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October 27, 2012

LITTLE DRUMMER BOY

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... emilie from common street arts invited me to photograph the studio's halloween party ... liz was kind enough to serve duty as my gopher girl for the first part of the evening ... i had great fun, shot some nice pictures, and was lucky enough to remember that a plane of glass can be the border of two worlds ...

October 19, 2012

SURF OVER DOWNTOWN

NIKON D200-SIGMA 17-70@52MM-F5.6-(3 image HDR 1sec-1/4th-1/30th)-ISO100   
... a great wave in the atmosphere just washed over waterville ... i wonder if this is how the little fish who live amongst the coral reef feel when they gaze up towards their heaven ...

... addendum: thanks to chad tracy, i now know that this is a "undulatus asperatus," what may be the newest cloud name since 1951 ...

FROM MY WINDOW

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"In the sky, there is no distinction of east and west; people create distinctions out of their own minds and believe them to be true."
BUDDA

BEFORE THE WEDDING


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... on the way to sarah and gordy's wedding i snapped this picture outside of the house mike and beth rented ...

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... a bit of genetic code that i don't seem to have inherited, at cribbage my brother reminds me of both pa and grampy groleau ... as could they, with a single glance he can score a hand, and, a total mystery to me, he is able to comprehend the strategy of the discard to the crib ... i'd hate him for all this, 'cept he did the same thing to me as a kid when we played chess, gin rummy, and clue, so i got used to it ... i guess that there're some things for which a big brother will remain forever a big brother ...

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... across the street from the church behind, i happened upon a story waiting to be told ...

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... as always, i'm a sucker for angles ...

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... when i was a child this would've been a scary gate ... we'd open it, naturally, and, after a few "double-dog-dares," finally work up the courage to enter the yard ... it wouldn't take long to learn that the old woman who was always tending the flowers and carefully trimming the lilac bushes could also bake the best oatmeal cookies in the neighborhood ... she'd never complained about our trespassing and we'd keep the cookies a secret from our moms ...



THE BIG CHEESE AND THE BIG APPLE

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... snapped outside the church before the guests began to arrive for sarah and gordy's wedding, the image of jon was made with my olympus e-p1 ... the background panorama i found on the web, credit it to abe pacana (so, of course, tempted as you might be, please don't sell or use this composite for commercial purposes) ... i was just practicing my photoshopping skills, but i'm thinking that if jon ever decides to try to get elected as the mayor of the big apple, this'll make a great campaign poster ...

October 6, 2012

MOTORCYLE HALL OF FAME


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... today jon and i made a visit to the motorcycle hall of fame ... neat, tidy, well worth the $10 admission fee ... i wonder, in the late 1800s was this some forty-something man's "mid-life crisis" toy, or, perhaps, speeding by horses and carriages, was it a victorian "crotch rocket" ...


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... "15 gallons coast to coast" ... one of my favorites ...

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... this has to be one of the most absolutely beat machines i've ever seen ... reading how after he lost his legs dave barr rode this heap over routes such as point barrow, alaska to the freezing tip of south america, or all the way across europe and asia to the pacific ocean during the winter, i marveled at how it is a machine can serve as mechanism to demonstrate inspired perseverance ... after seeing this bike i've the thought i might like to reread charles lindberg's "we"...

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... my favorite, simply because it's the one i would most like to ride ...







WASHINGTON COURTHOUSE


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... i wandered from cincinnati to columbus, following route 22 through small towns and fields of corn awaiting harvest ... in the city of washington court house i stopped to visit the fayette county courthouse ... while i'm sure the offices along the periphery of the building are well lit, the interior foyer was dismally dark, as if it were the set for some 1940's gangster movie ... in the large courtroom, which fills one side of the building, two very tired looking lawyers were having some sort of a discussion with a rather tired looking judge while a very tired looking bailiff seemed to be snoozing as he stood his post guarding the door ... sitting on the ancient wooden benches facing the central stairwell were several people, each apparently awaiting a turn before the bench ... two young girls huddled with an older women, her attire and lack of nose rings and prominent tattoos leading me to believe there was a good chance she was their lawyer ... they appeared to be having a gum popping contest while she studied the notes written in very tidy cursive on the yellow pad she kept aligned neatly across her lap ... a rather surely looking man was hunched over at the other end of the bench, it was only after a second glance i noticed his hands were cuffed in front of him ... at the door of the nearby records office a uniformed cop was chatting it up with a very pretty secretary, in his serious flirtation never ceasing to glance every few seconds in the direction of the man in restraints ... 

