Month: May 2009

It Is Finished

Posted on May 31, 2009 By Mark Tiedemann

Okay, it’s Sunday.Â Two days past when Advance closed up.Â I have been sore all weekend.Â I hate to admit it, but I’m just not used to that level of intense physical labor anymore.Â Weight lifting does not compensate for it.Â Strong enough?Â Certainly.Â Ready for seven straight hours a day of hard lifting?Â Not on your life.

But it’s done, it’s over.Â We dismantled the entire lab.Â This included two Kreonite paper processors, a Kreonite C-41 film processor, and E-6 film processor, some 14 enlargers, a mounting press, a slide mounting machine, stainless steel sinks of various sizes, counter space, tables, oversized trimmers….…

Last Week

Posted on May 26, 2009 By Mark Tiedemann

Today is the first day of work for the last week I will be employed, at least employed at Advance Photographics.Â I have, as you might imagine, mixed feelings.

Interesting phrase, that.Â Mixed feelings.Â If they were truly mixed, mashed together as it were, would we be aware that there are several feelings, some conflicting?Â Wouldn’t it be one feeling of a particular alloy?

Be that as it may.Â I have mixed feelings.Â I have never particularly wanted to work there.Â As is my habit, I have tried to make the best of it.Â I’ve liked most of the people with whom I’ve worked there over the last 12 years.Â …

Just Another Photograph

Posted on May 19, 2009August 7, 2011 By Mark Tiedemann

I’m tempted to use that as a story title.Â Maybe someday.Â Meantime, here’s an image.

…

Truth and Power…and Other Stuff

Posted on May 13, 2009May 13, 2024 By Mark Tiedemann

On Dangerous Intersection, an article was posted recently about the problem of Power in relation to truth. I wrote a response and decided to post it here, as a short essay on the (occasionally etymological) problem of Truth.

When people start talking about what is true or not, they tend to use the word like a Swiss Army knife. It means what they want it to mean when they point at something. Truth is a slippery term and has many facets. Usually, in casual conversation, when people say something is true, they’re usually talking about something being factual. Truth and fact are conjoined in many, possibly most, instances, but are not the same things. …

De Stael Conference

Posted on May 11, 2009May 11, 2009 By Mark Tiedemann

This past weekend I attended an intensive three-day workshop on the apparently much debated, highly-regarded Germaine de Stael.Â I audited this because Stael (pronounced, according to these folks, Stahl) is going to be a central figure in my alternate history.

Well, not “going to be”, she is, but so far she’s been mostly in the background.Â In the second book, she will be onstage, although in slightly bizarre, nonhistorical form (this is SF after all), but in the third book she will be central—my protagonist will be in her entourage from 1797 until her death in 1817.

Germaine de Stael nee Necker was at one time one of the most popular and well known intellectuals in Europe.Â …

Queen of Her Domain

Posted on May 6, 2009August 7, 2011 By Mark Tiedemann

We put up this platform in the backyard for Coffey to use, and use it she does.Â She supervises the yard work, lounges regally at times and surveys her kingdom.Â Or is that queendom?Â Anyway, I thought I’d post this.

…

Neuronapathy

Posted on May 3, 2009May 3, 2009 By Mark Tiedemann

Once upon a time…

I had pretensions long ago to be an Artist.Â I still dabble.Â I stumbled over a sketchbook the other day.Â These are some of my abstracts.Â Click on the thumbnails for a larger view.

Neuronapathy, Winners, and Tongue of Empire.…