Life As I See It

    During my senior year in college, I carefully went
through all my slides and separated the “good” ones from the OK and
threw out the rest. The good ones went into a box and then into a
plastic bag (the roof was leaking, so I didn’t want them to get wet).
Well, that bag was later thrown out by accident. I kicked my self in
the ass for being so stupid when I realized what had happened. In the
subsequent years, I have lost a variety of images, and they were always
the good ones. This is because they get separated out to get sent to a
lab or something and they don’t get put back into the main group. The
good news is that recently I have copies of the images I like even if
the original goes missing. A handful of months ago I sent out my best
mages to be scannned. and I couldn’t find them tonight. After tearing
my place apart (I reccomend doing this about twice a year, it’s amazing
what you can turn up) I found them. Turns out I don’t really miss the
ones that got thrown out all those years ago, I have a much different
idea of what is “good”and bad nowadays. At least tonight I won’t have
to kick myself…

    In the process of tearing my room apart, I came
across a short story I wrote 3 years ago for a class. It isn’t too bad
and still encapsulates what I think about the creative process
and “art”. Unfortunetly I only have a hard copy of it now, don’t know
if I’ll ever get the energy to transcribe it back into digital form. On
the other hand, that would be a perfect excuse to do some editing….
I’ll have to think if I want to inflict it on the world via my web site.

Isaac

… and it felt pretty damn good. Of course that means I’ll actually
have to do stuff tomorrow. Not much, but something. I started to get my
lesson plans together for the class and I realized that I have no idea
how long it will take for me to explain stuff. I have what should be
enough for two classes and I’ll just wing it. Had a brain storm about
using the slide projector on the dry erase board to explain different
film formats and field of view. Should be a good visual way to teach
something that can be difficult to explain. I better get to bed…

Isaac

    I caught part of an opera on TV and it wrapped up
everything I love and hate about opera. It was from Offenbach’s “Tales
of Hoffman” and I have no idea who the actors/singers were, but they
were incredible. Soaring voices, impossible notes, unbelievable emotion
and a stirring accompaniment from the orchestra. It really was
breathtaking, then I made the mistake of reading the subtitles. The
words were the same ridiculous crap that is in every type of musical
theater. This is the primary reason I can’t take broadway musicals, I
just can’t get past the lyrics. They bug me to no end and I am
incapable of enjoying anything that involves singing in English in a
play.
    It did remind me that I had an opera that I hadn’t
listened to yet (one of several actually). This was a second copy of
“Le Nozze de Figro” that I picked up somewhere, maybe one of those BBC
magazines or something. I already had a snob approved copy (I think
rene Fleming is the soprano and there is some big name tenor on there
too) but it’s always good to compare performances. While the snob
approved cast does indeed have better voices, the BBC cast put on a
better performance over all. There is more conveyed and they seem to
mean it when they sing. Plus the audience wasn’t so stuffy that they
couldn’t laugh at the funny parts.
    From there I listened to an Albienz concerto
(Christopher Parkening on guitar) and went to some Rachmaninoff pieces
for two pianos. The Albienz piece was my second time listening in a
month but I hadn’t heard this particular Rachmaninoff stuff in a couple
of years. It was good to reacquaint myself, while I can remember just
about every pop song I’ve ever heard (and the back up parts, the bass
lines, etc.) it’s much more difficult to keep this stuff in my head.
I’ve always thought that iPods are for people too lazy to remember
songs well enough to play them in their head:-)
    After watching a baseball game (the Cubs won) and
eating, I came downstairs for more music. Something had reminded me of
Black Sabbath, so their first album was the first thing in. You’re
going to think I’m the world’s biggest audio geek for this, but so be
it. The first thing I realized when I started the CD was that I had my
“classical” tubes in the amps, not my rockers. Since I didn’t
particularly feel like getting burned replacing them, I lived with it
and enjoyed the slightly different presentation. More air and less
crunch. Despite this, I had my pictures rattling on the wall while I
played air bass… A live Ike and Tina Turner album was next, then
“Easter” by Patti Smith, and finally “Pretty on the Inside” by Hole.
I’m finishing up the night with Glenn Gould’s second version of the
Goldberg variations. This is one of those albums that I will never tire
of and every time I hear it I move closer to buying the rerelease of it
remastered from the superior analog master tapes. It’s just one more
album on the list… I’d call that a good day, haven’t been able to do
any real listening in quite a while. Plan on doing more tomorrow.

