The Online Photographer

Blog Note

I've had two days off and need to take another two days...I'll be back on Sunday! Nothing dire, just a needed vacation due to that ol' overwhelmed-by-life feeling, which raises its head every now and then. I'm sure you know it yourself. Thanks for your patience.

There are, amazingly enough, more than 9,000 posts on this little blog; 9,054 to be exact. Maybe poke about a bit? For instance, you could revisit the story of a large bear named Bear from just about exactly ten years ago. For something more photo-oriented, nearby is the cautionary tale of Slater's macaque.

Back soon, and kind regards!

Mike

Some Days Are Better Than Others (Blog Note)

Sorry for the dearth of content this week. I know you'd like something new every day.

I had to spend the whole day yesterday doing house- and yardwork, cooking, shopping, bills, that sort of thing—the administrative duties of life. Usually I reserve Saturdays for that stuff, but last Saturday I spent most of the day writing the first draft of the first half of the "Curious Thing About a Book" post.

Long posts take take the vinegar out of me for a day or two afterwards. That one took three whole days to write—it went through the equivalent of several drafts and rearrangements. After I posted it I was temporarily depleted of writing energy.

I consider myself a slow and scant writer. The "Curious" essay is 2,630 words as published. And a fair amount of what I wrote, I cut. Steven King said any writer worth his salt should be able to write 2,000 words a day. I'm good for around 1,000, give or take 300. It doesn't take long to write, but I rewrite obsessively, going over things again and again and again. Much over 1,500 words  takes all day and I have a hangover the next. Then again, Joyce Carol Oates doesn't consider herself a fast writer (per this article) and she's written "sixty-three novels, forty-seven collections of short stories, and numerous plays, librettos, children's novels, and books of poetry." That's according to The New Yorker, so you can bet your bottom dollar it was fact-checked.

I've considered trying to write two longer posts per week, or even one, but I don't think it would work. I'd fall behind sooner or later. I'm not very consistent. All through my youth I used to say, "constancy is my worst thing." It's one hallmark of a depressive. We have lots of energy sometimes and no energy at other times. Samuel Johnson, who today would no doubt be diagnosed as bipolar, would excoriate himself for his long periods of lethargy and then try to make up for it with Herculean exertions when he was in a manic phase. Although I don't suffer anywhere near as badly as he did, I can identify.

"Curious" was the kind of essay that will be tl;dr for many people. Of those who did read it, I'm sure only a minority subset were interested, and probably a minority subset of that minority subset enjoyed it. But one thing I've learned writing a blog for very close to 20 years now: not everything is for everyone. It's great when a post is read and enjoyed by a lot of people, but it's equally good when you touch a small number of people deeply. 

Anticlimactic
I'm largely over my depression, thanks to a long course of antidepressants in the early 2000s, administered by Dr. David Holloway, M.D., Ph.D., and subsequent involvement in my own fellowship community. It's kind of a miracle, actually. Dr. Holloway advocated involvement in community as an important aspect of recovering from depression. And, not coincidentally, I started this blog halfway through treatment. Pace our friend Kirk, David Holloway also uttered the memorable line, "All of my patients who exercise do better than any of my patients who don't." His approach to depression was holistic and multifaceted. I'm lucky. And grateful. I never get as depressed now as I used to get all the time.

Next up, Next week, my impression of the Leica D-Lux 7. Just a warning...it might be anticlimactic.

The clever drunk
Good alcoholic story. It's true, I think—comes from a good source. [CORRECTION: Nope! I am wrong. It might have its origins in truth, but not in any way that can be determined or proven now. It's folklore. A folkjoke? —Ed.] A man is out drinking. On his way home, on a four-lane divided highway, he gets pulled over. He figures he's had it, because he's very drunk. The cop gets him out of the car to do sobriety tests—touch your nose, walk a straight line, that sort of thing.

But just as this gets started, there's an accident across the highway in the two lanes going the other way. Cop points at the guy, says, "stay right there!" and runs over to help. Drivers are pulling over and getting out of their cars to see if they can assist. More police arrive. People on the drunk's side of the highway slow down to look. The other side of the highway is down to one lane; traffic slows down and backs up. Ambulance and paramedics arrive. The drunk waits patiently for ten, fifteen, twenty minutes, watching all this. But he's thinking. And the more he thinks, the more convinced he becomes that the cop never asked for his license and registration when he first pulled him over. Probably intended to get it during the arrest. Which probably would have happened, as he had been drinking heavily. The whole scene is busy and confusing now. There are a lot of people milling around all over the place. He seems to have been completely forgotten in all the commotion. Nobody is paying the slightest attention to him.

So the drunk decides to very casually get back in the car and drive home. Which he does. He drives home, puts the car in the garage, and goes to bed.

The next day, a knock comes at the front door. It's the police. They ask him if he left the scene of an arrest the night before. He feigns surprise and says, "No, officers, it wasn't me. It couldn't have been me. I've been at home all day today and I was right here all day yesterday. Never went out."

"You weren't stopped for suspicion of driving under the influence?"

"No. I didn't have a drop to drink all day yesterday. I was home all day. Wasn't drinking at all."

The cops say okay, but where's your car?

"It's in the garage."

Cops say okay, show us your car. If it's there, we'll leave.

The man confidently leads them through the house to the door to the garage. Opens the door and...

Anyone Have Any Information About Howard Bond?

There was an enigmatic post on the LFF (the Large Format Photography Forum) four days ago that Howard Bond had passed away "during the night" at the age of 93, with no source or further information given. Normally, I don't report deaths or write appreciations of people who've died until I've seen an official or (these days, with newspapers in decline) at least a semi-official obituary, or gotten confirmation from a relative or close friend of the decedent. However there has so far been no obituary online, and Howard had no official online presence where the family might have made a formal announcement.

Does anyone know the name of the town where Howard has been living? That might help. My memory from years ago is that he lived in Ann Arbor, Michigan, but that might be wrong or out of date. I've written to the newspaper there.

If anyone has any information about Howard, I'd appreciate it if you would contact me, here or via email. I won't publish your comment if you request that I not do so.

Thanks for any help.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2024 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. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

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New Morning (Blog Notes)

By the way, my new morning routine is going well. I get up at 7:00 or 7:30, take the dog out and feed him, sneak off for my walk while he's distracted with his breakfast, shower and change when I get home, then drink my tea whilst I get the comments up to date. (They're all done for this morning.) Then I have breakfast myself and only then, after breakfast, start in on a new post.

Last night I could have posted a bunch of comments before bed, but I opted to wait instead. Hopefully, going forward, you will learn to expect updated comments to appear every day mid-morning U.S. Eastern Time, and you'll know that they'll be up to date at that time.

I'll try to keep this up.

By the way, I'm going to wait to post my impressions of the Leica D-Lux 7 until the D-Lux 8 is shipping. Just in case some kind soul who wishes to buy one might be nice enough to use my link. My income from link sales is way down from the peak, but it is if anything more important to me and TOP than ever.

