I really have to discipline myself

I state out loud as we are heading for the Bay of Fundy. I had got my mum addicted on a T-Ho double double and the Baleful the intern on Timbits. The place was hopping with retired Canadian Naval Gents we had made a cursory stop in Saint John then made a drive for the Bay. This was to be a day of relaxation, after the 800 miles yesterday we had over 18 hours – the ferry didn’t leave until 2AM - for a 6 hour drive or at worse if we did what I wanted, nine hours. There is nothing worse than sitting around North Sydney for hours on end.

I though was still in must make time mode, I got behind the wheel of the Honda and drove until I ran into my first ball park. Pulled off, did my now familiar investigation of the place much to the confusion of the other occupants of the machine – who while seeing the images were still shocked at the enthusiasm I had running across one.

When they determined that I was as sane as I ever was and we were heading out again, I made a U-turn in the middle of Route 111 sped back made another and stopped the machine on a narrow verge to made a snap that had potential. The car looked like a re-enactment of the Robert Frank photograph with Mary and the kids in the car.

Baleful the intern – started to see that this was fun so also started calling stop and running out to make photographs having my mother wonder what school would hire this as a member of its faculty – we know the answer to this it is not a real school. Ice cream stands, Irving Gas Bars, fishing stages.

My mother got into the act but being aged commanded up to make the snaps for her – mainly churches and church yards.

At one stop - a covered bridge for my mum – I notice the barachois is empty and we make a bee line for the Bay – after two more stops – an interesting post box and a closed convenience.

Ah the Bay of Fundy – a marvel to walk on the ocean floor here, the tide was out and the coach load of tourists were in. They’d come in waves, two or three at a time the people would flow off the coaches to the caves and the sea bottom ebb back to queue up for the toilets then disappear.

Tour guides in period costumes – what period is suitable for low tide - would hold provincial flags to gather their group.

A couple in deck chairs were out reading and had been there since 9AM.

We looked and headed out to take 111 to another part of the province before heading up to Moncton and Sackville so that we could head down to Halifax for the drive along the South Coast of Nova Scotia to Cape Breton.

Well after seeing the provincial park.

I really have to discipline myself.

Realising that time is passing and that we were still near Saint John, I went back into making time mode – which is painful for when I have made myself stop for everything I see – no matter how sick the passengers get from the constant jerking – it is hard to ignore those road side attractions that seem to jump out at you when you want them to be invisible.

Nevertheless we sped to Moncton didn’t stop in Sackville – saw the RCI transmission towers and didn’t slow down for the importation of bees notice along the TCH.

I realised that I had made up all this time, doing a calculation with Baleful the intern, we reckoned that I could head down to Hubbards to see this gallery that is owned by a friend to see if it would be suitable for the collaborative show we have been – sort of – working on.

Plenty time – maybe I’ll even see Halifax.

Watching the time when I pull into Hubbards when I pull into the village, I stop at a great looking café restaurant to ask directions then ask how long it would take to get to the North Sydney ferry from here as that will determine if we can stop and have a nice meal here.

-Oh I’d guess about six hours.
It was 7:00
Ditch the intern so that she can use the wi fi at the café the perpetual bureaucratic money matters. Race to the gallery – closed.
Ding dong ditch a book and race back to pick up Baleful and race back up 102 to the Trans Canada.

A pit gasoline fill up food while driving stop in Truro.

Seeing me bark orders to everyone a nova scotian asks me where we’re heading.
-the North Sydney Ferry.
-you’ll never make it. it is about six hours from here.
We chat about Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. She preferred the rock also.
-I wonder why people come back from there.

The other passengers return and as we drive off she yells good luck but you have to let the ladies pee.

I really should have disciplined myself.

Mental calculations on how fast I have to go to make this. Average speed has been 80 k/h. we’ll have to keep to that and more. Follow someone doing 120 and begin to relax. Use Radio One as a passive way of marking time. Constant calculations at the mileage it looks good, until Antigonish where there is not only construction but also a 4km tailback. The anxiety returns as we are not in Cape Breton yet.

