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These are blurry images. I was trying to take a shot of some running water indoors on a cloudy day, and was holding the camera far from my body. While a camera with a stabilizer might have made a different, I doubt it – and since the conservatory I was at requires permits for using a tripod, that was also out of the question.

So what happened? They came out blurry.

Blur and grain are the bane of an amateur photographer’s existence – it happens in product photos, it happens in action photos, it just freakin’ happens.

Which is why a few professional photographers kindly passed on this wisdom: if you can’t use a tripod, try to find something to rest your camera against. I have also learned in the absence of a solid surface that holding my camera with my thums at the top and the rest of my fingers stabilizing it towards the bottom can help. Over the course of the summer, there has been less blur but it’s not all gone. And who knows – maybe one day I’ll shell out for a tripod permit!

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It’s a long story as to why, but I recently watched the bizarre fairytale Princess Racoon. Along with being visually strange and an odd experiment of theater-on-film, there was a congratulatory scene that sticks with me, when the people are congratulating each other by shouting “Banzai Banzai!” It makes me wonder if cheers like “Hip hip hooray” are culturally universal (although I have maybe seen such a cheer happen at most twice in my life.)

Banzai is an art form that can be practiced on nearly any leafy plant, and not just on little bushes. I have recently and quite accidentally rendered my basil a banzai plant by clumsily splitting stems. It does make me curious as to what kind of crazy, Edward-scissorhand things I might do with an indoor herb garden, especially if I indulge my desire for a multicolored basil garden.

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My first pet was a frog. I named him Lowe, since he hatched around Halloween, and “Lowe” seemed like the least freaky term as well as being more original than Fido or Max. My mother and sister persisted in calling him “froge.” ¹ My mother always assumed that I felt guilt over eating frog legs. I never did, and I don’t recall her ever asking me about it so it was probably some weird projection of her guilt/attachment to the frog. The frogs I ate were caught on the banks of Kankakee river. Lowe was a test tube tadpole. Never the twain would meet – especially since he never got bigger than my thumb before he…well, croaked.

RIP Lowe.

Ever since then, frogs have been a strange little symbol for me. Creativity, though people like to say fertility, but I think that’s just a “knock up all the women and get them out of the way” conspiracy. Adaptability. A willingness to get wet.

It’s really not a bad association to have, as long as no one thinks I go great in a garlic reduction.

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References

1. I’m the youngest member of not just my nuclear family but the youngest in my generation on both sides. Family members don’t listen to me unless I come in with a sledgehammer and a bullhorn, and sometimes not even then. [↩]

What you see here is Vee, the latest release from Magickal Realism. It’s a happy kind of skank, a bit cloying in the bottle but dries down to something delectable on the skin. This is for all you True Blood fans out there – you know what this stuff is about.

Contains spikenard, cedar, sage, verbena, dragon’s blood resin and cocoa absolute…among other interesting things.

You can get 1 ml to try here.

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As mentioned quite awhile ago, I’m now taking further steps into trashion offerings in my shop, starting with these small (5 ml/one dram) vials that are done up for the boudoir of the pinup girl in your life. These are clearly VERY novice items, but made with affection, fun, and an eye towards reuse – so I hope you can think of great uses for these!

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If you haven’t picked up on it yet, definitely read this article on Ad-Age about the handmade advertising and its response to Etsy’s “handmade moment” contest. You can see the winners on tv.etsy.com.

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