A Virtual Weltanschauung

12/16/2012

I Made This!!

Using a kit pinhole camera, the P-Sharan that comes as a perforated cardboard sheet with a pre-pinholed piece of plastic.

Basically it does all the hard work in this do it yourself project.

I still need to practice with this thing. I is REALLY hard to hold it still fr the 3 -4 second to take the picture. Even with a tripod.

The Story of a Seagull and the Cat Who Taught Her to Fly by Luis Sepúlveda

I know it is just a fable, an allegory or something. A message with a moral, but it felt like something more.

I know I am sentimental. I gush over kittens and puppies, not so much human babies since they remind me too much of adult humans. Anyway, now I have to admit I am a hopeless sucker for this kind of story.

A cat that immediately accepts a wounded Seagull as a friend, indeed, perhaps BECAUSE she was in need the cat felt morally obligated to act. And his cat friends all respond in kind honoring their cat code of behavior to fulfill a fellow cats commitment. And what fine fellows they all are!

Of course from a realistic view it is all ludicrous, cats helping dying birds, raising, caring, loving baby seagulls, none of it could happen (duh! You say). And the day is saved by a poet!! But I loved it all. And I am not sure why I bought it so completely, after all it is a slim story and if I count there are not a lot of details. But it seemed to be just right and I accepted it all.

Bottom line...I cried at the end, and loved it.

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12/05/2012

I Love to Read the Man who Read

The Old Man Who Read Love Stories by Luis Sepúlveda

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I had never head of this author and only by chance decided to read it. Of course its slim 130 pages was a draw.

Anyway, it was just what I needed. Set in the jungles of Ecuador it had the conflict of modernity with jungle life and people with just the right amout of magic realism. Except there really wasn't any magic realism. Why did I say that?

The thing is, it “felt” magical but really it was just a different way of looking at life. And it is a way I could never know except by reading this book.
AND and the same time there is the notion that reading is something special, although granted Antonio José Bolívar Proaño reads books mainly to escape from bad memories. But still, it is nice to have somebody notice that reading can simply be a wonder.

“...he set off in the direction of El Idilio, his hut, and his novels that spoke of love in such beautiful words they sometimes made him forget the barbarity of man.” pg 131

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12/04/2012

Ansco Flash Clipper - 1940's 1950's

Ansco Flash Clipper

From Ansco Flash Clipper
The Ansco Clipper, Flash Clipper and Clipper Special were simple point and shoot cameras made by Agfa-Ansco, and Ansco from the 1940s into the 1950s. They took 15 images on 616 film. The lens board pulled out of the camera body for taking pictures, and collapsed to make the camera more compact when not in use. The focus and aperture were fixed, while the shutter had I and B settings.

From Ansco Flash Clipper

11/30/2012

I Am Now War Weary

Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power by Rachel Maddow
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A book about America drifting toward continual military engagement.

A good book but in telling the tale it meanders around in a somewhat anecdotal fashion.

First there was the founding father's intention to make war something difficult to pursue, especially by the president. But as time marches on the country grows accustomed to war to the point that the state of war becomes a habit.

Except it was actually pulled back after the Vietnam war with the War Powers acts restricting presidential use of force and the Abram doctrine of setting things up so any military action will require the American people be invested in the adventure.

Amazingly things change and after some pretty sensible talk by Carter, then come Reagan and things start to change in the other direction. A fair amount of the books involves recounting Reagan's sales pitch to increase military spending. Pretty depressing stuff since it is mostly based on lies, exaggeration and such.

For example there were completely wrong statements of US vs Soviet military strength and then John Wayne was so incensed about his lies about the Panama Canal treaty (not about war but about American might)...

"Even after John Wayne sent Reagan a private and personal note offering to shoe him 'point by goddamn point int the treaty where you are misinforming people'...Ronald Reagan doubled down." Pg 33

And as president he makes a dramatic speech about a WWI solder buried at Arlington Cemetery where a patriotic and inspiring diary was found on his corpse. Long story short, all lies and Reagan was told about it but went ahead with the speech.

Then there is the quote to justify his Iran Contra actions where he quotes Lenin, except Lenin nobody cant find where he said it except for the reference in a John Birch society book from a Russian who was 3 years old when Lenin died.

Well...it goes on and on. Basically Reagan was a liar of amazing regularity in order to grow the military, And it is a one way ratchet pushing to ever higher levels.

I suppose I get hung up on the out and out lying stuff more than I should, since later presidents managed to achieve the same goal but with less obvious deception (why lie when you can just redefine what true actually means). And in a way the lies are really just a small means to an end, so why should the means bother me more than the end? I suppose it is just that Reagan is so deified now and nobody else points out that he was full of it, and I am just a neurotic contrarian.

I need to just let it go. Really I do.

So it paints a sad picture of a people willing to be manipulated, especially when it has little cost to them.

Yeah, it is all bad.

I need a drink.

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