DID YOU GUYS KNOW that last weekend (as in actually not last weekend but the last weekend before last weekend?) was Purim?! Do you know what Purim is? Do I know what Purim is? What is this? What am I? What is box? I took my mom’s/my Olympus OM-1 from the 70s to our temple last last Sunday and made some photographs. Surprisingly, they’re actually weirder than the expired disposable ones (which didn’t really turn out weird at all); I guess the film I used in these (Kodak Portra) had some odd color thangs going on or something or SUMTHEN. I really like how they (or these ones at least) turned out.
Jew-friend Eli. We’re so cool, hangin’ out on stairwells (REALLY EDG•E™).
POLE.
Eli again.
In case you haven’t noticed (which is nothing but probable) I love pictures with hands/fingers in them.
My window sill. Also: leftovers of science fair experiment?
Makes me feel like Yellow House by Grizzly Bear.
Where I am now! Desk!
Thanks for looking, guys. I would say less pictures + more writing later, but that’s probably not going to be true (starting a new project involving photography soon) and that’s not even necessary. I don’t know why exactly I always feel like posting one or two paragraphs and a whole bunch of pictures is some sort of cop-out. It ain’t! Or maybe it ain’t ain’t! You people seem to enjoy it, regardless of my Jew-like over-sensitive paranoid behavior.
*smiley smiley* danke.
|
9 comments /
Say Something
Posted by Spencer on Mar 8, 2010
‘ello folks. I spent this weekend in Michigan with my brother and father, one of whom just got back from a decently long tour (my mom stayed at home for a school event – it was a dudely weekend). We watched two RATED-R MOVIES and went PAINTBALLING, both of which were really fun. My favorite movie of the two (the other being District 9) was Inglourious Basterds. I’m not much of a violence guy but it being semi-comedy + totally ridiculous + um, Nazi-killing + just really well-made made the movie amazing / I want it to win some Academy Awards night-of-the-to! My favorite part of the entire movie is when Marcel drops the cigarette and says something that sounds a lot like “Rosh Hashana” but may very well not be. It’s just SO GOOD.
On Friday I went to the old Chicago stockyards* with my class and brought along an expired disposable camera (found in my closet). The ‘expiredness’, let’s say, isn’t really apparent in the photos, but it was still fun to cohort through gross muddy snow and greasy railcars without having to worry about a nice machine (film or digital SLR). Unfortunately, in addition to the expiredness not being apparent, there weren’t any light-leaks/etc. like those from my canoe trip in October, either. I’m still happy with how they turned out (and that I didn’t have to wait a squillion years to develop them).
As far as an industrial district goes, some of it was pretty beautiful.
abandoned firehouse.
nick.
* half of the class read The Jungle awhile ago, so it was supposed to be a chance for them to see that actual setting of the book and stuff (even though most of it’s gone). My group read Our America and was supposed to visit the old Ida B. Wells neighborhood, but there kind of isn’t anything there anymore, and it would be rude to just come into somebody’s neighborhood and act like it’s a crazy part of history, y’know? So we all went to Back of the Yards.
|
13 comments /
Say Something
Posted by Spencer on Mar 7, 2010
Formsprings. Just an fyi, these are from January. Catching up (a little).
Heya Spencer! What is your preferred method of listening to music is you cannot see a live show? iPod, records, cd’s, something really cool I don’t even know about?
Well, these are all “the same” in that you’re not experiencing live music. Records are really nice to listen to, but I listen to most of my music on iTunes (imported from CDs).
more on Cutty — is he the kitty on the cover of Mermaid Ave 2? is he more of your dad’s cat? or your mom’s?
My mom found Cutty in an alley almost twenty years ago, along with our other two (unfortunately deceased) cats Flukey and Jackson. Cutty is not the Mermaid Avenue kitty.
Are you coming to New Zealand again when Wilco tour in February?
I wish! New Zealand is awesome and beautiful and home to generally the nicest people on Earth. I was thinking about maybe posting a revival of my pictures from ‘08 while Wilco’s visiting, though.
do you have any camera secrets because your lighting always looks perfect!