It then opens up, a motorist from New Brunswick and I take turns taking the lead as even when the super highway ends we keep to about 110k/h.

Over the causeway, again heading across Cape Breton in the dark none of the beauty can be seen. I point out what one would see in daylight.

At 11PM I see the lights of North Sidney and being early I give them a tour of the town before heading into the ferry terminal.

Pulling up to the wicket, the Marine Atlantic person informs me that the ferry is running four hours late.

We take turns trying to pass the time alternating between the terminal and the machine – trying to sleep.

There is nothing worse than sitting around North Sydney for hours on end.

Sometime the next morning

It was this balance, we needed to make time but I didn’t bring back those trips of yore when one simply sped to get someplace without seeing anything along the way. Worse the first part wasn’t promising as it was up the New Jersey Turnpike – not to worry no hashing.

But it seems that Baleful the intern had never been east of Illinois and was even thrilled with places like Ohio and was photographing every sign of a significant passage that she saw, stateline, county lines, rivers, oasis. At first found it strange but then I thought that it probably reflected contemporary travel.

Feeling sorry for her I diverted from the trip to my mum’s house and headed through downtown Baltimore – Camden Yards, the Horror, the Block, a real art school where that isn’t run by mcnutso scots and woeful welsh, the new buildings – she being a student of the wgas thought that the old prison in Baltimore with its turrets and security cameras was MICA.

Felt bad that all the good stuff wouldn’t come until late in the evening when we would finally be on the back roads heading toward St Stephen New Brunswick. She would have to content herself with the technological triumphs of modern man.

Until I missed the turnoff for the Delaware Memorial Bridge and headed up I-95 through Philadelphia.

Mustn’t worry about making time… mustn’t worry about making time was the mantra as we passes points of interest only important to me – the new Eagles and Phillies stadium. It was too smoggy to really see William Penn pissing on the city.

Wasn’t worried for I knew sooner or later I-95 would meet up with the Turnpike. The panic began when it Philadelphia was a memory and the bridges that led to New Jersey stopped appearing and trees were the dominant feature in the landscape.

Needing coffee turned off in Yardley and a quaint Starbucks downtown on the Main Street – ten minute parking on the river to pick up your vinte misto, deck overlooking the park.

The problem with long distance travel reared its head, the intern never being in the area wanting to stop and wander this magical place called the east, me finding things idiosyncratic worthy of a real camera and having to push on. I needed to get to Canada.

It did add some perspective.

NYC was all smogged out. I had to stop at the Vince Lombardi Oasis on the NJTP named – I reckon - after the famous coach of the Bayonne Packers. She didn’t marvel at the third world length queues for gasoline at the same oasis.

Manhattan was a blink at the height of the George Washington Bridge but she wasn’t fazed, Bronx was a wonder until the tailback.

Another one around entering, Connecticut and another in New Haven – home of another real art school.

The day was beginning to be a trial. I needed something to prove that we were progressing however slowly. It doesn’t have to be much. I expected that the East Coast would be easier as it takes relatively little time to cross a state. This was no longer sufficing as we were now in states that I found trying the last time I drove to the rock. One would think that endless urban area would be more interesting for sightseeing than endless trees but the urban areas brought a necessity to attend to the road more.

Then there it was my first T-Ho’s of the trip. Both mom and the intern were frightened by the squeal I let out seeing the logo amongst the squares for other places to eat in Meridan Connecticut. Visions of Timbits dancing in my head, I opted for an egg salad sandwich intead.


It was a quaint old one. Two people out front smoking leaning on their “PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN” bumper stickered car. Am sure they didn’t catch the double irony there.

It was enough to rise the spirits and get me through the state of Connecticut and almost Massachusetts.

