Being an internet refuge for Graeme McMillan
From the Guardian’s Photo Blog:
The Queen watches a display of gun carriages during a visit to the King’s Troop at Woolwich Barracks in south-east London. Photograph: Eddie Keogh/Reuters
If every a photo deserved a Day Today style caption, it’s this one. I honestly looked at it and immediately thought of Chris Morris seriously intoning “Queen scared of horses, Palace admits.”
From the Guardian’s Photo Blog:
Karen Vacco, assistant mammal curator at the Pittsburgh zoo and aquarium, holds a seven-week-old baby gorilla. The baby gorilla is receiving personal treatment after keepers and staff noticed Moka, the baby’s mother, could not produce an adequate supply of milk for the baby. Photograph: Anna Bentley/AP
Seriously, if that picture doesn’t melt your heart just a little, I feel as if you should go see a doctor.
Putting this here for myself and later thoughts, as much as anything, but here’s David Brothers writing about freelancing and not owning your work:
But, and I say this with no animosity or judgment whatsoever, I do realize that the pay wasn’t great and signing over my rights wasn’t wise. I became aware of it a couple years back, and if I was writing something that was too personal or important to me, I kept it for 4thletter! instead of donating it to AOL. I didn’t hold back on my AOL work, but the things I loved beyond belief or wanted to keep control of, like my Black History posts or the various Frank Miller explorations, I kept to myself.
I was surprised when I went to a mainstream outlet, The Atlantic, and they said their going rate was $100 per piece, plus you retain your rights after a certain amount of time has passed. I was paid well at CA, well enough to be happy with what I was doing. I’ve written for a few other non-comics outlets recently and been paid on a similar scale.
I don’t think I was not-smart when I first started getting paid to write about comics, but I am definitely smarter now. I didn’t have the experience then that I do now, but there still aren’t many — any? — resources for new writers-about-comics to check out to see what their peers in other fields are being paid. There’s also the rookie conundrum. Can I get away with asking to change a contract or will that sour the deal? Back then, my thought was “I need this job more than I need ownership.” From here on out, I know to ask the question first. Sometimes people say yes.
From the Guardian’s Photo Blog:
Eastern Screech owlets in a tree in Okefenokee Swamp in Georgia, US. Photograph: Graham McGeorge/Barcroft Media
I know how those owls feel, all “Really? You’re out there with a camera? Really?”
From the Guardian’s Photo Blog:
Members of a Swat team receive training in Jingning, China. Not sure how often they’ll have to jump through flaming hoops but better to be prepared! Photograph: Zuma/Rex Features
I just love the literalness of this image: “I’m not saying that we’re going to have you jumping through hoops, but, well, we’re totally going to have you jumping through hoops. For real. That’s not a metaphor.”
From the Guardian’s Photo Blog:
Fans wait for the rain to stop at Headinley during the Second Investec Test cricket match at Headingley, Leeds. Photograph: Owen Humphreys/PA
I feel like this should be the first part of a dance routine in an old Hollywood musical or something. The camera slowly pulls toward the umbrella, just as it gets pushed back and bam there’s Gene Kelly…
From the Guardian’s Photo Blog:
Lightning flashes in the sky in Zhuhai, Guangdong province, China. Heavy rainfall since Saturday has killed two people in the south China province. Photograph: China Stringer Network/Reuters
It’s a small thing, but I always loved the way that the rest of the sky gets illuminated by lightning. Look at the shades of purple surrounding the lightning; it’s beautiful.
From the Guardian’s Photo Blog:
A man paints puppets to be included in illuminated panels illustrating episodes from the life of Buddha, ahead of Vesak Day celebrations in Colombo. Vesak, which is celebrated on May 24 and 25 in Sri Lanka, commemorates the birth, enlightenment and death of Buddha. Photograph: Dinuka Liyanawatte/Reuters
I am operating on jet lag, timezone difference and probably not enough sleep. I feel like this is an accurate image of the inside of my brain, today.
Also, I’m back from the U.K.! Hello again.
From the Guardian’s Photo Blog:
The Russian Soyuz space capsule, carrying US astronaut Thomas Marshburn, Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko and Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, descends about 90 miles south-east of the town of Dzhezkazgan in central Kazakhstan, this morning. Photograph: Sergei Remizov/AP
I’m traveling later today; getting in a plane and crossing the Atlantic to go and see family, and as a result will be entirely offline/unreachable for about thirteen hours or so. I’m both looking forward to it, in some strange way – It’ll allow me to catch up on some work stuff (Transcribing, reading, thinking) that I’m far behind on, and there’s something to be said for the appeal of being unplugged – and dreading it, simultaneously; flights that long are generally exhausting, especially overnight ones. There’s something about this image that speaks to my sense of impending isolation about the whole thing.
The Portland Cello Project’s Beck Hansen’s Song Reader album has been the soundtrack to a lot of my 2013 so far; it started as something I bought/listened to as a reminder of their “Beck The Halls” Christmas concert from the end of last year (Where the above video was recorded; if you can imagine the view from the left of the audience, about midway back, that was me), but it’s unfolded into more of a delight than simply nostalgia the more I listen. Here’s another video from the December show, with the spectacular Jolie Holland providing amazing vocals (Seriously, these are vocals to die for), to give you an idea of what you missed.
Part of the appeal is hearing the music performed in such an un-Beck way; the PCP and guest vocalists give the music more of a jazzy feel, with some easy listening thrown in at times (“Just Noise” could be a Bacharach song), that manages to free the songs from what you’d expect of Beck, and makes his music into something… else, somehow. The humor is allowed to come through, in a way that his own performances tend to underplay for whatever reason. Check out “Last Night, You Were A Dream” and imagine it being performed by Beck; the joke would somehow feel flatter, somehow…?