Animal People: The Movie

...at least, it's the best movie that one can make in approximately twenty minutes. A few students from our Photojournalism class assembled some sound slides about our stories. Essentially, it's a narrated,  200-word story set to about 12 photos of the subject and his/her/its environment. You can view them all here (click on each of our names) and check mine out at this link.

Massabloggachusetts, Pt. 1

Vacation... here we are. There's no more work for a whole week, which perhaps is the nicest part of it all. It's nice to be able to settle into days that peak somewhere in the 80s and have more or less zero humidity. It's so nice here, the family (my mom's best friend since first grade) doesn't even have air conditioning. And yet, it's more or less the same temperate feeling that Virginia has, without the pains of the average summer. Granted, the winter will be god-awful, but hey, I'll be back in one-inch-cancels-everything Virginia.

The drive itself was fine. Whatever, it's a long car ride. Final Fantasy 4 on the DS, Stephen Colbert, and tons of music kept me surprisingly occupied for all 11 hours. Colbert's book isn't all that great, to be honest. It's more or less a more comprehensive look at the character on The Colbert Report than anything. Fans of the show aren't missing out, but then again, they're the ones who bought the thing in the first place.

But anyway, we spent our first day at the beach. On the ride over there, my brother said that he saw a frog in a lily-padded pond off the road. I looked out... and it was a turtle. Strike one, dummy.

Being at the beach was a bit blah when you're the only person your own age that you know. You also notice how pale you are, how out of shape or fat you are, and many other physical deficiencies to top off the lovely ice cream treat that made you look like that in the first place. But I combated the first one, didn't worry about the second, and defeated boredom with a camera in the tide pool (see the photos here) and a good, healthy dose of Sarah Vowell.

Vowell makes me proud to be a nerd - so what if you're visiting Salem to learn about witch history (witchtory?) and mocking that tourist trap, too (we haven't done that yet... this year)? So what if Al Gore is a nerd? So what if the guy walking past your little beach campground has a stunning babe around his arm, which, by the way, is twice the size of an average baby? Nerds rule.

Sarah Vowell quotes a post on Slashdot.org:

Geeks tend to be focused on very narrow fields of endeavor. The modern geek has been generally dismissed by society because their passions are viewed as trivial by those people who "see the big picture." Geeks understand that the big picture is pixilated and their high level of contribution in small areas grows the picture. They don't need to see what everyone else is doing to make their part better.

Maybe that explains why my mom yells at me for not seeing the big picture. The big picture is made up of big pictures. So while it may not matter that some girl sitting across from you on a beach that you'll never see again may not be into you, it lends itself to a whole world of issues and ideas and problems. That's not to say I'm letting it affect me, but that's just how it works for me... unfortunately.

Of course, maybe there's a reason why I'm the only one in the family who goes to the library to get reading material for vacation. And it's not required material, either! It's for fun! It may escape my siblings, but hell, I love it.

One other point: after watching the horrifically-depressing-but-advertised-as-a-laffapalooza film "The Bucket List," I think I actually understand a famous Vonnegut quote beyond its face value: "If I should every die, God forbid." It was running through my mind throughout the entire movie, because it humanized death (as if it weren't human enough already). Death is something that happens. Don't make it out to be such a big thing... have fun with your life, it's the only one you've got (maybe).

A glimpse into the past, made easy with the internet

One of the reasons that I love Richmond is that a lot of the old architecture still stands and is still being used today. I saw Speed Racer last night in the Byrd Theatre, which opened in 1928 and sells tickets to recent movies for $2. How can you beat that?

That just inspired me to write a post about the theatre or maybe Richmond itself, but then I remembered that "The Times" in London recently put all of its newspapers online from 1785 to today for free (you can register for free or use login_hater@mailinator.com and login_hater) . I haven't found much out of the ordinary, but others have! A personal advertisement from November 13, 1832 reads:

INSANITY - Mr. OXLEY, surgeon, begs to inform the public that he has a few
VACANCIES in his ASYLUM for respectable patients. No paupers taken. Terms
moderate. Nurses wanted.

There's also this review for a show in 1970 in which Nick Drake opened:


The other really interesting internet time machine that I've come across is the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Archive. The sheer diversity of what you can find is staggering. The images are (usually) in a wickedly-high resolution, so you can print poster-size copies for yourself!

Departure, S.S. Chalmette from Havana Harbor

Chalmette Refinery, American Sugar Refining Company, New Orleans, La.

Tommy Atkins

Federal Theatre presents "Trojan incident" (heh)

And of course, there's always Archive.org, but I've never found too many interesting things, except for entire Soul Coughing live shows that are too large to fit onto a CD. It's weird to think that the internet can be the both information superhighway and the gateway to Jamie Spears' kid, too. You've just gotta look.