Things were sailing along one more tailback but mostly I could see the miles diminishing. States were being left in the dust until, the torrential rains outside Lowell Massachusetts when once again blinkers came on and speeds slowed – not as bad as during the hail storm but slow enough to feel like we weren’t moving. Matters were made worse by not being able to discern anything out the window. It looked like we weren’t passing anything.

The skies clear and we see the New Hampshire border, it seems that up and down the East Coast borders are determined by different toll booths.

We now have the New Hampshire portion of the deluge. Which ends at the Maine border where my spirits are lifted by the giant Irving Oil sign – it doesn’t take much.

Remembering the last time in Maine when everything sort of ran out past Bangor – it still seems the case as there was a sign reading last 24 hour gasbar on the turnpike – made a pit stop at the Kennebunk Oasis – wanted to pee on a Bush hangout.

Delayed a bit looking at a map and the rains came. There was no question of making a dash for the machine – we watched one person come a mere ten feet and their clothed clung to them as if they had just swam the ocean.

Kept looking at the sky hoping for a break. There was none to be seen. Was hoping that it would let up a little as I had left the lights on in the machine. Kept fretting about the battery going until I noticed the parking lot filling with water. Some tyres were a good six inches down in the newly forming lake.

Made our way to the machine the way we would if we were in a sniper infested land, turned on the heat and drove off.

I think that could live in Bangor, it seems far enough away from things that I hate that it would ok. But this could also be that we had finally left the interstate and would now be snaking our way on back roads to Calais and the border.

Remembering the last time, it was best to eat here for who knows what would be open.

The county fair was on, places to eat didn’t seem promising – a generic “Chinese” restaurant, chain subway shops. While we were deciding – as no one could make a decision – we kept driving into town. A bar. No. backroads, moose country. Then Thai Siam right there in downtown Bangor, the bad taste look on the outside but since we thought that at least it isn’t Chinese so in we went.



They were closing in 15 minutes but no problem. I had the best Thai meal I can remember – no pad thai on this menu slews of curries, a page of vegetarian dishes that were steamed vegetables. Was quite please and again recharged for the final push – well almost – to Saint John.

After filling up at the Irving Oil and a couple of bad turns out of town we were on our way though twisting back unlit roads that truckers seemed to like to use. Most were in the opposite direction momentarily blinding me on curves. Baleful the intern, kept an eye out for moose I tried to stay on the highway. The trip was made easier dogging a speeding trucker – I reckoned he would get the moose instead of us. We watched the odometer count down to the border.

We slinked our way through Calais and after a delay at the border – a passport couldn’t be found nor any other picture I.D. we were through a pit stop a the Tim Hortons in St. Stephens where the RCMP were hanging out with the youth in town it being the only place open.

3AM we pull into Saint John I see a Comfort Inn from the highway negotiate the new city back to the Motel only to find out it only has smoking rooms.

- we don’t smoke does it really matter.
- I smoke and I can smell the smoke in those rooms.

The receptionists ring the Econolodge down the road. They have rooms. We take them and by 3:30 we are all tucked away safe and sound in the Maritimes.

I get up to at 7:30 to make sure that I get the free breakfast – only to find that my mother had been up for an hour.

There is only so much one can say about the deadening effect of travelling along the Interstates. It has all been said before and rather than waste space with the universal rant on how deadening it is let me say that except for the hail storm between Cleveland and the Ohio border, the first leg of the trip went of without a problem.

A nice takeaway meal from the Sheetz in Breezewood so that with air from the over filled, crowded restrooms didn’t dull the tastes of the sandwiches, or the fight for tables with those who ordered chilli fries that shouldn’t have.

We went to watch the sun set nearly alone at a picnic bench at the last layby in Pennsylvania away from those wanting to use the facilities until it seemed that the Saturn hinted at safe zone and people parked around it like the pioneers circling their covered wagons to fend off the unknown.

