there are several other (much smaller, of course) falls that the water travels over before reaching the "big one."
(From the U.S. Forest Service website.)
Multnomah Falls is 620 feet high - a straight drop of 542 feet, then a bit of a pool, then another drop of a mere 69 feet. A footbridge spans the small canyon over the top of the smaller section, and leads to a trail which snakes its way up the side of the mountain to a viewpoint at the top. There, safely contained behind fences and guardrails, one can look over the incredibly scenic Columbia River Gorge.
However, back in 1982 there were no such amenities at the top - just a small sign that warned visitors (those hardy enough to make the steep climb) to stay on the trail. That didn't stop my buddy Ed and me from doing something stupid, however!
A quick digression: Ed and I were aspiring photographers who spent our days selling Nikons and other assorted high end gear to people who also aspired to be photographers. Most of them, however, would never put themselves on the line for "that shot"; we, on the other hand, continually stick our various body parts in harm's way just to get pictures that no one else would dare.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how we found ourselves in the middle of that cold little river at the edge of Multnomah Falls!
I decided that I wanted a different shot of the falls - one that no one else would take. So we lugged our 35 pounds of gear (per person, you understand) up the trail and sloshed out into the water.
I walked to the edge of the falls, where I found a couple of rocks between which I could wedge my Pentax KX-Motor camera on its Bogen Monopod and shoot at a low enough shutter speed to capture the movement of the water. I framed the scene to show the water going over the edge on its way to the bottom (542 feet below my, umm, feet) as well as a glimpse of the river and gorge, and made 3 exposures.
Once I developed the film, into my archives the negatives went - to be resurrected here for the first time in a quarter century:
Looking at this shot today sends chills down my spine. It was foolhardy in the extreme; I was literally leaning out over the edge of the falls to take the picture, knee-deep in cold water, just a slip away from certain death. I was either invincible or ignorant - I'll leave it to you to determine which.
It shouldn't surprise you to learn that this wasn't the first - nor was it the last - stupid thing we did in the name of photographic immortality. My wife, one would think, would be used to this sort of thing - yet when I told her the story (several years later), she asked "what the hell were you thinking?!?" Need I tell you my answer?
-=[ Grant ]=-
Unfortunately, once you become of age and start asking yourself the same question that tried-and-true answer know longer works. As luck would have it, sometimes it takes a while before you ask. Sometimes, it takes years. The great part about this delay is that it allows you to once again say "I dunno!"
This is a story about just such an event.
Here in Oregon we're blessed with some phenomenal scenery. From our gorgeous Pacific Coastline to the high desert east of the Cascades (a treasure unto themselves), there is something here for every taste. One of the most visited natural wonders is Multnomah Falls, located just a short 45-minute drive from downtown Portland.
The spectacular waterfall - the second-highest year-round fall in North America - is fed by a spring way up on Larch Mountain. In fact, it's not the only falls served by that spring: there are several other (much smaller, of course) falls that the water travels over before reaching the "big one."
(From the U.S. Forest Service website.)
Multnomah Falls is 620 feet high - a straight drop of 542 feet, then a bit of a pool, then another drop of a mere 69 feet. A footbridge spans the small canyon over the top of the smaller section, and leads to a trail which snakes its way up the side of the mountain to a viewpoint at the top. There, safely contained behind fences and guardrails, one can look over the incredibly scenic Columbia River Gorge.
However, back in 1982 there were no such amenities at the top - just a small sign that warned visitors (those hardy enough to make the steep climb) to stay on the trail. That didn't stop my buddy Ed and me from doing something stupid, however!
A quick digression: Ed and I were aspiring photographers who spent our days selling Nikons and other assorted high end gear to people who also aspired to be photographers. Most of them, however, would never put themselves on the line for "that shot"; we, on the other hand, continually stick our various body parts in harm's way just to get pictures that no one else would dare.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how we found ourselves in the middle of that cold little river at the edge of Multnomah Falls!
I decided that I wanted a different shot of the falls - one that no one else would take. So we lugged our 35 pounds of gear (per person, you understand) up the trail and sloshed out into the water.
I walked to the edge of the falls, where I found a couple of rocks between which I could wedge my Pentax KX-Motor camera on its Bogen Monopod and shoot at a low enough shutter speed to capture the movement of the water. I framed the scene to show the water going over the edge on its way to the bottom (542 feet below my, umm, feet) as well as a glimpse of the river and gorge, and made 3 exposures.
Once I developed the film, into my archives the negatives went - to be resurrected here for the first time in a quarter century:
Looking at this shot today sends chills down my spine. It was foolhardy in the extreme; I was literally leaning out over the edge of the falls to take the picture, knee-deep in cold water, just a slip away from certain death. I was either invincible or ignorant - I'll leave it to you to determine which.
It shouldn't surprise you to learn that this wasn't the first - nor was it the last - stupid thing we did in the name of photographic immortality. My wife, one would think, would be used to this sort of thing - yet when I told her the story (several years later), she asked "what the hell were you thinking?!?" Need I tell you my answer?
-=[ Grant ]=-
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