The Online Photographer

Dead of Winter (Part II)

...So as I was saying at the end of Part I, I was more worried than I should have been about traveling out to New York State last month, in the middle of Winter.

Turned out I didn't need to worry. The day I was to leave dawned sunny and clear. I woke up early, feeling refreshed; packed efficiently and quickly, which is not always the case (I can be remarkably absentminded); and got the dogs squared away at their respective boarding kennels without incident. The trash truck even came by just before I was scheduled to leave, which meant I could bring the trash container back inside the garage before I left. Very convenient.

The whole day went like that. Everything played out fine as a well-tuned fiddle. At no point did I have to hurry or wait. I wasn't anxious because there was nothing to be anxious about. I didn't encounter lines anywhere, found my gates with no trouble, had a tasty, unrushed snack at midday. Everyone was nice. The commuter flight to my destination, which had been jam-packed the last time I made this trip, was half empty. I had a row of seats to myself.

When I got there, I expected to have to wait in the airport cafeteria for S., because my flight arrived before she got off work. But she'd unexpectedly gotten off early, and was there to meet me. Sweet surprise.

It was a charmed day. Winter travel? Piece of cake.

Of course, it's not that winter travel is always perilous. The problem is that it always can be.

So cut to yesterday. Leaving this time, coming home. I was scheduled to go out at 9:30 a.m. and arrive home at 12:30 p.m. (in plenty of time for a scheduled doctor's appointment). It's not a bad trip.

Except that, well, as you might know, there was a bit of snow between here and there around the Midwest and East on Sunday and into Monday. S. even got a partial snow day on Monday (of course she also had a virus; winter giveth and winter taketh away).

I'd go research how much snow there was and where for you, and chart the track of the storms, so I could talk cogently about the weather, but I'm too discombobulated.

The trip to the airport was perilous. We crept down a steep hill in first gear, hoping the tires would keep their grip on the snowy road. Forty seemed too fast on the highway...except to the idiots whizzing by in claptrap old vehicles with their death wishes showing.

To begin with, the 9:30 departure was delayed by an hour and twenty minutes. At the cafeteria, where we planned to wait, a guy in coveralls appeared behind the counter clutching two glass coffee carafes, asking the counterperson for hot water. We chatted with him a bit, and he mentioned something about needing to get a door open that was frozen shut. I wished him luck. He said, earnestly, "You better hope I'm lucky! If I can't get this door open, that plane isn't going anywhere!" What? Hmm.

Out the window, my girlfriend sees a man cleaning snow out of the jet engines with a broom. (She also saw a great picture: an older man and woman talking to each other from opposite sides of a glass wall on their cellphones. I was too lazy to try to get it.)

The line for security snaked all the way past the tapes and out into the main terminal. When I finally got processed, I was "randomly" chosen for extra tests, and was relieved to learn that there is no explosive residue on my hands. We had made a lot of wood fires in the fireplace—could that cause a false positive and turn me into Zeitoun? Who knows? My special treatment unsettled me sufficiently that I walked away and abandoned my laptop on the rollers. The TSA guy had to chase after me to give it back.

Next, once boarded, there was a strange delay at the front of the plane, with what looked like scuffling and a strange banging noise. This went on for a while. Later, the captain came on the PA system. Turned out they couldn't get the door shut. The door of the plane, that would be. It was all iced up and wouldn't close. That took twenty minutes. Was this the door they needed hot water from the coffee machine in the airport cafeteria to open?! Nah. Couldn't be. Could it?

Meanwhile the world out the window is just white with snow and ice. Snow and ice everywhere. Caking the window, covering the runway, blowing through the air. I'm getting worried, because it does not take an expert to see that the wings are just crusted with ice. They're going to de-ice the plane, right?

Right? We sit there and sit there. Nothing happens. Nobody tells us anything. I'm no expert, but even I can see that the wings are entirely encrusted with ice. Finally, we were told that yes, that's what we were waiting for. Anxiousness ebbs.

We sat on the runway waiting for the de-icing machine.It comes. It sits there for a while. Then it goes away. What now?

Then the captain came on and began his next announcement by saying "Well, folks, the plot thickens." Um, hint to pilots? Do not begin announcements with the words "the plot thickens." These are not words that the more anxious among your passengers will be eager to hear. This time, he says that the de-icing truck has broken down—excuse me, but (!)—and we need to wait for another one to arrive.

We wait some more.

Finally the backup de-icing truck arrives. It spends a good long time spraying down everything with what I later learn is Type I de-icing fluid, which is orange. That's to knock most of the accumulated snow and ice off the plane. That took a good twenty minutes. Then they started over again. I'm sitting there chewing a fingernail and perseverating about Air Florida Flight 90.