... large murals adorned the walls, after searching i found tacked near the water fountain a faded photocopy of a brief typewritten commentary as to the history of the paintings ... they were done by john trumbull, famous to most as the creator of the huge paintings adorning the walls in the rotunda of the united states capitol building in washington d.c. (the back of a $2 bill, too) ... apparently it was unknown for over 75 years that he had done these in ohio, but, after that fact was discovered, further inspection of the painting "the spirit of the post office" revealed that he had surreptitiously hidden his name in one of the letters in the painting ...

... the city of washington courthouse has a very unusual street layout ... while the lanes of the downtown are in a grid pattern, quite typical of midwestern towns and cities, the alignment of the grid is northwest-to-southeast, rather than the standard north-to-south arrangement ... this was done so that the courthouse did not have any rooms on a north facing "dark" side ...

... inscribed over the main entrance is the phrase, fiat justitia ruat coelum, "even if the sky falls let there be justice" ... noble words, for sure, but i departed the courthouse questioning exactly where it was located between philosophy and reality ... 






October 3, 2012

ALONG THE LITTLE MIAMI

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... i took a little drive north up montgomery, then wandered east until i found myself cruising along the bank of the little miami river ... named for the algonauians who lived in this area, the 111 miles of the little miami's course is ohio's first "national wild and scenic river" ... while it normally flows at a lesurely 1,200 cubic feet/sec, after a violent midwestern thunderstorm the river can become a raging torrent measured at over 84,000 cubic feet/sec ...

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... running almost 77 miles along the river is the little miami scenic trail, the longest paved multi-use bike/hiking/horseback riding trail in the united states ...

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... the little miami and its many small tributaries cut many deep, convoluted channels through the landscape ...

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... while i will not in any way discount the autumn beauty of new england's maple trees, here in ohio the muted yellows of the fall foliage are equally attractive to the eye ...

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October 2, 2012

OHIO AUTUMN

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... october, when i remind myself that as much as can be distinguished in a vibrant forest foliage's glorious drama, there is equally as much to be discovered in the final chapter of a single leaf's story ...

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... i'm in ohio, the turn around point of a little road excursion allowing me the pleasure of returning my friend, c.j., home from his summer sojourn in maine ... the day after we arrived jane had to leave for a conference in detroit, so it was a bit more of "makin' the best of it" for the two of them ... meanwhile, amelia baked for "a friend going through tough times" ... the exchange of soft words, a foil-wrapped plate of fresh brownies, sometimes it is the simplest of the things we can do which are the most important ...

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... i went for a stroll around the yard, finding fascination in the structure of nature in which the layers of order and form and symmetry are juxtaposed with stratum of chaotic randomness ... like fingerprints, or, for those who have had the joy of learning it, the laughter of babies, no two leaves are alike ... examining the universe through a lens formed of numbers, to understand that of every leaf of every tree which has existed since the very first of them all, it can be mathematically stated that it is a virtual certainty none has ever had an identical twin, this is another proof of why we possess a sense of joy ...

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... i don't know if we were lucky for it, but our ma never said, "don't go down and play by the creek," which was a good thing, for sure, since pa was one to say, "go play by the creek" ... so, on this drizzly afternoon stroll i ducked under the hanging limbs of the trees bordering the drive and slid down the embankment in front of the house to enjoy the damp music of the water trickling its way south to the mighty ohio river ... while i throughly soaked my skechers and the hems of my blue jeans, from above drifted a comfortingly familiar faint echo, "i just did the floors, you best not track any of that nasty mud into my clean kitchen ... use the hose to wash up ... take off your shoes before you come in ... i just did the floors, you best not track any of that nasty mud into my clean kitchen" ...