Sometimes you are the hammer

Sometimes you are the hammer, and sometimes you are the nail
Sometimes you are the nail, and sometimes you are the two-by-four
Sometimes you are the two-by-four and sometimes you are the saw
Sometimes you are the saw, and sometimes you are the sawdust
Sometimes you are the sawdust, and sometimes you are the janitor
Sometimes you are the janitor, and sometimes you are the student
Sometimes you are the student, and sometimes you are the guru
Sometimes you are the guru, and sometimes you are the Beatles
Sometimes you are the Beatles, and sometimes you are the Rolling Stones
Sometimes you are the Rolling Stones, and sometimes you are the moss
Sometimes you are the moss, and sometimes you are the bark
Sometimes you are the bark, and sometimes you are the bite
Sometimes you are the bite, and sometimes you are the hand
Sometimes you are the hand, and sometimes you are the arm
Sometimes you are the arm, and sometimes you are the shoulder
Sometimes you are the shoulder, and sometimes you are the head
Sometimes you are the head, and sometimes you are the body
Sometimes you are the body, and sometimes you are the forensic pathologist who has odd, but endearing traits, such as eating lunch while working, or listening to music by modern composers
Sometimes you are the forensic pathologist, and sometimes you are the detective who should stop smoking
Sometimes you are the detective, and sometimes you are the hunch
Sometimes you are the hunch, and sometimes you are the hunchback
Sometimes you are the hunchback, and sometimes you are the bell
Sometimes you are the bell, and sometimes you are the clapper
Sometimes you are the clapper, and sometimes you are the performer
Sometimes you are the performer, and sometimes you are the killer in the wings waiting for the right moment to cut the rope/pull the trigger/light the fuse
Sometimes you are the killer, and sometimes you are the plot
Sometimes you are the plot, and sometimes you are the exposition
Sometimes you are the exposition, and sometimes you are the bored student taking tickets
Sometimes you are the bored student taking tickets, and sometimes you are the person they are thinking about
Sometimes you are the person the bored student is thinking about, and sometimes you are the person who had the nerve to ask the person the bored student is only thinking about on a date
Sometimes you are a person who asked the student’s crush out on a date, and sometimes you are the person stalking the person who asked the student’s crush on a date
Sometimes you are the stalker, and sometimes you are the campus security officer taking the complaint about the stalker but your hands are tied
Sometimes your hands are tied, and sometimes your hands and feet are tied
Sometimes your hands and feet are tied, and sometimes you are tying someone else’s hands and feet
Sometimes you are tying someone’s hands and feet, and sometimes you can’t because you forgot how to tie the right knot
Sometimes you forget how to tie a knot and give up, and sometimes you consult the Boy Scout Manual
Sometimes you consult the Boy Scout Manual, and it makes you nostalgic about your childhood
Sometimes you are nostalgic about your childhood, and can smell wet grass, and see the dew or feel the cold night air on your face, running around in the middle of the night, even now, almost fifty years later
Sometimes you are nostalgic about your childhood and puzzled that you could forget so much of it while remembering certain bits in such detail and you feel like an archaeologist reconstructing a behemoth from a tooth and a bone from the inner ear
Sometimes you are a bone from the inner ear, and sometimes you are the foot bone
Sometimes you are the foot bone, and sometimes you are the foot
Sometimes you are the foot, and sometimes you are the ball
Sometimes you are the ball, and sometimes you are the princess
Sometimes you are the princess, and sometimes you are the witch
Sometimes you are the witch, and sometimes you are the Wiccan who would like to be a witch
Sometimes you are the Wiccan who would like to be a witch, and sometimes you are their office-mate who likes reading because then you don’t have to look at people
Sometimes you are the Wiccan’s office-mate, and sometimes you are their bookshelf
Sometimes you are the Wiccan’s office-mate’s bookshelf, and sometimes you are the book
Sometimes you are the book, and sometimes you are the librarian who found a hammer in the book-return chute
Sometimes you are the librarian who found a hammer in the book-return chute, and sometimes you are the hammer

Tess (wet plate collodion)

tess wet plate collodion

Tess, taken 23 12 2014 on aluminum plate, 8 second exposure f3.5. Old Workhorse collodion.

You remind me of somebody

The god of the office goes to the advent market between the two big museums, across the street from more museums (on the one side) and a palace on the other, because it has a Christmas post office and his wife wants to mail Christmas cards with pretty holiday-themed stamps rather than the ugly printed stickers all the post offices have now. He is in a hurry because he only has an hour for lunch and it takes an estimated 30 minutes to get there from his office, unless there is heavy traffic, like today, in which case it takes 45 minutes to get there, meaning he will be at least half an hour late getting back to the office today. The god of the office reminds himself that everyone else at the office habitually comes back to work between 15 and 60 minutes late after lunch, everyone but him, and he decides to relax.

In this relaxed state, the god of the office searches the advent market for the Christmas post office but following a meticulous search determines there is none. There is a photo booth where it was last year. So he walks back to the parking garage to fetch his car and return to the office.

On his way there he notices a couple standing at one of the high, round tables people stand at at the advent market to drink their mulled wine and hot punch. The couple are looking at him with recognition.

What, thinks the god of the office, who considers himself invisible and therefore is uncomfortable being noticed.