Then another truck comes, and starts spraying again, this time a bright green liquid. This, I later learn, is Type IV anti-icing fluid, to keep ice from re-forming.

By the way, note the bumper sticker on the front of the cab of the de-icing vehicle above:

Finally, we take off...successfully. Sigh of relief.

A total of two hours and forty minutes late, though. Of course, I've missed my connection (and my doctor's appointment) by now. But not to worry. Thanks to S., who is smart and practical, I got a backup reservation for a later flight from Detroit to Milwaukee. And, I figure, we're in the clear. Winter travel—what, me worry? All is well now, right?

Do I need to tell you that this gets worse?

[To be continued]

Dead of Winter (Part I)

So I'm just back at TOP Secret Underground World Headquarters after a beautiful, halcyon, blissfully domestic, friendly and companionable two weeks and three days in the Finger Lakes with my GF/SO. Just as an aside, I've lately become a huge fan, a convert really, to the manifold ineffable joys of mid-life relationships. Best I've ever had; I am so surprised at finding such happiness at this late stage, when I was well and truly past the expectation of it, that I just seem to cherish and enjoy every minute. The depth and richness of this mid-life happiness is the best gift that my life on the surface of this little green and blue globe has given me so far. If you're middle-aged and lonely, keep trying, is my advice. The rewards can be beyond your imaginings. As I'm sure some of you already know.

But before I get carried away (unless it's already too late for that), back to my subject: Winter travel.

I nearly got killed once, way back in 1977. Driving westward from Hanover, New Hampshire (where I was in college) to Milwaukee, Wisconsin (home) with two people I'd just met through a ride board, we hit a huge oncoming blizzard halfway through Ohio. (A little further north, that very blizzard became famous.) The temperature dropped forty degrees in ten minutes and the wet highway froze solid. Unaware of the change in temperature, I tapped the brakes to test the road—as I'd been doing for hours—and instead of grabbing, nothing happened. The Chevy Blazer we were in was detached from the earth. Agonizingly, it floated free of any input from the steering wheel (a hair-raising feeling I recall too vividly), began to drift sideways, then grabbed again and spun 720 degrees in a series of vicious violent lurches, and came to rest, stalled and suddenly quiet, facing directly forward...

...Just in time, and in just the right position, for me to look into the rearview mirror and see the headlights of the fast-moving semi trailer that was bearing down on us, sliding on that same glare ice, airhorn blaring. I watched it for maybe two, maybe three long seconds before it hit.

The semi knocked the Blazer (an early pickup-based SUV) a hundred yards down the road. The impact broke every window and buckled the frame to the ground. It was burning as we scrambled out the broken back side windows, ran across the freeway dazed and injured, and dove into a snowbank. The flames rose two stories high. On TV at that time, cars exploded with little provocation, but the Blazer (and I keep tellin' ya, I hate irony like that name) burned and burned.

Later, in the police cruiser, the three of us were bleeding copiously all over the seats from head wounds—Jim with a broken neck, nearly unconscious, Christie crying—when the driver of the semi got in the front seat, looked back at us, and said, "Now I'll never get my load to Chicago on time."

What saved us all was pure luck: it's that the Blazer came to rest with the rear of the vehicle facing the semi. If the vehicle had spun and stalled and ended up with either flank or the front facing the onrushing tractor-trailer...well, I saw the destroyed hulk of the Blazer in the junkyard before I left Ohio. As mangled and blackened as it was, still you could see that the rear of the SUV had served as a crumple zone and insulated us from worse injury—the vehicle was compacted like an accordion. The rear axle was practically in the back seat. If If we'd been struck from any other angle, it would certainly have killed one, two, or possibly all three of us. This has long been a certainty in my mind. Dumb chance was our entire salvation, on that subzero midnight out on the black ice.

A Chevy Blazer like the one in which we nearly met disaster. A side impact would have killed at least one of us riding in the car. Photo from AutoTrader.

The blizzard locked us in, there in Ohio. Because there was only one bed left in the 100-bed local hospital, the surgeon who stitched us up took us home, and we lived with him and his wife for three days, snowed in. (He went to work every day on cross-country skis.) On day three, a neighbor of his came to clear his long driveway. The neighbor had about the biggest agricultural tractor I'd ever seen up close; he sat way up high in the heated, glassed-in cab of the tractor in his shirtsleeves, comfortable and warm despite the subzero temperature and blowing snow. The big V-shaped plow fitted to the front of the huge tractor shoved away three and a half feet of snow all the way along the long driveway like a finger through the frosting of a cake.

