The Oriental

The Oriental

I splurged today. I bought a hand made oriental rug from ... well, personally, I think it was the Russian Mafia. Chinese, silk and wool. It's a red letter day. I thnk Candy believes I went over the top. It was significantly more than I'd planned to spend, but about one order of magnitude at any rate. Will have to post a picture of it.

I had a nice little antique prayer rug back in the 70s before they were all that popular. Skip Copper, who worked in my frame shop, gave it to me. Unfortunately, it got caught up in one of those "what's mine is mine and what's yours is mine" things. This one is far larger than a prayer rug: 8'x10'. Dark blues and dark reds.

The Crumudgeon of the Sonora

I'm pretty bummed. One of the reasons I was as happy as a clam to have moved out here was because "here" is in the middle of all the ancient North American cultures and their descendants - and a stone's throw from the Aztec, the Maya and not all that far from the culture centers in south America. I have a fascination for thos things and I want to see them before I die ... as many of them as there is time for.

I was surfing around looking at archaeological sites on-line and came up with a very reasonable "dig with the pros" package in Northern Arizona. I showed it to Candy with the eagerness of a little boy showing his mommy the latest bug he'd found. I was crushed when I ran into the brick wall response of, "I don't think either one of us will ever be in good enough shape for something like that."

Personally, I don't think it's true. Personally, I have every hope that Candy's surgery will be a "fix" ... albeit temporary, but worth several years all the same. Personally, I don't believe I'm not in good enough shape to wield a trowel and brush or sleep out doors in a sleeping bag. But, personally, her answer took all the hope out of life. If we can't do something simple like that, what are we to do? Sit here and wait for death?

Both my parents died in their early eighties. I'm just about 60. That tells me I have about 20 years of sitting around, twiddling my thumbs. I can't imagine going off and doing something like that without Candy (she enjoys that kind of thins as much as I do) but the alternatives seem to be either do it alone or sit and wait for the cold to start up my legs.

The Examining Room

Candy and I went to see her surgeon. She's scheduled to go under the knife on March 2. It was a brief, pre-op meeting. He only wanted the answer to one question, "Can you thin of anything that might prevent us from going ahead with your elective surgery."

He says it's routine. It may be routine for him, but it's certainly not routine for either Candy or me. In my book, there is no such thing as "routine surgery".

Monument Series

Monument in a Box

Sponsorship

MuseCube is changing it's rate structure; moving from unlimited duration, free accounts to three month free trial accounts with the choices after three months being either join at $36/year or get deleted. The change seems to have caught some people by surprise. They are taking the attitude that if they have to pay anything, it isn't worth anything to them.

I see it quite differently.

If I do a googol search on my name, of all the Joe Kozlowskis out there, my MuseCube account is right at the top of the list. That's worth $3/month to me. Beyond that, the Cube offers some pretty decent templates. That means I have a professional looking place to hang my shingle without going through all the hassle of setting up and managing a site.

One thing I have to decide deals with my plans for OMP. Though it may be bigger, I'm not so sure it's better. I have actually found people to work with there. I have not with MuseCube -- though, to be perfectly honest, I've not really been trying to find anyone to work with.

I've "maintained" (though "to maintain" is not quite the right meaning) an account there for a number of years; since account were free there. I've been grandfathered into their current system, though they seem to have dumped some of the images I've had up there. I may actually have to start paying for an account there.

In any case, I digress. Given that the changes at MuseCube seem to be catching some people off guard, I've offered to sponsor any model who works with me on a TFP basis to the tune of a full years membership on MuseCube; that is, I'll pay for their membership for a year. I doubt there will be any takers (just as I doubt there are any models who would ever make the same kind of offer for an aspiring photographer). At worst, I get good press on the Cube.

Great Village - Down the Road and Around the Corner

It was good to get out to dinner, even though there was enough MSG to choke a Great Village. It's the first time in a while.

I was contacted by a aspiring Goth photographer/model. I guess Goth part has been accomplished. It's the other two that I believe fall under the "aspiring" heading. She started by outlining that she wanted to shoot but, never having done "anything like this before" we left it at "give me a yell when you're ready".

She seemed a little non-plused that I would shoot for the pictures.

The MakeUp Artist that I blew off a few months ago - because I don't like getting e-mail cancellations an hour or two before we're supposed to shoot - dropped me a note to tell me that she was really impressed by the new stuff. I guess she means the street photography that's been holding my attention lately. That was a very nice thing for her to say and for me to hear. I sent her a "thank you" note and signed it "The Grumpy Old Man". I hope she gets a chuckle out of that. I may want to work with her again and I'd hate to think I burned my bridges. (Actually, I thought I had until I saw her note.)

I've been haunting RetroKitty - a model site dedicateed to models and photographers involved in retro (20s 30s 40s, 50s and 60s era) pinups, Goth and a little fetish. I feel a lot more comfortable putting my stuff up there. At least I'm not going to get "wedding photographered". The people there are more likely to "get" what I'm doing - or at least I think its probable.

Dead cat

I rock (v.t.); I, rock (n.), Iraq (v.i)

The Panama
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Suburban Cactus - in black and white
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Suburban Cactus - anything but wild.
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A visit to the local Museum of Contemporary Culture.
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Candy's pain is under control for the moment, though there's some indication of a flare up in her left arm as well. We had an appointment with one of her doctors early this AM and she's now scheduled for surgery on March 2. I think that has to put a lot of things on hold for the moment. We were hoping surgery wouldn't be the answer but, I guess there's no way around it.

One of the things that goes on hold is the idea of actively looking for sone one(s) to work with to expand the model oriented sections of my portfolio. Candy is the first priority.

On Display. My part of a "collection".

It's really nice to see some things up. I really like this bunch together. As a group, they have a very musical quality, aside from the obvious content. For example, 1 and 3 are fairly square in format while 2, 4 and 5 are full frame rectangles - musically that would work out to A-B-A-B-B, a blues format.

Another way of looking at the progression would be grouping content. 1, 3 and 5 are musicians (jazz, bluegrass and blues, respectively) while 2 and 4 are based on repeated patterns (one of the major foundations of music). That would translate to A-B-A-B-A ... another progression.