Another day of data inspection and introspection brings to an end a whole week of much the same kind of stuff, so ending it with a rather ghostly self-portrait seems appropriate. Yes, I’m in a pub (The Albert), though not drinking rum.
I was going to go out of Toronto for the day but last night I managed to slip on a wet floor and bash my head against something that was harder than it: the evidence is not graphic on this photo (I’ll spare you the gore) but it was evident enough. I will live but there was no way I felt like spending two hours each way on a bus. Instead I hung around and recuperated. So there will be no ex-Toronto moments on this trip: 12 days straight through, in which I won’t even have got on a vehicle of any kind, unless elevators count.
He was inside Nightjar. I was outside, enjoying the first beer of the weekend (and also wondering whether it was about to rain). I didn’t mean to get myself into the shot as a reflection, but once I saw that I had, I decided it might be saying something about me seeing into the future…. if you get the point.
It did rain, by the way. But only a little.
Actually this photo started out as more of a picture through the window I sat before, as I had lunch: but maybe it’s subconsciously significant that it didn’t work out that way. I like the ‘cut up’ or collage effect: very Cubist.
This place is taking up the majority of my thinking energy at the moment and will continue to do so for some time to come. These maps of how things were in 1988 are not going to play a major part in my cogitations and analysis — particularly not number 7, at the bottom of this spread — but it’s all a useful insight into how things once were: this is why we need records, and archives to store them in.
And yes, I know I have hairy arms and hands. It’s always been the case. This is the first self-portrait since October.
I am not having a dig at UNESCO, activities with whom have, in the past, led me to some interesting places (like Siberia for instance). But this wasn’t one of those. The generally somnolent look of the people depicted on screen here — including myself, managing to not look like I am taking a photograph at this point in time — suggests that this ‘test session’ for an online gig taking place in two weeks’ time was not the most exciting way to get through the post-lunch slot on a Friday afternoon.
So precisely has my reflection been split by this bevelled mirror (in Frew’s Bar, Dundee) that the sprouting of hair above my ear appears on the lower part. I like this cubist homage as it was an occasion where the shot I sought was precisely achieved.
At some yet-to-be-defined point in the future, there will come a day when not only do I have nothing in particular to photograph, but I also don’t manage to take a usable photo of nothing in particular. Today came close, I have to say. I therefore feel it necessary to fall back on this selfie taken in the morning, for no particular reason. I did think of calling it ‘selfie in red shirt’ but then I went monochrome so even that is somewhat indulgent. At least you can check on how I’ve been aging recently. Clare thinks I appear ‘terribly serious’ here but I guess that’s just what I look like at the moment.
Just one of those images noticed on the way down to town. It certainly is a very grubby car, but at least this records someone else’s artwork, before it gets cleaned off. A photowhack (the only photo taken today), and also a picture taken, totally inadvertently, at exactly the same time as yesterday’s (within a minute). This is the kind of trivia I seem to care about the most these days — see the updated stats page too, as it’s a round number day today.
Let’s push that Christmas theme a little further. There we are to top right, and I think this is the first time all three of us have appeared on the same featured shot. Here we await a lunch out, that was terrible and overpriced, so I will forebear from mentioning the name of the pub.
Being 42 