We were driven to the airport and flew on to Milwaukee. It was snowing hard again, and our plane was the last one to get out that day.

I had no emotional fallout from that trauma...at the time. I took the accident and its aftermath in stride; my head wound healed, my hair where the surgeon had shaved it to stitch me up grew back, and life went on.

Curiously, though, as I've gotten older, it's like the fallout from that trauma, buried in my body for years, began to bloom back out of me. I've gotten more and more anxious about winter travel as the years have worn onward. I've been aware of it as it's happened. It's not a natural anxiety; I believe it's delayed stress from that long-ago event, expressing itself at last.

So I was more worried than I should have been about traveling out to the Southern Tier of New York State last month, in the middle of January...

[To be continued]

Very OT: What Do We Think?

We almost never talk football around here*—what, twice a year maybe?—but the occasion seems to demand an exception:

—What do we think of a team that can't go one yard with the whole enchilada on the line?**

I still don't have television here at TOP Secret Underground World Headquarters, and I very inconveniently got sick on the only occasion I was invited to see a game in person, so the Super Bowl saved me from a surprisingly football-less season—2014(-15) would have been the first season since the '80s that I hadn't seen a single football game. Saved by the Bowl. (How was that for a pun, Herman? Given that I'm an amateur.)

People who like entertaining games in the Super Bowl got one, I'll say that.

Okay, now back to more typical off-topic posts. (No, that's not true, the next post has pictures.)

Mike

*Ctein stopped reading at the asterisk

**S. went to bed at halftime. No demerits for bailing, though, as she had a cold. But it left me with no one to talk football with. Er, at.

Original contents copyright 2015 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

TOP's links!

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

JohnMFlores: "Hindsight is ISO 50. On a wooden tripod. With a remote release. At ƒ/8."

Wayne: "The real tragedy of the final Seattle play is the fact that the play call, as bad as it was, it detracting from the most spectacular aspect of events. The play should be known as the immaculate interception. 1) the play call was so unexpected 2) the player who intercepted is a rookie 3) the interception was brilliant, i.e. the ball did not just fall into an unsuspecting player's hands, that player had to have perfect instincts, and the ability to act on them. Pete Carrol's poor judgement should not overshadow the true brilliance of the play made by Russell Wilson. I saw, not so much inadequacy on the part of the Seahawks, but rather, absolute brilliance on the part of the Patriots. No. I am not a Patriots fan."

HT: "t was astonishingly bad call. Consider: 1) The Seahawks have, arguably, the best short yardage back in recent NFL history; 2) The Patriots' defense is statistically dead last in short yardage situations. The mind boggles.

"If you're keeping track of the NFL playoffs this year, also consider this bit of trivia: Lions lose in gut-wrenching fashion to Cowboys. Cowboys lose in gut-wrenching fashion to Packers. Packers lose in gut-wrenching fashion to Seahawks. Seahawks lose in gut-wrenching fashion to Pats. Plus the Seahawks have a secretary named Kennedy and the Patriots have a secretary named Lincoln. Spooky, eh?"

Mike replies: Made me laugh.

Speed: "Which is a stronger statement against football-related posts, not commenting or writing a comment of complaint? :-) "

Mike replies: Not commenting at all. All comments encourage me. Too late!

Chuck Albertson: "Only 17 days until pitchers and catchers report."

Todd: "I was born the same year as the Seahawks and grew up a 12. [For non-Americans, the 'twelfth man' in American football is the crowd, there being 11 players on the field. Seattle has a famously loud and supportive home crowd. —Ed.] It has been almost 40 hours, and I still feel like it happened 10 seconds ago. Why? With Lynch running over the Pats to the point they knew they couldn't stop him, why? Why did we pass? All explanations from Carroll aside, it was never worth the risk to throw. Sigh...."

PaddyC: "Chuck Albertson's featured comment is music to my ears. But I did enjoy the Super Bowl and all the analysis and chatter around play call. Weird things happen in sports. Trying to find an explanation or answer is fun but futile."

Open Mike: Seeing Art

Henri Matisse's cover for Henri Cartier-Bresson's The Decisive Moment

We got to go to Manhattan last weekend, and spent most of our free time there seeing art.

The highlight for both of us was the Matisse Cut-Out show at MoMA, which was a life-list kind of show. We got so lost in the art that we didn't even mind the capacity crowds that sometimes made it hard to move around freely in the galleries; I stopped noticing the people early on. It was fascinating to be allowed to track Matisse's thinking as he developed and perfected his cut-out method. Matisse is sui generis, really; there's no one like him and he has no real imitators. It's moving, lively, invigorating work which, like Calder, must be seen in person to really appreciate. Brave the lines, is my advice.

