Category Archives: Americana

A great, manufactured, picture

Americana, Photography, Psychological Musings, Uncategorized,

First, a disclaimer. When I showed this picture to Michele, she didn’t see the cross made by the banner and Romney. Without the cross, it is just a snapshot and I am even more convinced that the photographer was shooting the cross than Michele is that she wasn’t. Of course neither one of us knows for sure. End disclaimer.

I like this picture so much because it seems so “made” rather than “taken”. I can just see the wheels turning in the photographer’s mind.The photographer is Christina Clusiau and I imagine her first shooting from the side. Then seeing the potential of the banner and moving to the center to get Romney and the banner to line up. Then, maybe, getting lower to get the banner higher.

If this had been film, Christina probably would have already shot some pictures with the body on which this lens was mounted – sure, she probably had another body but that would have the wrong lens on it – so she would have to hoard her shots. But today, and this is why digital is so great, she probably started with her camera having a clean card and she probably had atleast a  hundred pictures left. So she could shoot, maybe adjust the light, shoot again, and wait. When Romney looked up beseechingly, maybe pointing to someone to ask a question, she shot again. Making this picture.

When the light is right and the picture is right, it is easy. An almost opposite picture is one I took of Yosemite last year. We were driving through Yosemite to get to the other side of the Sierras which included driving through the Wawona Tunnel. On the other side is the Tunnel Overlook – a National Landmark because of the view – and it was late in the day. The light was great and all we had to do was get out of the car and point the camera in the general direction of El Capitan. The shot below would have been hard not to get.

Imagine killing somebody

Americana, War

Just think about it for a second. Over the last, say, 65 years – I’m hoping and going with the premise that I didn’t want to kill anybody before I was six – I have wanted to kill many people. Not for long enough to actually imagine what it would be like, more of a That fucker should be shot. kind of killing. But, imagine killing somebody. A man, say, in a dirt poor third world country.

Somebody who doesn’t want the United States there. Maybe they have kids and a wife who depend on them. So you are not just killing them, you are fucking up a whole family. But, hopefully, they don’t have a dependent family. But, surely, they do have a mother and a father who have invested their hopes and dreams in him. Maybe they named him Ibrahim – Abraham – after the founder of their religion, maybe they named him Anthony. What difference does it make? Just think about killing them. Make it easy on yourself, make the killing from a distance with a high powered rifle.

Now watch this video.  I think that it is a simulation – a training film – but, maybe not. Either way, this is what it is like to kill a person today.

 

Gaddafi’s Creepy Love Den

Americana, Current Affairs, Uncategorized, , ,

 

When I saw the headline, Gaddafi’s Creepy Love Den in The Dailyt Beast, my first thought was  a remembrance of a Peter Arno cartoon in which a stuffy matron, reading the newspaper that says Mayor caught in love nest and looking up at her equally dignified husband, says “What is a ‘Love Nest’, dear?” Of course,  I remember it because I didn’t know, at about ten, what a Love Nest was either; I’m sure that my mother’s explanation was in good taste.  “Love Nest” is just not a term you hear these days, but – then – neither is “Love Den”. I hope they are both coming back.

When I was at an impressionable age, my family had three joke books that helped shape my sensibilities. There were other books and – I’m sure -other joke books, but the three that stick in my mind are the aforementioned Peter Arno book, a James Thurber book with a name I can’t remember, and Up Front by Bill Maudin. They all three had a sort of whimsical sarcasm that I like to think is in my DNA.

Vintage races @ Laguna Seca 2011 – something for almost anybody

Americana, Cars, Evolution, Uncategorized, , , , ,

The thing about races, is that the people who go are generally car people. So, in addition to the races, there are lots of interesting cars: hot rods, old taxis, just nice old cars in general.

For me it is all sorts of cars, Maseratis – although there were few Maseratis this year – Ferraris – a pretty obvious choice – any little, lithe, sports racing car with a big, honk’n,  427, and Formula Jr.s. Formula Jr.s because they are such a great history lesson. Towards the end of the 50’s, Italian Formula One cars were beating everybody but drivers were being killed at an alarming rate. It was decided to start an international training car class called Formula Jr. to train the replacement drivers. Because the cars were limited to a 1.1 liter production car engine, like the FIAT 1100, Forumla Jr. was sort of Italian weighted. Some of the prettiest were the Stanguellinis which looked like miniature Maserati Formula One race cars. Except of course, the Maseratis had 2.5 liter DOHC engines and the Stanguellinis has little FIAT engines. And they were teeny-tiny.

