I get about 10 hits a day. It’s pretty sad. Of course, who wants to read the same week old entry over and over again? Especially now that AE’s gone.
Anyway, in brief, Jen and I spent the weekend in Buffalo on an unexpected funeral induced vacation. I only talked to my Grandfather-in-law once…he seemed like a pretty funny guy. By the time I met him, words were a scarce resource in his economy. In our conversation, he wasted none on causes less noble than saying some dry, witty remark. He was also a bronze star and purple heart recipient, having fought in the Philippines during WWII. Though it was a funeral, we had a great time – I like her family a lot, they’re a fun bunch of people. And like always, whenever I see a military funeral, I regret not going to West Point. I’ve inquired about how late in life one can enlist. I at least want to go through basic training so that I can show young people that I’m tougher than them, kids these days with their cell phones and twitter and video games. I shake my fist at you. Bah humbug.
My train of thought derailed a little while back. My apologies.
Meanwhile, these pictures are fascinating. Contrary to popular belief, people were not monochromatic 100 years ago. It kind of screws with your brain, you even visualize the world in the terms that you’ve been made to perceive it…but really, black and white film was a limitation of technology, not an artifact of reality. No one 100 years ago, when looking upon a black and white photo, would develop the subconscious impression that the world was really gray – after all, they looked around and knew better. For us, our technology allows us to capture our world essentially as we see it (albeit with less dimensions, for the time being at least), so we never had to negotiate this dissonance between what we see in pictures and what we experience in reality. It makes us less capable at understanding the limitations of the past, as our brain doesn’t automatically translate the blacks to colors.
This presumably happens everywhere; we develop preconceived notions based on our limited ability to understand a situation, then store away that simplified construct in our subconscious, unaware (autonomously at least) that it’s merely a shadow of reality. I could probably think about this for a while…but I have to go to bed.
Words 
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