[I ended up being forced to take yesterday off. Had a battery of cardiac tests that took all afternoon, the purpose of which, according to my cardiologist, was to reassure me that exercise is possible and safe. Passed with flying colors, but now I have to buy myself a treadmill (or a stationary bicycle, or an elliptical trainer, something I can use every day in the house regardless of the weather), and I'm just not feeling up to any of it—the research, the hassle of getting it installed, the expense. (Any advice appreciated.) But, to quote the 14th Revelation of the English mystic Julian of Norwich, "All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well." Julian, also known as Juliana, wrote the earliest surviving book in English by a woman.
"Open Mike" is the anything-goes, often off-topic grab-bag page of TOP. It appears on Wednesdays, and sometimes heats things up.
Hottest day: It was 61°F (16°C) here on Monday, which smashes our old record high of 52°F (11°C) for this date (in 1973). The "normal" high for February 4th is 32°F (0°C).
So we were 29°F higher than normal. (I guess you can do arithmetic too.)
It was also a whopping 62°F swing from last Thursday! Apropos the thousands of record high temperatures set in the last decade, here's the bestseller that currently might be the best, most readable backgrounder on the subject, from a journalist who has been following the issue closely for many years.
The 61°F we experienced here on February 4th is normal for us on April 26th and 27th.
The decline of newspapers in 48 tweets: A very pointed, very brief summary of the decline of newspapers...on Twitter, no less, which surely was deliberate but which I find a surprisingly intolerable way to read. Good précis though. It's by Jeremy Littau, a journalism prof at Lehigh University. Yoshi Carroll contributed this.
By the way, large subject, but I consider print news to be much more important to photography than just a market and an employer. It also serves as a constant influence keeping photography on track, reminding everyone who practices it to be honest and responsible to the subject and always steering us gently away from artifice and preciousness. Photojournalism is seldom art, but there's something muscular and plainspoken about it that keeps us connected to the medium's essential nature. The whole medium would be much worse off without the guidance of its influence.
Oldest male: The previous oldest man in the world died a few days ago (January 20th) in Ashoro, Hokkaido island, Japan. His name was Masazo Nonaka and he was 113 years and 179 days old. He had no health problems and had been doing fine, with no warning of his impending demise until he stopped breathing. The cause of death was old age. He is believed to be one of the 35 oldest human males who have been reliably documented. Nonaka outlived his wife, seven siblings, and three of his children.
Of course, the title is one that by definition can't be vacated, but the Guinness Book of World Records is currently investigating who the new holder of the title of "Oldest living person (male)" might be.
People over 100 are currently the fastest-growing age demographic, but the percentage of the world's population they represent is tiny. The percentage of people over 110 is orders of magnitude tinier; estimates of their numbers range between 100 and 600.
Only one person is believed to have exceeded 120 years of age—the famous Jeanne Calment. However, a researcher named Nikolay Zak believes that the woman who died as Jeanne was actually Jeanne's daughter, Yvonne, who assumed her mother's identity in the 1930s to avoid having to pay inheritance taxes. If he's correct, then "Jeanne" (really Yvonne) Calment was a still remarkable but much more common 99 when she died, venerable and celebrated, in 1997. Of course, everyone wants "Jeanne" to have been 122, so that's what most people are going to go ahead and believe. Often, to us humans, truth is inconvenient and myths are more important.
Art and death: There's a fascinating new book (which I want but probably won't buy) by Bernard Chambez called The Last Painting: Final Works of the Great Masters From Giotto to Twombly. It presents the last works of 100 different deceased artists, with commentary on each, exploring the relationship between transcendent artists and mundane mortality. I chuckled over the entry for Michelangelo, whose last work was roundly criticized as inferior in its time. The great man, who was 75, grumbled that painting, and especially fresco painting, is "not an art for an old man." (Seventy-five would have been relatively somewhat older then than it is now; a paper in the Lancet in February of 1975 estimates that the average age at death of Italian Renaissance artists was 63.)
Paul Delaroche, Peter the Great, 1838
From today, painting is dead: I hope you know that quote already! It's supposedly what the French historical/romantic painter Paul Delaroche exclaimed upon first seeing a Daguerreotype in 1839, and it often serves as shorthand for the shock felt in representative art at the invention of photography. It's also the title of an upcoming major new show at the Barnes in Philadelphia of English and French photographs made between the 1840s and the 1880s. The show will run from February 24th to May 12th and will feature almost 250 works. I wish I could remember who told me about this...the more years go by, the worse I get at keeping track of things in my head. These days I often feel like a juggler who can keep nine balls in the air but is required to juggle 11. [UPDATE: It was John Higgins, and thanks, John. —Mike the forgetful Ed.]