Surprisingly.. sorta! One thing eeeveryone should do with their camera (dSLR) is shoot mainly in “P” (Program) mode – or the other advanced modes like Tv and Av or M, but I won’t get into those – and make it so the autofocus point is set to the middle one. Depending on your camera this could be done in a few ways so you should google “af point selection” or something of the like. FURTHERMORE and not geek-out totally, but when I’m “shooting” in semi-low-light environments my 50mm 1.4 lens is perfect (thank you Christoph), because I can get a wide aperture (let more light in), put the shutter speed at 1/60, and crank the ISO up (which can be really nice with black and white because it produces grain). Look into the Tv mode and just learn everything about your camera all-round!
This isn’t fully elaborated just ’cause I don’t want to take up the whole formspring. Email me?
i am guessing you hate questions like these, and I can respect that, but I am also going to ask anyways. Do you have a favorite Beatles album? If so which one and why?
Revolver’s probably my favorite right now. I love it recording-wise and song-wise.
what do you think of the right to bear arms, anti pro, idk?
I’m not totally “informed” about these things but, in general, I tend to lean toward a liberal viewpoint. I think there should be strict laws on small weapons, for sure, though.
how oh how can i solve my massive problem of wanting to read SO many books?!!! ahhh! so read any good books lately?
I just finished reading Our America, a documentary-ish nonfiction about kids in the Chicago ghetto and what life was like for them back in the 90s. An author of the book is actually coming to speak at my school soon.
i cant ever write a paper without music!
I always do work best at my own desk with music playing.
Even Salman Rushdie couldn’t create fictional rock musicians who weren’t card-board stereotypes. Why do you think that is? Have any books or movies gotten the “rock musician” species right?
Cate Blanchett just popped into my head.. with a jew-fro. Mysterious.
If you’ve never read “The Diary of Anne Frank,” have you ever listened to Neutral Milk Hotel? “In the Aeroplane over the sea?”
Yep. I’ve gotten a few formsprings asking about that album. The answer is yes!
If you were in Star Wars, would you side with the Empire or the Rebel Alliance?
Rebelstodamax.
Did you know that Social Anxiety is the least understood anxiety disorder? Never hate on the shy kids-you never know what they could be going through!Share this link to spread the awareness?http://www.socialphobia.org/social.html#top Thanks!
I think I saw that it was a disorder in Time’s special about the brain once. In any case (and not to make fun of a disorder) my friends and I probably all suffer from it. Just with.. awkwardness in place of shyness. Nobody should ever hate because someone’s shy!
Hillshire! (now what do you say?)
What?!
What’s Neil Young like?
Neil Young is an awesome, wise old man. I feel crazily lucky to have met him (more than once) and his wife Sharon. One time we were at the Bridge School benefit and he mistook my mom for her. Update: Pegi! Not Sharon! Neil Finn’s wife is named Sharon.
Do you play any instruments besides drums? Does Sammy?
I also plays guitar and all those concert band percussion instruments (TRIANGLE ANYBODY?). Sammy play guitar, and some drums.
|
9 comments /
Say Something
Posted by Spencer on Mar 4, 2010
Whoa! High school! New horizons! “Intellectual rocket ship!” Tonight was a sort of orientation thing for incoming freshmen at my new school {SCHOOL SCHOOL SCHOOL} where basically the principal gave a speech along with some other teachers and then I talked to my friends also going to the school (lucky to have some with me) and I bought a sweatshirt. I’m really quite very excited. Though I know high school isn’t supposed to be THAT GOOD, it should be an upgrade from middle school, right? Besides, they mentioned that all students should be getting a tablet laptop from Chicago Public Schools sometime during the next years SO YA LYK AT LEAST STAY 4 THA FREEBIES, RITE? Just kiddinguh, I’m sure it will be an awesome experience with lots of learning and fun times and “intergalactic scholastic spacecrafts”.
I’m waiting to get a roll (er, three rolls) of film developed. I have to go downtown because Walgreens is stupid and “adapted to the modern world” and only does one specific NICHE of films. Until then, Fuji “Polaroid” Instax from last weekend. Pretty junk-e (boring), mostly..
Title: reference to something the principal said in his speech; also mentioned several times throughout post.
|
17 comments /
Say Something
Posted by Spencer on Mar 3, 2010
Hello. I want to empty my iPhoto “flagged” folder. HERE ARE SOME PICTOGRAPHS*.
* I think that actually means an ancient cave-drawing or something, but in this case it is the combination of picture and photograph.
1 from neighbor’s birthday party in January 2 a quarter of my Moleskine collection 3 tube amp lamp 4 our delicious curtains.
|
12 comments /
Say Something
Posted by Spencer on Mar 1, 2010