What camera should I try next? I was thinking maybe I should try a Q3, as those cameras have been getting so much authentic buzz for years now. I need to try a Z camera at long last, too. The time might not be propitious for that. The Z6III is so new it would be hard to get, and the Z7II is probably soon to be replaced. The Z8 might be a little too high-end. I'm thinking I might wait and try a Z6III in the Fall.

Open to alternative suggestions, though.

Mike

A link to Danny Lyons' great classic The Bikeriders

Original contents copyright 2024 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. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

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Bear.: "If you haven't used a Leica Q[x], I do recommend you try the Q3. It's a rather special camera because it is beautifully designed to do what it does, it does exactly what it's designed to do exceedingly well (I won't say perfectly, but it's close enough for me), and doesn't really attempt to do more. Fortunately for me, what it does do covers 90% of my photography. I'm slowly coming to grips with abandoning the other 10% of my photography instead of upgrading a whole system to support it. Learning to work within the limitations of the tools I have is proving to be difficult, but the Leica is such a joy to use that it takes away the sting."

Comments (Blog Notes)

"A goal is a dream with a deadline."

Napoleon Hill said that. I'm more than a bit ambivalent about Hill, and a bit embarrassed to quote him. More about that in a moment.

But I still like the quotation. I've been meaning for a while to set deadlines for finishing my book. Is it too excruciating that...I haven't gotten around to that yet? Yikes.

Another thing I've been "meaning to do" is to somehow take care of my problems with Comment moderation here on TOP.

I came up with an idea today.

Back when I spent more time at my desk, I would get up at six, begin working on a post more or less right away, finish somewhere between eleven and two, then work on comments. I'd revisit comments and moderate incoming ones after dinner and, most days, late at night as well.

But lately it just hasn't been working the way it used to. I sleep later now, and work more slowly. My morning routine, although orderly and well established, has expanded to the point that I don't get started working until very late, like nine, ten, or even eleven; I don't get to breakfast until eleven, twelve, or one or later, and by the time I finish a post, if I finish one at all, the other demands of the day are crowding in and clamoring for attention. My evenings are taken up by my involvement in my 12-step program, although I began to try to rein in those commitments a couple of months ago. Health issues are beginning to interpose, which is probably inevitable as we age. Somewhere in the day I need to practice pool (a casualty lately), practice typing, meditate, shop for and prepare food, take care of the yard, attend to the dog, and, you know, everything else.

And exercise. I need to exercise now because of my heart. I'm supposed to eat vegetarian and exercise if I want to remain...alive. Seems like something I shouldn't neglect.

This week we're experiencing a heat wave here. It's 88 degrees (31°C) here now. It was 68°F at eight this morning and forecast  to be 80°F by eleven. So I figured I'd better get my walk out of the way first. While walking, the bright idea occurred to me that I might completely reorganize my mornings: get up, take care of the dog, walk, then shower and shave, then have my morning tea, and work on comments while I have my tea. Then start writing. Then, if writing takes till late afternoon or evening, no big deal. And comments would be finished early, and daily.

So I tried that this morning...

...And, um, failed. But I'll try again tomorrow. Maybe I can rejigger my mornings so I can get everything done in a timely fashion. 

Napoleon Hill
Now to that scoundrel Hill. One of several originators of the self-help movement, Napoleon Hill was a sort of amalgam of motivational speaker, con man, and self-educated striver. He was a scammer and a swindler. He claimed Andrew Carnegie was his mentor, and wrote a whole book about their alleged meeting, long after Carnegie's death; Carnegie's biographer said he found zero evidence that Carnegie ever met Hill or knew who he was. Hill's most famous idea, that success will manifest itself for you if you simply visualize it, is embedded in the title of his most famous book, Think and Grow Rich, which still sells today.

His life was so chaotic and filled with allegations of personal and relational perfidy that he would probably richly require "cancellation" if he were alive today. (Born in 1883, he died in 1970.) Norman Vincent Peale, who wrote another early classic of self-improvement, The Power of Positive Thinking (note any similarity between those titles?), was a devoted acolyte of Hill's, and from there there's a direct line to Donald Trump, whose father was a follower of Peale and who attended Peale sermons when he was young. More than anyone, Hill puts me in mind of Frank Abagnale, the con man whose fabrications were made into the movie Catch Me If You Can and whose long second act, in which he pretends to be a reformed con man who advises the FBI about how to catch con men, is actually itself a con, full of lies. (The FBI says Abagnale gave a few lectures to agents but was never employed by the agency.) The former Republican representative George Santos is a more recent example of a similar sort of charlatan.

But if you never want to be rich, it's true that you probably never will be; visualizing does serve to clarify and solidify intentions. Hill got that much right. And good quotations can come from bad people. After all, there are a lot of interesting quotations that are believed to come from the original Napoleon, who was such a narcissist that members of his immediate family refused to attend his self-coronation as Emperor—an event that can stand as well as anything as the single most narcissistic act in history. I don't trust any of these characters as far as I could throw them. And yet...yes, a goal is a dream with a deadline. I just wish somebody else had said it!

Mike

Original contents copyright 2024 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. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

Featured Comments from:

MikeR: "I once kept a small wooden disk, about the size of a half-dollar, in my desk. It's gone now, but if I still had it, I'd mail it to you. It bore the letters 'TO IT.' I figure, what you need is to get a round TO IT.  ;-> "

Paul: "I visit once or twice per week. The first thing I do is look for comments before reading an article about photography I may have some interest in. No comments and I just move on. The comments, the contributors and the dialogue generated is the difference maker."

KeithB: "When I was at Disneyworld they would have signs with Walt Disney quotes on the walls that covered new construction. One I got a picture of was 'Everybody needs deadlines.'"

Personal Note

As a side note, for the first time I've written posts and moderated comments for several days now entirely typing in Colemak on the Kinesis Advantage 2 I bought in 2021. After practicing daily for three months I'm not really ready to make the switch permanently, although it seems to be more efficient to practice while getting actual work done. Except in fits and starts within the practicing programs, muscle memory has certainly not kicked in yet; I've come to believe I have an unusually low natural aptitude for touch-typing. I have accepted that progress is likely to continue to be slow.

But all I have to do is keep after it. Learning new things, especially difficult new things, is believed to be good for aging brains—and this is more fun than practicing the dulcimer or learning Mandarin!

Mike

Original contents copyright 2024 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. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

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(Blog note) Comment Problem

I'm very sorry—due to a SNAFU, a block of about 50 recent comments didn't get published. The missing ones are posted now, with my apologies to all those who spent their valuable time writing them.

If you were interested in one of the recent discussions, you might want to check it again for newly posted content.

Thanks to longtime reader Moose, who sensed something was wrong and alerted me.

