“Not because it’s lucrative, but because I’m invested in the discovery of this. What I learn about myself. How it makes me feel alive.” Haven’t read a better reason why writing is purely human -- imitated yet never equalled by a digital algorithm. And it makes me happy 😊 Thanks (again), Austin.
I have a small Polaroid camera I take everywhere. I got tired of iPhone pictures and trying to change the moment by changing the filter. In the 80s, the pictures you took were the pictures you got. Period. And while at the time you wanted to toss them all in the trash after picking them up from the pharmacy, when you look back at them now, those are more than pictures, they’re memories. You had no filter option to make yourself look better. Actually, you looked pretty good at the time. That’s what a Polaroid does, it captures a memory. No filter. No retake. I tell my twenty-something kids, ‘You may not like the photos I take with my Polaroid now, but you will someday. You’ll remember the moment. Not how a filter made you look.’ They think I’m crazy. I know I’m not. And all those Polaroids land in my journals. With words that add to the memory. Like writing a book. Words and pictures. And you don’t have to know how to read to understand the story...
I really like the idea of books talking to each other. I guess its about connections but I actually like the concept of the books sitting down and having a bit of a chat.
Also, I'm hanging onto my very old digital camera! the number of pixels is appalling by today's standards but this has made me look at it in a new way. I have already got some film for a very old camera (black and white film) that I'm going to give a new life to! Can't wait to see the results.
As an Ancient I have tons of old tech--mine and my Dad’s--I should go digging around for it. I know my first camera was a big grey monster an Anscoflex II. I’ll put a photo in the chat.
I recently pulled out my Sony 10.1 megapixel digicam and took it out for some shots around town. I've dabbled in film photography in recent years but the price of film and developing has really made it hard to keep as a fun hobby. The entertaining thing about these old digicams is they have a "film" look to them, especially with the blown out flash, and obviously do not incur the cost of buying/developing film. I've actually taken a few cool shots just goofing around and started carrying it around with me everywhere I go. I'm much more likely to take a photo with it than my iPhone which now just feels like a tool for family event photos, ha. I find these cameras for $10-15 in thrift stores all the time. I like younger gens using older tech and making it fun again!
The phrase that guides all my studio work (writing, music, textiles) is "Work is love made visible" from the Kahlil Gibran poem "On Work". Your piece on AI made me think of it this morning - how the making of art, the crafting of things is so much about our expression of love for ourselves, others, and the world at large. AI cannot compete with the largess of that love, nor can grow our spirit/heart in the way our engagement in craft/art practices do. Product versus process. The process is of far greater value than anything we actually produce.
Head, heart, and hands: makes me think of Lynda Barry writing the entire book Cruddy by hand with brush and ink, which I learned of through you (though I'd read Cruddy many years before). It inspired me both to write out the text for my future graphic memoir with brush and ink, and also to write about the process myself in my newsletter. I love how Barry says "A kid learning to write the alphabet is actually learning to draw the alphabet." That really spoke to me.
Also! Thanks for the very instructive "How to Write a Book"! What could be simpler.
Oh, and regarding the retro tech—I'm probably going to get some people in trouble by posting this but there's a company in my neighborhood that does amazing refurb work on all kinds of old devices (I'm dying to pull the trigger on a Walkman-style cassette player)
Funny, I happen to be reading 3 books right now—Kate Beaton's Ducks (lives up to the hype, multi-faceted, remarkably even-handed, cw: sexual assault), an Abrams coffee table book called Pulp Power featuring art of some early pulp heroes like Batman and Superman predecessors The Shadow and Doc Savage, and my first Fellowship of the Ring re-read since HS or college.
Not sure if I thought about these books talking to each other before but I'll probably waste a lot of time today noodling over what a '30s pulp hero version of LOTR would look like—Doc Savage and his Fabulous Five agents have some similarities to the Fellowship and if we throw in a Mandrake the Magician clone for Gandalf...😄
Two weird trivia tidbits from the Pulp Power book that might amuse the audience here:
- Orson Welles played the Shadow on radio for a about a year, dig this promo shot
- I didn't really know anything about Kay Thompson but she wrote the Eloise books *AND* was a vocal coach to—get this—Judy Garland, Lena Horne, and Frank Sinatra?!? 🤯🤯🤯
Enjoyed the article about the resurgence of point-and-shoot cameras. I wonder when the Kodak disposable film cameras I used in the late 90s will suddenly show up. “Everything old is new again,” and I love it. The kids ARE alright.
“Not because it’s lucrative, but because I’m invested in the discovery of this. What I learn about myself. How it makes me feel alive.” Haven’t read a better reason why writing is purely human -- imitated yet never equalled by a digital algorithm. And it makes me happy 😊 Thanks (again), Austin.
