Pushing my luck

I don’t know what it is with Windsor. All my photos this fall look nice and smooth and creamy, but as soon as I get to Windsor they turn dark and gritty, with grain the size of baseballs. Is it the Alexander MacLeod effect? Do the gritty stories actually take over the entire atmosphere of the town?

Alexander MacLeod reads from Light Lifting at Windsor's Phog Lounge, 28 Sept 2010

It might be that those pictures were shot on Delta 3200 at EI 12,500. And the tech data sheet for Delta 3200 does say, “when using meter settings of EI 12500/42 and above, it is important to make test exposures first to ensure the results will be suitable for the intended purpose,” which anyone knows is actually tech data sheet lingo for, “What? Are you frigging stupid? Yer gonna get grain the size of baseballs.”

But I was able to hand-hold an 85 mm lens in the dark, so what the heck. And then you get really bold, and try hand-holding the 180….

Alexander MacLeod at Phog Lounge, 28 Sept 2010. 180 mm f/2.8 AF Nikkor

Little pink houses for you and me

"Ain't that America, somethin' to see...." Pink houses, Tonawanda, NY, April 2004

Kerry Clare of Pickle Me This pointed out some pink houses today via Twitter.

I knew I had a pink house of my own in my files someplace. This one seems a little more Mellencamp.

(Shortly after I took this picture, a kindly gentleman offered to jam my camera up my ass.)

Would Random House do this for you?

Poet Patricia Young (right) chats with members of Poetry London following her reading at the Fred Landon Library in London, Ontario, April 7

The beer selection was less than exemplary, and Patricia didn’t like the look of hers, once delivered. So Dan Wells gave her his.

Which takes me back to the whole recent flap and kerfuffle concerning small presses as “farm teams,” and the various ripostes. Ask yourself this: what would Bertelsmann AG have done, in the same situation?