The Travails of the Astounding!

Thanks for the feedback on As a Hatter.
A cover with track listing page for the mix can be downloaded here.
Here's a version without the text:

My Nikon FE has been something of an obsession for me as of late. A clockwork fetish that whizzes, clicks and ticks. A fragile, temperamental scalpel. It's resounding archaic answer to the call of the wave of the humming and buzzing of its digital counterparts. It's been years since I shot on 35 MM film. I used to have a Ninja Turtles point and shoot that I would walk around with. That was probably my first camera, and most memories of my youth involving any preoccupation with photography are lovingly associated with it. Each print would be developed with a Ninja Turtle standing in the corner flashing an enthusiastic thumbs up. It might have been Donatello. Which seemed appropriate since he was the gadget turtle.
These are some scans from my first roll with the camera. So far the major difference between shooting on film versus digital is that I tend to take my time composing the frame, which results in fewer shots of the same scene. Since there's no review or delete function I try to make each exposure count. The delay between finishing a roll and getting the finished product is a bit daunting, especially since rolls sent to Kodak for processing can take up to 4 days! Though this waiting period can frustrate the learning process, I doubt if a one hour photo place can cut it. Maybe I'll experiment with that on the next roll.









Guns Under the Counter from the album "Rehearsing My Choir" by The Fiery Furnaces

By the way Rehearsing My Choir, The Fiery Furnaces latest, is a chaotically sentimental journey that you wish would never end.

shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body. . . . . . . . The poet shall not spend his time in unneeded work. He shall know that the ground is always ready ploughed and manured . . . . others may not know it but he shall. He shall go directly to the creation. His trust shall master the trust of everything he touches . . . . and shall master all attachment. -Whitman, Leaves of Grass

How to Use Demonic Chatter to Improve Your Life.

Wind Power is bad for the enviornment!
Well, kinda. Check it.

And now Mr Burns:
"Oooh, so Mother Nature needs a favor?! Well maybe she should have thought of that when she was besetting us with droughts and floods and poison monkeys! Nature started the fight for survival, and now she wants to quit because she's losing. Well I say, hard cheese."

I've put the wraps on my latest mix, As a Hatter. This is the third in a series of birthday mixes I've created in the past few months for three distinct individuals. Unlike most other mixes I've made the 3 mixes have certain songs and subsequently certain themes in common; triumph, rebirth, humiliation, and as always a sense of wonder. Of course like any other musical menagerie I concoct there's an assortment of genres, but unlike the first two of the series, As a Hatter concentrates on a darker more elusive emotional spectrum. It was very difficult to make, as each test-listen would leave me 'in a way'. Also unlike other mixes I've made I'm distributing the mix online. This is something of a test. See: usually I just burn a disc make a fun label and CD cover and ship it off, but I find that mostly all of my friends have iPods or some other inferior MP3 player. SO instead of wasting the plastic and making you rip it, I'm distributing it in a digital format. This explains why this mix clocks in just beyond the 80 minute CD limit. Enjoy!
DOWNLOAD HERE

While your listening, read up on how the Seinfeld made Festivus is still alive and kicking.

Check out some conceptual photography at BSMIPLE, while youre there be sure to check out the "Shout" section. That Misha Gordin is some kind of wonderful.

An interesting article on Philip Glass.