I was kind of questioning whether or not to continue blogging, since my life is really, really uninteresting these days. A friend of mine made some very nice comments on a couple of my entries. He suggested that I combine my photographs with my bloggings. You know, take photos of stuff I do inside and sort of chronicle that. Well, for the one person who reads this, here is the first one. It’s actually photos of a project I did the other night in an Ambien-related blackout.
I built something that is so completely unnecessary and un-helpful, I actually blushed when I saw it in the morning as I remembered the conviction and confidence I had building it. I was sure that it was the best thing since sliced bread, and I wasn’t exaggerating. I called it the “Anti-Anathema Device,” and chronicled every step of its construction for posterity.
The thing is, by the time I built the thing, loaded the photos into the computer, and opened them in Photoshop, I was really bored with the whole thing. That didn’t stop me from writing commentary on each and every photo, whether or not it was helpful commentary. In the early photos, I was very descriptive. Toward the middle, it appears I just wanted to go to sleep, and towards the end, it appears I gave up completely on putting together anything coherent. I was so psyched about the whole thing, I shot a LOT of descriptive photos. I have about 80 photos from the project, which on the outside, should take about 20 minutes to build. I have selected a few of them for you, which I will paste here. Live and learn, folks.
Live. And. Learn. From my mistakes.
Don’t forget to include the ever-necessary “random shit in a pink cake box,” and “cat food box full of different kinds of tape.”
Mine is the only DIY project I know of that actually anticipates “extra parts” at its end, and suggests such a welfare solution to the problem.
There was a long series of photos, showing how to tape each and every popsicle stick to the tubes.
Here’s one of those photos I just can’t justify or explain. There were quite a few of these.
After about 10 photos describing which screws to remove, and how to remove the viewfinder’s cover, I was tired of writing out lengthy explanations, so I quoted one of the 20th century’s great musicians, and let him take care of the description. It is, of course, open to interpretation.
Metaphor: the mother of invention. Apparently.
It should be noted here, for legal reasons, that by “danglers,” I am not referring to anybody’s anatomy. I am referring to the wooden “donuts” I tied onto the end of some purple yarn. Super-sized to show in detail the lack of human “danglers.”
My specialty is invertebrate marine zoology, specifically jellyfish. If you watch a lot of documentaries, you may already be familiar with Chironex fleckeri (go ahead and say it out loud, it’s fun! pronounced KI-ro-nex FLEC-ker-i), the box jellyfish. It’s a big hazard in Australia’s northern ocean shores and the Great Barrier Reef. Funny how the unconscious mind works. Apparently my mind took the following course of reason:
1. I need something that’s going to stick to the top of the camera and not let go.
2. What will stick to the top of something and not let go?
3. Why, Chironex fleckeri of course.
4. I’ll make one from playing cards, tape, yarn, and velcro, and then stick it on my awesome vintage camera! That’s a GREAT idea!
There were several-to-PLENTY of photos documenting the partial stability of our box jellyfish device. But only one caption that mentions Patty Duke.
I probably should have mentioned that if your socks aren’t clean, you really should wear gloves.
There are more than one ways to skin a cat, but the only way to secure sock donuts? Pipe cleaners, of course.
Because messing with the neckstrap loops could make Patty Duke extremely anxious, with a marked propensity toward procrastination and sloth.
A close-up of the final connections
And the tube, before taping down the tabs:
The final, completely pointless device made out of Christmas presents from Amy Sedaris and other stuff that was in my crafts cupboard:
Here’s a photo taken through the device:
Even more telling, though, is this photo, taken without the aid of the Anti-Anathema Device:
I’m not sure what your opinion is, but I honestly can’t tell a difference between ambient light in the first photo and ambient light in the second photo. The true test will be when I get outside with this baby. I will not be telling anyone when I’m going out, because I don’t want photo-snipers taking blackmail shots of me lugging this piece of crap around!
Davis McDavis, is this what you had in mind by blogging about my “indoor projects?”
