kentucky radio
February 20, 2011
Driving through rural Kentucky on a Sunday morning means that most of the available radio stations are offering religious programming. Below is just a very small sampling.
1. Marble Mouth Thankful Guy. Highlights: says everything twice for no reason, for example: “we fail the lord, as I’ve said many times, ’cause we don’t give god the glory for the things he’s done for us and done for us”. Every word sounds as if it’s spoken around a wad of cotton wool.
2. Praise the Lord Lady. Highlights: the phrase “praise the lord” is inserted again and again in her speech like punctuation or some sort of ecstatic Tourette’s. Praise the Lord Lady presents a litany of examples of people being healed by god, both her and people she read about in the bible (like “the man that waited to poo”, or so it sounds like, but Peter informs me it’s probably “the man that waded the pool”). Just before the recording started she told of god healing her hernia in 1997 and she stopped taking all of her pills (this is what the demons were trying to trick her about at the start of the video). It was a moving story, I tell you what.
3. (on a different station from the first two): Corny Hoedown People. This show was actually pretty awesome, with lots of disorganized singing that devolved at the end of each song into a babble of “praise the lord”s.
4. more Corny Hoedown People. Highlights: an utter lack of any attempt at enunciation. Whole lines go by with nary a consonant. We’ve gained a new favourite all-purpose phrase: “that’s the key word, Roscoe”. What he said in full: “praise the lord are you ready to go, that’s the key word, Roscoe”. Also when the guy actually starts preaching for real, he flubs his lines like crazy. And meanwhile, we’re driving past a water park that has its own little chapel in it. What’s scary, to me, is how little time I need to spend listening to Southern radio before I start picking up the accent.
Bonus story! A couple of years ago Peter and I visited Rock City, and while we were up in one of those lookout spots up in the mountain there, looking out (as is the custom), a little kid next to us started pointing excitedly at a rocky outcropping a ways down the mountainside where someone had placed a gnome. He shouted over and over (in the cutest and most funny Southern accent I’ve ever heard, and I tell you what I’ve heard some doozies): What’s that down there, Snapper? (down thay-ere, Schnayuhper?) There’s a little man down thayre! Yeah, just like I said it in the video because four years later I still think it’s funny enough to say all the time even though Peter’s no doubt beyond sick of it. That’s the key word, Roscoe.
Bonus #2: here’s a flickr group of photos from our Rock City trip. Look down there, it’s a little man!
*I just want to add, in case it’s not clear, that this is not meant to make fun of either A) my friends or other sane people who are Christian, or B) my friends or other sane people who are Southern. But yes, I do think these evangelistic people are a bit off their rocker. Also, I’m interested in accents and dialects in general, so my discussion of (and clumsy attempts to imitate) various Southern accents is in no way meant to be mean or make fun. I am totally making fun of Praise The Lord Lady, though.
**also: that is a photo of the ACTUAL LITTLE MAN. The one of Snapper!
Posted by jodi on February 20, 2011 at 8.13pm
toronto visit, february 2-5
February 7, 2011
Michael Snow’s Flight Stop at the Eaton Centre, a piece I’ve loved since first seeing it on our grade 7 & 8 trip (probably also my first time in Eaton Centre), right after that moment when some boys outside on Yonge Street challenged us to a breakdance-off and one of the grade 7s, Thuy Nguyen, took them up on it and we all thought we were about to get the crap beat out of us West Side Story-style but instead Thuy turned out to be an awesome breakdancer and the boys turned out not to be a breakdancing knife gang and then we went into the mall and there were all of these geese and it was magical. Now every time I’m on Yonge Street I secretly hope to see breakdancers but it never happens.
On Spadina, waiting for the streetcar after a visit to Lettuce Knit (where I got to meet Laura Chau for the first time!). Would you believe this was the first time I’d ever found my own way around in Toronto by myself? It’s true! I walked from the Royal York Hotel to Lettuce Knit, about half an hour in the slow shuffle necessitated by slushy sidewalks, then took the streetcar back. Although we don’t visit Toronto often I’m familiar enough with the neighbourhoods I traveled through, but have always had someone to rely on to guide me in the past. The whole way back on the streetcar I was watching the stops go by and calculating and re-calculating, if the streetcar suddenly turns here I can get off and walk back THERE, okay if it turns up here I can walk back this far and then. . . And when I finally arrived at Union Station and found my way back to the hotel (the scariest part because I have a somewhat irrational fear of train stations and airports and getting lost in them and did I ever tell y’all about the first time I flew out of Atlanta and how I totally gave birth to a cow right there in Sandy’s car when she told me I had to take a train INSIDE THE AIRPORT holy crap!) I felt like a total grownup who can navigate a big city without losing her shit. Which I almost am, finally, at age 39. Whew!