Many of Matisse's book covers based on cut-outs were also on display, including the original artwork for the cover of Cartier-Bresson's The Decisive Moment. (Coincidentally, I've been getting many reports this week that the reprint of that masterpiece photobook has finally begun to ship in America.)

The main gallery room at the Frick Collection at 70th Street and Park Avenue

On both Saturday and Sunday we spent time at the Frick Collection. I'd never been before. Built as a final testament by U.S. Steel co-founder Henry Clay Frick to house his extensive collection of old masters, it was technically his family's residence before it was a museum, but that's a bit disingenuous because it was built (or rather, extensively remodeled from a pre-existing building) specifically to be a museum, and in fact Frick himself only lived there for three years, from 1916 until his death in 1919. (His wife lived out her life in the house before it finally opened as a museum in 1935.) It's an astonishing place, where the priceless paintings are only the most obvious of many treasures, and the ambience of the breathtaking old mansion is a big part of the charm of the experiences. I was immersed in the study of old master painting when I was in high school and at Dartmouth, and many of the old masterpieces were both brand new to me (since I'd never seen the actual paintings in person) yet also deeply familiar.

I only saw one photography show, but it was an extraordinary treat. The show, also at MoMA, was "Modern Photographs from the Thomas Walther Collection, 1909–1949." The show consists of 300 photographs, mostly dating from between the two world wars. Vince Aletti, writing in The New Yorker, said, "One of the sharpest eyes involved in MoMA's terrific new exhibition...wasn't behind a camera. Walther himself is both sophisticated and shrewd. The German collector's adventurous sensibility is front and center in this show...."

MoMA itself calls the "Object:Photo" project of which this show is a part...

...A four-year collaborative project between the Museum’s departments of Photography and Conservation, with the participation of over two dozen leading international photography scholars and conservators, making it the most extensive effort to integrate conservation, curatorial, and scholarly research efforts on photography to date. That project is composed of multiple parts including a website that features a suite of digital-visualization research tools that allow visitors to explore the collection, a hard-bound paper catalogue of the entire Thomas Walther collection, and an interdisciplinary symposium focusing on ways in which the digital age is changing our engagement with historic photographs.

Emphasis mine.

Here's that interactive website of which they speak. The curiously named "hard-bound paper catalogue" (these are also known by the more familiar word "book") is here.

Whatever its provenance and its significance as an integration of research efforts, it's a smashing good show. We all approach shows differently, and I tend to look at art in terms of how it functions for me as art and from the perspective of the creative effort; I'm not so much concerned with conservation, curatorial, and scholarly research issues. So personally I'm not very fond of the overtly "modernistic" and (then-)experimental types of prints in this show. They look self-consciously arty, striving too hard for edginess and neomania, and so, paradoxically perhaps, they seem older than the more plainly photographic pictures also on the walls. Many are early explorations of effects that have by now been better done—or just overdone.

But there are so many pictures in the show that the ones which don't catch your fancy don't detract from the whole—there's plenty to look at and much to enjoy, no matter where your interest in early 20th century photography might happen to be. Although it was only the third best show we saw last weekend, it was a privilege, very rich and and deeply satisfying to see.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2015 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

TOP's links!

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

HowardH: "I was lucky enough to see the Matisse cutouts exhibition at Tate Modern in London last year. Seeing so many widely reproduced works of art in real life and close up was an honor. You could even see the pin-holes Matisse left behind when he assembled the work in draft. I would wholeheartedly recommend the exhibition to anyone with even just a passing interest in Matisse as it gives a true insight into the mind of a creative genius."

tex andrews: "Oh, the Frick. One of the world's wonderful small museums. Many miss out on the Frick on a NYC trip, thinking, in a way correctly, that if you can only hit a couple of places then it's the Met and MOMA, maybe followed by the Guggenheim. But the charm of a place like the Frick is how manageable the viewing is, and how holistic the installation, as opposed to a great barn like the Met—and there are truly great works at the Frick.

"The more recent Neue Galerie is another charmer."

Joe Holmes: "How in the world did you get a shot of the Decisive Moment cover? No photos allowed!"

Mike replies: Oh, I didn't take that. I would never break rules that restrict my right to photograph.

[A different] Mike: "Nothing beats seeing art live. Doesn't matter how well a book is printed or a website is produced, the real deal packs a punch that cannot be replicated."