Tornado, Sizzler, Kamikaze, Viper

Carnival Rides

I love the space age looking aperture atop the sizzler. It could have come straight out of the Jetson's.

Tilt-A-Whirl

Ominous Sky

Even the brightness of a carnival can't compete with the pervasive gloom.

Pareidolia alert - an eerie cloud face hovers above the midway in the final photo.

Lessons learned: ghouls drink rum, bees are friendly, and if you star in a mega-blockbuster film, 30-some years later they will still be painting odd caricatures of you in your role. Seriously, I swear that's the same Odyssey 3000 funhouse I recall from third grade. In which case it would have held up preternaturally well, since I'm no spring chicken. :p

Monster Confab

At The Carnival

One thing that I can't get used to in this town is that the country fair is in Winter.

Winter! Where I'm from fairs are strictly an Autumn-y thing. Nevertheless, we packed up and went to the carnival, under the grey and Wintry sky. We had fun and weren't too sick from the rides.

The Night Of The Horned Moon

After the clouds of the aforementioned blurry sunset blew away, the night was crystal clear. A perfect horned moon rose over our little street.

Whenever I see a horned moon, I feel the tug of something ancient and strange.

Another Blurry Sunset

Well, it was cold, my hands were shaking and there was little light. What do you expect? :p

That's the steeple of the church that doesn't want to be photographed over there on the left. It's learning a bit, because it won't cooperate even when it's in the photo incidentally.

Valentine's Day

I have mixed feelings about Valentine's day.

When I was at school and the teachers made us all hand out valentine cards to each other, it was a sure thing that someone* would scratch out the word "love" and write in the word "hate" on my card instead. (* and by someone, I mean you, Jason Schiller. <_<)

On the other hand, Valentine's day was full of bright and shiny things in the greyest part of Winter. Lots of foil and embossing. There was chocolate, and if I played my cards right, I might be able to extract some Hello Kitty or other Sanrio-type items from relatives who caved in to social pressure once or twice a year and bought gifts. (Hey. in America, this day means you are supposed to show some type of...what's it called? "Affection?" or, if you can't express affection, you can at least give the appearance of it through consumerism. :D) So despite the hate cards, I felt it was pretty much a win. Yes, I was a girl, in the most vapid sense of the word.

As I grew up, though, I began to slowly discover I was going to be one of those people who never had a date on February 14th. Even if I had a boyfriend, he (and by "he" I mean "all of them") had an alarming tendency to break up with me on the 13th. Even if he called back on the 15th, it still meant I had spent all of Valentine's day weeping piteously, with no candy to show for it.

The only way around this was to swear off any hope of romantic entanglements in the winter months and prepare to spend V-day alone with a bag of chocolate covered pretzels, railing at the the jewelry commercials on television. "I'm alone, alone, FOREVER ALONE!!!!" Then I would go off to the stationery store and buy all the shiny foil stickers I wanted, because I was an adult and no one could stop me. This was far more satisfying than the other way.

These days, now that I have someone to share Valentine's day with, I kind of miss the self-pitying chocolate-infused wallow that was February 14th. I mean, the weather is perfect for it. I can't remember a Valentine's day that wasn't gloomy, grey and frigid since like, 1982 or so. Instead, I have to (gasp!) share the chocolates and pretend I'm not depressed and freezing when we take a romantic walk or something. Ah well.

I suppose I'll live. :p

The Bell

When one is a strange girl, it's not unlikely that one would have strange memories. It only follows naturally, yes? But some memories are stranger than others, and so appears the memory of The Bell.

I was young then, only 10 years or so. No, I was 10 exactly. in fourth grade. It was Winter.

Every weekday morning that I couldn't avoid it, I must take the bus to school. It wasn't a bad bus, as buses go, but it was still a bus. I lived a long way out of town, and had to sit staring morosely out the window for 45 minutes, hoping no junior high kid would pick on me. The only way out - actually getting to school. Oh, the horror of it all!

As the bus made its way out of the country and into town, there were a few stops left. It would wind down some narrow streets in an old neighborhood that I was not too familiar with, aside from it being on the route. There were houses along side of a hill, and the land seemed to drop out of sight right behind them. There was thick vegetation and always a layer of mist covering the ground. I didn't realize it then, but this is because at the bottom of the hill was the river.

So every weekday morning, the bus would grind its way from Torrey street onto Union, then creep though the mist on Liberty to pick up my classmate, Rosalinda. On the corner - among the brush and trees and right before the land seemed to drop away into nowhere - there looked to be some construction going on. Not much really, just some scattered debris. Bricks, cement mixer, railroad ties and some other things covered in plastic. Whatever the construction was, it was going slowly, the stacks of supplies were always there . I had ample time to study the site - it usually took Rosalinda a while to run down the block.

I can't remember exactly when I first noticed the bell. I want to say I noticed it right away, but it's impossible to be sure, it was so long ago. Memory plays tricks. Was it always among the scattered construction debris, or did it just appear? When I did see it, I recall straining my eyes to see through the mist. That was a bell, wasn't it? Like, a large church bell, sitting on the ground? A church bell would have been quite unusual, especially in that place, but that wasn't what made me strain my eyes. Did that thing have a face?