Mike

What Would You Like to See Here? (Blog Note)

Well, I've been spluttering along on a depleted tank the past couple of days. I've written three half-posts that didn't seem to want to spark up and kick over. Those come along from time to time, but three is more than usual. Maybe all that stuff about SDXC cards wore me out, dunno. I'm a little overextended.

And I need a little help: What would you like to see more of here?

Please, though, if you would be so kind, I don't want critiques or criticisms (at the moment), or (God forfend) global negativity about hell, handbaskets, and big chunks of blue sky on the ground. That would only fire me down, as my old friend the banjo player Jimmy-James Rollins used to say. I need a kickstart, not a kick. What do you enjoy most or what have you enjoyed in the past? What would you like to find when you click over to TOP on a Spring morn? What brings you joy?

The Suggestion Box is out.

—Mike the Proprietor and all-purpose Radar O'Reilly

Mike's Back (Blog Note)

I'm back. Had a very nice weekend. If you're in recovery (I've been sober for 33 years, seven months, and 20 days), I recommend looking into whether there is a recovery convention anywhere near you. They're lots of fun and very inspiring. I heard about ours for years back when it was in a different town, and didn't have a very clear idea of what it was or what it was like, so I never went. Big mistake. I finally attended when it moved to my own town just up the road from where I live.

There's no master list of such events that I can find, probably because there are so many kinds of organizations. These include AA, Al-Anon and Alateen for people whose lives have been affected by alcoholism in a relative or friend, Narcotics Anonymous, Cocaine Anonymous, Marijuana Anonymous, and many more. Other groups help with behaviors rather than substances. Within each category there are many kinds of events. In AA, for example, there are conventions/conferences, roundups, workshops, retreats, cruises, and so on. Local recovery groups in your area should have information about the range of opportunities near you.

Next year I'm considering getting on the committee (basically just helping in some way), and the thought also occurred to me that I could travel to other such events elsewhere in the country. There's a conference in Rochester, for example. Any way you cut it, though, the Conference of the Lakes, which is what our convention is called, has become one of the high points of my year. I had been looking forward to this one since the last one! And will do the same again.

Mike

Book o' the Week:

ArtCurious: Stories of the Unexpected, Slightly Odd, and Strangely Wonderful in Art History by Jennifer Dasal (Penguin, 2020. Adapted from the popular podcast.)

The link above is a portal to Amazon, through which most anything you purchase will be credited to TOP. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Original contents copyright 2021 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.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
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3D Printing?

Does anyone out there do 3D printing? I have two small pieces I need to have made, each maybe two-thirds the size of a mass-market paperback novel. Alternately, anybody know where I can get something like that done inexpensively?

[UPDATE: I got this problem sorted...with thanks to everyone who offered to help!]

Just as an aside, redoing my office was the best thing I've done for myself in a long time. It's had a surprisingly positive effect on my energy, sense of hopefulness, and mood. My old desk breaking really had me "down," but the new setup has got me back "up" again. You see what I did there. Oh boy. Anyway, feeling rejuvenated. Spring Cleanup continues, indoors and out.

More soon.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2024 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. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

Featured Comments from:

gary bliss: "My son, a Navy powerplant machinist, has an entire bedroom in his house devoted to these 3D printers. What I learned from spending several days with him is that...3D printing is way more complex than printing in, ahem, 2D (even allowing for color). If I had a 3D printing task I would save myself the frustration and have someone else do it; there are likely hobbyists in your town that will do so."

Mike replies: I did find a local devotee who offered to do it for a nominal price, and I have several other offers of help lined up in case that doesn't work out. I agree with you that it's much better to get help with this! If you're curious, the project is at zsa.io > Accessories > Community Creations > Voyager Stand.

Recombobulation

I actually saw the original, handmade "Recombobulation Area" sign at the Milwaukee Airport when it was put up as a joke sixteen years ago. The signs (and the word) were the brainchild of Barry Bateman, the Director of Mitchell Airport. Harold Mester, Mitchell Airport's Public Relations Manager, said, "Whether it’s a word or not, I think we can all agree we all feel discombobulated after going through a security checkpoint and need a minute to recombobulate." According to an article in OnMilwaukee.com, not a single grammarian complained. The word was named the most creative word of the year by the American Dialect Society in 2009. It's a fun word because discombobulate is a fun word.

The movers are due in an hour to help me move TOP World Headquarters from the front to the rear of the house. Mainly, a couch needs to switch places to make room in "the Lightbox"—that's what Peter Turnley dubbed my back room, because it has windows on all four sides. But most of the work is going to be putting together the new desk and then a whole lot of recombobulating. It's a great opportunity to clean, reorganize, and re-situate everything, and maybe even rethink a thing or two.

I particularly want to thank all my Patreon subscribers and various others who make substantive contributions to this little enterprise. With tax day now weathered, you have successfully kept TOP going for another year. I'm very grateful. If anyone else would like to pitch in, it would be most appreciated. My brother used to refer to TOP as a "vertical magazine," and many people think of their Patreon donations as being like a magazine subscription. Note that the donations are monthly, not one-time.

Today is another glorious Spring day in the Finger Lakes! A cloudless sky and brilliant sunlight. 2024 marks my ninth year here. I have loved living here more than any other place I've ever lived (and there have been a lot).

I hope to be back working tomorrow. The desk might take longer than that—the new one needs to use the same top as the old one, which is going to take some doing. Pictures when I can manage. Thanks for your patience and forbearance today, and I shall keep you posted.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2024 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. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

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TOP Is Moving...

...Well, just my office. I decided to move it from the front porch to the back room. More space, and I get perfect internet signal back there ever since I bought my Deco 6E mesh system, which has given me trouble-free whole-house (and then some) connectivity for the first time in my internetty life. (Here it is on Amazon, since B&H is closed today). Plus, I'm hoping the dog will get agitated less often, since he won't have a front-row seat to the whole world passing by a few feet from the porch windows. When he does race to the front of the house barking like a maniac, at least I'll be farther away from it.

I'm going to have to take a few days, coming up, because this is going to take a minute.

The crazy quilt of wires on my desk reminds me of a story. In Woodstock, Illinois, where I used to live, there was a plumber who was still working in his mid or late nineties. Unfortunately his real or legal name is unknown to me, so I can't look him up, but he was known in town as "Leaky" Lee. Anyway, when I lived there in the '90s, Leaky had been installing plumbing in the town since the 1930s—I got that straight from the horse's mouth. The downtown area in Woodstock starred in a Hollywood movie once—it was where the movie Groundhog Day was filmed. In addition to the "hotel," really a beautiful 19th-century opera house where Orson Welles got his start in theater as a boy, and the pavilion in the middle of the square where "Phil" brought coffee to the crew every morning—you can see both in the picture below—the town square is lined with 19th-century brick buildings. Many of them had been serviced over the years by Leaky Lee. One large building in particular—it still had a large ballroom on the top floor—had been remodeled, repurposed, and reorganized any number of times. In my day, the ballroom was being used by an antiques dealer, and I'm still glad I didn't succumb to the urge to buy a massive collection of jazz-age 78s I found therefor 10¢ each. Leaky had been rebuilding, fixing, and re-routing the plumbing in that building in resourceful and inventive ways decade after decade. The trouble was that only he knew how it all worked. The system was so complicated, unintuitive, and creative that once he died, no one else could make head or tail of it. The owners of the building soon reached their wits' end, and had to tear out all the old plumbing and start all over from scratch.

