Luminous Landscape Forum

The Art of Photography => The Coffee Corner => Topic started by: Rob C on April 03, 2013, 05:10:12 pm

Title: Mood
Post by: Rob C on April 03, 2013, 05:10:12 pm
Is it just me, the pressure/temperature change from spring to nascent summer causing brain-storms, much as might have been predicted from more thoughtful reading of Boyle's and Charles's Laws or do I really, really detect a subtle change for the more glum these days? On the one hand we see Cooter take his leave where I had imagined he would have shrugged and just carried on as usual; we have part of the MF people feel under threat at the suggestion of an 'open format' pro gallery; people suddenly find it vitally important that others only purchase what they themselves think of as acceptable cameras; there's this sense that not a lot new or interesting is really being thrown around...

Maybe, after all, it's just something I eat. But I still don't like the feeling.

Rob C
Title: Re: Mood
Post by: WalterEG on April 03, 2013, 05:56:02 pm
Maybe, after all, it's just something I eat. But I still don't like the feeling.

Rob C

Aaah Rob,

It seems you are suffering the dyspepsia for which there is no analgesic.

Cheers,

W
Title: Re: Mood
Post by: Rocco Penny on April 03, 2013, 06:11:17 pm
The things I read ooooohhhhhhhhh
here's a sign post on the road to that inexorable hell
maybe just some warning to other fish- 'a barbarian lives here'
take it literally as I wouldn't eat one of those beasts for fear of polluting my soul...
Title: Re: Mood
Post by: Schewe on April 03, 2013, 06:12:28 pm
Is it just me, the pressure/temperature change from spring to nascent summer causing brain-storms, much as might have been predicted from more thoughtful reading of Boyle's and Charles's Laws or do I really, really detect a subtle change for the more glum these days?

SNAFU...people come and go, the temperature goes up and down (in degrees and feistiness) and things even out over time. The only thing I would worry about is if the sun doesn't rise one day...then we are really screwed.
Title: Re: Mood
Post by: Pete_G on April 07, 2013, 11:47:26 am
The only thing I would worry about is if the sun doesn't rise one day...then we are really screwed.

Nah, not really Jeff...just get a bigger flash gun.
Title: Re: Mood
Post by: Rob C on April 07, 2013, 12:25:55 pm
Just when I thought it couldn't get more boring, I began to transfer my cassettes to mp3 so that I can play them in the car which, being 'modern', doesn't like 'old' technology and has no tape player.

After several evenings and most of today, I have managed to transfer 17 of them. I have a zillion still to do. Unfortunately, this could all have been done last year, when I bought the gadget, but for some misleading advice on the help forum on the Internet which was so wrong that it made transfers impossible. Only by ignoring the advice and doing the opposite to the recommendation was I finally able to make the damned thing work!

There's another moral buried there.

Rob C
Title: Re: Mood
Post by: petermfiore on April 07, 2013, 01:49:31 pm
Just when I thought it couldn't get more boring, I began to transfer my cassettes to mp3 so that I can play them in the car which, being 'modern', doesn't like 'old' technology and has no tape player.

After several evenings and most of today, I have managed to transfer 17 of them. I have a zillion still to do. Unfortunately, this could all have been done last year, when I bought the gadget, but for some misleading advice on the help forum on the Internet which was so wrong that it made transfers impossible. Only by ignoring the advice and doing the opposite to the recommendation was I finally able to make the damned thing work!

There's another moral buried there.

Rob C


Sure, when all advice fails regardless of it's source, go full steam ahead in one's own Direction.
Usually this is my preferred option. It's more fun.

Peter
Title: Re: Mood
Post by: David Sutton on April 07, 2013, 04:15:28 pm
Modern times
Title: Re: Mood
Post by: Eric Myrvaagnes on April 07, 2013, 07:36:37 pm
Thank you, David. That fits my mood just fine.
Title: Re: Mood
Post by: Rob C on April 08, 2013, 04:04:20 am
Thank you, David. That fits my mood just fine.




Worse, it helps create my mood!

I had one of those dreams last night: was on a bus with my wife, and for some reason we had no suitcase but just a bundle of clothing and personal belongings spread over a seat or two. The bus stopped, we both got off with arms full of this junk and put it down under a tree. She stayed there to guard it, and I returned to the bus to collect the rest. But the goddam bus had moved off and was fading into the distance. I remember wondering (in the dream) if our credit cards were or were not under that tree.