Isaac

    Yup, I am a teacher now. It doesn’t pay much, and I
wouldn’t call it a dream job, but it is something that doesn’t involve
sales, or standing up for 8 hours at a time. Yeah! I figure that I can
get my new computer at the end of this gig and I’ll also be teaching 2
more classes in the fall. Feels good to get this.
    Speaking of feeling good, I have the next three days
off. I’m going to sit around, do some planning for my class, read the
Post and the Times, and watch as many baseball games as possible. Got
some hot dogs and hamburgers for the grill, life is good…

Isaac

    I’ve put up links to David and John’s magnum opus,
“The Twine Tour” and John Dicker’s Kenneth Cleaver articles. This is
some funny stuff, you should really check them out. David also directed
me to an old friend from Ithaca that I had lost contact with. John
Bowie and I hung around together quite a bit back in college and it’s
great to see what he’s up to. He’s also a heck of a writer and very
knowledgable about music. You can find him on my friends list here on
Live journal. Gah, time to go to bed, hope I hear about the teaching
position early on in the day, the suspense is killing me.

Isaac

    It went well, she seemed to be interested in me. I
tried to sound as enthusiastic as possible without being obnoxious. I
really would like to get this job. They cancelled one of the sections
because of a lack of interest, but they will have one this summer and
two in the fall. It turns out that they pay better than Penn does, just
with a lot fewer hours. It would allow me to get the Mac mini I’ve
wanted to get, that’s certainly something. An even better thing is that
it’ll take up enough time to prevent me from spending money as
foolishly as I have when I get bored… I should find out tomorrow,
with any luck I’ll have to spend my time this weekend getting my
teaching plan together and figuring out the course materials. Wish me
luck!

Isaac

    Came across the web page of Clay Enos, a former
fellow Ithaca college photo person. He has gone on to do pretty well
for himself, he has lots of high profile clients and subjects. He’s a
hell of a photographer too. My favorite part of his site is the one
entitled “Mundane”, he has a great eye… His site is now on my links
page.

Isaac

    I’ve been talking about the addictive nature of some
pomegranate blended juices from a company called POM. I tried a sip or
two of their latest concoction, a cherry and pomegranate mix. I drempt
about it all night… I kid you not. I finished off my first bottle
tonight and I’ll have to go and get some more tomorrow. It’s supposed
to be good for you, but I’m drinking this stuff cause I crave it. I
couldn’t crave good old (and cheap) OJ could I? Of course not…

Isaac

    I’ve updated my links page on my web site. There are
some interesting sites on there that you might not have come across in
your regular surfing. Some are a bit esoteric, but there are some
general interest ones as well.

Isaac

    It was good, but too short of course. I went down on
Sat. night and left after dessert on sunday. I gave dad a new cd player
to replace the old one he had been using. It was the same one that I
received as a gift in 1987! It did still work, once you got the door
open. Of course if you weren’t careful, you could pull the drawer all
the way out of the machine. Butler was as happy (maybe moreso) as dad
was for getting a replacement for the old beast.
    Nathan whipped up an excellent dinner (as usual)
and a dessert to die for. I even took pictures, just some snap shots of
the family doing things. Turns out I only took one of dad by himself,
but it was the first shot and I hadn’t advanced the film far enough
along, so he was cut in half with a black frame. LOL, it was only
father’s day…
    I hit a dead skunk on the way home. There was an
overpowering stench for a short period of time. I’m talking about a
wretching, gut churning type of inensity to this smell. Luckily it was
gone fairly quickly, or so I thought. I got into the car this morning
and noticed the faint but unmistakable aroma of skunk.  Driving
around today with the windows down seemed to have helped that a bunch,
I sure hope I got rid of it….
    There’s even some good news back up in NOVA. First
off, the dog is taking a one week vacation at mom’s house. Yipee! No
dog walks for a week! I have an interview for the parks and rec photo
teacher position on thursday. She seemed to really want me for the job,
I’ve got a good feeling about this! Thank you God! And the last thing,
it looks like I’ll have a three day weekend coming up! It’s just a
quirk in the scheduling, but I’m going to enjoy it. I’m not quite sure
what I’m going to do. If I had any common sense, I’d sit down and plan
out my teaching plans for the photo class (assuming I get it) and clean
up my living area (which has become a bit of a hell hole). Luckily
nobody has ever accused me of having much common sense, so my options
are still open!

Isaac