Woodstock, Illinois (pronounced ill-i-NOY, for those of
you not from here). Photo from the town website.

I believe the building we're talking about is the big tan one behind the left half of the square, but I might be wrong.

I'm not saying my desk is that bad. But. Like I say, this is going to take a while. I'll probably post tomorrow, but I might be missing in action for a few days next week; the movers come on Tuesday to move furniture. They're also allegedly going to help me build the new standing desk, which arrived in what sounds like 8,000 pieces in a box that looks like it's been on an eternal journey since about the Clinton administration. It is to boxes what Dai Llewelyn is to faces. I'm not saying I'm girding (gurning?) for failure, but I'm feeling trepidatious about the project.

Quick, someone tell me what max aperture this FF lens would be on a.) an 8x10 film camera, and b.) a smartphone sensor. Warning: trick question.

Wide Open update
Still working on that piece about shooting wide open. And could be for a while yet—I'm procrastinating, a mode which is dangerous where I'm concerned. Meanwhile, take a look at this new ƒ/1.2 lens from Sigma. (B&H usually has more complete info.) What do you think? Do lenses like that appeal to you? It's said to weigh less than "competing" lenses. I thought the point of such lenses is to be bigger, heavier, and more expensive, not less of anything. No? What was that Zeiss lens that was as big as a melon? That was the killer app for a while as I recall. Oh yeah, the Otus 55mm. The Nikkor Z lens actually weighs more! Nikon wins. I can see wanting one of these, although I don't. (I'd get this instead of the Otus.) Those big lenses would be a lot of fun, though, for those for whom big and fast is fun.

Tennis update
Lastly: I jinxed poor Jannik Sinner. He lost to Tsitsipas today. @#%! Here's what Andy Roddick has to say about Sinner's year so far. Andy Roddick is a great commentator—he's thoughtful, analytical, articulate, and funny to boot. Roddick was the long-ago last gasp of United States dominance in men's tennis. We once led the world, with Connors and McEnroe in my era, then Sampras and Agassi in the next—but, as of right now, Andy was the last U.S. man to win a major, and that was more than 20 years ago now. France and Australia have suffered longer droughts. The UK was once like the Chicago Cubs of tennis (the Chicago Cubs endured a lack of championships that lasted 108 years, the longest drought in any North American sport), but then the great Scot Sir Andrew Barron Murray OBE came along—and "all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well"*. Britain can go another 40 years now without another men's major winner, just cruising on the glory of Murray. And who knows how long the US will have to go. It's curious that tennis dominance seems to locate distinctly in nations or regions and that these shift around.

I was really rooting for Sinner, but Tsitsipas cracked the code somehow. Any given day, and all that. It was Sinner's second loss of 2024. So funny that when you're a sports fan, you actually care enough that you can feel it. That's a mystery of the human psyche if there ever was one. I'm like a Greek foot soldier cheering Achilles. But why? My life doesn't depend on Sinner being a winner. Speaking of droughts, my friend Eddie, before his Red Sox broke their long drought (86 years), used to have to leave the room whenever the opposing team was at bat. He could only bear to watch when the Sox were up. When the Yankees were up and there was crowd noise, he would yell to his wife from the next room: "What happened? What happened?!"

When I teased him about it he would say, "you don't know the power of the curse," somber as a judge**.

Well, I guess I have to get back to work on the big move now...rats....

Mike

[CORRECTION: There was a glitch in the upload of both illustrations on Friday. Only part of each illustration was visible. Both should be fixed now. Sorry for the error.]

*That's from The Revelations of Divine Love by Mother Julian of Norwich, repurposed by T.S. Eliot in Four Quartets. One of those incantatory memes that pops to mind often for me, for whatever unknown reason.

**Baseball references for Darlene.

Original contents copyright 2024 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. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

Featured Comments from:

Albert Smith: "I had an experience with movie filming using local locations that would be lost on anyone but the people who lived there, and it became pretty meta. There was an '80s movie with Dan Aykroyd and Chevy Chase called Spies Like Us. In the middle was a scene involving a drive-in theater which was cover for a secret underground facility. I was living in the desert outside of Los Angeles and went to see this movie at the Lancaster Drive-In, without knowing that it was the filmed location for this scene. Even in a car in a full parking area, you could hear the audible gasps followed by car horns when the people realized they were in the very drive-in that they were seeing on the screen."

Mike replies: That's one of those serendipitous stories I've always liked...wonderful...."

David Drake: "Mike, the lens would have the same max aperture on both. Hah! All the best on your big move."

Mike replies: You are correct sir.

darlene: "Lovely story, Mike. Best wishes with everything, and I trust your desk will meet all your expectations and requirements.

"As for the Red Sox...I photographed Jason Varitek's first wedding. Varitek, the Red Sox captain from 2005 to 2011, played for the Seattle Mariners when I met him. He tied the knot with a gal from Atlanta."

[Ed. note: See Darlene's followup in the full Comments Section.]

Keith: "It might be too late for this advice. Whenever taking apart some wired system that is currently working, with the plan to move it elsewhere and set it up again, there is a sanity-saving trick. Before you unplug anything, get a roll of tape and a pen. Label each wire with a number on a piece of tape. Put that number on a piece of tape beside where the wire plugs in. If necessary draw a little map or take a photo of the place where the wires go. Do all the wires, even the ones that you think you will obviously remember, because you won't. Bonus points if you mention which end plugs in to what component, just so you don't get all panicky because the plug doesn't go."

Mike replies: Not only is it not too late, but you (I believe it was you—I haven't checked) gave me the same advice last time I moved my office, and I remember it from then.

Mess of Eggs

Sorry for the lack of a post today (Wednesday). I worked on one for three hours this morning, but upon review and the return of objectivity, I realized it was...pretty bad. Then I had to consider reworking it entirely, and concluded it was hopeless, so I pulled the plug.

One of the few things my father could cook were French-style omelets, with a traditional steel omelet pan that was cleaned with salt and "never saw water." He practiced by flipping dry rice in it at room temperature. His motto was "Sometimes you get an omelet, sometimes you get a mess of eggs." And so it is.

Michel le chef

Original contents copyright 2024 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. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

Featured Comments from:

Cloud of Locusts

Sorry for the lack of new content these past two days. I have been, er, distracted. Things have been breaking again.

