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Tuesday, Oct. 03, 2006 - 4:45 p.m.

This is what my world has looked like for the past 3 days:

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I have grown to hate that bleeding white sky. It's actually a dim blue-grey, but in pictures, it shows up that hideous white. I hate it more than I can say, and it's depressing. Every now and again, it spits at you, just to rub it in. I should be going to museums and shooting stuff indoors, but my sleep schedule got kinda blown and was totally topsyturvy. I was sleeping days and up all night. I'm getting back to it, hopefully. BTW, at 2am? The skies are usually beautifully clear. Just gorgeous. Of course, the Metro is closed, so I can't go anywhere. But if I could, wow, would it be awesome.

Tomorrow it's supposed to clear up some in the afternoon, so hopefully I can get some stuff done. Then Thursday, it's back to rain and clouds and frigging white all day long. Ditto Friday and Saturday. There's something to be said for LA's climate control. If only there were as many awesome things to photograph there and they weren't a monumental pain in the ass to get to. Those of you who don't live there can't understand that it's at least 45 min. to an hour to get anywhere in LA, and that's for the midrange stuff (the close stuff takes 30). To get to any place of interest to me is 1.5 to 2 hours. That would be any of the cool stuff in Pasadena (the Huntington, the cool museum with all the Degas, etc.) or downtown. Santa Monica/Malibu is about an hour, but frankly, I don't like photographing the ocean. I actually find it boring. I like things you can get to different angles of and look at in different ways, and there's by and large really only one way you can photograph a great big expanse of water from the land. LA also has the most hideous, boring architecture of any city I've ever lived in in my life. Most of the older stuff with any style is all dilapidated and/or filthy. I am not one of those people who likes taking pictures of rundown stuff. I like old things immensely, because they convey a sense of living history. I do not like broken down, dying things. They're depressing. As far as architecture goes, I really miss Dallas-Ft. Worth. Most of the places I've lived in my life were towns established in the days of the Old West. They had facades and everything like those you see in a western town, because back in the days of the early 20th century (up through the mid-30s), they were still building those false fronts.

I lived in one town that still had the original early 1900's pool hall. You could look through the plate glass window in the front to see plank flooring and a long, dusty, carved wood bar with mirrors behind it and green glass hanging light fixtures. The window had "billiards" painted across it, in chipped and fading white, green and gold paint, and the screen door was an ancient wood job with all kinds of curlicues that had once been a very dark green, and it squeaked when you pulled it open and still feebly pulled itself closed in a way you could tell it had once made a resounding and satisfying clack when it was let go to slam. It had a wide plank porch that ran the length of the building and was sheltered with a slanted wood roof, like most of the other buildings on the street, and was framed on either side by other closed businesses, a late 1800s feedstore to the left, and what I think had been a general store on the other. I was fascinated by that town. The facades and business long closed. It was almost a ghost town when we moved there, with a population of only 357 people, from what had once been 5,000 or so. Main Street was 4 or 5 blocks long and lined with buildings, but the only things still open were mostly at the east end, and encompassed a grocery, cafe, cleaners, hardware store, appliance store & repair shop, feed store, an office building housing things like the one insurance company, an accountant, and anyone else who needed an office, a place where you could make ceramics (next to the feed store), and separating the business end with the dead end, a scrap yard and welding company run by Redd, who also drove my school bus for a portion of my years there, until he retired from bus driving just to weld things. I can't remember Redd's last name; everyone in town just called him Redd. I remember he had a solid girth, bright blue eyes, pink cheeks and curly white hair, and he reminded me of a very gruff Santa Claus. I wondered for a time if maybe Santa lived in town, welding things and driving school busses when he wasn't flying sleighs and delivering toys. He always had goggles slung around his neck and wore grey and blue vertically-striped overalls. He growled more than he spoke, and he could quell a busload of rowdy kids with a single glance in the rearview mirror, but when my dad took me with him to Redd's yard, he always had a piece of candy to offer and a quick wink of twinkling eye. I loved him. I can still see the name of his business painted on the corrugated tin fence that ran along one side of his scrap yard, painted in red and white script. THAT would be a great town to photograph.

I guess I'll be living my next week in museums. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I just really want to get some beautiful blue skies for Sacre Coeur, as well as several other places. I think you'll agree that a white church against a white sky is pretty damned boring.

Anyway, that's it for me. Pete has updated, those of you who read him. My throat hurts, and I'm going to bed. This weather is wreaking havoc with my sinuses.

Peace out,
Katie

copyright 2002 - 2005 Katie Doyle; all rights reserved
Don't even think it, punk.






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Yesterday's News - Next Stop

In which Katie shares sad news - Wednesday, Apr. 01, 2015
In which Katie returns after a very long absence - Monday, Jun. 25, 2012
In which Katie pokes her head in and brushes some of the cobwebs away - Thursday, May. 06, 2010
In which Katie asks you to write your congressman again. - Monday, Jun. 02, 2008
In which Katie asks you to please click the link and send the message to protect the rights of artists - Wednesday, May. 21, 2008

 

 

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