IT BEGINS

The film – more than I need – is stacked. I have made eight or nine books. The last mailings before the departure have been made. The cameras and other sundries are ready. There is a last load of laundry.

Having picked up the Saturn that is used for long outings due to its outstanding gasoline mileage from Carol’s mum, I head down Roosevelt Road to fill up with some $3.83/gallon gasoline and pick up a New York Times. Even though it is a 95 model there is only 50 000 miles and is only used for outings like these. I took it to Bonne Bay in 2005.

The engine goes quiet and I notice lights on the dashboard blinking at me. Pull over and try to start the machine again.

And again.

Get out to find a pay phone so that I can call Carol and AAA. Walk down Roosevelt Road to 39th Avenue thinking that the garages or the Wendy’s will one. See a payphone sign at an abandoned BP station but no phone. Ask at the bars heading back up to the machine.

Try to start it as it toys with me as it turns over then gives up.

I think that the launderette will have a phone.

Or Andy’s.

Give up and walk back to my mother-in law’s place.

It is towed up to the Saturn in Racine -$50 – where I am told it needs a fuel pump. They will have one to-morrow. To-morrow at this time I am to be still in Ohio but nearing the Pennsylvania border.

An initial panic but not to worry hoarding everything I can use “my” Saturn with a mere 210 000 miles on it. What panic remains comes from a machine that was running smoothly suddenly stops and a decidedly more used machine driving along the tollways.

Worse it looks like I’ll have to get a mobile.

Rant One.
Was impressed when I made this snap.

Well actually it was this snap.

I had finished joking with someone that I seem to be making analogue type snaps with the digital. Uploading this one minutes later I thought that there was a use for this camera as I was now making Yamamoto clones.

Then I thought about it. It wasn’t the digital aspect that made this happen it was the fact that I was using an SLR something that get so little use in film that they are all in disrepair. Wandering about I use the leiquinhas and they have an extreme sense of personal space – no closer than one metre please. What the digital did was allow me to see it immediately.

By the way the image ended up black and white after reading the information sheet with the new Ilford Galerie Fibre Silk paper where there are colour settings for digitally toning black and white prints and thought that I would give it a try.

Rant Two

This seems highly contradictory as it would seem that I would on outings I would want something neutral, but digital cameras make generic images. This has nothing to do with what is in front of the camera but how the camera handles that information. There are no quirks. Again it seems strange that a device that actually turns light into information – noughts and zeros rather than a direct correlation to the intensity of light - wouldn’t take that into account.

It seems that all camera manufacturers are trying for the same trait free image so that I really doesn’t matter which camera is used. Actually it is worse it gives raw data then allows the owner to then put in the quirks they wish - see image above – but none of those decisions have to be made before one heads out. Realised this after seeing a loads of Lomo snaps where due to the manufacture of the camera colour seems strange. Again looking of bounties of black and white, I remembered grain and thus remembered surface and because of this realising that I was looking at something not through something.

I wonder – due to the infinite mutability of a digital file – if Pete Hank Emerson would recant his recantation and say that photography was once again an art as tones can be modified completely without relationship to the others.

Rant Three

Because digital cameras hedge bets and really make no commitment to the information, all this stuff has to be built into them so that all these decision can finally be made –are digital cameras the Zeligs of the photographic world? Because they need all these options nothing is straightforward – well except the Leica M8 am accepting donations. The contradiction being that turning on the camera one has to make sure that all the options one wants are set. One can set them to idiot settings – the one that I use – but with all these buttons and the like – I fear that they will be knocked a kilter so after every snap I recheck everything.

With normal cameras one can look down at the camera and see the basics, f stop, shutter speed, distance, ISO. I know that in the last years of film some manufacturers moving from mechanic to electronic would make their cameras a bit more complicated but realising this mistake they would head back to more “retro” looking cameras trying their best to mimic the straightforward aspects of older cameras.