I finally got my water system fixed after a 2 1/2 week ordeal (no more bottled water, yeah!), but the car is AWOL again, and this morning I came downstairs, put the laundry in the washing machine, poured detergent in the cup, and...the machine is stone dead. Dang. I have spent more on that thing than a new one costs. Each repair only costs a few hundred dollars, but then there's another repair, and then another. I must have $1,100 invested in that $600 washing machine.

To their credit, this time the Acura dealership delivered the loaner to me, and their driver took my Acura back to Rochester to visit its relatives. So I didn't have to make the drive. That's service. The loaner is a brand new, loaded RDX "Premium Crossover." It's very nice, to somebody else's definition of nice. To me...well, it's wearing on my nerves. There's a series of buttons, bars and levers in place of the PRND control; I'm praying there will not be a quiz at any point. The driver's side mirror resets itself at a useless angle every time I turn the vehicle  off and on, and I'm at a loss. I think I've finally gotten the seat to stop doing the same. If there's a parking brake, I don't know where. Does "crossover" mean it's supposed to be on the small side? It's not. It's huge. It weighs two tons. I have not discovered how to turn the "infotainment" screen off, so it glows balefully at me while I drive at night, neither info'ing nor tainmenting.

I know I should just try to enjoy the experience. It's a luxury truck, with real wood trim, it probably costs $55k, and everything works. Smack in the middle of the current culture's current preferences. But I don't even like driving it. It's unbalanced, uncomfortable, slow- and sluggish-seeming because it's too high, and outward visibility to the sides and rear is awful. The steering—which more than anything determines the character of a car—is bad too, twitchy, with poor tracking, and the steering ratio feels awkward for normal 90° turns. The vehicle is so loaded with electronics, motors, chips and nanny-modes that it seems to have a mind of its own. I finally managed to turn the radio on today—Pyrrhic victory—but then couldn't turn it off, so I drove helplessly mile after mile with Faux News blaring at my ears. I finally had to pull over to the side of the road to futz around with the radio so as to stop endangering pedestrians, bicyclists, passing motorists, pets, and small woodland creatures. I cannot see how owners are supposed to feel pride of ownership in the RDX either, because—well, first, its name is three random letters—but also because it looks like every other SUV, which means, pretty much every other vehicle on the road. The seat hurts my butt and won't stay put and the pedals are in the wrong places, like they're designed for two-foot drivers. When I am in it I feel like it would rather have me out of it. Warning lights blink at you from every direction.

As much as I loved the Integra Type S I drove the other day, I don't like automatics, I don't like trucks, and I don't like vehicles that are loaded with electronics, so the RDX is not my cup of tea. If I won it in a contest I'd sell it. Still, it was very nice of Acura to deliver it in place of my car so I don't have to drive to Rochester again. wasn't it? May I please have my car back soon, though, please? I miss it.

At least it has a spacious "far back" (as we used to call the cargo areas of old-fashioned station wagons) so I can haul clothes to the laundromat. Looks like I'll be doing that for a while. Because my appliance repairman, like my former plumber, has vanished during the pandemic. The internet has been scrubbed of all trace of him.

Oh well, all these things are only things. But honestly, what's next for me, a cloud of locusts? Maybe so. I should stop complaining.

More soon. We're going to hear from Ctein soon, after lo these many years.

Mike

P.S. I am seriously star-crossed with laundry machines. I have a long history of mishaps, misfortunes, wasted money, mistakes, wrong moves, and disasters when it comes to laundry machines. Only one has ever gone the other way: an ancient 1970s Maytag I inherited with my Waukesha house in 2000. I used that for 14 more years without a problem. With every other washing machine I ever encountered or owned, there has been bad luck, the bleeding of money, and chaos.

Original contents copyright 2024 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. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

Featured Comments from:

ChrisC: "You’ll be happy to hear that various crash safety authorities, possibly lead by Europe, are proposing to mandate physical controls for certain key features like turn signals, wipers, etc., in order to achieve a five-star safety rating. I’m not really a fan of touchscreens in cars and have seen some very bad implementations of them over the years. At last someone has the sense to stop them taking over everything."

Trygve Strömberg: "You must be haunted. When we moved into our house we bought a new washing machine, a German Miele. It’s still working after 35(!) years. Keeping my fingers crossed."

Rob: "Having purchased hundreds of appliances while owner of a large elderly apartment project, appliances are a no-win proposition. We learned quickly to only by basic models with the fewest features and to never pay for repairs. We also never bought extended warranties. We found basis Speed Queens most reliable for washing machines."

Chris Kern: "Mike: 'I am seriously star-crossed with laundry machines. I have a long history of mishaps, misfortunes, wasted money, mistakes, wrong moves, and disasters when it comes to laundry machines.'

"My policy with respect to household appliances is that when they fail out-of-warranty, replace them. Modern appliances apparently have been designed to actively resist field repairs. Cars: Keep them for as long as they are able to convey you hither and thither. My wife and I both drive geriatric Subarus, 14 and 12 years old, respectively. They seem to thrive on my very infrequent efforts at preventive maintenance (with a local repair shop; they have only seen the inside of a dealer’s service department for a couple of warranty repairs—and those were years ago.) Computing devices (desktops, laptops, cellphones, tablets, and any associated peripheral devices): Keep them until their performance makes using current software intolerable. Also, be wary of operating system upgrades as long as the version you are running is still supported. Cameras: Use them, sell them, buy new ones. Keep the inventory small and enjoy the frequent churn."

Eric Brody: "There are two kinds of drivers, those who love the electronics and those who don't. I'm one of the former, my 2023 plug-in hybrid (brand is irrelevant) and just love all the things it can do from warning me about someone in my blind spot to keeping me in the lane, to stopping me before I run into something. I love the cruise control that speeds me up to the set speed when there's no one ahead to slowing me down to keep a set distance from the car ahead. I have found that these features decrease the stress and fatigue of driving. No, I don't and wouldn't let the car drive itself (no Tesla for me for political reasons), even if it could. My brother-in-law is just the opposite. His fancy car CAN do most of these things but he'd not do any of them... ever. Sorry the RDX displeases you. It might save your life though."

John Hufnagel: "I well understand your pain. Our 2019 Honda hybrid has an owner's manual that is over 650 pages long. It is only available as a pdf, but browsing that document on a phone is a PITA. The previous car's manual fit easily into the glove box or door pocket. To me, this is analogous to perusing the menus on my Canon R6 vs. using my old Canon F-1. More functionality but less accessibility. Technology is failing us. Or maybe we are failing technology."

MikeK: "So you're saying you don't like the car?"

Mike replies: Well, now that you put it that way....

John Montgomery: "It has always seemed odd that a vehicle would be named after a widely used explosive.  :-) "

Keith: "My last rental car scared the crap out of me a couple times because it did things I wasn't expecting. Like lane 'correction' when I'm trying to avoid a pothole. Like slowing down as I'm coming up behind someone on the highway and trying to finesse moving into the other lane to pass. Like turning the high beams on when I don't want them on. There are ways to turn all that stuff off, but you have to find them, and it's impossible to do while driving. I'm pretty sure the current car (2016 Honda Fit) is the last new car I'll buy because I really dislike the infotainment screen (what a horrible portmanteau word that is anyway, but it fits a horrible concept) but all new cars come with them now. Sigh."

