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TtV Pumpkins

With these images I henceforth declare your lowly and humble photographic servant to be THE GREATEST TtV PUMPKIN PHOTOGRAPHER IN THE WHOLE WOOOOOORLD!

Attention other TtV photographers in running to be THE GREATEST TtV PUMPKIN PHOTOGRAPHER IN THE WHOLE WOOOOOOORLD! I'm totally willing to cede my crown if there are other TtV pumpkin photos.

I have been dethroned! The King is dead! Love Live the King!

It May Or May Not Be Art But It *IS* Art Supplies II

Lensbaby

TtV

Artbaby. STARE INTO THE TtV CONTRAPTION and SLEEP! SLEEEEP!

This is Pat Herbert Walker Haugh the art teacher who shares an office with me because she either drew the short straw or they were hoping her unerring professionalism would wear off on me. I'm working hard to make it backfire. She's brilliant. She's the only person who ever successfully pulled the 'forgot my wallet' trick on ME at lunch AND lured me to her house on a FRIDAY when I COULD have been going HOME on the false promise of buttermilk.

Dan's Pretty Pleased With His Pipes

 

 

 

 

SeeItSunday: Stairs

 

Curbside TtV Santa Sez®:

Still over 100 Effing Shopping Days 'til Christmas

Please, no shoving.

A Call to Awareness: Robert Skoglund, The humble Farmer, an Old Fashioned American Patriot.

Robert Skoglund is a Maine humorist known as The Hhumble Farmer and had a nice little radio show on Maine Public Radio playing 'Old Fashioned' music. He was terminated earlier this summer for violating Maine Public Radio's neutrality guidelines. Delightfully, Mr Skoglund was criticizing Hitler and Fascists placing Maine Public Radio's Vice President Charles Beck in a rather silly position, but the point was made that Maine Public Radio already had a political commentary public affairs block.

Mr. Skoglund, being a man of great integrity, refused to sign new guidelines which on air staff must apparently sign promising not to promote their political or commercial agendas.

Although I'm disappointed by it, I think I can understand Maine Public Radio's position. Ken Tomlinson, a conservative former member of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting practically went to war with public broadcasting over what he perceived as its liberal bias. I don't think anyone is fooled into thinking Maine Public Radio is particularly neutral. I think it responds to its audience like any commerical venture would. It has underwriters and and board it has to serve as well as respond to public pressures. A few years ago it tried to decrease its opera and classical music offerings only to reverse itself when its bottom line was threatened. Maine Public Radio maintains that Sara Willis and Toby Leboutillier do not talk politics on their music shows. But Robert Skoglund was what he was and his 'rants' as he calls them was an essential part of his show.

I know this is a rambling screed and not part of what The Thing of the Moment does, but what it DOES do is recognize New Media.

Which brings me to my point ("Aaahh..finally", you say...)

The Hhumble Farmer lives on! You can't silence the New Media!

Go to his website and you can download his music and rant filled podcasts for your listening enjoyment and enlightenment. You can also see, much better than I explained, his travails with public radio, he accepts Paypal donations, and has a Bed and Breakfast that he runs with his wife Marsha, the almost perfect woman.

I ran into Skoglunds a few years ago at an Ice Cream stand in Trenton and went up because I had always wanted to meet them. I mentioned, off the cuff, that I particularly enjoyed a story he told concerning the Wyeth's, a stuck truck, and a series of Christmas cards. He grinned and insist I tell it back to him.

If I ever run into Mr. Skoglund again, I'm only going to say 'Hi' next time.

Click here to see a rather fiesty give and take between the Maine Web Report and Lou Morin of Maine Public Radio on the matter.

An earlier Christian Science Monitor Story.

Story on Boston.com

People at Work®: Mr Anger Management.

As regular Gentle Viewers know, I like taking photos of People at Work®, trains and using a TtV contraption. All of these led me to Northern Maine Junction where I've been hundreds of times. So today I stop into the little brick station house and ask if I can take some photos and the guy says Ok, but be careful because they are switching trains.