There are four possibilities, he reckons. These are, in order of diminishing likelihood,

  1. They are wondering what a hobo is doing with so many Christmas cards;
  2. They are wondering if they have seen him somewhere before and if so, Where.
  3. They are wondering if he is some sort of artist, because who else has long white hair?
  4. They have him confused with some specific person.
  5. They actually know him and are insulted that he doesn’t recognize them.
  6. They find him attractive. Anything is possible, the god of the office reminds himself. There was a guy on the teevee on the science channel who was in (erotic, not platonic) love with a power plant, he reminds himself. So who knows?

Six things.

The god of the office, having changed his appearance, has grown used to not being recognized by people he hasn’t seen for a couple years, so being recognized, or “recognized”, feels weird.

He can’t stop wondering about the people.

They had that look you get when you see someone famous and want to be discreet. He had it himself when he was walking through town one night and saw Michael Haneke and his beautiful wife swaying drunk down the sidewalk, laughing, that look where you’re thinking, OMG MICHAEL HANEKE AND SPOUSE! ACT NORMAL!

Maybe they thought he was Michael Haneke, the god of the office thinks. Long white hair, white beard, beautiful wife.

What is Michael Haneke doing with all those Christmas cards, they might have asked each other.

And why is he wearing that shabby coat?

P.S. he is only 20 minutes late to work, and is the first one back.

Roses, 29 November 2014 (2)

roses_2_29112014

This is the second plate I took of the same red-and-white roses that day – in a glass vase on a table in front of a wooden fence. Outdoors, drizzling and wintry and starting to get dark, so the exposure on this one was 90 seconds. Same wooden German travel camera from sometime in the early 20th century, Carl Zeiss lens. (I guess I can stop writing that since this is the only camera/lens I currently have.)

f3.5, 90 seconds. Lea’s Portrait collodion #2, ordered from Mamut in Prague, and the first time using homemade developer (I spilled the last dose of store-bought developer I had). Black aluminum plate 13x18cm (5×7″).

This picture is a lot softer than the previous one, which is largely due to the different collodion recipes used, I think. It has a lot of streaks on it, which I am assuming are from the new developer I am using – maybe a different formula? Could also have something to do with the temperature, it was getting cold and although I poured everything indoors, the plates were outside for a minute or so each.

Roses, 29 November 2014 (1)

roses_1_29112014

Weather is grey and drizzly and no one in the family wants to sit still for the minute or so it currently takes for an exposure in those conditions. These are some dried red/white roses in a vase on a table in front of a wooden fence. Taken with a wooden German travel camera from sometime in the early 20th century, Carl Zeiss lens. f3.5, 75 seconds. Old Workhorse collodion (IIRC), and the second-to-last dose of developer I ordered from Mamut in Prague. Black aluminum plate 13x18cm (5×7″).

Being invisible was just the tip of the iceberg

Suddenly the Invisible Man is besieged by old snapshots.

Snapshots on the walls of his daughter’s empty apartment when he drops off something.

Including one of his wife wearing fairy wings and waving a magic wand while his daughter, as a child, regards the camera with a sober expression.

Snapshots in frames on his desk, or taped to the walls.

Including one of his wife smiling in a blue swimming pool, holding his daughter as a toddler, also smiling.

So much sunshine and smiling.

There are more. In one he carries his daughter on his shoulders. It is from before he became invisible. It is underexposed and he has black hair and a black beard and looks scary. His daughter is hugging his head. They are surrounded by flowers.

(It is the older daughter in most of the pictures, because the pictures of the younger daughter are mostly digital, and lost forever, or somewhere hard to recover).

Looking at all these pictures would be bad enough for the Invisible Man for the nostalgia alone but it’s worse.

The Invisible Man thought being invisible was bad, but it was just the tip of the iceberg. The snapshots goof up time and the Invisible Man becomes unstuck and encounters all his past selves, and the past selves of those he loves.

If you think being invisible is bad – and listen, it is, robbing banks is fun only so long – becoming unstuck in time and encountering all your past selves really sucks.

Because it turns out every single one is a stranger.

Those past selves you remember don’t even exist.

Memory is funny that way.

And in many cases, not every single one of these past selves is someone you’d care to remember.

There is a reason memory does that.

This is why forgiveness is so important.

Because sometime the snapshots add up and time dissolves and then what?

He calls his wife and apologizes.

Water under the bridge, she says.

Sunk cost.

In Russia, cat adopt you

Odin wonders, did kittens have something to do with the loss of his one eye and he made up the story about the spring of wisdom because it sounded more divine?

He wonders, is that what happened to Van Gogh and he made up the whole cut off his own ear story because mad artist sounded better in the 19th century than kitten?

See Odin woke up at 3.30 with a kitten gnawing on his ear, making nomnomnom sounds and purring sounds, and smacking its lips.

It also bathed his entire head as he tried to fall back to sleep.

You ever try to fall back to sleep in the middle of the night with a kitten chewing on your head? he asks the crows.

Of course not.

Of course not. The crows aren’t even there, Odin is just imagining them today. His wife packed him a lunch and he ate it early in his office and now he’s sitting there while workmen drill holes in brick walls on all sides and concrete walls and do other things similarly noisy to floors and ceilings with other power tools.

What say the slain?

Here is what I wish for you: that one day you lay aside the millstone of recognition for just a second and driving down the street, say, you see a young woman walking toward you on the sidewalk, smiling in the morning sunshine, on her way to work, dark hair flowing in the breeze and unaware of you and the sight of her makes you happy and you think, what a beautiful, together, strong, happy, professional-looking, competent, smart, intelligent, interesting, charismatic and unique woman and only then after this objective reaction to a stranger, realize she is your daughter.

What say the hanged?

Seeing yourself at the center of creation is a failure of imagination.