Had a beautiful evening last night.. ending up listening to an artist I’ve heard very little of, but lots about, after picking up a copy of Metro and randomly opening up at the gigs page - a pleasant surprise!
Like Duke Special, the resident Nothern Irish population turned up in force to see Foy Vance… and i’ve spent the majority of my train journey over to Glasgow trying to work out just what it is about these two guys that catptures the imagination.. here’s my seemingly incoherent best shot.
adminssion of the instituitional messed-up-ness and complicity in sectarianism “curse those fifes and damn those drums.. belfast… leave me behind.” and in contrast there’s this something beautiful about the little stories of grace that bring both tears but also leaving you feeling like the stone-holders after Jesus gets up after his dust doodling excercise.. guilt-trip-free inspiration towards love and kindness.. “would you lay your love on me, could you Shake me till i’m clean a salvation tambourine” “Indiscriminate act of kindness”
post-__something__?
Now I know why I bought a Mac! I’ve been using the a wee adaptor to plug my power supply with a european plug into sockets here and thought that it might be cool to buy the british version of the wee socket. I popped along to the Apple Store in Glasgow to ask, who (un)fortunately only had a big international box set.. declined to buy that.. so then they just popped in the back and came out with a spare they had and gave it to me for free.. that’s customer service!
p.s. I might also have heard that there’s new apple stores in Geneva and Zürich opening up soon 
Looks like we missed a big party in Bern last night! Yakin, Zuberbühler and Behrami should get some extra toblerone this morning..!
Hopp Schwyz!
Sitting in my sister’s flat in edinburgh typing this and watching the Switzerland v Portugal (not much hope for them!).
if you’re interested in hanging out on tuesday night/wednesday in Glasgow give me a wee text on my UK mobile number (same one I had just before I disappeared off to switzerland).
It’s good to taste the bru again!
Our conventional response to all media, namely that it is how they are used that counts, is the numb stance of the technological idiot. For the ‘content’ of a medium is like the juicy piece of meat carried by the burglar to distract the watchdog of the mind.”
(McLuhan, p.207 New Media Reader)
I picked this quote up from a Mars Hill podcast (Shane Hipps on The Spirituality of the Cellphone). I’ve heard the phrase “medium is the message” several times before, but this is the first time I think I’ve had time to really think about it.
In listening to this I also realised that I’m actually a technological neanderthal - I can discuss, debate and talk about the the thoughts that are in my head and develop them (like within an oral tradition) far better than I can manage to write down these thoughts or little bits of knowledge.. although i think that’s the way I’d like to keep it!
In the hope that it’s useful for some googling photographers.. there’s a wee hidden update that gives Aperture 2.0 RAW support for the Canon 450d. Nice to finally be able to play with RAW!
The swiss summer has most definately kicked off.. we headed to Murten last week and took a wee ferry all around the lake. I’m thoroughly impressed with my new camera (Canon 450d), although I don’t think i’ve owned anything with so many settings before! At least with film you’re pretty much stuck with the same ISO that you popped into it for 24/36 more shots, metering mode normally left in the same mode.. and all that’s left to think about is composition/aperture/shutter and maybe some exposure compensation if you’re feeling twiddly. I’m still a little overwhelmed at the transition to so many buttons and menu options - all of which have amazing artistic potential.. but also almost distract from the real banter of actually taking the photo.
It’s also been quite a while since I’ve tried carrying a camera around just for the craic, or tried going out intentionally to take photos. and it seems like the little photographer inside me has shrunk a little, or at least his eyes aren’t working as well as they were. At the moment it’s only every 10 shots that I take that I feel that I’ve actually taken something more than just the standard classic shot of face-on, two-thirds to the left, get the lines all lining up and don’t overexpose that beastie.. but hopefully that’ll come along soon again.
Flickr pro account coming soon I think!
Also.. all you dslr-brandishing people out there - what’s your workflow? How do handle the sheer volume of photos that you can produce? its the only part of this new experience that’s driving me crazy!
Just a regular night after church in the pub.. about two years ago?
Act of random connection:
Uisge Beatha (the pub’s name, the gaelic for whisky) = Water of life = John 7:37 - adds just another little layer of pentecost meaning.. (More out of a sense of coincidence than something to infer something out of!)
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