If it isn't buses it's always something else. And the irony is, I haven't been on a bus in decades. I think that now I know why.

Rob C

Title: Re: Mood
Post by: David Sutton on April 08, 2013, 04:38:33 am


Worse, it helps create my mood!

I had one of those dreams last night: was on a bus with my wife, and for some reason we had no suitcase but just a bundle of clothing and personal belongings spread over a seat or two. The bus stopped, we both got off with arms full of this junk and put it down under a tree. She stayed there to guard it, and I returned to the bus to collect the rest. But the goddam bus had moved off and was fading into the distance. I remember wondering (in the dream) if our credit cards were or were not under that tree.

If it isn't buses it's always something else. And the irony is, I haven't been on a bus in decades. I think that now I know why.

Rob C



Rob, I don't know about you but I sometimes find the transition from winter to spring unreasonably difficult. No other seasonal change affects me like this. I get really tired and that makes me grumpy (so what's new my friends say!). The only cure I have found is half an hour of heavy exercise daily. Walking uphill works. After a week I come good.
Jeff's right. Watch what you pay most attention to. Stuff that is not working, what we don't have, that's a path that has no end.
Title: Re: Mood
Post by: Rob C on April 08, 2013, 09:55:54 am
Rob, I don't know about you but I sometimes find the transition from winter to spring unreasonably difficult. No other seasonal change affects me like this. I get really tired and that makes me grumpy (so what's new my friends say!). The only cure I have found is half an hour of heavy exercise daily. Walking uphill works. After a week I come good.
Jeff's right. Watch what you pay most attention to. Stuff that is not working, what we don't have, that's a path that has no end.

You are so right, David. And to make things worse, this year spring seems to have gone missing. As a result, winter just drags on and on… my daughter went back to Scotland on Saturday having spent a week here with me, her hoped-for rest in the sunshine didn’t really happen. This morning, there’s snow up on the top of Puig Major, our highest mountain at 1445 metres.

I sometimes think about moving back to the UK for all manner of fiscal reasons, and then I consider living in that hellish climate again and financial sense recedes like my hair, right to the back of my mind. But, that’s balanced against the other evil of terminal boredom in a cultural desert. Frankly, I just don’t know which way to jump, whether I even have the energy left to jump. Last night I sat watching the tv and looking around the sitting-room at the hi-fi and pictures on the wall etc. and wondering what the hell I would do with all of it should I decide to move. It all seemed to become such a friggin’ weight around my shoulders. My best hope would be that someone with more money than sense would opt to buy the whole damned lot.

Hell, I now have to go and do some varnishing.

Rob C
Title: Re: Mood
Post by: niznai on April 08, 2013, 11:08:32 am
Just when I thought it couldn't get more boring, I began to transfer my cassettes to mp3 so that I can play them in the car which, being 'modern', doesn't like 'old' technology and has no tape player.

After several evenings and most of today, I have managed to transfer 17 of them. I have a zillion still to do. Unfortunately, this could all have been done last year, when I bought the gadget, but for some misleading advice on the help forum on the Internet which was so wrong that it made transfers impossible. Only by ignoring the advice and doing the opposite to the recommendation was I finally able to make the damned thing work!

There's another moral buried there.


Rob C

You're doing it the wrong way, dude. The way to do it is find an old walkman to play your tapes and plug that in your stereo.

Then again it might be the weather changing affecting you. Now I know why Kim Jong Un is so upset.
Title: Re: Mood
Post by: Rob C on April 08, 2013, 12:37:54 pm
You're doing it the wrong way, dude. The way to do it is find an old walkman to play your tapes and plug that in your stereo.

Then again it might be the weather changing affecting you. Now I know why Kim Jong Un is so upset.


Wot!? Carry even more bits of stuff around?

I'll settle for a tiny memory stick no longer than my pinkie.

;-)

Rob C

P.S. Interesting range of colour blotches... I promise this wasn't MFD.
Title: Re: Mood
Post by: David Sutton on April 09, 2013, 01:02:13 am
You are so right, David. And to make things worse, this year spring seems to have gone missing. As a result, winter just drags on and on… my daughter went back to Scotland on Saturday having spent a week here with me, her hoped-for rest in the sunshine didn’t really happen. This morning, there’s snow up on the top of Puig Major, our highest mountain at 1445 metres.

