I’ve never been much of a sound sleeper. Wandering through the neighborhood at night is both a way of passing time (trying to “chase down some sleep” as my Pops would say) and it’s a perfect time to find some good shots. Night is a time to reflect, to think, and to shoot (not necessarily in that order).
‘Night Walk’
Time moves slower at night providing ample time to set up shots. There is also a quiet and a stillness that I’ve never found during the day. Shots taken during the day freeze time, but shots taken at night preserve time. Daytime photographs capture a moment, but night time photographs embrace the moment.
If you are the type of person who carries a camera everywhere you go, then the next time you find yourself out after dark take a few moments to look around. Enjoy the time to reflect, think, and take a few shots.
We rolled back the clocks an hour today. An extra hour of sleep for some, work for others, and an extra hour of night for all. So many people complain about fall daylight savings-the harbinger of shorter days and longer nights, but I’ve always liked the period from dusk until dawn, the Nightside.
‘Clock Face’
The nightside are those hours when most people are tucked in under the warmth of artificial light as the world turns in its beautiful darkness. The people of the nightside, the workers, the ramblers, and the sleepless experience a world that is known to only them.
It’s October 31st, the culmination of the Spooky Season. Halloween, the day of tricks and treats. Little kids in costumes, adults, in ‘cosplay,’ and everyone (at least those celebrating) playing at being something they aren’t or something they wish they were.
‘Cthulhu’
Here’s to the spooky stories, fun costumes, sugary treats, not too malicious tricks, and being as scared as you’re willing to be. Happy Halloween!
While warching a horror flick the other night I got to thinking about what scared me when I was a kid. One source of a few scares was a graveyard next to the grade school I attended. I was a latchkey kid (do people still use that word) and on my way home I either walked around or through that graveyard. One cold and rainy fall day (I’d like to say it was during October but my memory may be playing with me) in third grade a few friends and I were sharing scary stories toward the end of the day. They were typical Scooby Doo style scary stories until an eighth grader decided to join the conversation.
‘Graveyard Schoolyard
His story was about a group of teenagers who drove their car into a tombstone while driving through the graveyard. All of the teenagers, save one, gathered around the damaged tombstone, mocked the deceased, and laughed at the damage they caused. Later, the teenagers were in another accident, this time hitting a telephone pole. All the teenagers, save the one, died in the accident. A couple of friends and I cut through the graveyard that day after school to verify the eighth grader’s story. There was indeed a tombstone near the access drive that was damaged. We didn’t say much the rest of the walk home. I lived the farthest of my friends so those last three blocks alone in the cold and rain was an eerie kind of quiet. The quiet was broken by the sound of skidding tires on wet pavement, probably a car simply stopping short at a stop sign. It was enough for nine-year old me to sprint that last half block, lock the door, and turn on every damn light in the house.
I was visiting my mother a while back and took her hound dog for a walk. We took a round about way through the neighborhood and cut through that graveyard on our way back. I took a moment to look at that tombstone and with quite a bit of life experience behind me I concluded the damage was from time and weather. But as I stood before that tombstone my heart began to race. For a brief moment I felt that fear, maybe not the fear but the memory of the fear from that afternoon in third grade. H.P. Lovecraft wrote, “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.” As we grow older and gain life experience less and less remains unknown so less and less remains scary, but now and again the memory of unknown creeps up and scares us.
There isn’t enough consideration given to Halloween weather. We want snow at Chritmas and expect sunshine for the Fourth of July. Over here in East Tennessee we’re about a third of the way through October and the weather won’t seem to cooperate. It’s been sunny and warm since the first of the month, not really Halloween inspired weather. One chilly morning with some fog is all we’ve got so far.
‘Vernon Stone Angel’
I finished reading Jeff Rice’s The Night Stalker and on a sunny Saturday afternoon. I watched The Thing a couple nights ago as a warm breeze came through the window. I’ve got Lori Allen Ohm’s Night of the Living Dead on my desk waiting for some rainy weather and Evil Dead Burn waiting to be streamed if the temperature would only drop about twenty degrees. Maybe I’m being a bit too particular and I’m probably asking too much but wouldn’t it be nice if we got some real Halloween weather for our Spooky Season?
We enter the Spooky Season once again. Retail displays of ghosts, goblins, and other Halloween frights holding fast against the slow approach of Christmas decor. Streaming services are promoting horror classics alongside contemporary flicks. Haunted houses are opening their doors and the twelve foot skeletons are occupying suburban landscapses. We find ourselves browsing the aisles of Spirt Halloween and the displays at local bookstores.
‘Skull and Bottle’
The season of the witch, werewolf, vampire, demon, and other various fears personified is upon us for next thrity days. All of it culminating on the 31st day of October. Here’s to Halloween, a month of fears, frights, and fun times.
Working full-time, part-time, contract jobs, or day labor. It can be straight pay, overtime, salary, or per diem. Working weekdays, weekends, mid-shifts, nights, twelves, or seven and two. PTO, holiday pay, vacations, or just grinding day to day.
‘Closed and Retired’
It’s all work. Although there is a holiday called Labor Day to celebrate those who work, many must show up and clock in. We’re putting in the work, clocking out, and just hoping one day it will all pay off.
My current workspace is a cubicle (one of the most traditional of American workspaces). Employee cubicles at this job vary from the sparsley decorated to those that look like somehting from an overstocked second-hand shop. This wide variety of cubicle decor has me thinking about how people choose to decorate their workspace
‘Cubicle’
One obvious reason for decorations is personal expression. All that bric-a-brac is visual representation of who the employee is. Another purpose could be to display status. I’ve seen many workspaces crowded with diplomas, certificates, and other random awards. There are also the candy bowl cubicles, trying to lure fellow employees over like some sort of a sad version of Hansel and Gretel. The most important reason for decorations is a sense of ownership. In a world where we give eight or more hours a day to an employer many feel they need a little place to call their own (even if we don’t have property rights). Whether it’s a few photos, a couple of knick knacks, an award, or a bowl of Sweet Tarts it’s an attempt to mark off a little place of the world as our own where the time isn’t ours.
Nine o’clock on a warm Sunday morning attempting to regroup from a sixteen hour Saturday shift while coming to grips with a twelve hour shift tonight. Exhausted but too wired on caffeine to consider sleep for at least a couple hours. I call these the unoccupied hours the in-between time.
With a few bottles bottle of beer in hand, a familiar playlist on Spotify, and a cigar in my shirt pocket I take a seat at my little too rusted patio table. I pop a beer, turn up the volume, and light the cigar. This is the usual routine for the in-between time. Trying to get away from the thought of work while knowing work is less than ten hours away. The first beer empties a little too quickly as the cigar marks the time.
‘Three Coors’
I look across the yard and notice the cars and trucks traveling down the road. Families wearing their pressed Sunday best on their way to one church or another. I pop another beer, return the waves of children riding in backseats, and I wonder what it would be like to have somwhere to go or something to think about on a Sunday that didn’t involve work?
Work–A four letter word for some, a way of life for others, and means of getting by for most. For many people work is part of who and what they are. It’s the why they do things. It’s the where and the when of their weekdays.
‘Time Clock Door #2’
“What do you do?” is often asked within the first few minutes of meeting someone. Work, what ever it is, is worth exploring during a month that has a holiday meant to celebrate working people. I’ll be at work on Labor Day, how about you?
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