Robert Roaldi: "The parking brake is probably an electronic push button thing. There will be an icon on the button, I'm sure. My car has one, it's a crock. I used to hear the line 'Kraft makes cheese for people who don't like cheese.' Nowadays, they make cars for people who don't like driving, but public transit is so inadequate they have no choice but to buy one. If you spend any time on automotive manufacturer websites these days, there's more on connectivity and phone management than there is about the driving features. There have been occasions when I was not able to find engine or transmission specs because they were so well-hidden in the menus. I was hoping that the new Chinese auto imports would insert themselves at the low end of the market so we'd have basic cars to choose from again, but that doesn't seem to be happening. Pedestrian and cyclist deaths keep rising despite all the 'safety' equipment too. We isolate drivers from the task at hand rather than train them properly. It's reminiscent of how obesity increased precisely when 'diet' foods came to prominence. It's all deadly silly."

Open Mike: Replying to Comments (Blog Notes)

So here's an interesting issue about running a blog and acting as discussion leader, and promoting selected comments to "Featured" status. When I respond to comments inline, it increases the sense of community and responsiveness, and fosters a sense of involvement. But on the other hand, as the writer of the post in the first place, I've had my say, and I should give you yours. So I don't want to "step on" somebody's comment for whatever reason—because I disagree, because he's wrong, because I'm wrong, because my feelings are hurt, because his comment might be misleading, because he's challenging my authority, because one of us is being picayune or playing devil's advocate, because he reminded me of my version of his story, or because he's a contrarian and it pleases him to disagree with whatever I said just because I said it. Most of the time it's simply best to give others their turn.

I try to hold myself to the same standard I request of you. I don't allow commenters to be insulting, and I don't allow people to respond to other commenters unless they're being friendly, or helpful, or both. I should hold myself to the same standard, right? No anger, no hitting back, no rudeness or put-downs. I try not to respond if it doesn't add anything positive or productive. Many times I will type a reply to someone's comment, read it over, and delete it, thinking, "you're just arguing," or "his opinion is as valid as yours...."

Old days
The idea of the Featured Comments comes from the old days when TOP was getting 20,000–30,000 pageviews a day and an average post could easily get 50 or 100 comments. I checked back to 10 years ago and alighted on a string of posts with 58, 38, 49, 82, 22, and 69 comments...that was the norm then. The "Featured Comments" is intended to be like a Letters to the Editor section—an edited representative sample of comments for people who don't have time to read all of them. Now, of course, you probably could just read all of them—the posts this past week, working backwards, got 15, 21, 5, 7, 7, 24, 17, and 19 comments. But I'm already in the habit, so yeah, here we go.

The key word is "representative"—it's not a selection of the best comments, necessarily. It's a sampling. I don't just pick comments that agree with my opinion. I try to air dissenting viewpoints, promote comments that oppose each other, and give weight to real-world experience. I worked with a guy many years ago who was very impressed with his own knowledge of photography, which exceeded that of most of the audience. But that made him belittle the audience and talk down to them. I learned a lesson from that; my conception ever since then has been that I might know more about my field than much of my audience does, but they know a lot more about their fields than I do. It keeps me from getting snotty. One of the coolest things about the blog to me is that so many readers have actual life experience or direct knowledge that relates to the topic under discussion. The example I like best is that we did a post about Irving Penn's oversized platinum prints once, and we got a comment from Penn's former darkroom assistant who actually made the prints. That's a standout case, but similar things happen all the time.

I'm not a perfect moderator. I try to be as fair as I can, and to value other peoples' input. I'm always trying to improve. For instance, I used to have a bias against people who write poorly. What cured me of that was when I realized that English isn't everybody's first language! And as the old saw goes, they write English a lot better than I can write their language. I can only speak English, despite years of French torture class in school.

The comments are a lot of work, but they're also the best part of the job for me. In the run-up to my pacemaker operation seven weeks ago, I heard from many people and learned a great deal. As he was explaining the process to me, the surgeon (a photography enthusiast too) was so surprised at how much I already knew that he asked if I have a medical background! Nope. Just a lot of readers who do.

Online discussion is inherently fraught, but, all in all, we do remarkably well. Keep those comments coming, and I'll try not to step on them. And, thanks.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2024 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. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

Featured Comments from:

Kye Wood: "Perhaps comments have decreased as more people began reading your blog using their phone? Typing this on mine just now is quite arduous. But reading the post was easy."

Mike replies: Oh yes, that's quite possible. I keep forgetting about that.

Paul: "I spend very little time online. This is the only blog I read with any regularity. I am partial to the photographic pieces. The well-moderated comments often enrich the article with an expansive and diverse set of opinions and views."

Dave B: "I always wonder when reading the featured comments…what nugget(s) am I missing from the ‘other’ comments?"

Bob Johnston [no relation —Ed.]: "You really do moderate extremely well. I only comment when I think that what I have to say will add something of value or sometimes because I disagree with what has been said. So I don't comment very often. I think that is what most of your commenters do."

Bear.: "This is the only public site I’ve ever posted on. That’s due to the quality of your moderation and of the posts. I do agree that posting from a phone is a pain. I’m pretty sure the same difficulty is also the behind rise of the like/dislike button and the emoji."

Aakin: "Your posts are over of the few things I comment on online, even though I read a ridiculous amount of blogs and sites. I think a large part of that is that I know you read every post, and actually look for things that are useful, and it makes me want to be a part of that."

Mike's on Vacation (Blog Note)

Pardon the interruption! Since I haven't been keeping up very well for several days, I'm just going to do like I've done eight or ten times before when one of these FONKU* kernel panics happens, and give in and take a vacation. I'm feeling fine, in fact never better, but all the same I need a little R&R. It's been a hard Fall, followed by big changes. I plan to do a little reading, cook some soup, get on the treadmill, continue practicing touch-typing, and take the TOP jalopy in to be repaired. On Thursday I get my first cardiac checkup since I started running on battery power. I can't wait. The news has all been good, except when it's been great.

TOP will return on Friday morning. That'll give me a nice break, and I'll come back rejuvenated and refreshed. Again, pardon the CLOSED sign! One thing I'm going to do is take the camera for a walk and scout some new pictures. Spring is right around the corner.

All is well, and I hope it is with you too.

Mike, Head Dogsbody of Creative, Editorial, and Secretarial Services

*Fear of not keeping up. The more behind I get, the more it interferes with work. That usually means it's time for a hard reset.

Original contents copyright 2024 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. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

Featured Comments from:

Energized Bunny

For those of you still reading, I'd just like to thank you sincerely for your patience over the past few months! Life—and work—got difficult for me starting in November, when this bout with heart failure kicked in. It's amazing how many health issues a sick ticker will cause. I was really mystified.