Now not only can I not find the simple information. I have to turn the camera on, then constantly tap some button for this some lenses don’t even have distance scales. I also have to worry about the file size, will it flash at inopportune moments, which algorhythm the dial has been bumped to etc.

Rant Three and a Half – or digitally Rant:3.5

When trying to part customers from their money working in camera shops we would always recommend a skylight or UV filter.
-a filter costs $10 your lens…? It is cheap insurance.

So here is this digital camera with glass not only for the lens - I am guessing that there is glass in the lens - but this great hulking window on the back. How durable it is? Sony wanted to sell me an extended warranty.
-it will pay for the cost of the screen. Leica make a point of saying that the sapphire glass is more durable than diamonds. I expect that the rest are about as durable and as thick as the glass used for microscope slides.

Yes I have buyer’s remorse. I shall take the digital on the Navagatio as it does replace the point shoot and do want to see if it will work for the people of Clarke’s Beach but am already longingly looking at the leiquinhas and fondling film.

hooray

Postcards back from the edge

Andrew Martin welcomes a revival in writing postcards and asks how will you send your holiday greetings this summer

July 17, 2008 12:00 AM

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/travelog/2008/07/postcards_back_from_the_edge.html

I blame it on the Beloit years, living in a town that was rapidly being overshadowed by its northern neighbour. A place that was loosing industry more rapidly than other cities its size. A city that not only had a dead downtown but couldn’t even keep its shopping mall afloat.

Living there and returning for the next 30 odd years to watch the decline slow – there was nothing left to leave - pathetic attempts at bringing the city back the bike path along Lake Beloit, the Angel Museum and finally trying to shift the centre out toward first Prairie Avenue then I-90. I used to say Beloit was Lake Wobegon gone horribly wrong.

I think the place inoculated me against other depressing cities – remember wandering through Gary and while impressed not horrified as it seemed simply a Beloit on steroids.

That changed. Ever since we moved to Peasants Pissoir, I kept wanting to photograph Kenosha, but really couldn’t get up the effort to do it. I mentioned in a previous entry my wanderings downtown and at that time bemusement of the area. After an outing in Logan Square, I decided to hop in the bike, head downtown and walk every street giving the new digital marvel an extended test run.

Parked by the Uncommon Grounds – ok so lets see how many bad coffee clichés we can have for a coffee house – and determined to do very methodical walk down each east west street both sides of the street then up every north south street again both sides starting at a park where again all the benches were aimed everyway but at the band shell. A lone soul was sitting under a canopy out of the sun. she would be one of eight people I would see this outing.

The trolley that does a circle of downtown – I should mention that it takes about ten minutes too walk not only downtown but out to the lake which is a good eight blocks east of the centre – was starting its large loop of the area empty.

Kenosha could only hope to be Beloit. Most of the windows were painted for Kenosha Blooming Days which had taken place a good month earlier – no one – not even most of the businesses that were still open – had bothered to remove the paint and decoration – for decoration think what a high school student would do to their car the night before homecoming.

Most of the places were empty, most had businesses who had planned to move in but gave up.

The trolley passed.

Blocks were condemned, there was a pathetic skywalk over non-existent traffic from an under used car-park to an empty “skyscraper”. Bands of people would migrate en mass to from steps to parks to stay out of the sun.

The height of activity seemed centred around the Subway and the Walgreens.

The two competing coffee houses that I saw last time were still empty of customers although there were two people – one at each café sitting al fresco, waiting…

I wondered who came to eat at the upscale restaurant with a roof garden. While wine wouldn’t have seemed out of place, a wine bar would be but there is was beside a clothing shop that looked like it imported all its goods from 50’s Florida.

The trolley passed.

Even though in realising that this was a mistake I dutifully carried on and did every street in the area. Was spoken to once by a man who made a boxing pose and wanting me to take his picture.

Thought that I would make a day of it and headed just north to a residential area – passing an art supply store and gallery – who knew? Obviously no one as it was empty.

