Unspoilt by Progress

2018!

pyat — Mon, 08 Jan 2018 00:54:05 GMT

I had no posts here in 2017. 0.0

Frankencameras

pyat — Fri, 07 Oct 2016 14:28:42 GMT

What do you get when you combine $25 discount macro bellows from China, a couple of antique lens, some poorly drilled holes and a modern DSLR...?

Fitted with a 1945 Wollensak Raptar press camera lens.

What a scoop!

Fitted with a 1913 Kodak ball bearing lens.

Oh wow.

pyat — Tue, 04 Oct 2016 16:20:16 GMT

There are people here. You came back! <3

In January, I went to Denver

pyat — Thu, 25 Feb 2016 20:32:18 GMT

It looked liked this, at night.

2016

pyat — Sun, 07 Feb 2016 03:29:01 GMT

I am still alive. I work for yet another company, this time doing documentation writing for a software firm. I work from home. Kids are good. Mate is good. Life is good. I have diabetes, now. But life is good.

Current Appearance

pyat — Fri, 16 Jan 2015 20:11:20 GMT

More or less. This was taken in September.

Futurians

pyat — Fri, 16 Jan 2015 19:01:11 GMT

While walking along a half-frozen riverbank in April, this book fell from my pocket. I had to backtrack about a kilometre to find it again. It's worth looking for, if you've not read it.

Changes!

pyat — Fri, 16 Jan 2015 18:48:22 GMT

We now live in two households. In lieu of a Venn diagram, please accept this simple dramatis personae.

The Mousehold
Pyat
Koray
Eldest Child (Nearly 12)
Youngest Child (Now aged eight)
One elderly guinea pig

The Menagerie
Shavastak
Chrislynx
Velvetpage
Assorted animals

Velvetpage has moved in with her partner Shavastak, leaving the Mousehold to myself, Koray and the kids. Shavastak is also married to Chrislynx. The kids will be staying at the Menagerie a couple of weekends a month.

Why the change?
Lebensraum. The Mousehold could not contain so many people with so many possessions and remain a tranquil fortress of serenity. In My Father’s house are many mansions, but the Mousehold is compact and densely furnished.

Is everything… okay?
Pretty good. I would have preferred a mansion with distinct living spaces permitting everyone to live harmoniously and comfortably, but we are creating the best of possible worlds in the given situation.

So, what else is new with you?
I am no longer a reporter. I am once again a corporate writer and I like my new employer a great deal. I am in my 40s. I love my mates and my kids. I seem to have more energy and impetus for creative projects, more than I have in years. I am still shooting film. Indeed, in the next couple of weeks some of my photos taken with a 107-year-old Brownie Box camera will show up in a BBC feature article.

Also, I am editing the conbook fiction submissions for Furnal Equinox in March. Anyone out there got a story or poem to share?

MFF 2014

pyat — Fri, 12 Dec 2014 01:30:07 GMT

Well, that was certainly a fraught convention experience. Fraught, I say. But I shot a lot of film and got a lot of good shots.

More later? Maybe. I'm still frazzled. When life hands you chlorine gas, put on your carpet suit and dance.

Off to see the monsters

pyat — Sun, 05 Oct 2014 13:42:12 GMT

Every year, the picturesque little town of Elora puts up an impressive display of monster statuary throughout October. A local man creates them, and has added to them every year. They hang from light fixtures and show up in the town square.

We (Me, Koray and Elizabeth) got there a bit too early in the month, it seems, for there were only a handful of the sculptures in place. Still, it was a dark and cold night, with a storm churning on the horizon. It was all very Bradburian.

As October progresses, more statues like these show up on roofs, lamp posts, trees, and in the stores of shops.

Elora is most famous for the vast gorge that slices the town in two, and for the crumbling 19th century mill works and factories near the waterfall. It is a naturally spooky place.

Sadly, after about 30 minutes of sight seeing, the skies opened up with freezing sleet, and we ran back to the van. Velvet is off on a road trip this weekend with Shavastak. Hopefully they had better weather. And our youngest, Claire, spent the night in a tent at Brownie camp. I'm glad she packed an extra blanket.

Back to Work!

pyat — Sat, 04 Oct 2014 04:18:12 GMT

I go back to work on Oct. 20, this time as a tech writer at a small software company.

So, what's new?

pyat — Thu, 02 Oct 2014 04:06:40 GMT

I was laid off in February, quite unexpectedly. The day I was laid off, I walked out on the ice at Forty Creek and took film photos of the fantastic ice shapes that had built up over a bitter winter. I was using an old Seagull TLR (twin lenses reflex), and one with a faulty mask inside that scratched the negatives. It was months before I realized that.

