Photography

Don't usually do this. This is a picture of my son, who has already clearly demonstrated that he ain't afraid of no Internet, so I don't mind posting it. He took the picture.  It's a selfie, albeit a slightly sophisticated one, as it was taken with a Sony mirrorless camera instead of a cellphone. Then I altered it somewhat, just for fun, to make it look sort of like a painting.

Typical haunted expression on his face,
no doubt as he ponders his childhood.

He inadvertently (I think) used what is called "Rembrandt Lighting" for this picture. Rembrandt lit his subjects a certain way and the method is recognizable by the way the shadows fall across the face. This happens to be an almost perfect example of Rembrandt lighting, as a matter of fact.

The Internet does have some sources for this but generally, instructions for artistic methods in photography as found on the Internet usually begin and end with "the rule of thirds." This picture violates that rule, by the way, as did Rembrandt most of the time.

I could get into a bunch of technical crap--actually I would enjoy that--but that's OK. Photographers nowadays (maybe always) really think too much about the gear they use, which is almost to be considered as ridiculous as writers obsessing about what kind of keyboard or monitor they use when they write. In photography, ideally, the picture is the thing, just as in writing, the story is.

Seriously. Did I Take Them?

I've had a lot of thoughts--I just don't always write them down.

I swear!

But, it's interesting, if you have a thought but never speak it nor write it down, did it exist? You say yes, but even Jesus said, by their fruits you (ye, whatever) shall know them. The world of the mind is a pretty slippery thing. A brief alignment of neurons firing a certain way, is that even real?  It's like "data" for which wireless companies insist on payment. Right there should make you suspicious. Next time you are charged for data use overage, you should demand of your wireless company to show you the data in question. How big is the pile of data?  How much does it weigh?

"Studies Have Shown" that we tend not to remember our thoughts that well. We remember sounds, and words that were spoken, much more. So, if you don't remember something, did it exist?

Pretty scary ideas for someone approaching 70, for whom old memories are supreme, and new memories just fading, slippery notions, like a cloud that looks like a bunny until you turn your head and then look back. Did I take my pills this morning?

More on the Interminable A/C Compressor Droning Sound Saga

Drone--used to mean a persistent, low-pitched, unwavering sound, not a remote controlled flying device. A fixed-pitch pipe appended to a bagpipes is also called a drone, and this is closer to what I'm talking about, although, believe it or not, there is less musicality to a defective A/C compressor unit than to a set of bagpipes. I know because while it's been awhile since I've heard bagpipes, I hear A/C compressor units right at this very moment.  At this writing, as they say. And at all times, pretty much, more when it's hot out. (Note: it is Kansas City, and it is summer.)

The maintenance guy went up to the roof a few days ago and I think did something, because the noise lessened just a bit. But there are several A/C compressor units up there (right up there, on the roof, right over my top floor loft . . . ) and so there are still a couple left that are making noise. I spoke with the leasing agents and was informed that the maintenance guy has declared his work here done. My work here is done, he must have cried, arms outstretched as he stood on the rooftop overlooking the city even though no one heard him because his cry was drowned out by the droning sounds coming from the forest of A/C units around him.

urban rooftop A/C compressor garden 

So, I officially give up. My options are to stay here and quit whining about it, (although that would be difficult on both counts) or to move, and pay the very high fine for breaking the lease.

I am leaning toward moving. I'm really getting tired of listening to the drone. I found an apartment, all nice and new and quiet, very far from downtown where I now live, with rent low enough so that by the time I get to the end of December, I will have recovered the amount of the fine. And from then on, pure gravy!  Plus, the new apartment has a year-round pool!  How awesome is that?  And carports! And, strangely but most welcome, a free car wash and vacuum station on the premise. WTF. I'm in.

I'll miss the hipsters, though. It was so much fun watching them try to parallel park.

wait what?

I just noticed that I posted two sunset pictures in a row, and rather cliche pictures, at that. For this I sincerely apologize. Sunsets are sort of commonplace, as they happen every single day, and though some are better than others, most are stunningly average. In fact, one might say, on average, they are all average, their only true attribute being they remind us of the capacity in the human soul for finding beauty in the chaos. So, worth something.

