blessingx

This is the third time I've tried to start a response and twice attempted to PM you directly Mike. I wasn't sure how to respond to your non-bullet, bullet list with a single emoji, and once you posted about no comments and your lack of surprise at HC silence, even less so. I don't pretend to understand the weight of all the historic injustices in play in the Levant or peoples from there (the Holocaust most obviously, but also Spanish & Portuguese Inquisitions, The Crusades, forced migrations, etc.). However not only one side here was affected by those, especially the last two, and I most certainly don't support protecting oneself at all costs. That applies to the US or any other state or people. Look at awful 9/11 AND the awful 9/11 response. When W. said "you're either with us or against us" I thought most understood that wasn't the best path forward. I have to admit, probably my being naive, I can't remember during my life even having sympathy for innocents on both sides got you labeled as not supportive enough on one side. That feels different, though I know further back it was quite common. I hope we all feel similarly against terrorism, minimizing collateral damage, long-term peace goals, democratic governments, etc. If that's the case, it's probably why it goes less spoken. We already agree. But we all have additional lines too, and one of mine is cutting off food and water to an entire population. That's just waaay too far over the line on the at all costs yardstick and I can't believe people aren't starting every conversation with that fact. Not invalidating power structure or history or identity, etc. It's complicated history, but one side actively starving out the entire other side is the opposite of complicated. So for what it's worth I've given $2,500 so far to try to help slightly there. Hopefully humanitarian channels will further open.

I know this isn't NASCAR, but how did that go over? 🤨

Todays the annual day to pick up some Audeze. https://www.audeze.com/pages/black-friday-2023

Hope things reverse and calm down. As others have said, stay safe.

Hope it’s a fluid birthday.

Well, it didn’t take long for AI imagery to step over the line. https://petapixel.com/2023/11/07/adobe-stock-is-selling-ai-generated-images-of-the-israel-hamas-conflict/

https://9to5mac.com/2023/11/06/apple-says-it-is-not-making-a-new-27-inch-imac/

Been picking up more photo books, but the one I was most excited about this last month was the title I thought best captured those early pandemic days. Maybe a bit on the nose, but how do you show the lonely alienness of those first 6-9 months? Anyway, Andrew Rovenko's The Rocketgirl Chronicles (Backyard Space Travel)

Life is too close to Sabotage https://www.instagram.com/reel/CxiTX8nOMYZ/?igshid=aGNqdGJkMThqbXk1

Please help my conflicted brain. Is this ugly or not ugly? https://www.stratonwc.com/collections/frontpage/products/straton-cuffbuster-sprint

RIP David Kirke, the world’s first modern bungee jumper, piano skier, and early Dangerous Sports Club member. https://people.com/david-kirke-the-worlds-first-bungee-jumper-dead-at-78-8383202 'David Kirke’s old chums found the peaceful circumstances of his death last month — in bed, at age 78 — paradoxical. “He could have been killed at least 20 or 30 times many years ago,” his friend Edward Hulton said. For instance, on April Fools’ Day in 1979, when Mr. Kirke put on a tuxedo, attached himself to elastic ropes, and stepped off a bridge in England clutching a bottle of Champagne in the world’s first bungee jump (https://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-england-29819029) Or the time he flew over the English Channel standing in the pouch of a giant inflatable kangaroo held aloft by helium balloons. Mr. Kirke was the founder of the Dangerous Sports Club, a group of University of Oxford students who, typically while not sober, hatched deranged stunts in English pubs during the 1970s and ’80s, often as a metaphorical middle finger to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s society of squares. “Most people think we are mad,” Mr. Kirke once said. “We think they're mad to endure such humdrum lives.” Decades before extreme sports such as bungee jumping, kiteboarding and wingsuit flying became mainstream, Mr. Kirke and his coterie of foolhardy mates were skiing down Swiss slopes on grand pianos, skateboarding (not running) with the bulls in Pamplona, and flying makeshift microlight gliders across imprudent distances.'

^ I'm Halloween drunk, but you know everyone talks about the influence of Elvis and The Beatles, but Denver...

My 28th Reese Peanut Butter Mini Cup for the night. I'm done eating these forever.

^ Nice. Enjoy your current eye-prostate agreement as long as possible.

For those who don't have trick-or-treat plans tomorrow, why not spend it with Paul Lynde, Betty White and KISS? Wikipedia: Christopher Muther of The Boston Globe, in a 2021 retrospective review, described the special as the most "fabulous train wreck of a holiday spectacular ever filmed," "a vision of horror" and a "phantasmagoric, polyester-clad, rhinestone-studded time capsule of bad jokes and disco medleys with a nonsensical storyline(.)" Lynde's singing, dancing and wardrobe and Vilanch's writing were singled out for their poor quality, but the review noted that Lynde's sincerity made the special likable camp and an enjoyable kind of bad instead of an unwatchable mess. A 2009 review at The Bootleg Files, a running column on Film Threat, described the special as "so bizarre and over-the-top in its acid-camp that it is almost impossible to believe anything of its kind could ever be shown on TV(.)" The review praised Lynde as the "queen from hell" and the program's "saving grace," with author Phil Hall expressing surprise that the special—aimed at family audiences—drew no complaints from Christian conservatives despite Lynde's thinly veiled homosexuality and references to Deep Throat, among other innuendo.

World Series or unusually late Apple Event tonight? apple.mp4

Based on the recent @mikeymad Casual Jazz/Gleason post in the music thread.

Wayne Shorter’s Native Dancer

Looks like the surviving episodes of Jazz Casual have been uploaded. Also an out-of-print DVD box set. "If Ken Burns' 10-disc 'Jazz' is a freshman lecture, this is a senior recital." EDIT: Some on streaming services and a good short read: https://jazzhistoryonline.com/ralph-j-gleason/

Have you compared the R6 and R6 II jpgs (or something like trial DxO PhotoLab for RAWs) to verify it’s the LR profiles? It might be that I was used to Fuji colors, which are basically controlled by a single person, but the color differences in brand across models are irritating. I know it was a 5D mkX vs. 6D battle and certainly there in Leica SL models. Sony at least seems to do it by generation, instead of model. Although not your experience, I’ve often wondered if video matching across brands played a part here in sacrificing still consistency in brand. Or more basically the march towards perfection/realism.

Short discovered video footage of Robert Frank discussing aspects of The Americans. You may be interested @Hopstretch (The Americans) and @shellylh (Houston) https://www.blind-magazine.com/stories/exclusive-never-before-seen-video-of-robert-frank/

Another Cameras That Changed Photography Forever list https://petapixel.com/2023/09/30/cameras-that-changed-photography-forever/

I don't really understand why Bobby Bare Jr's Young Criminals' Starvation League (2002) album (soon to be band name) is one of my desert island picks, but it certain is. Ex.