I sometimes think about moving back to the UK for all manner of fiscal reasons, and then I consider living in that hellish climate again and financial sense recedes like my hair, right to the back of my mind. But, that’s balanced against the other evil of terminal boredom in a cultural desert. Frankly, I just don’t know which way to jump, whether I even have the energy left to jump. Last night I sat watching the tv and looking around the sitting-room at the hi-fi and pictures on the wall etc. and wondering what the hell I would do with all of it should I decide to move. It all seemed to become such a friggin’ weight around my shoulders. My best hope would be that someone with more money than sense would opt to buy the whole damned lot.

Hell, I now have to go and do some varnishing.

Rob C


Hello again Rob.
You have that restlessness of a heart looking for its home. I recognise it well. It raises questions of where we really fit in, of where we feel we belong. This takes some courage.
For me, after my home was thrown four feet or more in the air at close to 2G, I find I'm now looking for answers to those questions. Having a house damaged past what is worth repairing, but the possibility of a reasonable insurance payout, I can either move three hours south to where I have a lot of friends and fit in well but will have no income and freeze in winter, or I can stay here where I teach in some of the country's best schools, but become progressively more isolated and progressively more surrounded by bogans (look it up).
All that stuff sitting in my house. I can't take that with me at the end of my time in this world. But the memories of friends and acquaintances means something ineffable to me. As for the stuff, I now have a policy of use it or sell it.
So I think I'm going where my butt will freeze. I don't know how I'll contribute to that community, or how I'll get an income, but something will turn up. This was not quite the plan when I established the garden here and buried my departed pets in it you understand, but I think Plan B will work out.
Good luck with your varnishing. I see you are only an "r" from vanishing.   :)
David

Title: Re: Mood
Post by: Rob C on April 09, 2013, 04:54:32 am
Hello again Rob.
You have that restlessness of a heart looking for its home. I recognise it well. It raises questions of where we really fit in, of where we feel we belong. This takes some courage.
For me, after my home was thrown four feet or more in the air at close to 2G, I find I'm now looking for answers to those questions. Having a house damaged past what is worth repairing, but the possibility of a reasonable insurance payout, I can either move three hours south to where I have a lot of friends and fit in well but will have no income and freeze in winter, or I can stay here where I teach in some of the country's best schools, but become progressively more isolated and progressively more surrounded by bogans (look it up).
All that stuff sitting in my house. I can't take that with me at the end of my time in this world. But the memories of friends and acquaintances means something ineffable to me. As for the stuff, I now have a policy of use it or sell it.
So I think I'm going where my butt will freeze. I don't know how I'll contribute to that community, or how I'll get an income, but something will turn up. This was not quite the plan when I established the garden here and buried my departed pets in it you understand, but I think Plan B will work out.
Good luck with your varnishing. I see you are only an "r" from vanishing.   :)
David



David,

I don’t really like to wear my heart on my sleeve, but the reality of my personal sitiuation is this: when my wife was alive this island was Paradise, in that together, we had it all and required no outside stimulus. With her gone, so has everything else that mattered, and photography is the only thing left with which to fill or kill time.

I never was much of a landscape sort of guy, and though I quite enjoy looking at good examples of the genre, I simply don’t feel I have any real aptitude for doing it myself. It’s not about technique or gear, it’s about soul, and mine wanders in other spaces. Maybe that’s why I can’t see it as art. And since landscape is pretty much all I can find here, the only real alternative to going slowly nuts is to get the hell out. But, the place is surrounded with crisis-prompted property sales, and nothing moves. Also, I have two kids, and as I want to leave them something other than memories, I need a good price.

I hope you choose the right option for yourself. I know that warmth (climate) is very important and that long periods of winter and lack of sunlight are harmful to the mind, as this winter in Mallorca, but we can’t always find the perfect combination in life, and when we do, I realise it doesn’t last for ever. Maybe grabbing on to what is possible is the best we can do – the only thing we can do.

I wish you good fortune.