Here, then, is a picture of Arthur listening to some Mozart, I think.

Sunset

The sun sets on the West Bottoms

Pictured is the sunset of May 3 (2018) which allowed the night to overtake the Missouri River Bottoms, the Charles Wheeler  Airport (one-time very cool Mayor of Kansas City, Missouri,) commonly called the "Downtown Airport" and once considered the most dangerous airport in the U.S., and the rather hair-pin river bend around the south end of the two runways.

This is also the view from either of the two windows of my loft in the River Market area of downtown Kansas City. It is rather industrial, actually, and one constantly hears multiple train engine units pulling freight along the south side of the river, or across one of a couple of bridges, also visible from my windows. When I was a teenager, we referred to the act of one long, sustained car honk as "laying on the horn." The engineers of these trains sometimes lay on the horn, at any hour of the night, (no matter how wee) and I don't really know why. Is there a cow standing on the tracks? What is a cow doing so far from the barn at two a.m.? Perhaps the laying on of the horn in the middle of the blackness of night is something train engineers do for pure joy. It's loud here; it must sound awesome from inside the engine.

There are other noises.  Bolted firmly to the roof just inches above my head, as I occupy my top floor loft, are, like, five or six air conditioning compressor units. You know the ones. Yours probably sits outside, beside a back, or side, wall, and when it comes on it makes a loud humming and whirring sound. I have five of these and they are old and they hum and whirr more loudly, and they also vibrate and sort of . . . thrum.  If two or more of them are running at the same time, the thumming sets up harmonics, which resonate through the roof and into my loft, ultimately winding up inside my skull, sounding like incoherent demons urging me to do something, I don't know what.  Yet.  I have reported this noise, this local variant of the Taos Hum, to the "Lease Managers."  It has done no good, so far.  According to the Internet, tenants with noise complaints have little legal recourse. The terms for breaking the lease are two and a half months rent, plus 30 days notice.

The math:  2.5 x (too much) = (way) x (too much.)

The Kansas City Sky

I hope not to revert to my old too-many-pictures mode, and do more writing with words instead, but here is a photo of the latest sunset.  I don't do sunrises, because, well, my windows just won't go there. Sure, I could go outside . . . but, kind of early, don't you think?

I also admit to being slightly heavy-handed with the photoshopping, as always, in an effort to make the picture look more like what I saw with my own eyes. It varies.

perhaps, on acid

The Soft Underbelly of Literature

I found myself reading yet another blog entry with tips on how to blog effectively. I can never pass those up, which tells me that I continue to be interested in getting people to read my blog. At the same time, I kind of keep my blog a secret from people I know in my actual face-to-face life. Why is that?

Actually, I have given out the URL to maybe four people, all of whom seemed to me to be hip, avid consumers of literature.  None of them became readers.  I cringe to think of how they may have visited my blog after I gave them the link, read some, then retreated as gracefully as they could, never to mention it again. I like to think they never even looked at it, yet my reasoning for that sort of response has to be that they regard blogs so negatively that they don't bother looking. Either way is a little pathetic.

It seems much more acceptable to Write a Novel. However, judging by the frequency of my blog posts, it would require too much time to finish a novel, and such an endeavor would take me way beyond my death.

Here's the deal. I retired so long ago, now, that I should have completed at least two or three novels. I don't know if I have ADD or what, and I've never been one of those heavy-duty people who can deal with medications--they wouldn't let me into Woodstock...  It's a philosophical problem, the journey vs the destination thing.

Recently I stumbled across a bit of family history that made me think we might be descended from Italian nobility.  I know. Big deal. Everyone in Italy is the same way. I followed the line down from the Marchese di Squillace, and back from my great-grandfather, but I haven't made those two lines meet. A friend said, just say they do.  Who's to know?  Who would question it?

So, in honor of the Trump era of post-credibility, yeah, I'm working on a novel. Which, by the way, means anything I do at least up to its completion, no matter how disreputable, is merely research.  Upon publishing, the bio on the back cover may mention something about the Marchese, with a picture, as he was a handsome man. We'll see.