A bit less depressing as there was a semblance of neighbourhoods. Photographed corner taverns – as they seemed to be the only thing that was still open – every other business having thrown in the towel long ago.

A large circle the most distant point occurring when I reckoned that I had punished myself enough. Back to the bicycle passing a lone fisherman in the harbour.

The trolley passed.

wandering urbanistaland

A wander to an urbanista house on the edge of Logan Square, we are to talk about publishing on demand but I am curious about the neighbourhood – I am curious about just about anything.
It is to be a proving ground for the new digital slr. Train is late so it changes schedule I get down already in a minor panic as I am late – well not really as I really didn’t specify a time.

The intelligent plan would be to walk along Armitage to Milwaukee as one would think that there would be more possibilities with the new boutiques side by side with tiendas here the vitirines are still interesting but it also is the most efficient.

Chose the usual method of wander, arrive at a corner make a decision. I ended up heading along streets that are beside the Kennedy Expressway, wondering about the intelligence quotient of someone who would rehab a house that overlooks a concrete wall with the constant din of traffic.
Wood – Avondale – Shakespeare – Webster – Hoyne – Seeley – Medill.

Stopped in at Pepe’s hoping to stock up on polvilho to no avail.

Fullerton Avenue now had less empty buildings, it seemed safe now. Used to walk from De Paul to the O’Hare line admiring the pioneers of the area. Oscar Watsyn cycles and the Bowling Alley now they seem quaint.

In the neighbourhoods I was photographing the spaces between property and the barriers - a lot of concrete walls with glass brick windows.A few neighbourhood taverns, the encampments that used to be under the overpasses were now parks near the Kennedy. The city – am guessing fearing a homeless terrorist or worse Daley refusing to acknowledge their existence – fenced the areas off.

Coffee and the determination that print on demand books are fine but don’t compare companies as they are all off to an extent and seeing the variation only makes one more upset with whatever choice one makes. The rationalisation is getting what one pays for.

Delayed too much in coming so had to cut short the stay - I hate Chicago so much now that I want out as soon as possible. Worse I had to race to the train.

Down Milwaukee walking with a purpose until I ran into a row of shops with mattresses out front, slowed to my marling speed. Ran into two student one saw me the other didn’t. Tried to photograph one Winogrand like but instead of turning the camera on I turned it off. The other was in the window seat of a restaurant and fearing missing the train… I was a couple of blocks away before I realised that I should have gone back.

Found it ironic that a digital camera was aiding me in making snaps that Zoë Leonard made with her Rolleiflex in Analogue. I also noticed that I didn’t check the images on the screen after I made the snap this could be because it is hard to see the screen in broad daylight but I simply forgot.

At Armitage, decided to divert up side streets again mainly due to corner taverns – or what passes for them in the area played tagged with Armitage crossing at Hoyne wondering why people are at Starbucks when there is the Map Room – then back up Damen for what was supposed to be the race along Armitage.

Along Armitage at the Bucktown Barber Shop, Norm the barber makes a pose through the window, keep walking until I realise what was going on then turned back to take him up on his dare.


While I like the waist level finder I have to make adjustments. While it makes peoplep look more heroic it also appears that they are praying as they are looking at my face while the camera is quite a bit lower – this would have been a good time to look at the final image in the screen.

It seems that in direct proportion of my hair falling out I am photographing more barbers. Chatted about this saw time going and now a real race to the train.

But not along Armitage – down wood for more potential snaps, one Atget like – cutting through an alley to photograph the Basilica through the rehabs. Down another alley there was a “Shell” sunrise at the end of the alley.

Passed buddy who was dumpster diving who hated Chicago as much as I did. One woman chased him out of her garbage – inform her that every piece not picked up by you means more of her taxes paying for your welfare cheque.

His arm in a cast from a driver who hit him while trying to dial his phone turning a corner, he’d seen better days.