The Tree of mrcury

It took me a while to realize how great Flickr is. Especially in the Pro version. I thought I’d make the big jump and it’s amazingly smooth and efficient. What else? Go check it out, I have put up a lot of new sets so it’s not a mess anymore. And more to come, of course. I have to edit those 500+ pictures from Paris.

…photography, for a while?

Though photography has been a great source of interest in this past two years, this is the first post about it. I don’t know why I haven’t done this before, but today I found out many interesting photoblogs and I think that gave me a little butt kick to start things off here. I subscribed to their RSS feeds, so I can have them with my email as soon as they’re updated. That is fancy. I’m going to post the links in the next days so you can see what I’m talking about.

What I like the most about photologs is the different approach every photographer has to their own work: besides of technical ability and design choices, I’m more fascinated by the different motivations they have and the goals they look forward to. And there are different medias involved: from digital SLRs to medium format film cameras, to point-and-shoot, even to hand made cameras. With time I learnt how to see the differences between different media, and my interest seems to be growing in every direction.

I’m also thinking about starting a photoblog myself, but that will come in a little time. Right now I’m posting occasionally on Flickr. The latest two sets I just published here on the Photography section (and in part also on Flickr) are from the celebration for the World Cup in Thiene, the closest bigger town. Everybody went crazy on the streets, and it was fun to shoot some portraits. Despite my usual crappy mood and the damn autofocus not working in the dark. The kit lens that came together with my Canon EOS 350D (Digital Rebel XT) is pretty impossible to deal with as far as manual focus goes. The focusing ring is all wobbly and that just gets in the way in low light, where the AF sensor is practically blind.

So the next morning I decided I had to order that cheap Canon 50mm f1.8, as I read it’s worth the price and it will hopefully make the viewfinder brighter. It should arrive before the end of the month, so I will be able to test it in Stockholm this august.

From the 12th of August 1940 to the 20th of September 1945, a man sent to the woman he met one morning and then loved for the rest of his life, one postcard a day, everyday, throughout the war, the bombing, the African military campaign, the evacuation, the armistice. The 879 delivered postcards, carefully kept, tell the history of a new born love, the expectations, the fear of loss, the patience of waiting for each other but also the abyss of a Nation, the impending war, the resistance against fascism and also the faith in the private and collective happiness that came together at the end of the Second War World.

From Rosa Lee Projects.

Male cicadas (and only males) have loud noisemakers called “tymbals” on the sides of the abdominal base. Their “singing” is not stridulation as in many other familiar sound-producing insects like crickets (where two structures are rubbed against one another): the tymbals are regions of the exoskeleton that are modified to form a complex membrane with thin, membranous portions and thickened “ribs”. They rapidly vibrate these membranes with strong muscles, and enlarged chambers derived from the tracheae make their body serve as a resonance chamber, greatly amplifying the sound. Some cicadas produce sounds louder than 106 dB (SPL), among the loudest of all insect-produced sounds. (This amazing sound has frequently inspired haiku poets in Japan to write about them.) They modulate their noise by wiggling their abdomens toward and away from the tree that they are on.

From Wikipedia. All this mess to say that this morning I was waken up by the sound of cicadas. They’re quiet now.

I always thought, as a kid, that the queen in the cards was naturally the wife of the king. And I think you could agree with me on that. The point is that I was also damn sure that the queen had an affair with the jack.

Expectations always make fun of me.

Buy it, use it, break it, fix it, trash it, change it, mail- upgrade it, charge it, point it, zoom it, press it, snap it, work it, quick- erase it, write it, cut it, paste it, save it, load it, check it, quick- rewrite it, plug it, play it, burn it, rip it, drag it, drop it, zip- unzip it, lock it, fill it, curl it, find it, view it, coat it, jam- unlock it, surf it, scroll it, pose it, click it, cross it, crack it, twitch- update it, name it, rate it, tune it, print it, scan it, send it, fax- rename it, touch it, bring it, pay it, watch it, turn it, leave it, stop- format it.

Today I was waiting a bus on the street of one of this city’s suburbs and there was this white and green building right in front of the bus stop. I was so bored out of my mind that I wished the building to collapse. I don’t know, maybe with explosives that would have make it implode. No, I thought it would have just cracked and fall apart. With big chunks of gray concrete smashing on the pavement.

A big solid concrete block cracking and smashing to the ground, for no particular reason other than my personal amusement.

I think I thought of an H bomb for a second, but that was far more than what I was hoping for. I was dreaming of an organic failure, more than physical destruction.

Yesterday night I wrote a full page of my diary (yes, I have a diary) after three months of nothing. Sometimes you really need to get things out, put them on a page and read them. And put them somewhere real. Blogging is fun but ephemeral.

Mood isn’t particularly exciting this week, and as I read the pages from january to febrauary I saw some kind of continuum regarding this uneasiness I’ve been suffering of lately.

But I’m still positive it’s going to pass, sooner or later.

Going back from studies room casually without music in my ears.

Going back home number two humming Friday I’m In Love.

Long walking stare at a yellow-lighted silent open window, second floor, on one side of the street.

Brief thought of the stickered insides window panes on the other side of the same street, a little higher, no light though.

Young lovers kissing under one of this city’s porches.

Concerns about the act of walking itself, right leg cloth rubbing rhythmically left leg cloth.

Dead cricket on the third step of the stairs in the entrance.

Loud slam of the noisy entrance door, I’m here.