I have a small Polaroid camera I take everywhere. I got tired of iPhone pictures and trying to change the moment by changing the filter. In the 80s, the pictures you took were the pictures you got. Period. And while at the time you wanted to toss them all in the trash after picking them up from the pharmacy, when you look back at them now, those are more than pictures, they’re memories. You had no filter option to make yourself look better. Actually, you looked pretty good at the time. That’s what a Polaroid does, it captures a memory. No filter. No retake. I tell my twenty-something kids, ‘You may not like the photos I take with my Polaroid now, but you will someday. You’ll remember the moment. Not how a filter made you look.’ They think I’m crazy. I know I’m not. And all those Polaroids land in my journals. With words that add to the memory. Like writing a book. Words and pictures. And you don’t have to know how to read to understand the story...
I really like the idea of books talking to each other. I guess its about connections but I actually like the concept of the books sitting down and having a bit of a chat.
Also, I'm hanging onto my very old digital camera! the number of pixels is appalling by today's standards but this has made me look at it in a new way. I have already got some film for a very old camera (black and white film) that I'm going to give a new life to! Can't wait to see the results.
Definitely relate to the reading multiple books at once thing. Doing that now. It’s fun to have different authors and genres going.
As an Ancient I have tons of old tech--mine and my Dad’s--I should go digging around for it. I know my first camera was a big grey monster an Anscoflex II. I’ll put a photo in the chat.
Oops as an Ancient I don’t know how to add a photo to a chat?
I recently pulled out my Sony 10.1 megapixel digicam and took it out for some shots around town. I've dabbled in film photography in recent years but the price of film and developing has really made it hard to keep as a fun hobby. The entertaining thing about these old digicams is they have a "film" look to them, especially with the blown out flash, and obviously do not incur the cost of buying/developing film. I've actually taken a few cool shots just goofing around and started carrying it around with me everywhere I go. I'm much more likely to take a photo with it than my iPhone which now just feels like a tool for family event photos, ha. I find these cameras for $10-15 in thrift stores all the time. I like younger gens using older tech and making it fun again!
The phrase that guides all my studio work (writing, music, textiles) is "Work is love made visible" from the Kahlil Gibran poem "On Work". Your piece on AI made me think of it this morning - how the making of art, the crafting of things is so much about our expression of love for ourselves, others, and the world at large. AI cannot compete with the largess of that love, nor can grow our spirit/heart in the way our engagement in craft/art practices do. Product versus process. The process is of far greater value than anything we actually produce.
Head, heart, and hands: makes me think of Lynda Barry writing the entire book Cruddy by hand with brush and ink, which I learned of through you (though I'd read Cruddy many years before). It inspired me both to write out the text for my future graphic memoir with brush and ink, and also to write about the process myself in my newsletter. I love how Barry says "A kid learning to write the alphabet is actually learning to draw the alphabet." That really spoke to me.
Also! Thanks for the very instructive "How to Write a Book"! What could be simpler.
Oh, and regarding the retro tech—I'm probably going to get some people in trouble by posting this but there's a company in my neighborhood that does amazing refurb work on all kinds of old devices (I'm dying to pull the trigger on a Walkman-style cassette player)
https://retrospekt.com/
Funny, I happen to be reading 3 books right now—Kate Beaton's Ducks (lives up to the hype, multi-faceted, remarkably even-handed, cw: sexual assault), an Abrams coffee table book called Pulp Power featuring art of some early pulp heroes like Batman and Superman predecessors The Shadow and Doc Savage, and my first Fellowship of the Ring re-read since HS or college.
Not sure if I thought about these books talking to each other before but I'll probably waste a lot of time today noodling over what a '30s pulp hero version of LOTR would look like—Doc Savage and his Fabulous Five agents have some similarities to the Fellowship and if we throw in a Mandrake the Magician clone for Gandalf...😄
Two weird trivia tidbits from the Pulp Power book that might amuse the audience here:
- Orson Welles played the Shadow on radio for a about a year, dig this promo shot
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shadow#/media/File:WellesShadow.jpg
- I didn't really know anything about Kay Thompson but she wrote the Eloise books *AND* was a vocal coach to—get this—Judy Garland, Lena Horne, and Frank Sinatra?!? 🤯🤯🤯
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kay_Thompson
Enjoyed the article about the resurgence of point-and-shoot cameras. I wonder when the Kodak disposable film cameras I used in the late 90s will suddenly show up. “Everything old is new again,” and I love it. The kids ARE alright.
I shoot point and shoot film almost everyday and I’m Gen Z
Enjoying Cacti this morning--thanks for the recommendation!