Photo Life

Episode 2

Forever Ago
It was most likely made in 1945, in the Czech Republic. The Meopta Flexaret. Not exactly a notable brand as tlr's go, but this one is well preserved. It sits on a table in the Sunnyside Hillhurst community market surrounded by others; all of them beautiful specimens, but the Flex is the oldest and most magical machine on display. It calls to me, and so I shell out fifty hard-earned gelato shop dollars for this, my first real camera.
I call Brother right away. He'll remember what it was like, in the beginning, and I hope this memory gives him the patience to walk me through the beginner stuff. He does this wonderfully. He confirms what the man at the market taught me about all the functions, knows from the expired roll of film he gave me where to go for usable film, figures out how to load it, cleans the lenses, and even replaces the old eroded mirror with one he takes from one of his mother's compacts. Just like new. He sits his little brother down at their kitchen table to be my subject, and when Keir gets bored of this, sets up for me an array of objects; figurines, half a green pepper, until I've used up the first roll.

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I remember how it felt looking down at that little movie screen those first few days, as though just by framing what I saw I was creating something new. I remember trying to memorize the physical presence of it, this brick of a camera with all it's gadgetry; knobs, winder, little metal levers and buttons, even the fonts used. And the leather case, its rusty colour and worn edges, the stitching and the sound of the snap closure. Maybe it's an overly sentimental attachment, or maybe I'm just good at knowing when something is going to be important, because when I held the Flexaret, I cradled it like you would the beginning of anything.
Since then, I've acquired (and in some cases lost) nine other cameras. I no longer depend on the Flex, but I still bring it out sometimes. When I do, I silently thank it, and the man at the market, and every circumstance that brought me to this hobby that now seems to be the shape of every plan and goal I have. And I thank Brother, whose help, criticism, and rare praise have been an odd and obvious motivation, and who, like the Flexaret, is not the reason I started, but is most certainly to blame for much of where I've since been.

Not only triangles

If the n-sided polygons made a god,
they would give him n sides.

— Montesquieu,
after he applied inductive reasoning

Vector Field

f(x,y,z) = sin(x)
g(x,y,z) = xy
h(x,y,z) = yz
Vector density: 10
Vector scale: 1

Unusual Literary Form of the Day

Review of an imaginary work.

The author invents an entire novel --characters, setting, plot and all. Then, instead of undertaking the long hardship of writing it, he/she writes a critical review of the book as though it already existed. Dig Borges:

"It is a laborious madness and an impoverishing one, the madness of composing vast books --setting out in five hundred pages an idea that can be perfectly related orally in five minutes. The better way to go about it is to pretend that these books already exist, and offer a summary, a commentary on them." (foreword to Ficciones)

Like The Approach To Al-Mu'tasim.

Lesson: Sometimes brevity breeds the best of both worlds

Mellisa's Apartment

This is where Mellisa lives.