Rob C
Title: Re: Mood
Post by: David Sutton on April 09, 2013, 05:41:26 am
Maybe grabbing on to what is possible is the best we can do – the only thing we can do.
I wish you good fortune.
Rob C
There is the thing: with an insurance payout and a buoyant market I'm fortunate to have some choices over what is possible. I'd forgotten about the crisis.
On the other hand it could be years before the Earthquake Commission get around to signing off my place, so I guess we'll both get to practice our endurance skills. Well there are worse things than that!
Hang in there.  :)
Thank you for your thoughts.
Title: Re: Mood
Post by: niznai on April 09, 2013, 08:59:00 am
Rob, you need to move to Indonesia.

Leave all that crap behind and become a pilgrim, a nomad, a gypsy.

You'll be right at home without a house because over there they're redundant. The landscape might inspire you though. And if that doesn't do it, the people are going to keep you interested.
Title: Re: Mood
Post by: Rob C on April 09, 2013, 10:23:10 am
Rob, you need to move to Indonesia.

Leave all that crap behind and become a pilgrim, a nomad, a gypsy.You'll be right at home without a house because over there they're redundant. The landscape might inspire you though. And if that doesn't do it, the people are going to keep you interested.


I love the idea, but only in comfort. I also require five medicinal items per day (prescribed ones) and those don't come inexpensively, so a National Health Service to which I can belong is vital.

I once had to spend time in Kenya, whicn turned into my worst nightmare. Arachnophobia is one of my top alerts, keeping me on my toes. The washing facilities were a stuck-on secondary tent with an old pallet covering a hole, a bucket suspended above to form a shower. I would place a heavy bet that after the first couple of visitors, years before me, nobody used the washing facility - or cleaned it. The pallet was covered in webs. Stand on thoat, anywhere near that? As bad if not worse, was the sight of another hand-like thing running into the pocket on the side of the tent beside the bed. We never did get the bastard out, and I doubt if I slept five minutes. I hated the entire experience there. I swore I would never go anywhere near that benighted land again. The far east is no better; I've been and seen.

Rob C
Title: Re: Mood
Post by: David Sutton on April 09, 2013, 05:39:48 pm
Hello Rob.
Having slept on this I've been prompted by a dream to write again. Like you there are some things I don't feel comfortable about writing on the web, but I've taken heart from your example and will give it a go.
As a younger man I was profoundly influenced by the work of the psychiatrist Viktor Frankl. He developed his ideas in a place I wouldn't wish on anyone. Basically he reminded us that though human beings can find themselves in circumstances beyond their control, they still have the fundamental power to choose their attitude to this, and furthermore they can withstand more than they realise if they can find meaning in their predicament. I believe that is one reason my images often feature tiny figures in vast landscapes. But here's the rub: if you remove the figure the composition collapses. I also like Frankl's work because he used laughter to vaporise phobias.
May I humbly suggest that if you were on his couch he would ask you how you would feel if you had gone first and left your wife to struggle alone? Would that not be a terrible thing? By staying here you have saved her that. You can take pride in your ability to endure and have something to pass to your children, and you can take pride in your contribution to this forum.
David
Title: Re: Mood
Post by: Rob C on April 10, 2013, 11:36:44 am
Hello Rob.
Having slept on this I've been prompted by a dream to write again. Like you there are some things I don't feel comfortable about writing on the web, but I've taken heart from your example and will give it a go.
As a younger man I was profoundly influenced by the work of the psychiatrist Viktor Frankl. He developed his ideas in a place I wouldn't wish on anyone. Basically he reminded us that though human beings can find themselves in circumstances beyond their control, they still have the fundamental power to choose their attitude to this, and furthermore they can withstand more than they realise if they can find meaning in their predicament. I believe that is one reason my images often feature tiny figures in vast landscapes. But here's the rub: if you remove the figure the composition collapses. I also like Frankl's work because he used laughter to vaporise phobias.
May I humbly suggest that if you were on his couch he would ask you how you would feel if you had gone first and left your wife to struggle alone? Would that not be a terrible thing? By staying here you have saved her that. You can take pride in your ability to endure and have something to pass to your children, and you can take pride in your contribution to this forum.
David



Gulp!

Yes, I’ve often wondered about how it would have been the other way around: she left alone instead.