My immediate sensation the day of the layoff was one of extreme relief. For weeks, months, I'd been under stress.

It is now October, I am still out of work, and benefits are about to be cut off. Kores has gone back to school, and Velvet is of course still in her job... thank goodness. I am experiencing less stress, and have diverted my productive energies to making supper two nights out of three, sometimes cleaning, film photography, and Minecraft. Many things have happened in the interim.

In March, I attended Furnal Equinox and had a great deal of fun.

In April, I took a lot of day long road trips. I turned 40, and on my birthday I drove Kores and I up to the Blue Mountain township. They aren't mountains, but they were nice big hills.

I went to California in May, to visit Kores' mom. I got deeply intoxicated a couple of nights, at our motel, staring out at a weird Los Angeles sky on a balcony that overlooked a freeway.

Everything overlooks a freeway in Los Angeles. I went to a number of diners with Kores, including one mentioned in a Tom Waits song.

We drove to the Salton Sea and Salvation Mountain, the first time I've ever been into a desert. We got gas in Palm Springs and explored a dead strip mall in the middle of nowhere. Salton Sea was like one of the sad dead lakes in Mordor, and Salvation Mountain was someone's mystical Christian desert vision.

I also visited the tomb of Ray Bradbury... and an angelic choir of celebrities, including Marylin Monroe, Jack Lemmon, Peter Falk and Don Knotts. They're all in the same cemetery.

Over the summer, I went to Con Bravo, where I presented the 2014 Cthulhu Cup adventure I'd written. It was set at the Grimsby Beach Chautauqua in July, 1914. I was also a panellist at FanExpo, thanks to the Bitterguy and Teddog. I also attended the Prisoners of Gravity anniversary panel, and heard a lot of behind the scenes stuff.

In August, we retired the Haunted Police Car, and Velvet bought the household a Blue Dodge Caravan she has dubbed "The Blue Dragon." It was a loyal steed on our epic family vacation to Quebec. We stayed in an off-season resort and watched the mist roll over the mountain. We toured the Old City in Quebec City and the national assembly. Absolutely beautiful.

It was the first time we took a very public vacation as a polyamorous triad. No one noticed, no one cared. It was refreshing, and despite a lot of driving for me, it was an excellent trip. Velvet drove a good chunk, and it was delightful to have the experience of riding in the back with the girls.

The girls are getting huge. Tall, beautiful and smart. I did a lot of day trips with them this summer, to Lake Simcoe, Orangeville, and various hiking trails. School seems to be treating them better so far this year.

It's now October. I had a third interview for a job yesterday. I went well, and hope to hear back from Friday. I have no gut feeling about it either way.

I need to write more. It's been so long, I was starting to forget I could.

Squeak!

pyat — Thu, 02 Oct 2014 02:36:49 GMT

Helloooooooo!

West Coast Bound

pyat — Tue, 20 May 2014 18:17:31 GMT

I'm going to be in California next week, to visit with kores_rabbit's family. We're not there long, but if you're in California and want to meet for coffee or a burger or something, let us know.

We'll be restricted to the LA area, say within an hour or so of Anaheim.

In which Pyat watches movies

pyat — Sat, 22 Feb 2014 21:00:13 GMT

City for Conquest is almost a pastiche of all Cagney's previous films to date. It has a plucky working-class hero from the tenements, dancing, singing, prize-fighting gangsters, a gun fight and Cagney being bouncy and edgy. All it lacks is a scene where he is thrown into prison. The framework is a symphony of New York written by Cagney's screen brother, and it's all narrated by an immortal all-seeing hobo who breaks the fourth wall in the trailer. All this, with a sweeping, luxuriant Max Steiner score and James Wong Howe's camera work.

And I watched it while eating herring salad on the couch. I could get used to idleness.

SMOKING FACTS

pyat — Fri, 21 Feb 2014 02:32:36 GMT

Yeah, I'm a three encyclopedia a day man, myself.

Saving Mr. Banks

pyat — Sun, 19 Jan 2014 17:26:58 GMT

"Saving Mr. Banks" is an unofficial sequel to "Mary Poppins," directed by Steven Spielberg.
Michael Banks, the young son from Mary Poppins, is now 18 and serving as a 1st Lieutenant with the Royal Loamshires. On a dark day in May his parents (George and Winnifred Banks) die in a German zeppelin raid. That same day his sister Jane succumbs to Spanish influenza while serving as a Red Cross nurse. Michael is granted an extended furlough to come home and bury his family. Alas, Michael has gone missing at the Battle of Arras.