I am happy to report I am lately running on battery power! A fancy Lithium-hybrid CFx silver vanadium oxide battery smaller than the one in most cameras, to be precise, the lifespan of which, on average, is 13.7 years. So I'm an Energizer bunny now. More than a common scribbler and scrawler, finally; a bionic scrawler.

The sense of succor is palpable. The worst of a long list of problems, laborious, shallow breathing, has vanished. Not being able to breathe takes a lot out of you, as I hope you do not know and never have to find out. It's odd to do nothing more than walk across a stretch of yard or up the stairs and feel breathless and spent. I've now lost a whopping 17.7 pounds of water weight since the peak on January 6th, 23 days ago. I'm sleeping straight through the night now, a great blessing, and, last night, from a high of 44 sleep apnea events per hour, the machine tracked two. Much better.

Most noticeable of all is mood. A month ago I was lost in a swampy fog of pessimism and portent, a feeling of doom seeping like sludge into every thought and task. Facing the requirement of writing something every morning (which is usually as easy as, well, breathing) felt like having to climb a snow-topped peak dressed in Bermuda shorts and sandals, with my legs wrapped in a layer of pork fat. After only six days with a pulse rate of 60, I'm as cheerful as Mary Effin' Poppins.

It's supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

Small empiricist
Speaking of Mary Poppins: the year I turned six, we lived in row of smart, two-story, midcentury-modern style apartments in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a hop, skip and a jump from the River Charles, while my father was completing his second year at Harvard Business School. I think the apartments have gone the way of all things now, as I can't find them on Google Street View, although I remember every corner of that vanished neighborhood in great detail. The apartments had a fenced, common backyard, down at one end of which was a shed where I presume the maintenance implements were kept; I don't know for sure because it was padlocked—I snooped into everything, and would doubtless have known what was in there if it was available to be explored. Anyway, after my mother read Mary Poppins to me, I smuggled an umbrella out of the house, climbed to the roof of the shed, deployed the umbrella, and jumped off. Of course I plummeted to the ground and landed with a rude jolt. I didn't hurt myself, fortunately, but I remember thinking, "that didn't work at all." The umbrella didn't soften the fall in the least that I could detect. I was also glad that I had been too chicken to attempt what I thought would have been a better test, which was to jump off the roof of the five-story apartment building next door. It would have been a little embarrassing to have my truncated existence forever stained with a listed cause of death of, "Mary Poppins experiment gone awry." When the movie came out a year later, I was able to lean over and sagely inform my friend in the seat next to me, in a whisper, that "that doesn't actually work."

I was an empiricist from early on, it seems. Most experiments and experiences are interesting, though. And this one has been as well. At any rate, what I am saying is, I hope things will be looking up around here, and I'm grateful to you for not losing faith and wandering away.

More, as they say, to come.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2023 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. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

Featured Comments from:

Albert Smith: "Regarding your Mary Poppins experiment, it is surprising that so many of us lived to be senior citizens. I remember seeing an article in some magazine in maybe 1969 about hang gliders, with images of people running to the edge of cliffs and flying like birds. This was years before they were available commercially, and these daredevils made their own from makeshift materials...so I did the same. Three bamboo poles with a bamboo cross member and garbage bags stapled to the structure. My vertical fall from the garage roof was very quick, and my lack off engineering knowledge was made clear by the substandard strength of staples holding the plastic bag material. Somehow, I later became a pilot."

Mike replies: Your last line, after what went before it, made me LOL.

Steve Rosenblum: "As you know, I share your experience with the effects of finally having a pacemaker placed for a chronic heart rate in the low 40s (and I am no marathon runner). I dragged my feet for several years because I wasn't fainting and didn't think I needed one—this despite the fact that I used to put them in people! After I finally did have one placed I had a similar life renewing experience. I really regretted having waited.

"I am also an empiricist from a young age, but my gravity defying experiment was with our poor cat, Ivan. I had read and heard that cats always land on their feet. So I took poor Ivan to the top of our basement stairs and dropped him over the side in an upside down position. As advertised, he did correct his position mid-air and landed on his feet but then ran for cover where he remained for a long time knowing that one of his people was clearly trying to kill him. I still feel bad about that. Poor cat!"

Temporarily Closed for Repairs, Back Soon (Blog Note)

Okay, I'm going to be off for the next few days getting a new ticker, literally—just the bit that ticks and turns the motor over. It's been immensely satisfying hearing from so many people who are willing to school me about pacemakers! Among other things, I heard from an engineer who used to work for a company that makes pacemakers, an eminent electrophysiologist (the people who actually perform the procedure), cardiologists and cardiac surgeons both active and retired, and a friend who once had dinner with Earl Bakken, founder of Medtronic, the manufacturer of the pacemaker I'll be keeping close to my heart after tomorrow. Bakken, who died in 2018 after a long life (January 10th would have been his 100th birthday), invented "the first external, battery-operated, transistorized, wearable artificial pacemaker" in the year I was born, 1957. Various doctors explained to me the workings of the heart, the ins and outs of pacing, and the finer points of IPGs (implantable pulse generators). It's fascinating. While I'm on the subject, take a look at the product that TOP reader Jon Peterson is working on developing now. And of course many readers who have pacemakers generously shared their experience. As a result I'm really looking forward to the procedure and am hopeful it will help. Thanks to everyone. What an interesting journey. The collective wisdom of TOP readers on virtually any subject is awe-inspiring. Each time I innocently unlock another little area of specialized expertise it blows me away.

I think I'm going to unofficially mark tomorrow as the starting line of my old age. Which will require: flexibility of mind, willingness to adopt new habits and adapt to changing situations and circumstances, and a deliberate attempt to be more positive, optimistic, and grateful! We only live once, but we don't realize it until we're old.

Alternatives
While I'm gone, Based on a True Story, a nice blog itself, has a nice list of other blogs and photo sites that you could explore. Check the right-hand sidebar at the link. Chris Gampat at The Phoblographer has recently announced a change of direction away from gear and more toward what people do with cameras, and it will be interesting to see how that pans out. Roger Cicala is always worth keeping up with—here's the clearinghouse page for all things Roger. And Kirk Tuck is posting. He recently announced VSL's lifetime stats: "5,700+ blog posts; 63,000+ comments, casually moderated; four resignations in a huff; zero ads; zero affiliate links; no requests for cash; no fees."

With all that to distract you, please don't forget about good ol' TOP!

