fireflies

I had never seen a firefly until I was about thirty years-old. I was in Tennessee to attend the wedding of my brother-in-law and we were having a barbecue in the backyard of a fine Southern home that overlooked a lake. It was dusk when the dancing, magical lights appeared around us, little flickers of light that glowed briefly, disappeared, then reappeared in a delightful display of playfulness inspired by the courtship behavior of these beetle-related insects. It was like a Disney movie come to life. Sadly, more than ten years passed before I was to see them again.

My next encounter with these creatures transpired when we moved to Connecticut for Joni to attend Yale Law School. I had rented a condominium for us in the small blue-collar town of Wallingford, ideally positioned between New Haven, where Yale is located and Farmington, where my new office was based. The condominium complex bordered a golf course that was on the outskirts of the town proper. From the freeway exit, we had to traverse largely undeveloped land to get to our condo. There was a small wooded area where the road bisected a pond filled with peepers and of course, fireflies. At night, the pond area looked as though it had been strung with hundreds of tiny blinking lights. The water of the pond reflected those lights doubling the effect, creating the illusion of floating inside a small universe of animated stars.

Another amazing firefly sighting occurred as we drove to Spartanburg, So. Carolina one night. The fireflies hovered above car level on the unlit freeway. They appeared as streams of light much like the depiction of jumping into hyperspace in the Star Wars movies. Their contrails surrounded us as we sped quietly through the night.

in memories or dreams

I've had some rare experiences that now remain but are somewhat faded or obscured by my previously mentioned failing memory casting doubts on whether these experiences were really memories or just dreams. One such instance occurred while on a trip in Colorado. Although based in Denver, I recall we had wandered miles from the city to sample some of the more remote outlying areas. It was late in the day and I had a terrible headache. We had miles to go to return to Denver and we were heading through a mountainous area. Joni, my wife, had fallen asleep next to me. The car labored perceptibly as it climbed the ascending grade of the road. A fog had somehow risen almost in perfect rhythm to the setting sun. And then it happened. Suddenly, in the middle of the road was a wild burro. I had to step on the brake and swerve to avoid hitting it. It had just appeared from the swirling fog. I continued down the road, now creeping slowly and there on my left was another, then two. More appeared to my right and I could suddenly see I was amidst a herd of wild burros who stood calmly like statues placed randomly for some kind of quirky exhibition. They were neither disturbed nor remotely interested in the presence of the car moving among them. We could have been invisible to them for the total lack of reaction we elicited. I followed the road as the almost mythical creatures surrounded us in that swatch of billowing fog. And then it was over. I had passed through them and the road began to descend, the fog disappearing slowly as it thinned out into first wisps, then nothing.

Recently I asked Joni if she remembered that incident, but of course she did not. She had remained in a peaceful state of sleep throughout that portion of the drive home. She could not validate whether that magical moment had actually occurred or whether it was just a dream. I'm almost sure it had happened. I would not have dreamed of wild burros appearing in the midst of a mysterious fog on a lonely mountain road in Colorado at dusk. It does not seem like something that my subconscious would ever conjure up . . . or would it?

design - the aston martin one-77

The limited edition (to 77) Aston Martin One-77. Need I say more?

lost in translation - an update

I successfully received my Digital Holga from my friend in Japan, one week after the confirmation of shipment notification. The camera is befitting the Digital Holga moniker as it is constructed of cheap plastic and exhibits the same featherweight heft (or lack thereof) of the original Holga. It is much more compact however, and boasts an impressive array of features comparable to most of the digital point and shoots on the market. Primarily, it has the LCD viewing screen on the back with a respectable amount of adjustable settings accessed via the menu function. Regrettably, the image quality is quite good for a plastic lens. Damn technology! Evidently, gone are the days of mediocrity (at least, as far as cheap optics are concerned). Below is the first image taken with the Digital Holga.

Besides adjusting the color rendition (everything seems to have a greenish-cast), the image is pretty much intact. I did create a sepia version of the image which looks pretty nice, but again, the quality is superior to that of a Holga.

The camera thus falls in a perplexing twilight zone between "acceptable quality" digital and "excessively high quality" plastic camera imagery. I'll have to assess how to utilize my new toy to its maximum creative potential. I may either degrade the quality of the image with an application of Vaseline to the lens, which would not be a problem but for the beautiful reddish lens coating that screams "don't mess with me!" or instead, apply some trickery during the post processing stage. I'm leaning towards the former solution. If successful, I'll of course share the resulting images with all of you. After all, there's nothing better than a poor quality image.