My conclusion is always the same: it would have been a lousy option either way. We met when she was 15 and I was 17. In effect, we grew up together, rode the highs and the lows together, and life gave us a healthy balance of both. The only way would have been to hit a motorway bridge as fast as the car would go, but I have this feeling that suicide is an offence against God, Nature, Life, whatever you like to call it, but that it’s unforgivable and would remove any moral hope/expectation of a reunion in the next stage, which I’m fairly convinced is real. The more I see of nature and science programmes the more convinced I become that accident has nothing to do with it, that evolution is just a way of moving existence along to the next thing, and that it has to be as result of a better plan than many think. In essence, I think it proves the reality of a God form which isn’t ours to define because we haven’t had the experience to formulate the concept. So, I live in hope, and that gives strength. Works for me.

Maybe it’s something that comes to you if you have kept animals. They are anything but dumb, insentient beings.

I was pondering our little exchange of posts today after lunch; I took this snap because I felt it was somehow relevant.

;-)

Rob C
Title: Re: Mood
Post by: David Sutton on April 10, 2013, 06:53:06 pm
A good photograph Rob. It sums it up for me, and you write well about this.
There are so many mysteries in life, and I am slow to penetrate them. But you are right about our pets. Look into their eyes and you can clearly see a soul. My friend's sister has just given birth to another boy. In that first week his eyes are such a clear window into his new soul.
For my friends and pets who have left this world it will only seem like an afternoon before I am with them again. In the meantime I still have a life to live and the responsibility that goes with that. It is strange how we can be such a small element of a great whole and yet be still important in the scheme of things. Don't let anyone say you are not.
David  ;)
Title: Re: Mood
Post by: Ed B on April 10, 2013, 11:19:39 pm
The only way would have been to hit a motorway bridge as fast as the car would go, but I have this feeling that suicide is an offence against God, Nature, Life, whatever you like to call it, but that it’s unforgivable and would remove any moral hope/expectation of a reunion in the next stage, which I’m fairly convinced is real.


Not a fair trade for the people who cared and loved the ones who went to such an extreme.
Title: Re: Mood
Post by: Rob C on April 11, 2013, 04:13:27 am
Not a fair trade for the people who cared and loved the ones who went to such an extreme.



Ed, I'm not sure I quite get what you are saying here, but if you mean that suicide affects those remaining behind, yes, no argument there, because it may prompt feelings, warranted or not, of not having 'done enough', whatever that may be; but if that's what you meant, I think it falls into a minor league of concerns, a secondary rôle being played by the survivors. Secondary, in that regardless of the relationship, their own lives were not the ones rendered intollerable. Some say that any life is better than no life, but it strikes me that those singing that song are not the ones facing the crunch, do not personally have the problems either medical or mental that those driven to despair and self-annihilation must have been facing.

David's reference to Viktor Frankl and the concept of having the choice between being positive or negative is on the money. It does exist, in all aspects of our lives, but the difficulty is in the mind making and sticking with the right choices. In my own case I find I can switch from joy to depression (if that's what it is - maybe just being glum doesn't mean the same thing) in a matter of moments and it can be triggered by the sight of a bed, by a piece of music or even just standing in the supermarket elevator from the underground carpark to the shop, looking into the mirror there and seeing just one reflection where there were always two. These things come out of the blue and hit you; they not only give sadness but also a sense of suspended time. The only thing that I believe can distract them is the opportunity of work, real work, where the mind has to concentrate on something else and more immediate. That's why I hate varnishing: it doesn't occupy the mind - it just bores the hell out of it, forces it to wander. Seeing the old car the other day was another such moment of sadness, not really about the car, but as with its predecessor, the memories of glorious, unrepeatable trips across France and up to Scotland and also the many back-and-forths to various hospitals. The tin box played its part in our lives, for better or for worse.

But hey, the sun's up again today and I didn't need a room heater on last night!

Enjoy the day - we might as well.