Ok, I'll grant that maybe I was where they would have preferred me not to be, but what I encountered when I ran into Porky Train Switch Dude was nothing like I'd ever encountered before. He comes screaming at me! Some choice quotes "I don't care WHO told you that you could be here! Get your goddamned ass out of here! You are trespassing and I'll call the goddamned cops." Ok, that within his scope of practice maybe but it sounds like the raving of a madman given that I didn't even try to explain about seeing the other guy first. So I left. No big deal.

What earned him THIS post was the raving lunatic was STILL SCREAMING as he was walking back to the train and I was walking away. Choice quotes: "You goddamned people are all alike!" (Middle aged camera wielding photoblogging speech pathologists ARE a rather homogenous bunch) and "How would you like it if people took photos of YOU at work?"

Let's enumerate some reasons I might not like it:

1. If I were wanted by the police for violating my probation or already listed in some State database complete with a photo which brought me scorn from the community. (I'm sure this isn't the case with Mr Anger Management)

2. If I were violating some OSHA safety rule like hiding beer in a box car or doing my job incorrectly. (Again, a hypothetical which doesn't apply to Mr Anger Management)

3. If I hated my job so much that I didn't even want to be seen doing it. (But not Mr Anger Management who seemed to love hooking up boxcars and the snazzy safety vest.)

4. I had screwed up my personal/financial life so badly that it overflowed into every other aspect of my life and made me scream like a little girl at strangers committing perceived acts of grave injustice against me. (I have no idea if this applies to Mr Anger Management or not, we didn't have much time for deep chit chat)

Other than that I'm ok with it, Ringo, so get your camera.

I've always reached an amicable agreement to not photograph the homeless, inmates, drunks, felons, cops, and kids; I've photographed at train wrecks, fires, airports, ambulance calls, rescues, oil tank farms and other places I shouldn't have been and just left or stopped photographing when asked. Anyone I've ever encountered who acted like that had either been drinking, on drugs, or just plain crazy and even then I could always talk them down.

Never once have I elicited the reaction I got today. So I dunno what his deal was. Maybe his wife/girlfriend/domestic partner is mad he had to work. Maybe he drew the short straw and HE normally got to sit in the cool brick building. Maybe Mr Anger Management was the President of Guilford Industries just covering for the guys who normally hook up the trains.

I went back to the little Station House to apologize to the cool guy who first let me in there and said I hoped I hadn't gotten him into any trouble. He just sort of chuckled and said the other guy was '"just concerned that I was out there."

No kidding.

Kodak Brownie No. 2

Submitted to Macroday: Camera

Ironing Board with a View

Clearly marking the return to your regular The Thing of the Moment

Post Family Farms

Harlow Post

Explaining the finer points of organic sustainable farming.

Jan Post

My Dad has been on this quest for Raw, Unpasteurized, Non Homogenized Buttermilk. The stuff poured off after you are done churning, not the fancy cultured stuff you can get in the store. He thinks he thinks he wants it because he had it as a kid and it was delicious, I think he wants it to be a pain in the ass and he likes setting up these little 'challenges.' But I'm always up for a good one. So I scoured Health Food Stores (completely unfamiliar to me) and the Internet (A little more so) and finally found Jan and Harlow's farm in St. Albans, Maine. I called and told them what I was looking for and they only had one question: "Salted or unsalted?" YES!!

Harlow and Jan distrubute their products at health food stores throughout Southern Maine OR for people who can make it to the farm, you just go into the unlocked barn, help yourself to the milk cooler, drop off your old bottles, and leave money in a box. I love when people do that. If Harlow is too busy to explain why this whole process is good for you, AND you are a person who eats food you can read Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma

You're welcome, from The Thing of the Moment where we care about 2 things, your health and buttermilk.