I could swear it did. A large, orangey -colored church bell with a distinct face was just sitting there, looking unnerving in the morning mist. Every day, when the bus stopped to pick up Rosalinda, I stared at it from the window. It was just a little too far away to be absolutely sure that I was seeing what I thought I was seeing. Maybe it was some trick of light and shadow? Then again, it seemed awfully clear. But why, why, WHY did this bell have a (what was probably supposed to be friendly but ended up being creepy instead) face painted on it? It didn't make sense. Perhaps I was hallucinating? That seemed as good an explanation as any.

As an adult, I would have nudged someone and said "what the heck is that?" or asked Rosalinda about it - after all, she lived right down the block from the where the thing was lurking with its cheerful yet sinister grin. At ten years old, though, I was too self-conscious to say a word. As it was, my only outside confirmation that it even existed as an objective reality was months later, when a new girl sat next to me on the route She pointed at it as we passed: "look at the bell! It has a face".

Of course, by this time, The Bell...The creepy, creepy Bell...had assumed nightmare proportions in my mind. It was easier to ignore in the shady afternoon, but every blessed morning it just seemed to be gloating at me. 45 minutes on the bus was too long to spend contemplating this. I might have made some half-baked plan to confront the source of my fear, but no way was my mother going to drive me to a strange neighborhood for some undisclosed reason, and I certainly couldn't speak the dreadful Name of what haunted me. No way was I going to say "Mom, let's drive down Liberty street, I want to get a closer look at THE BELL. " Nope. It just wasn't going to happen.

So the school year passed, and at some point the bell was gone. I don't remember when exactly. It disappeared as it had arrived, lost to time. The next year, I didn't even take the bus to school. It became a hazy, if somewhat unsettling memory. Eventually, I had something of an explanation for the whole thing.

The construction site on the corner slowly developed into a high tower with water slides, down the hill to the river became a web of tube chutes and other amusements. The houses, including Rosalinda's, would disappear to make way for parking.The water park would eventually sprawl like a brightly-colored octopus with tentacles everywhere, but that first year it was just a tower. I'm guessing The Bell went at the top. Such an explanation I am very grateful for, because otherwise, I would still be wondering where the blasted thing came from.

I spent a lot of time looking for some image - if not that bell, then something like it. Or some report of another child completely unnerved by an anthropomorphic bell. Just to help in understanding why I was so spooked by this thing. Alas, I find nothing.

The only thing I have to offer is this....the bell, it looked a lot like Grimace.

See? I told you that thing was freaking creepy.

P.S. Should anyone who finds this blog post have any information on this bell or have a similar tale of anthropomorphic bell - inspired terror, please leave a comment. :)

Automatons

I've been researching automatons lately; it would be interesting to learn to build one.

An intriguing (if a bit eerie) video of automata can be found here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJjtbv-MEnU&feature=related

Why I Have Spiritual Beliefs

Last night I was reading an essay called What Consciousness Is Not by Raymond Tallis. (because this is what I do in the middle of the might when I'm not wandering loose with a camera :p) It's a well thought out criticism of The Character Of Consciousness by David Chalmers. A particular bit from the essay caught my attention:

"what is the difference between the proto-phenomenal properties of a non-sentient pebble and the phenomenal experiences of a frog, or the experiences of a fully sentient and thought-filled human being? What is it that enables the merely proto-phenomenal properties that supposedly pervade the air around us to become fully phenomenal properties when we breathe that air in and it becomes part of our brains?"

It caught my attention, because recently, there was an incident where I was called upon to justify my spiritual beliefs. I didn't bother, as I feel belief or non-belief are personal matters. The confrontation did give me pause for thought, though. I believe the way I do because of how I feel. Even though it may fly in the face of science, it meets a need for me that other things can't. That much is obvious, and I daresay this is the case for many, whether that faith is in the spiritual realm or logic.

It's not something that worries me overmuch. I'm content to accept that I don't really know anything about anything, Still, my spiritual beliefs must satisfy a need all the same, otherwise I wouldn't have them. But what is the need? There is a question my beliefs must be answering for me on a deeper level.

That's why I was so happy to run across the quote above last night. That's the question my beliefs answer for me. As much as I enjoy pondering hard questions, thanks to my illogical, emotional spirituality I don't have to lie awake at night fretting over that puzzle.

Morning Fog

One of the drawbacks of being a crap photographer is that some of your photos are just plain miserable to work with. One of the drawbacks of living in sub-tropical swamp in winter is that there is nothing remotely attractive to photograph...at least if you're a crap photographer like me. :p

About the only thing my limited skills could bring to bear on these pics was to remove the color. which was only the nauseously olive-drab leaves sort of visible through the grey in the first place.

Mainly, I just liked the way the telephone wires looked in the fog.

The Constitution Street Fog

Not especially different from the De Leon Street Fog, or the Navarro Street Fog, but nevertheless, that's what it is.

Had enough fog yet? Too bad. The daytime fog is up next. Heh.

Random Fogginess, Quite Literally

Sometimes you just point your camera into pitch darkness and see what turns up later. Kind of like... erm...photo gambling. :p

Random Fogginess

Different streets, Different fogs...

The shape of the mistletoe second from the bottom reminds me of Zorak. :p

Silent Hedges

The shrubbery in the vacant field looked somehow menacing...

January Fog

There were lots of foggy nights this January, lots of opportunities to practice making pictures. Still lots of things I haven't learned to manage yet. Still, it's been fun.