Sometimes Things Just Don't Go Right, even for beautiful people. [Warning: Possibly not safe for work (NSFW), depending on the requirements in your workplace, although there's no nudity or lewd or lascivious* behavior on display.] This kind of thing is what I think about any time I'm confronted with needless complexity in technology: it's always something! Even when you least expect it. We are complexifying animals, we humans are, but always beware that trickster, entropy. Rust never sleeps.
Mike
*I put that word in for people who liked "logorrheic."
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Here’s the situation
(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:
Paul Butzi: "Maybe not lascivious, but certainly pulchritudinous."
Jeff: "Sesquipedalian, if you ask me."
Mike replies: Indubitably.
Bill Bresler: "Happy to hear that your ticker is OK. I had a battery of tests a few years back and passed with no problems at all. The doc who reviewed all of the results said 'All of this means nothing, really. You could keel over tomorrow. That's just the way it is.' Thanks, pal.
"Your comments about the 100+ demographic is spot on. When I started in the newspaper biz, back in 1979, I'd get maybe one assignment a year to photograph a 100-year-old person. Generally, they were deaf, blind, and in a wheelchair. I'd have to shout in an ear to try to wake them up. About five years back, we stopped doing stories on 100-year-old birthdays, unless there was something remarkable about them, or it was a real slow news day.
"We probably get two or three requests a month now, and their health, senses, and mobility are often remarkable. A couple of years ago I photographed a 105-year-old woman at her birthday party. She was dancing to Motown tunes. She started flirting with me. I flirted right back. Pretty hot for 105, I tell you."
Mike replies: Assignment shooting is such a fun job. The things you see and learn....
Kristian Wannebo: "Re: Art and death, I think also of Music. And then of the three posthumous piano sonatas by Schubert, D958–960. Many pianists have recorded them, but I prefer Rudolf Serkin's version. To my ears, especially in the sonata in A major, D959, he makes me hear Schubert reflecting over his life and remaining time more intensively than other pianists I've heard."
Mike replies: I clicked on YouTube, searched "Schubert D960 Serkin," and was listening to this within seconds. What a world we live in.
Maris Rusis: "When osteoarthritis limited my walking distances I treated myself to the exercise machine I always wanted: a pool table. Now I shuffle around, pot 200 balls a day, and get lots of bending and stretching. And I'm shooting much better pool. Got the idea from some photo blogger."
Mike replies: That is awesome! So pleased.
John Camp: "Elizabeth Kolbert came to Santa Fe to give a lecture last year, and my wife and I and a couple other people had dinner with her afterwards. I got the distinct feeling from the dinner conversation that Kolbert thinks we're toast—that we're done, all of us, and there's not much to be done about it. Nice thought on a pretty Wednesday morning."
Mike replies: There's always the chance of a technological fix we can't see yet. One of my unpedigreed theories is that the future is always orders of magnitude more amazing than can be envisioned, because we can only predict in terms we can understand at the time of the prediction. Consider the miracles of Jesus—these were the very most convincing, the very most outlandish wonders the Biblical writers could invent in their era. They didn't say that Jesus detected mitochondrial DNA or solved Fermat's theorem or predicted the moon landing; that would have been impressive! For another example, consider the difference between Dick Tracy's Wrist-Radio and an Apple Watch. The real thing is orders of magnitude more amazing than the earlier prediction, because Chester Gould could only work with what he could conceive in his own time. Similarly, we simply might not be able to conceive how human science will solve climate change in 40 or 60 or 80 or 100 years. I'm assuming that at some point humans will be working on it with utter desperation and all the resources the race will be able to muster at the time. It is indeed already too late for preventative measures; but then, humans are much better at being reactive to emergency than we are at preparation and prevention.
Moose: "Re: 'One of my unpedigreed theories is that the future is always orders of magnitude more amazing than can be envisioned, because we can only predict in terms we can understand at the time of the prediction.' We share that theory. I see solar powered hydrogen blimps floating about in the upper atmosphere, eating CO2, emitting oxygen and excreting blocks of carbon that fall into designated landing sites. (Perhaps with a bit of hydrogen inside, to slow the fall.) The day that oil prices reach a point I can't predict, the first vessel designed to harvest plastic in the oceans as petrochem feedstock will start work. And those are just what I can imagine, not what will come. Scientific American has (had?) a column looking back 50 and 100 years. Some years ago, it quoted their article from the late 18th century, showing that cities as large or larger than New York at the time were not possible/practical. The reason? Horse manure. Iron clad wheels were grinding it into a toxic dust. They couldn't imagine what was to come."
Ric: "Callipygous, surely."
Mike replies: Assuredly. (You see what I did there.)
