Tag: writing

friday: figs and chords

Posted on Posted in meaning, overnight notes, paradox lostTagged , ,

[A cord is a long flexible string or rope, often made of thinner pieces woven together. A chord is “three or more musical tones played together.”

how multiple meanings can multiply intent . 

The fig tree is about choices of paths .. Sylvia Plath […I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig-tree, starving to death, just becaus I couldn’t make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one they plopped to the ground at my feet….]

and, taking a break from my fig tree thinking I returned to a question about musical chords ..arriving at :

nick drake… success after death.. finding the commercial in the commercial . The time for memory selling the past .. The acoustic over automobile speakers … mechanized memory .

https://youtu.be/fBdbRoSrWr4?si=-S9K02k4Qc3OPSir

Even successful artists carry doubts. Success is never fully sustaining. Success never reduces doubt among the most creative artists.

[ often grouped with existentialist thinkers, Camus consistently rejected the existentialist label, insisting that his philosophy of the absurd was distinct from both Kierkegaard’s leap of faith and Heidegger’s ontology of Being. Instead, Camus argued that the confrontation between humanity’s “appetite for meaning” and the universe’s “unreasonable silence” constituted the absurd, which must be lived with clarity rather than resolved by appeal to transcendence ]

— https://www2.hawaii.edu/~freeman/courses/phil360/16.%20Myth%20of%20Sisyphus.pdf

Camus, Albert, The Myth of Sisyphus, Translated by Justin O’Brien, Penguin Books, London (1955) ISBN 978-0-14-102399-1

The Written Web

Posted on Posted in da net, Farcebook, K Street Y, minimum daily requirementTagged , , , ,

exists, hypertext, however,  not so much .. The written web replaced the blog. The blog was managed by a person who traveled from blog blog by links.. now those written pieces are hosted on commercial space.. you provide the filler to their ads or you buy off the space…

Facebook doesn’t seem to permit the buy off; you will never own any piece of Facebook .. that’s also the path of Reddit..you are filler. . Substack you buy, as you can with WordPress..

The commercial web gave you ease of technical and took away your rights of privacy and profit .. you no longer have control because the technology has control… The things of the world have always been the world; owners of the things , even if they are digital things, own you

TELLING TALES

again and again. Making them taller, making your shadow longer. Done to impress the civilian, the non-participant, the one on the sidelines. Making a grand stand.

The difference between the part-timer and the full-timer. The committed and the interested in getting a story to tell. A tattoo for table talk. These aren’t scars, the are scarves.

Much of this can be seen in all message/gossip boards.. both among the “bro-vets” and the pho-photogs. As much about glorification of their small efforts..

They bought the boots, the perfect laces, compass and map; have taken a course on following course, even going so far as hiring a guide, once. And, now, the laces are knot free, the map is in a drawer, somewhere. 

The online answer boards are the ending gasp of film, chemical lab photography. They wouldn’t believe this. They don’t believe it. How could they be the ones killing what they want to survive. With error. Error of fact. By error of purpose is the greater weight the new would have to overcome. 

Why Didn’t You Make Dye Transfers

Posted on Posted in art school, creativity, Getting Stuff, meaning, studio table, the Lab, The WhyTagged , , , ,

Everybody loved dye transfer. Nobody made them. Why? This century, this time span one and all bemoan the death of a friend they never knew. Never even visited.

  • supplies were a phone call away
  • documentation was available free, or for minimal charges
  • workshops were held at getaway photo shops.
  • several colleges held courses
  • trade schools were in major cities, or by mail-order

A simple enough question . with likely very few answers — honest, introspective responses.

The obvious response: there aren’t any materials . What about when there were — why didn’t you buy the Efke film? Assuming you were an adult in 1990, why didn’t you buy Kodak dye transfer material ?

And for those of you who did buy the materials: why didn’t you use them ?

Continuing along this expansion, for those of you who bought Materials and took a workshop, why didn’t you use dye transfer as your print process?

If you were drawn to dye transfer enough to buy the materials and take the training, why didn’t you expand your skills and become a die transfer printer?

Why do people buy beyond use : compulsion vs obsession. The ownership vs the authorship. Do they believe themselves stewards?

Catalog prices for some Dye Transfer supplies. These are the retailer list price. Labs paid much less.

Consider: Giffen vs Veblen goods. The professional depended on the supplies. The hobbyist didn’t. 1981 was a break year for Kodak’s process. By 1986, the decision had been made to let the process run out the clock. During this time, the larger labs had a decreasing dye transfer business. It was maintained as a prestige factor attracting interest but resulting in few projects. Small specialist labs grew in the eighties; even the best known added other processes to their sales brochure. “Now, the finest Black and White from the finest Color Lab.” — 1987 —

Kodak chose not to license, nor sell the process[ 1981,2] . Wonder why? In their final run of product, the only supply sold completely was Tanning developer. Nope, not even all the matrix film was sold. Not even the Pan Matrix. So it goes…. much of the film and paper was held in store for years.

and then it was recycled. The Fotokemika branded Efke matrix film also saw few buyers.

Maybe there is a market for the Coffee Mug, the Trucker Hat, the Film Vest… not the film… Sell the tchotchke, maybe the tattoo, no need for the mats and blanks.