Posted by jodi on February 7, 2011 at 12.18pm
wonders of modern technology
February 4, 2011
On Wednesday we took a trip to Toronto on the train at the same time as a Copa del Rey match we wanted to watch between FC Barcelona and UD Almeria. Here we are trying to watch a live stream of the match on the laptop using the free Via Rail wireless.
Although I was annoyed at the time that the connection was too weak to actually watch the match, it’s still amazing to me that we can have internet on a train at all. In my day, sonny, phones were attached to the wall and you had to stand there to talk on them! Anyway, the slow connection caused some lovely impressionistic effects.
Affelay’s first goal with Barca!
Posted by jodi on February 4, 2011 at 8.16pm
nerd gets meta
January 11, 2011
Another shot of the Voltron Starshooter at the Milwaukee Art Museum, this one taken with the Maxim MF-1 camera, Lomography Redscale 50-200 film. If only I’d thought to have Peter take a picture with the Holga of me taking a picture of the Starshooter with the Maxim MF-1; that would have set my nerdy little heart aflame. Oh, wait: I could have had Michael get a shot with the Polaroid of Peter taking a picture with the Holga of me taking a picture of the Starshooter with the Maxim MF-1! FYI, since this trip I have placed stricter rules on myself regarding how many cameras I’m allowed to carry at one time. The weight of my bag put a crick in my shoulder, y’all.
The Redscale film is spooled backwards so that when the shutter opens up the light passes through the emulsion, creating an effect similar to shooting with a red filter. On a camera that’s less basic you can push your film speed settings to bring non-red tones back into the photos, but with the Maxim it’s a total crapshoot. Here’s another one from that day.
Peter and Michael in a strange double exposure, which I didn’t even know could be done with that camera. Perhaps I wound the film back a bit? Maybe I even did it on purpose, who knows (this is where note-taking would be handy, if I weren’t such a hack).
Shooting straight into the sun at the Mars Cheese Castle, where we stopped to buy Dylan a giant piece of cheese shaped like the state of Wisconsin. Hell yeah.
Posted by jodi on January 11, 2011 at 8.41am
voltron starshooter at milwaukee art museum
January 7, 2011
October 12, 2010.
We took this vintage robot camera on our Wisconsin trip with us last fall but didn’t really use it much; I’ve been slow to shoot up its first roll of film, trying to use it sparingly because the 110 film isn’t manufactured anymore and is becoming hard to get. But letting old expired hard-to-get film sit in the camera for months isn’t all that smart, and I have two more rolls waiting in the freezer, so I’m taking this bad boy downtown tonight to finish up the second half of the roll. Soon we can see how this camera performs! I’m even going to sacrifice one of the two old “Magicube” flash cubes I’ve been saving. Because there’s no sense hoarding stuff, especially stuff you inherited from another hoarder.
So if you’re out at Phog or Artcite this evening try to look really photogenic because I only have 3 good flashes left on this cube, y’all.
Posted by jodi on January 7, 2011 at 1.45pm
photo
December 11, 2010
Discount Liquor, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Shot with the Harinezumi digital, October 2010.
Posted by jodi on December 11, 2010 at 8.38am
a visit to huron park, september 5 2010
November 18, 2010
Bike racks at the ruins of J.A.D. McCurdy Public School. Shot with the Holga and Fuji S-400 film.
Dave and Claire checking out a hole in the ground underneath what used to be the principal’s office. Double Shot camera, Fuji S-200 film.
Old WWII firing range (left), the spot where the Albatross Tavern used to be (right). Double Shot camera, Fuji S-200 film.
Posted by jodi on November 18, 2010 at 5.05pm
a few more shots from pennsic XXXIX
November 15, 2010
I’ve finally finished scanning my negatives from the summer. Now working on Labour Day weekend, autumn and Thanksgiving backlog. This is a delayed gratification hobby!
Outside House Darkyard’s gate; Double Shot camera, Fuji S-200:
And some with Fuji S-400, rigged up with rubber bands and foam in the Holga. The Tudor House merchants on Battle Road:
Our pirate neighbours, next block down from us on the lake:
Some pretty tents and heraldry (living in a fishbowl for a few weeks makes one rather brazen about taking photos of the private living quarters of strangers):
Posted by jodi on November 15, 2010 at 6.20pm
photo
November 12, 2010
This will be the cover photo for Peter’s first solo album. Or perhaps will replace this one as his Bestselling Author photo.
Taken on a trip to visit Simon and Krista in Silver Spring, Maryland/Washington, D.C., February 2003.
Pentax ME Super, Agfa APX-100.
Posted by jodi on November 12, 2010 at 1.51pm
photo
October 30, 2010
Krista, Toronto, June 2010. Taken with the Double Shot camera, Fuji S-200 film.
Posted by jodi on October 30, 2010 at 7.24pm