Rob C

Title: Re: Mood
Post by: Rocco Penny on April 11, 2013, 10:41:47 am
While I agree with much written here,

Obviating time to think of outcomes, and instilled expression still count for something.
Simple plan,
join the library, get a card, go to wherever the heck they keep those types things,
and get real photographs of the original handmade cartographs and land grant holdings maps granted by King Ferdinand IV to subjects of his royal crown.
Only interested in a 3600 square mile tract of land.
Those maps would help illustrate the mindset of the cartographers.
Hasn't been done well, and the genocide letters will be published someday.
Reading the Portola diaries yielded some nuggets, seeing the Missions firsthand gives more support, and finally if I could just understand what was really in their minds.
A futile exercise I guess, but there is reason to suspect I understand a little how the people that were here prior to historic account really survived here.
Not what they thought, but how they lived.
The village leaders here sometimes caught and kept California black bear cubs to sacrifice & consolidate their power. They even buried whole bear skeletons in homage to important people when they died.
Thought bears kin to humans and the much larger, more dangerous and powerful golden bear and even bigger grizzly held special significance for the people.
They thought the grizzly bear shaman the most powerful spiritual figure having the most magic and up for permanent scrutiny
Sometimes they'd kill a bear doctor for perceived deeds.
The people whose village I live atop were interesting people.
They believed in Kuksu, the big head cult, and had a legend of the big head spirit on shore, looking out to the place beyond the water to the paradise where there was no bitterness or sorrow and that if the spirit heard, saw, or smelled you coming, they'd vanish before you could see them.
Made for a certain arc of discovery and decision for a child in Ohlone territory.
Would you be quiet enough to see the big heads, or not?
Seems silly I suppose, but not entirely different from the crzy shit the spanish crown was doing just then.
Those maps for the genocide letters...
hahahahaha
I know rob, just a dreeeeaaaaammmm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajwnmkEqYpo
Title: Re: Mood
Post by: Rob C on April 11, 2013, 11:05:00 am
And today is/was my birthday and unlike New year, I'd made a resolution: lie about the numbers for the first time. So what am I saying? Well, it was my birthday until just before I went out to lunch. Then, I walked over to the car feeling quite cheerful, and shit: advertising crap under the wiper blade. And I hate them touching my wheels, those assholes who come in the night and make the neighbourhood a mess.

So up the blade and away the leaflet except no, the mother was stuck onto the glass. Yes, you got that right: stuck. That ended the birthday right away.

And to think some dick thinks this is good advertising for his/her hair salon. Wrong twice: I have little hair left and don't need reminding; I didn't intend washing the car until the varnishing I'm struck with is completed, so now two chores instead of one. I shall make them a print and stick it on their window. But they are not unique: an Indian restaurant in the Port pulled the same stunt a couple of years ago; I think they went bust.

Sometimes I hate people.

I suppose they'll say they can't get the staff.

Rob C
Title: Re: Mood
Post by: Rob C on April 11, 2013, 11:16:06 am
Rocco, you're pulling my chain!

http://youtu.be/4M7gKZqgHn4

I used to listen to this in the darkroom at one or two in the morning, hating the clients who wanted prints tomorrow, but that I knew would leave them lying under piles of junk on their desks for days.

The darkest hour is just before dawn... yeah, tell me about it!

I used to be quite nuts about the blonde, but Mama Cass was the better voice. The women in Fleetwood Mac also knew a thing or two.

;-)

Rob C
Title: Re: Mood
Post by: Rocco Penny on April 11, 2013, 11:23:22 am
Then I suppose wishing you Happy Birthday is like saying bless you to a sneezing atheist,
Happy Birhtday Rob
(or Birthday) :D
Title: Re: Mood
Post by: Slobodan Blagojevic on April 11, 2013, 11:23:51 am
And today is/was my birthday...

Hey, happy birthday, Rob!!! No matter what.
Title: Re: Mood
Post by: Slobodan Blagojevic on April 11, 2013, 11:29:04 am
... hope/expectation of a reunion in the next stage, which I’m fairly convinced is real...

Careful what you wish for... imagine an eternity of LuLa bickering ;D
Title: Re: Mood
Post by: Rocco Penny on April 11, 2013, 12:02:02 pm
Rob, people often talk on about good music, how they did this or that while listening to ____ for inspiration.
Bowie in an interview once admitted to having 5 televisions on at once.
There can be no mistaking that music and harmony have deep and permanent effects on one's dealio
Tracing harmony to math functions,
realizing there is a universal symphony.
In this, you friend are like the kick ass trombone player from Eddie Palmieri's band.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swsaT6EHE4w
It just isn't swinging without the swing
Title: Re: Mood
Post by: Rob C on April 11, 2013, 12:11:43 pm
Thanks for the birthday wishes - but in the next world, LuLa will be full of sweetness and light with just the right mix of pretty women and semi-artistic landscapes! And no, the argumentative mothers won't have made it past Pete at the Gates. I almost decribed the gates as pearly, but then thought about a thick old book we used to have about samurai etc. which explained what that term means in Japan (or at least, in that book about Japan) that ended up propping up the bed with another thick paperback on the other side. Why prop up the bed? Calm down; nothing learned from Japan, just acid reflux. You thought inconveneinces came alone?

I feel  better already. The chef in the restaurant at lunch today gave me an extra pork fillet in breadcrumbs which was far too much, so they wrapped it in aluminium foil for me and I shall now cook it a little further in my own, inimitable way. Without the breadcrumbs; I like them, but not twice a day. If I get poisoned, you know whom to sue on my behalf.

Here's hoping for the best.

;-)

Rob C
Title: Re: Mood
Post by: Eric Myrvaagnes on April 11, 2013, 12:37:59 pm
Many Happy Returns of your 39th birthday, Rob!
Title: Re: Mood
Post by: Slobodan Blagojevic on April 11, 2013, 12:38:11 pm
... in the next world, LuLa will be full of sweetness and light with just the right mix of pretty women and semi-artistic landscapes!...

So... even in heaven landscapes can not be fully artistic? ;D
Title: Re: Mood
Post by: Riaan van Wyk on April 11, 2013, 12:49:14 pm
Many Happy Returns of your 39th birthday, Rob!



It is 38 Eric- you haven't been paying attention at all!

Best wishes from Africa Rob!
Title: Re: Mood
Post by: Rob C on April 11, 2013, 02:00:10 pm
39 and holding sounds cool: check out Jerry Lee Lewis's version if you can find it. 38 is even better!

Thanks again ,

;-)

Rob C
Title: Re: Mood
Post by: Rob C on April 11, 2013, 02:02:56 pm
So... even in heaven landscapes can not be fully artistic? ;D


Nothing if not consistent!

And the extra portion of pork?

A couple of bites and it ended up in the bin.

;-(

Rob C
Title: Re: Mood
Post by: Rob C on April 11, 2013, 03:48:46 pm
Nothing specifically to do with moods, but since I'm more or less stuck in the office as I transfer my many cassettes into the 2013 era of mp3, I can no longer play music while I work (sounds like WW2) and so I, well, don't work: I read/look at books. Currently having another go at the smaller-format version of Sumo and reading Newton's intro. again, I noted this memorable quotation:

"The term 'political correctness' has always appalled me, reminding me of Orwell's Thought Police and fascist regimes."

Makes one think...

Rob C
Title: Re: Mood
Post by: Rocco Penny on April 11, 2013, 08:49:08 pm
Here's what I spent your Bday doink
spray booth would help, the barn is good,  but I won't spray color in the studio,
and just the Ospray is a bother,
people pay good money for this,
be the paiinnnttttt varnissssshshsshhh
Title: Re: Mood
Post by: Ed B on April 11, 2013, 11:20:05 pm


Ed, I'm not sure I quite get what you are saying here, but if you mean that suicide affects those remaining behind, yes, no argument there, because it may prompt feelings, warranted or not, of not having 'done enough', whatever that may be; but if that's what you meant, I think it falls into a minor league of concerns, a secondary rôle being played by the survivors. Secondary, in that regardless of the relationship, their own lives were not the ones rendered intollerable. Some say that any life is better than no life, but it strikes me that those singing that song are not the ones facing the crunch, do not personally have the problems either medical or mental that those driven to despair and self-annihilation must have been facing.

David's reference to Viktor Frankl and the concept of having the choice between being positive or negative is on the money. It does exist, in all aspects of our lives, but the difficulty is in the mind making and sticking with the right choices. In my own case I find I can switch from joy to depression (if that's what it is - maybe just being glum doesn't mean the same thing) in a matter of moments and it can be triggered by the sight of a bed, by a piece of music or even just standing in the supermarket elevator from the underground carpark to the shop, looking into the mirror there and seeing just one reflection where there were always two. These things come out of the blue and hit you; they not only give sadness but also a sense of suspended time. The only thing that I believe can distract them is the opportunity of work, real work, where the mind has to concentrate on something else and more immediate. That's why I hate varnishing: it doesn't occupy the mind - it just bores the hell out of it, forces it to wander. Seeing the old car the other day was another such moment of sadness, not really about the car, but as with its predecessor, the memories of glorious, unrepeatable trips across France and up to Scotland and also the many back-and-forths to various hospitals. The tin box played its part in our lives, for better or for worse.

But hey, the sun's up again today and I didn't need a room heater on last night!

Enjoy the day - we might as well.

Rob C



It was more about your comment about a reunion in the next stage. I, unfortunately, have had to deal/still dealing with suicide. I lost my wife to it, my daughter, her mom. As you said, the doubt about not doing enough, the wonder of why someone does it is not something that easily goes away. Somehow I don't think it ever will. The answer will never be known.

As far as seeing/hearing something that makes you sad, I don't think that's depression, that's just human nature. Depression is something on a whole different level I think. It's something that consumes you every minute of every day. I've felt that before in my life but I fought my way through it and ending it all was not something I ever thought about. I'm not sure how bad it has to be for someone to kill themselves but it isn't the answer. There is help out there.


On a lighter note, happy birthday Rob. :)
Title: Re: Mood
Post by: Rob C on April 12, 2013, 04:13:00 am
It was more about your comment about a reunion in the next stage. I, unfortunately, have had to deal/still dealing with suicide. I lost my wife to it, my daughter, her mom. As you said, the doubt about not doing enough, the wonder of why someone does it is not something that easily goes away. Somehow I don't think it ever will. The answer will never be known.

As far as seeing/hearing something that makes you sad, I don't think that's depression, that's just human nature. Depression is something on a whole different level I think. It's something that consumes you every minute of every day. I've felt that before in my life but I fought my way through it and ending it all was not something I ever thought about. I'm not sure how bad it has to be for someone to kill themselves but it isn't the answer. There is help out there.


On a lighter note, happy birthday Rob. :)

Thanks for the good wishes, Ed; you have a PM in your box.

Rob C
Title: Re: Mood
Post by: Ed B on April 13, 2013, 01:02:32 am
I just wanted to make something a little more clear as it may appear I have had more tragedy than I have. It was only my wife that I lost, the mother to my daughter. Sorry if there was any confusion.
Title: Re: Mood
Post by: Rob C on April 13, 2013, 04:48:59 am
I just wanted to make something a little more clear as it may appear I have had more tragedy than I have. It was only my wife that I lost, the mother to my daughter. Sorry if there was any confusion.


Ed, that's tragedy enough.

Best wishes -

Rob C
Title: Re: Mood
Post by: Rocco Penny on April 13, 2013, 12:27:11 pm
another of your brooding countrymen,
with a few of mine along in good measure
freakin a
Old man Richard T does what he does here
and now that I think of it,
so many old men are kicking ass with what they got
kicking ass
hau;l me UP!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-aEzE6ynO8
Title: Re: Mood
Post by: Rocco Penny on April 13, 2013, 02:27:47 pm
same night different old man
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szYNT-Dgscw
Title: Re: Mood
Post by: Rob C on April 14, 2013, 01:28:39 pm
These butts always raise my spirits somewhat.

http://youtu.be/RztZDSI3vpA


Or, if not in that sort of mood:

http://youtu.be/lANsRaUrst0

Rob C
Title: Re: Mood
Post by: Rocco Penny on April 14, 2013, 02:10:27 pm
I can't believe this Rob,
I had no clue=
why don't I know this?
My gosh makes the killer sound like a piker
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbcIjj1-obg
Title: Re: Mood
Post by: Rob C on April 15, 2013, 04:41:47 am
I can't believe this Rob,
I had no clue=
why don't I know this?
My gosh makes the killer sound like a piker
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbcIjj1-obg



The best radio station for Photoshopping your images to at night. For me in Europe, the best time is after 8pm except Saturdays when it's sport. I can't do anything to sport, not with it, nor in it.

http://www.klrzfm.com

Go there if you dig this music. Swamp pop rock.

Rob C
Title: Re: Mood
Post by: leeonmaui on April 20, 2013, 09:56:15 pm
Get a few Apple shuffles, different colors, for different mixes (or to match your clothing/add an alien color to your outfit) little power bar batteries will power up these thing forever, since they will play for about 15 hours on a charge, less if you blast the volume, endless music, wherever....