Former magical chimney sweep Bert (now a hardened Sgt. Major) goes AWOL to search for his young friend Michael in No Man's Land. He uses his enchanted chalks to travel from place to place, enlisting the help of a number of cartoon penguins and an animatronic robin on a horrifying journey through the devastated French countryside. Songs like "Just a Hankie Full of Urine" and "Bezirksschornsteinfegermeister" (to the tune of "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious") provide a bit of comic relief.

(Rated R for scenes of Mustard Gas and cartoon cannibalism.)

Merry Christmas!

pyat — Wed, 25 Dec 2013 16:51:53 GMT

Presents opened! Sausage, bacons, eggs and English Muffin have been consumed. Bogie just went nuts out in the Mexican desert. All is well on this cold and snowy Christmas Day!

I may take a bath and read Mencken's essay on Drieser, because if you want to be anachronistic, you might as well wallow in it.

Sgt. Preston has no home

pyat — Fri, 13 Dec 2013 19:21:27 GMT

Twenty things I have learned from 200+ episodes of the radio serial, “Challenge of the Yukon.”

1. English Canadians are quiet and law-abiding, though there are some bad eggs.
2. French Canadians are funny and ineffectual, but maybe one in 50 is a bad guy.
3. LOOK FOR THE SMILING QUAKER MAN!
4. Americans are either crooks, well-meaning bumblers, or city-slickers who have a thing or two to learn about life in the north country.
5. QUAKER PUFFED WHEAT AND QUAKER PUFFED RICE ARE THE GIANTS OF THE CEREAL WORLD! (Repeat mantra three times.)
6. Britons are ineffectual for the first half of the episode, and hardcore in the last half.
7. Irish people get lost in the snow, unless they are priests.
8. QUAKER’S OAT AND MOTHER’S OATS ARE THE SAME!
9. Indians are basically children. They can’t read or write, and are easily led astray, generally by Americans or Half-Breeds.
10. Germans have funny little dogs and are never evil.
11. Half-breeds are always, always, always, always evil and a surprising number of them are named Blackie. Sgt. Preston can’t even say “half breed” without sneering.
12. Women named Kate are strong and independent.
13. All other women are helpless.
14. QUAKER PUFFED CEREALS RESTORE NATURAL GRAIN FOOD VALUE AMOUNTS!
15. Inuit are wise and seldom led astray by anyone.
16. If someone says they don’t like dogs, shoot them now and save time later.
17. Sgt. Preston should just stay in one place and let his lead dog King solve crimes.
18. QUAKER PUFFED WHEAT AND QUAKER PUFFED RICE ARE ACTUALLY SHOT FROM GUNS AND EXPLODED UP TO EIGHT TIMES THEIR NORMAL SIZE!
19. QUAKER PUFFED WHEAT! KAPOW! AND QUAKER PUFFED RICE! KAPOW!
20. *Ten minutes of howling wind and furious barking*

Return to Providence: The Movie

pyat — Thu, 05 Dec 2013 12:20:58 GMT

Pyat Fats and the Ithaca Express

pyat — Tue, 03 Dec 2013 23:04:18 GMT

What happens when a nosy small-town reporter leaves his beat for an off-season vacation in another country, only to uncover a trucker's drug smuggling ring?

You get a 10-4 for interstate action, road romance, and high-speed stakes in the Finger Lakes! Coming for Christmas 1977, "Pyat Fats and The Ithaca Express", in theaters everywhere!

We've got a great big convoy... of crime!

Providence again

pyat — Fri, 22 Nov 2013 05:19:09 GMT

We are here at last. We went through Geneva, and then Corning, which is a mix of genteel and shabby industrial.

We hit Ithaca in the twilight, where an old man with a placard reading "Love is peace" greeted us at a stoplight. Ithaca was very much one of the multi-levelled cities of my dreamscapes.

As we drove back into the mountains, the light failed. Long trip, and much of it in darkness, with empty black hills on either side, on lightless roads under a starless cloudy sky. It was like driving through a tunnel for hours.

The moon emerged once or twice as we passed into Massachusetts, but only managed to outline mountains against the sky.

Our motel room smells like my grandma's house. She's been dead since 1980.

"Papers, please."

pyat — Thu, 03 Oct 2013 22:03:13 GMT

All of a sudden, I remember this post.

Thanks to this game.

Vampires of Smithville

pyat — Sun, 29 Sep 2013 05:11:16 GMT

A detail of a much larger photo I took of the Midway. Vampire, thrall, ghoul...?

Pyat goes Vroom.

pyat — Tue, 24 Sep 2013 01:29:15 GMT

Photo taken with the Yashica D at the West Niagara Fair 4-cylinder demolition derby in Smithville in early September 2013. I got a little too close, and ended up picking mud out of my hair, shirt and viewfinder.