The Machinery of Night

Saturday, February 28, 2009

Posted 3:31 PM by Angie Schultz

PJF: RIP

Philip José Farmer has handed in his typewriter and gone to that big fantasy kingdom in the sky. He was 91, which was good innings, as the Brits say. If I'd known that, I'd have stopped hoping for him to continue with the Opar saga.

According to Wikipedia, Opar was a frequently-visited ancient city in the Tarzan novels. Since my acquaintance of Tarzan is more through movies than the novels (I need to rectify that), I had not known that.

I picked up the Opar books while in Oz, and found them good, rip-snortin' yarns in the old tradition. Maddeningly, Flight to Opar ends with Hadon and someone else (a woman, if I recall -- maybe a princess -- the books are back in Houston so I can't check) struggling over some mountain pass. Hanging from a cliff for 33 years. Man.

Well, Farmer took Burroughs's ideas and wrote new stories about them; perhaps someone else will take up the Opar saga, and get Hadon and the girl off that mountain.

I sure wish I had the first DAW editions, just for the cover art (Hadon and Flight). (The covers displayed here are for the Methuen editions I have.) I was thinking that those covers looked like the work of the fellow who did some of the covers for Lin Carter's Green Star series. That link says that By The Light of the Green Star and As the Green Star Rises had their covers done by Roy Krenkel. And, sure enough, he did the original DAW covers for the Opar books. (See here for Hadon and here for Flight.)

And, of course, he has a Wikipedia entry. The work of the seriously nerdy is made easy in the 21st century.

Friday, February 27, 2009

Posted 10:15 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Ahhhh...

This is a restful view, don't you think?

Sunset from Mai Poina Oe Iau Beach
Maui, November, 2008

In fact, it's so restful that I almost forgot to make a title for it.

If you Google around for the name of that beach, you get variously Mai Poina Oe Iau or Mai Poina Oe Lau, because in a san-serif font capital I and and lower-case L look alike. (They're different when I type them in Blogger's editor, but identical on the blog.)

But I'm pretty sure it should be (to be precise) Mai Poina 'Oe Ia'u, which means "Do not forget me." (As here, for example.)

But spelling is so unrestful.

Labels: Foto Friday, Hawaii

Friday, February 20, 2009

Posted 10:30 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Armed and Dangerous

Pedestrian crossing
Paia, Maui
July, 2008

No, I don't know. I suspect it's supposed to be paintball, but I can't be sure. This sign is outside the Paia Community Center. The day we were there, two cop cars were in the parking lot, not 30 feet away. So I'm assuming the police are aware of the situation (the sign was there the previous February, too).

Across the street is a sweet little Asian/Swiss Colony building that, at the time, I pegged as a church. It sits right on the ocean. I have a picture of it, but there's no indication as to what it really is. World's Cutest Armory, perhaps.

(Ah, it seems to be a Buddhist temple. Of course.)

Paia is a self-consciously funky little town full of laid-back surfing types and groovy artists. So you'd naturally want to go armed.

Labels: Foto Friday, Hawaii

Friday, February 13, 2009

Posted 10:17 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Power to the Polarizer!

This week: a paen to the power of the polarizer. The first photo shows a dramatic sunrise.

Sunrise on Haleakala, Polarization 1
December 2008

And now we rotate the polarizer 90 degrees, and get this:

Sunrise on Haleakala, Polarization 2
December 2008

These two pictures were taken seconds apart. I like the first one much better, but I admit the second one more closely resembles what I saw with my eye.

I particularly like the curly clouds in the upper left. In the second polarization you barely notice them; in the first they're dramatically different in color from the linear clouds. To my eye, using the first polarization, they were almost white, but the film doesn't capture this.

The actual sunrise is about to take place off to the right. It's not nearly so cool.

Labels: Foto Friday, Hawaii

Friday, February 06, 2009

Posted 10:20 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: On the Rocks

This is not the bestest picture in the world, but it isn't a rainbow OR a sunset, so it's different.

Rocks at Ho'okipa, Maui, July 4, 2008

If you can believe Wikipedia, Ho'okipa is one of the premier windsurfing sites in the world. There were windsurfers that day, and I have pictures, which I'll get to eventually. They're really not that great. The waves weren't doing much.

I like the colors in the image, especially the red dirt. The polarizer works surprisingly well on dirt.

I don't really like people in my pictures, and often people do not care at all to be photographed. So I tend to be kind of diffident, retreating behind a tree or something so as not to intrude, or to get an angle that will block out the people (although that's not always possible, as we see here, or here).

I've found that gives the pictures kind of a creepy look, as if there's something frightening about the subject (see, e.g., here, where the menace is undercut by the buildings looming in the background).

Anyhow, there's a suggestion of that here. For some reason that wooden fence scares me a little. Looks like it might be a good place for a suicide/murder, and subsequent haunting.

Of course the tourists gawking all over it detract from that mood. I'll try again, maybe on a day which is not a major holiday.

Or maybe, for full creepiness, it has to be in black and white.

Labels: Foto Friday, Hawaii

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