 

But in Formula Jr. Just like Formula One, the British were changing the game.Frank Costin was designing cars based on aerodynamic lessons learned in WWII, cars like Cooper and Lotus were putting the engines behind the drivers, and – another WWII idea – disk brakes were making the British cars stop much quicker. One of my favorite British Formula Jr. cars was the Lola – as in What ever Lola wants, Lola gets – with it’s cute taperesque nose.

 

And Loti like these:

 

Soon the British took over Formula Jr., then small sports-racing cars with cars like the Lotus Eleven

then, when the Brits discovered downforce and the awesome goodness of the Chevrolet V8, we were graced with McLaren M8D  Can-Ams.

And the outstanding velocity stacks that sat on top of that awesome Chevrolet engine, now enlarged to seven liters.

Ferraris, anon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Women’s Flat Track Roller Derby Time

Americana, Around home, Art, Current Affairs, Games, Sports,


We went to a Women’s Flat Track Roller Derby meet last Saturday night with almost no preconceived ideas. It was delightful.

I first heard about the revival of Roller Derby in an article titled Revolution on Eight Wheels by Diane “Lady Hulk” Williams – the Lady Hulk part is very important, it turns out – in which she talked about going to a match thinking it might be exploitation and falling in love with the sport and the team. After going to one game, it seems easy to do.

I am fascinated by the way our culture is changing – especially in regard to women and minorities – and I am fascinated by the way that change is reflected back into the culture by our public stories, like Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I know, technically, that Joss Whedon wrote Buffy so it could be called non-public, but Buffy ran for seven season because it resonated with society’s changing image of women. So going to a Women’s Flat Track Roller Derby match? game? roll-off? seemed right up my alley. It was in Oakland and we went with Courtney Gonzalez.

Courtney , Michele, and I met for dinner at a local pizzeria called Pizzaiolo – although calling Pizzaiolo a pizzeria is a little like calling a Bentley a car – and then went over to the Oakland Convention Center to see the B.A.D.’s – B.ay A.rea D.erby girls – All Star team, The Golden Girls, play the Austin Texecutioners _whose colors are black and blood – as part of a Roller Derby tournament. Dinner was slower than I expected and I was getting agitated that we would be too late but we ended up getting to the game just in time. I had expected that we would walk into a packed  house and not even be able to see the track.

 

It turns out that Flat Track Women’s Roller derby is not packing in the crowds…yet. But it will. It has everything, sexily dressed women, real hard-driving athletic competition, high scoring, and a warm family outing sort of atmosphere. Oh! and it is very casual: for example, each player, of course, has a number, but the numbers have no rhyme or reason. The San Francisco numbers are 11, 101, 666, 1619,16, Ohh, 170c, and so on. And each player has a stage name? porn name? Some of my favorites were Astronaughty, Ivy Profane, Huck Sinn, and Aunti Christ on the San Francisco team and Lucille Brawl, The Killa Sal Monella, Belle Starr – her number is 1889, the year of Belle Starr’s death – and Vicious Van GoGo on the Austin team.

The persona of Women’s Roller Derby – flat track, atleast – is of tough, maybe even nasty, women. It is anything but. Maybe because the teams are owned by the players, which means women, or maybe it is for some other reason, but the atmosphere is nonthreatening. Very nonthreatening in a counter culture way. It is as if they pretended to be  tough to hide their tender, vulnerable, welcoming selves. But the games are rough and tough. Women get knocked down, they get hurt, they get knocked out of the game.

Scoring is based on – very roughly – a jammer starting behind the scrum – for lack of a better name – fighting through the scrum, going around the track and catching up with the scrum, and then getting one point for each opposing player the jammer passes. Here are a few shots:

 

 

 

 

The Golden girls won by a landslide – the first time they have beaten the Austin Team.

 

 

 

 

 

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