If you're looking for something off-topic while I'm recuperating, consider the latest entrant in my Extemporaneous Idiosyncratic YouTube Hall of Fame, a motley collection of uniquely interesting videos on a great variety of topics that take advantage of the medium of handmade short videos: "Mob Boss's Daughter Interview—Rita Gigante," from Soft White Underbelly. Rita is the daughter of Vincent "Chin" Gigante. The Chin, referred to by underlings merely by signs—making a "C" with the hand or simply by touching one's own chin—was the eccentric boss of the Genovese Crime family in New York City from 1981 to 2005. Among other things, he put a lot of effort into pretending to be mentally impaired as a way of escaping conviction in court. The interview is fascinating, somewhat uplifting if you can believe that, and more than a little horrifying from a psychological child-rearing perspective. The story of little Rita trapped under the dining room table will be one you'll be unlikely to forget.

And for something lighter, and more musical, try this nice acoustic version of "Lazy Eye," the 2007 alternative hit by the band Silversun Pickups.

As for a question for today's comments: what would you like to see more or less of on TOP in 2024? I, too, am in the mode of thinking about overhauls. Although I'll probably just keep on keepin' on.

This shouldn't take too long. Back soon, I hope.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2023 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. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

Featured Comments from:

robert e: "Best of luck on the upgrade, Mike! In response to your question of the day, I'll simply paraphrase a well-known slogan: Keep TOP Weird!"

Open Mike: 'House' Baker's Dozen Cancelled

["Open Mike" is the Editorial page of the venerable Online
Photographer, a survivor weblog founded in 2005.]

I'm sorry for all of those who submitted work, but the "House" Baker's Dozen is cancelled. An agitated individual has been harassing me over it, and after consulting with several advisors I don't see a neutral way out. This is permanent and not undoable.

For the most part I've been fortunate. I've attracted outstanding readers and commenters. But in any public-facing job you're always liable to attract the random bad egg. In this case, a bully. Or "cyberbully" as the term is now. The bully has been banned, but that hasn't made them go away (I'm avoiding pronouns here). Some of the particulars are, shall we say, concerning: for instance, despite their obsession with it, the person did not actually submit a picture to the Baker's Dozen contest. That's not the only anomaly. Another recent-ish term not of my generation: "WTF?"

Corporate cyberbully
I've been writing about photography since 1988, and this has happened four or five times over the years. The worst was a person who proposed themselves for a feature I used to do called "Random Excellence." I had a policy that I didn't allow people to propose themselves for that feature. I explained that to them, as I had done a number of times before with no issues arising from it. The person went off the deep end, and harassed me with impressive persistence for quite a number of years. I don't know how people can sustain such vindictiveness on the basis of so little offense. But that's their problem. People have their own issues. I know other photo-writers who have had similar experiences.

Another of the very worst for me was a company, believe it or not. And talk about bullying. I wrote one negative sentence about Hasselblad in a review of a competing medium-format camera (admittedly, very snarky—I was trying to be funny, and I get carried away with words sometimes), and Hasselblad launched a vendetta against me that lasted for many years. This was way back in the film era, when Hasselblad was far and away the leading medium-format brand among professionals in North America. So it was a big dog way back then; whereas I was an impoverished art-school graduate living in a two-room walk-up. Not exactly a fair fight. They made concerted attempts to get me fired from the magazine I worked for, enlisted a number of allies to discredit me, and so forth. It went on and on. I didn't keep it, but one result was a multi-page letter from the semi-official Hasselblad booster Ernst Wildi, written to the publisher of the magazine I worked for (that is, he was trying to go over my boss's head). It was remarkable for its vituperation, but also for its mixture of fact with obvious error, because he didn't actually know me or know much about me. So a lot of it consisted of shots fired (er, I almost said "wildly") in the dark. Some landed; some went rather absurdly wide. My editor was very supportive, and got into the habit of screening the reader mail for the kind of diatribes Hasselblad tended to instigate. Most of the mail I got was highly positive, so when she got a letter raking me over the coals and asserting that every word I wrote was as worthless as sand and that personally I was blood kin to the very Devil, she was usually able to uncover a Hasselblad connection. In one case, though, she received a negative letter from a woman who was the President of a company, and she (my editor I mean) called me and told me she couldn't see a Hasselblad connection and that she couldn't simply censor every negative letter about me just because it was negative. So she published it. It turned out that the woman was the President of an advertising agency, and maybe you can guess who one of her clients was.

Anyway, I usually respond to these things by walking away. I responded in that case by simply disqualifying myself from writing about Hasselblads from then on. I figured my objectivity was compromised. In my next life, I might write under a pseudonym.

That is the news. We will have another Baker's Dozen soon.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2023 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. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

Featured Comments from:

Terry Burnes: "I appreciate this update. I must admit I was wondering what had happened to BD House as it seemed to me that if you ask us to do something for TOP you need to do your part in return and seemed in the past to have done so. Now it's clear that it wasn't neglect on your part or some overall deficiency in our submittals. Just the unpleasant side of the Internet that we usually see little or none of here.

"House was still a useful exercise for me, as are all the BDs. You pull a theme out of your hat and it causes me to review thousands of my photos thinking 'There must be something worthwhile in here' as I struggle to find it. But then something surfaces that clears the bar, if only barely, and confidence returns. Sort of an exercise in self-appraisal that we can all benefit from periodically that I think helps us going forward. So thanks for that."

Peter Williams: "It's bullshit to cancel it. You've taken so long to even mention it since asking for entries."

Mike replies: That's fair. I've been sick, though. I keep mentioning that I've been off my game.

A Strange Fact About Blogs

It appears that longer blog posts get more readers, and shorter comments get more readers.

This is rather odd, and I'm still not quite sure I believe it. These "factoids" seem to exhibit characteristics of the echo chamber—that is, of people simply repeating information that is common and widespread on the web, thereby reinforcing what doesn't deserve to be reinforced.

Posts
Various studies (a number of them quite old now—I looked into this years ago) have prescribed lengths of 1,500 all the way up to 3,000 words as optimal for a blog post; a generally recommended target is in the 2,000–2,500-word range.

That seems long to me, but I've made an effort to "write longer" for years now. (Because if that's what the customers want....) However, yesterday's post was only 390 words; "A Most Honorable Photographer" was ~640 (a bit of formatting messed up the exact count); and "Football Today" was ~1,800 words. I sometimes say, "I do go on," and you might think me rather long-winded yourself, but I have my work cut out to reach 2,500 words. Which I believe I do only rarely.

Comments
I had trouble yesterday picking Featured Comments, because so many of the comments were so good. I don't think I would like to deprive myself of some of the longer comments, such as Zyni's (382 words) or Jordi P.'s (617 words), both of which I liked. I wouldn't want to discourage anyone from saying everything they want to say. Knowing that long comments sometimes cause a tl;dr ("too long, didn't read") response, though, I'm reluctant to feature too many long comments. But sometimes I do anyway. To mix things up if nothing else. However, it appears that the most-read comments are in the 100–300-word range. As a general rule, if you "think succinct" (as a onetime writing teacher of mine used to say), your views might get more of a hearing.

As for me and my end, maybe I just need to pick bigger subjects. But that's all for this one—even though this is only 350 words.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2023 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. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

Featured Comments from: