Lighthouse

Photos from 2010 Tour with The Dela Project

2011-09-05T17:23:00.000-07:00

I intended to post these tour photos long ago, but I left behind a roll of film that documented a good section of our trip (Denver, Colorado). I have since abandoned the hope of having the lost roll returned to me, so the following photos and accompanying text from the summer of 2010 will have to do.

After I finished my finals for Spring quarter, I hitched a ride to Boise in a NAPA truck to meet up with The Dela Project for a week long tour. Following are many photographs taken on my trip.

This is what we look like (fools):

When I met up with the boys in Boise, we went and played for some kids at an elementary school. Unfortunately, most of the pictures were blurry; this is the best one.

As one would expect from an elementary school gig, we were paid in Juicy Juice.

Casey fell asleep trying to find the wizard. Long car rides are tiring.

Next stop was SLC (Silly City).

We played at a place called The Woodshed. It was unremarkable with the exception of this Ms. Pac Man arcade machine. Note: free play.

That night, we slept at a rest area.

And then we were off to Buffalo to play at the Occidental Hotel (please ignore the missing "O," it was Accidental).

Casey found some of his relatives from the area.

A new burger joined my Top 5 burgers list. This is the buffalo burger served at the Occidental Hotel restaurant.

This little girl (Mya) danced to our music. It made me happy.

Days later we returned to Silly City and made some new friends.

Most of them were tattooed.

The last stop on our tour was Bend, Oregon. Casey lives here and has many of the simple things that make a good life.

We arrived late and slept on welcoming couches. When I opened my eyes in the morning, this girl was looking at me.

Before I had a chance to undust my eyes, she handed me a star she kept in a box. It was a "wishing star" she told me. I made a wish and put the star back in the box. She did the same.

Tour was over. Casey finished reading his Western novel. I returned home, and have since forgotten my star wish.

Sometimes I find constellations during the daytime.

Problem Photos

2011-08-20T11:00:00.000-07:00

These rolls of Tri-X didn't develop correctly. I was pretty disappointed. The process that I'd used before to make acceptable photos now left me with long streaks across my gray negatives. From what I have read on the internet, this phenomenon is called "bromide drag," and it happens when the developer sits too long on the surface of the film. In other words: I didn't agitate well enough. I still don't quite understand the reason that the streaks seem to parallel the sprocket holes on the film. Next time I'll make sure to shake the hell out of the developing tank.

I don't remember taking this picture, and I don't even know what it was, but it is now a great example of bromide drag.

"Hey you down there!"

Crazy spiderwebs around Medical Lake, WA in July.

Yep. I know.

Holding the flügelhorn after his performance on Memorial Day is my trumpet teacher, Andy Plamondon. He is a good person.

I do kind of like the silhouette that happened here.

This floor in Isle Hall lived up to its namesake and came out looking a bit like water.

A broken photo of a broken building.

"The quotation mark: A crane that lets you lift language from elsewhere and drop it in your writing — an essential tool for the bricoleur." - Daniel Coffeen, "On Punctuation"

Like Dogs

2011-04-17T23:44:00.000-07:00

Some days my work needs harder hands
To grip the wrench with blood and oil.
Those days my hands are stiff and rough.

Before the perfect tissue work
Can speak with holy white and ink,
I scrub my hands clean as the sheet.

How sad to see a student squat
On every virgin ivory page
And splash her yellow marker piss -
Hard work to mark her boundaries.

Caffeine Fix

2011-03-07T14:15:00.000-08:00

I made a second attempt at developing with Caffenol-C-M, and this time was a success. I am happy to report that it is not only possible to develop film with coffee, but the negatives (at least the Pan-F 50) actually turn out better. This time I was a lot more careful when mixing the ingredients; they must be mixed in order: washing soda, vitamin-C, and then instant coffee. This time I measured the portions on a scale rather than with teaspoons and tablespoons. If you're interested in the details, this is where I got the recipe: http://caffenol.blogspot.com/2010/03/caffenol-c-m-recipe.html

The negatives had some cool peculiarities, namely image fogging, strange treatment of shadows, and an unexplainably older look. I am so satisfied with these negatives that, if HC-110 weren't so cheap and easy to use (and a good complement to Tri-X 400), I would develop only in Caffenol. I will continue to strictly use Caffenol at least for Ilford Pan-F 50 (which HC-110 has never developed well for me anyway). The following images were developed in Caffenol-C-M for 15 minutes with an exhausting 3 agitations per minute.

This is a Tascam 22-4 1/4" reel-to-reel recorder I received last month as a gift from my good friend. When I got it, it wasn't working correctly, and so lately I've spent many hours repairing it. Notice the strange shadow near the bottom of the image.

Here's a photo with reels loaded and spinning. That metal rectangle in between the two reels is the brake solenoid - it wasn't working correctly, and it gave me a lot of trouble.

This photo shows the work that ultimately fixed the brake solenoid - a 10KΩ resistor bridging a damaged section of the PCB pathway. I guess the previous owner must've spilled something corrosive into this machine. I taped a post-it note around the exposed wire to keep it safe.

This is another photograph of the same thing, but scanned as a color negative. I had heard that Caffenol tinted the negatives brown. Maybe my perception of color is messed up, but I'm seeing a blue tint in the negative, which is totally normal.

Here's the unit in tip-top shape, all cleaned and tuned up. All it's missing is the head cover and the feet. Hopefully I'll find them on eBay someday soon.

Grodge.

Another negative scanned as color. Same blue tint. There's some fogging at the bottom of the photo. I don't scan all of my negatives in color because it takes forever. If anyone has a better negative scanner they don't want anymore, let me know.

I'd been meaning to try breathing on my lens to fog it up before taking a photo, supposing that it would make a cool effect. For this photo, a step from the chilly Manito Park into the humid Gaiser Conservatory Greenhouse did all of the fogging work for me.

I like the fogged lens effect, and I'll probably keep using it. This photo is almost an optical illusion.

This is what I mean by older-looking. Zoom in to the face detail and it looks like it was actually sketched on. I'm sure there are some expert film photographers who could explain this phenomenon to me. Until then, it's the "old-timey effect."

This one also has the Caffenol fogging at the top and bottom. It looks almost like a light leak.

Again, the shadows are doing strange things and I like it. This picture makes me laugh.

Right now, life is reel pun...I mean, real fun. Feel free to leave me hateful comments.

Winter Photos

2011-02-28T22:38:00.001-08:00

Lately I've been taking more shots with my BB gun than my camera. The last roll I shot came out blank when I tried to develop it with Caffenol-C (a developer that uses instant coffee, washing soda, and vitamin C) and apparently did something wrong (the vitamin C formed a hard wafer instead of dissolving into the developer). The following roll, however, turned out fine because I went back to my tried-and-true HC-110. The earliest of these photos are from Christmas, and the latest are from this last weekend.

Ben + Color Mix Crayola Markers = AW SHIT

This girl is pretty cool.

I received this Ansco Super-8 movie projector for Christmas. I recently shot my first Super-8 footage and projected it with this guy. Once the snow goes away, I'll start shooting my first actual Super-8 movie (it'll be about 5 minutes long).

Miniature Lincoln Log cabin: very tricky to assemble.

Magic pipe.

This is Washington State. If you're not here already, you should come here. It's really great.

"In my head there's a city at night / Static gauge with the rush and the lights."

This is one of the early steps to becoming a boring old photographer.

Kids save the day(s). Never quit.

What is Affect?

2011-01-30T18:29:00.001-08:00

Here is my first generic "video." It isn't very good because I've never done this before, and I was unwilling to dedicate hours of my time trying to get it perfect. It's too long, awkward, unclear, and low quality but it'll do. This is intended to be somewhat of a response to Daniel Coffeen's post here. He elaborates further her e.

Next time I decide make one of these it will be better, because that's how improvement works.

Perfecting Tri-X

2010-11-06T01:05:00.000-07:00

Developing film at home is fairly simple. However, producing negatives with good tones and contrast is tricky. It took me three tries to get my Tri-X to turn out the way I wanted it. My first attempt resulted in negatives with almost no contrast. For my second attempt, I decreased the number of times I agitated during the developing stage, and the negatives (though still lacking "black" and "white") turned out a bit better. On my third try, I decreased agitations even further, and also prolonged the development time from 15min. to 16min. The negatives turned out great. Some of the following photographs are Tri-X. The others are Ilford Pan-F, and "Kodak Safety Film." According to the folks at photo.net, the Kodak Safety Film is 35mm Plus-X movie film from 1960.

Aaron is a famous ironworker. He is a good man.

He likes to play the violin.

This is his daughter. Aaron is a good man.

Morgan with sunflower.

Joe in front of a coffee sign...

Ashley, a traditional girl.

I always forget how to spell "silhouette."

Beast.

Floral dress.

50 year old film makes things look 50 years old.

Nintendo DSi XL, displaying the Korg DS-10 synthesizer - my newest instrument.

Dining couple.

These are ingredients for my next project.

I've been reading these bastards.

I took this picture through a telescope. The full circle is the lens of the telescope's eyepiece. The half circle is Earth's Moon.

The end.

Lucky Film

2010-11-04T18:13:00.000-07:00

The following photos were taken with some random 100' rolls of bulk film I bought for 50 cents each at a thrift store in Brenham, Texas (actually, my mom bought them for me). I assumed they'd be no good, since they were probably all expired, and some of the cans had been opened (and likely exposed to light). With the help of my friends, I've tested all seven cans of bulk film. Four of them produced good results, one produced mediocre results, and the remaining two cans were pretty much ruined. I'm guessing all of the cans were pretty old, because none of them had any markings on them indicating what kind of film was inside (thanks to the folks at www.photo.net forums for helping me ID my film). The following photos were shot on old Ilford Pan F and new Tri-X 400TX. I developed them in my kitchen.

In my life, most good things happen here: at my house.

Out front is a wax-covered curb. I used to spend a lot of time here, skateboarding with these kids.

Now, I feel too worn out. I leave the good work to them.

I still keep a skateboard. I join them in the street from time to time.

But not like I used to.

Several years after my dad broke the back porch storm window with his thermos, he replaced the missing glass.

When he was young, he jumped his bicycle off a 12-foot drop into the deep end of an empty swimming pool.

I wonder what's next?

Home Development

2010-10-04T21:12:00.000-07:00

In my last post, I mentioned that I was considering home-developing some negatives. Here I report my materials and results.

This is a 100 foot roll of Kodak Tri-X 400 that I bought online for about $60 (kinda spendy).

I did a lot of research on these chemicals, and as a result, I got a pretty good deal (about $40). From left to right, the chemicals are: Kodak HC-110 (developer), Kodak Indicator Stop Bath, Kodak Rapid Fixer, and Kodak Fixer Solution B (hardener, which I opted not to use).

The developing process worked, but the negatives were severely lacking contrast, so I talked with my good friend R.P. Bose about using Photoshop to edit them. He gave me a quick tutorial, and I did my best to make them look a bit better. They're still pretty gray, but as I keep practicing the development process I'll get better at controlling the contrast.

Ashley and I explored the state of Washington in early September.

I ate this Viking Burger at the Viking Drive-In in Sprague, WA. It wasn't bad.

Waitsburg, WA.

Touchet River, Waitsburg, WA.

Strange trash.

You see that one in the middle? What the hell is that supposed to be? Car-cemetery-mountain?

Some enterprising folk in Dayton, WA.

An enterprising cow at the world's worst county fair in Dayton, WA.

Old muffler, back at home.

Emma Claire's chanticleer.

Receiver, for listening to Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell.

The rangefinder on this Argus C-Four is currently non-functional. I'll have it fixed soon.

My next big project will be learning to make prints from film negatives. This is one of the cool enlargers I'll be using (compliments of Amanda "Club" Vilbrandt).

Photos Taken During the Summer Months

2010-08-20T21:18:00.000-07:00

These may be my last photos from a C-41 roll, because Wal-Mart has decided to get rid of their film machine which allowed me to develop for pretty cheap ($1.76). I've been given a bunch of darkroom equipment by my good friend Amanda, so it is possible that my next roll of film will be self-developed.

An allergic Ashley.

I've washed a lot of things here. You wouldn't guess it, but I was trying to photograph the prettiest, goldenest light I've seen.

Ashley under a bridge.

A leak and purse.

All cracked.

Hand-print rainbow.

Waiting.

Stevie Wonder's white brother.

A hardworking Morgman.

Senior photo.

Champion.

Photos, You

2010-06-29T21:48:00.000-07:00

A Jar of buttons for shaking and mending.

A man and his dog in a field during the summer.

Three gals occupying two photographs: 3 / 2 x 2 = 3/4.

Spokane, WA, heart of the world.

Black and White Photos

2010-05-21T14:41:00.000-07:00

I just developed a roll I've had for almost a year now. These are from that C-41 B&W Kodak film you can get at Walmart. This au'some guy inspired me to try it out. I am impressed with this film.

Home.

Paint.

Morgan.

Ben is a handsome fella.

Here I focused through a pinhole in my wall.

This peanut butter reminded me of a trilobite fossil.

Train trip.

Parts of a Whole, Part 2

2010-01-26T20:10:00.001-08:00

Stellation

2009-11-21T10:46:00.001-08:00

There sailed where the cherry petals blow,
Hard iron stars - well-polished, luminant,
And made sharp by the stone to paint in rose
The throats of some oppressive shogunate.
Cast from an ancient master's artful grip,
Their fine tips stuck and stayed in the black joists,
So that, when dozing in his Western crib,
The sun may eye us still through their white points.
And now, my son, a smith, selects his ore:
Silver, like real steel, shimmering,
And red - blood's hue - his favorite color.
He plies, presses, folds, creases carefully
Soft paper stars, created - in his eye -
To pierce some tyrant or newer, darker sky.

Road Trip Photos

2009-09-22T22:56:00.000-07:00

I went on a road trip this summer with my good friends: Richard,

Ashley,

And Matt.

Our trip was made possible by cigarettes and 35mm film.

So we took lots of pictures.

And my friends smoked lots and lots of cigarettes. I had developed a hearty second-hand cough by the end of the trip.

Our first stop was Ritzville, where we went to the shadiest Zips Hamburger's I've ever seen. Ritzville also had this fruit/vegetable peddler who told me (after a few attempts) that his name was Frank. He gave us an awesome deal on tasty apples and peaches. He also sold us corn, but California stole it from us before we could eat it.

Eventually night fell, and it was good.

When we arrived in Portland, we walked around and looked cool. We also had coffee at a diner that was so picturesque, I didn't want to leave.

Matt made good friends with a particular drinking fountain.

On our way to the Oregon Coast we listened to Portishead, which complemented our eerie drive through the thick fog. This cool airplane was on our way.

As was Orion, throwing a leg up over our fence of mountains and rising on his hands, looking in on a red-and-blue-flashing air traffic control tower.

We arrived at Lincoln on the coast, which is, as you can see, a happening town at 5am.

I learned that this is what happens when you take a long exposure of the ocean in pitch darkness.

After a long and terrifying ride down the cliffy coast, we came to the state of California, which is best summed up by this picture of rotting meat.

But California is Richard's home state, and so here he was a king.

Among redwoods.

We all took a lot of pictures of Matt,

And pictures of each other taking pictures of Matt.

A brief guide to the fauna of the San Francisco area: Berkeley has spiders.

San Francisco has the world's largest seagull.

And old men are found on sidewalks, near chocolate shops, and in Chinatown.

San Francisco also has Chinese clock stores.

And really fancy Cafes.

And an abundance of galleries.

But Oregon has the best sunsets.

And it is important to remember, above all else, that everywhere are places still untouched by your shoes.

Fool on the Planet

2009-08-07T13:39:00.001-07:00

Since June, my wonderful, hard-working friends and I had been working on a music video for a cover song contest put on by my favorite band, the pillows. From the get-go we encountered difficulties: a failed hard drive and lost video clips. Trying to recover from the mishap, we were met with further complications: re-recording sessions crippled by faulty microphone cables, noisy air conditioning vents, buzzing digital recording devices, and out-of-sync audio production software. The final video was simply recorded as a single clip (to avoid excessive editing), and the audio was recorded on a recently acquired Tascam Portastudio 05 four-track cassette recorder (which initially didn't work, but I was able to repair it with a toothpick and a drop of super glue). For me, this project was a testament to the unreliability of computers, and the surprising effectiveness and reliability of outdated technology.

Though higher in fidelity, and having more effects and options than the analog recorder, the computer recording hardware and software is more complicated and time-consuming to setup, use, and transport. It is kind of a hassle to head across town to record, with my fragile PC, recording device, tangle of cables, keyboard, mouse and monitor in tow. Convenience is throwing my 2 pound Tascam and a microphone in a backpack and heading out the door.

After this project, I have become more resolute in my determination that objects and methods of the past often have greater value than their modern doppelgangers. I don't think that computers are useless or ill-fit for audio/video production; clearly they have more than proven their worth in these areas. I am also not denying the great likelihood of my analog equipment failing me. However, if digital or analog fails, I should think myself more capable of understanding and repairing the latter. In the case that damage is irreparable, replacing the almost-forgotten analog equipment will keep my poor-man's pockets heavier.

You can view the cover video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2LRMMC9ods

Uneven Tracks

2009-04-22T21:25:00.000-07:00

Uneven Tracks
by Jacob Butcher

It is nighttime,
With one police siren disturbing the peace.

I know that the man being pursued
(For they are all men, I’m sure)
Has decided not to pull his vehicle over to the side of the road
(Utterly failing to produce his license and registration)
Because I hear more squad cars start a chorus of sirens,
And together they ring out their dissonant Doppler,
“Confutatis Maledictus,”
Over and over again.

I am not surprised.
I have witnessed men
In this predicament before.
But then the sirens stop. A long pause. A loud pop.
A brief pause, and then one more. Pop.

I do the human thing and lie to myself,
Pretend the police were chasing some
Mischievous, firework-wielding teenagers, who,
When caught, were forced to light their glory,
Their last two M-80’s, All boring
And wasted in the middle of the street,
And then told to hurry home, it’s a school night.

But then I face the reality that a man has been killed.
A man has just been killed.
Over and over again.

His girlfriend’s boyfriend has been killed.
She will cry for his death for a while,
Before going on to select as her man
The next most likely candidate
To be chased by police.
She will make this mistake
Over and over again.

His mother’s son, he has been killed.
She will opt to honor his life
Like the barfly she is, greasy, mulleted,
Guzzling beer after beer till her gullet
Froths like a throng in a Friday parade song,
Or a Saturday or a Sunday.
Today is a Tuesday, mind you.

And the poor, unsuspecting homeowners,
Whose lawn the unsuccessful buccaneer
Marooned his maroon-colored Pontiac upon, awake
Covered with confused red and blue in their bed-hair.
After the pops,
The husband retains enough front-porch composure
To usher his wife into the bedroom
And a new era of uncomfortable gunmetal pillowcases.

And now, the sirens are long gone,
And now, I hear the sound come back on,
Of a train treading uneven tracks
With the beat and the beat and the beat
That makes my room into a living heart,
and then it is too far away for me to hear.
Serpentine, it is winding and well on its way,
To the next stretch of warped tracks, taxiing
Someone’s last living sounds to the insomniacs
With their windows ajar in the cool, wispy heat,
Simply trying to sleep.

Earth Is a Planet, and We Are Astronomers

2009-04-21T21:40:00.000-07:00

The world is a curious place...

Full of curious creatures.

We humans are the most curious of all.

We are curious and brave, so we explore new places...

And discover wonderful things.

Some of these wonderful things require us to have great patience...

But it's ok, because we have friends and homes that wait patiently for us.

Although some days we sit inside, alone...

Looking out the window, wishing we were out with our friends.

And sometimes we have to wait, alone, for a long time...

And we stop moving altogether.

And when that happens, things tend to break...

And so they must be patched up.

In these cases, it helps to have the right tools...

And the right people who can help you fix things, good as new.

And that is how I live in this world, with you, curious friend.

Parts of a Whole, Part 1

2009-03-18T00:19:00.000-07:00

A Common Burial

2009-03-16T20:25:00.000-07:00

An old corpse by the graveyard has a heart that is still beating
And heaving up his grey wet chest every now and then.
I bend to the grave-diggers, “this man is not full-dead,
Are you so hurried as to prepare his pit just yet?”
They don’t respond because they don’t have mouths,
and then they weren’t there anymore; they left to give the corpse
Some time with his family (who were now
Picnicking and playing cards). The stiff’s wife is a real piece of work,
I thought to myself, and am thinking to myself (remembering).
What’s for lunch? Strawberry jam, toast, smoked salmon,
Orange juice, dark chocolate,
Milk chocolate for the kids,
Wine for the bonebag and his wife,
An apple and a sugarcube for the ants,
A mouse for the cat,
A wildebeest for the lion who was watching all of this nonsense - this corpse picnic.
Uh-oh, dad’s strawberry toast and first gulp of wine is all down his front
(It burst from his paper thin stomach and skin) and now we can’t tell
His ruptured chunks from his food chunks. The kids aren’t allowed to
Drink wine, but of course they’re allowed to smell it, and they do.
While the kids play Old Maid, the husband and the wife look into each
Other’s eyes, and the husband says, “take my hand in yours, my love,” which
She does, because it has fallen off and now the ants are about it.
Lily white against brittle brown decaying and yellow, makes my stomach turn
Out of jealousy.
An escaped lion from San Francisco Zoo attacked picnickers earlier today,
Killing one man before zoo authorities arrived to contain the situation.
A witness was present at the scene, and captured video of the horrific event
With the camera on her cell-phone. Maria Vasquez, 16:
“This huge ******* lion jumped out of the bushes, and like,
Totally jumped, like pounced on this guy. I was so scared,
I just thought I needed to like, get this, like, record this happening.”
KRIM10 Reporter: “Did the man put up any fight when the lion attacked him?”
Ms. Vasquez: “No, he didn’t even, like, move.
He was, like, dead before he knew what happened.”
Authorities say that the lion was tranquilized and transported
Back to the zoo with a full-belly after mating with the wife of the deceased.
Initial reports claim the mating was consensual.
Coming up next, SPORTS! And Juniper Lundlocklin shows us how to make delicious, Heart-healthy strawberry preserves, stay tuned.
The moral of the story is this:
Lions only eat wildebeest when there are no husbands to be found grazing the Serengeti.

Some Recent Photographs

2009-03-13T20:23:00.000-07:00

This is me.
I have a camera, and I know some people.

Some of them also have cameras.

Some of these people are in-doors.

And some are out-of-doors.

Some of them do a lot of smiling.

Some of them are philosophers.

Some of them smoke cigarettes.

And some smoke pipes.

And even though they are all different, they all live in the same place.

A Survey of Horror

2009-03-04T20:58:00.001-08:00

The professor of my Shakespeare class recently did an interesting exercise. He asked each student to write on a piece of paper what they considered to be the worst thing that could happen to them in their life. The results were quite surprising. Not only was I surprised that only one other person in my class shared my "worst thing" (which was for me/those close to me to be tortured/raped), but also that almost everyone in the class had the same "worst thing." They all stated some slight variation of "having [family member] die and not being able to stop the death from happening." Naturally there were a couple of misfits, but over 90% of the class agreed about the worst thing that could happen to someone.

As is true with most things that interest me, this exercise had a practical conclusion: people are scared of not being in control. After seeing the results of the exercise, I had to agree with the conclusion. All of the "worst things" that people came up with revolved around a loss of agency. Merriam-Webster defines agency as "the capacity, condition, or state of acting or of exerting power." Clearly, this loss of agency is quite applicable to the horror genre.

I was very happy to have discovered one of the cornerstones of horror in my Shakespeare class; it was quite unexpected. This discovery got me thinking about what else defines people's fears. Some important precursors to this topic are the RadioLab episode "Emergence," and a number of articles on Chris' Survival Horror Quest.

The "Emergence" episode of RadioLab explores the concept that individual opinions are generally inaccurate, whereas averaged group opinions are astoundingly accurate. The science behind this phenomenon is called "Emergence," and it defines things like human thoughts being formed from millions of neuron interactions, or the efficacy and efficiency of an ant or bee colony. The revelation in my Shakespeare class, while not a true case of emergence, displayed some of its characteristics; namely that an accurate conclusion can be made from the data compiled from several individuals.

Chris of Chris' Survival Horror Quest is generally not concerned with banal and egotistical "reviews," preferring instead to try and learn things from the games he plays, the books he reads, and the movies he watches. He has several articles addressing the psychology of horror-based media; each of them is well-written, and contributes to the unavoidable fact that scaring someone with a video game is a complicated process - as such, many games of the horror genre have very low ratings from players.

I've intended for a long while to make my own video game, and I'm finally getting around to it now. However, I ran into a problem when I started working on it; my video game is going to be horror-themed, so, unlike other formats with which I am more familiar and relaxed, I am obligated to create a tense and discomforting feeling. For me, the difficulty in this is coming up with an original idea; I have a really hard time using cliches or ideas that have been used before. For example, I want my game to have a threat of some sort. A physical threat.

A tall guy with a knife! No, that's Michael Myers...
Ok, I want it to turn out that the murderer is a child! No, that's Clock Tower...
Maybe the twist can be that the main character is the one causing all of the horror in the game...dammit, Silent Hill.
Well, I could just have zombies... bleh.

Every concept of horror I have seems to be directly based off of something else. Of course this makes me happy, because it is a good challenge. I will eventually come up with a unique idea for my game, and the first step to getting there is doing my research.

I conducted a survey to find out what people are most scared of (the survey is sloppy and unprofessional, so don't expect APA citing). I asked one-hundred people around my school and my town, "what scares you the most? What do you find most creepy?" I was hoping that the fears of one-hundred people, combined with the magical properties of emergence would yield the answers I was looking for - the key to scaring people. Here are the results of the survey organized into a cool-looking word cloud generated by wordle.net.

(Click image for larger view)

While this survey wasn't something spectacularly revelatory, it did clue me in on some common fears. In case you didn't notice, people are scared of spiders. The spider thing was pretty disappointing; its just too easy for people to call it their greatest fear. In fact, the entire test was kind of disappointing; there were only a couple of times that I found myself saying, "oh yeah! You're right! That is really scary!"

So what's the verdict? If I said, "People are unimaginative," I'd likely not be giving them enough credit. So I'll settle with, "people are inexperienced and unfamiliar with their own emotions." In other words, its easy for me to say that fearing spiders is lame, but only because I spend a big chunk of my time experiencing and reading about horror - most people probably don't visit survival-horror video game websites every morning when they wake up (right after listening to The Writer's Almanac, of course). The obvious reversal of this would be if someone asked me to explain something I had experienced, but knew little about. "What's the most emotionally-charged love story? Hell, Romeo & Juliet's pretty good, ain't it?" I'm certain that I've experienced some really powerful love stories, I just can't place exactly which ones they were, or why they were so emotionally-charged. And this is where the important part of the survey comes in.

In addition to their greatest fears, I asked people to think of the scariest movie they'd seen. The most common answer to this was, "I don't watch a lot of scary movies, I don't like being scared." Here lies an obvious contradiction. Please observe:

Fact 1: People are apparently more afraid of spiders than anything else.
Fact 2: Most horror movies do not feature spiders.
Fact 3: People avoid horror movies because they are scared of them.
Fact 4: People generally do not avoid so-called "spider zones," i.e. the outdoors, the indoors, etc.
∴ People are unaware of their own fears.

My deduction is that horror works because people don't know what they're scared of. All of these folks are going about their lives thinking that they're scared of spiders (which are lame), when they are actually scared of the things that are too horrific to imagine. When we become creative enough to conjure up our own horror stories, it is likely that we will begin to lose our fears. But I guarantee that when a bleeding, skinless, inbred freak hiding under the stairs shrieks and grabs the busty heroine's ankle as she's running away, the modest, itsy-bitsy-spider-fearing audience member is going to soil the movie-theater seats with more than just Lemonheads and sodapop.

My First Cross-Processed Film

2009-01-30T16:09:00.000-08:00

I've just had a roll of Fujichrome 100 developed and cross-processed. I was very pleased with the results. As you can probably tell, some of these photos were taken in the teenage dreamland: Seattle, Washington.

My Dad
If you chance to see him, he will likely look like this.

Rose
Drinking some sort of potent Chai beverage. I was drinking a "Medici," which I learned is a mocha with orange zest in it. That basically summarizes Seattle: sitting around in coffee shops drinking shit with orange peels in it. Pretty sure we were also talking about how cars are ugly. Those photos on the wall are prints from cross-processed 120 film, they were pretty cool.

Barrelman
As you can see, this man was barreling toward me.

Oh, Seattle
This is a good example of the weird colors that are born from cross-processing. Skies seem to look amazing. And yeah, I'm aware of the fact that I took a picture of the space needle.

Troy
This is my friend Troy. I took this photo at my school (Eastern Washington University in Cheney, Washington). Apparently he was weaving a key chain.

Railroad Construction
This man was at the foot of a bridge, monitoring some construction equipment. To the right of him (out of the picture) are some trains, and to his left is a public park.

Rose and Magnolia
Notice how the edges of the picture are dark, almost vignetted. This effect was unintentional, but appreciated.

Boyds
These birds are on powerlines. How silly!

Masque of the Red Death
"The seventh apartment was closely shrouded in black velvet tapestries that hung all over the ceiling and down the walls, falling in heavy folds upon a carpet of the same material and hue. But in this chamber only, the color of the windows failed to correspond with the decorations. The panes here were scarlet --a deep blood color."

Rajah's Silhouette
This is a class "A" silhouette.

Results of Film Rolls 3 & 4

2009-01-14T22:28:00.001-08:00

My second roll of film was B&W ISO 100, and I accidentally destroyed half of it. The other half of the roll is at Chromostat, being developed at a high price. I've purchased my own camera since my last post; a Nikon FM2 - it is wonderful. The following are select pictures from my third and fourth rolls of film, taken with the FM2.

Me and my Nikon FM2
This is what my beautiful new camera looks like. I am hereby classified: a complete nerd.

Sunset Shot
We'll get this out of the way right off. Everyone's taken this shot. I mean, its a beautiful sunset...

Steam Gentleman
"Lovely night! I'm from the steam business. We pride ourselves in high-profile hats."

Another One of These Nights
Included: "The Globe's Complete Works of Shakespeare" opened to Taming of the Shrew, Mug of PG Tips, Stainless-steel spoon (Alliterative), Apple & Yoghurt dish, Eli Knitmouse, Rose's letter (with Self-addressed stamped envelope).

Powerlines
I know, I know...I just really like powerlines. A lot.

This is What I Sometimes Look Like
I took this at Jefferson Elementary School, Spokane, WA.

Near-Collision
These two speeding trains swerved at the last second, just missing each other.

Kindergarten
Remember these old rooms?

Ghosts
FM2 has a really snazzy multiple exposure lever. I took this with a timer.

Hearty Meal
I couldn't get this framed correctly...darn lenses. PG Tips, Croissants, and Safeway beef stew.

Apple Dish
This is easily the gayest thing I've ever done. I arranged apple slices in a bowl of yoghurt, took a picture of it, and posted on my blog. Fucking hell...

I'm having lots of fun with this photography playing. It's nice to add some color and variation to my blog. B&W film will be developed on Friday, but I doubt there'll be much of anything to show.

My First Roll of Film

2009-01-04T16:03:00.001-08:00

I have recently become a bit obsessed with photography (something I had always planned never to get involved with). Master photographer and good friend Rajah Bose set me up with a couple of cameras and some film. My good friend Kim loaned me a tripod. A "Thank you" to them. The following are the better (albeit grainy) images from my first roll of 35mm film.

Tip: You can click on them to make them full-size.

PolaRose
I wish the background here hadn't been so focused.

Obligatory Nature Shot
I know these photos are a dime a dozen, but this one turned out exactly as I had planned.

Cigarette Silk Quilt
This quilt (currently being displayed at the MAC) is made from Cigarette Silks. The photo isn't as symmetrical as I intended it to be.

PolaRose
Morgan looks cool here; I especially like the light spots in her glasses.

Parallax & Snacks
I did minimal set-up for this one, but I like it. Included are: Navel orange, Medium Tillamook cheddar cheese, Summer sausage from Christmas, Ritz crackers (there is absolutely no way to tell how old a Ritz cracker is by tasting it...weird), and Webster's New World College Dictionary 4th ed. (recommended purchase).

Bedroom Window
I'm most satisfied with this picture. I did a lot of set-up before taking it, and used the bulb setting with the camera on a tripod. This is exactly how I envisioned it turning out. Also, I'd like to brag about the window being EXACTLY centered in the frame.

I'm currently shooting some B&W, but it's ISO 100, and I was shooting it in a dark winery, repeatedly forgetting that half- and quarter-second shots require a bit of stability. We'll see how they turn out, but I'm not holding out much hope. In any case, taking pictures is hecka fun.

One of the Reasons I Probably Hate You

2008-12-17T03:34:00.001-08:00

Jack
By Jacob Butcher

Dear Santa Claus,
Or God/Jesus/Uncomfortable Cliché,
Or Atheistic, Paradoxical Non-God,
Or jumbly-brained oldman,

For Christmas, I would like
My dead dog back (alive).
Please return him to a youthful age,
Before he had old-dog problems (bad hips).

The reason I want him to be back:
He was a cool guy, and characterous.
And on a related note,
He was a great judge of character.

He was tactful for a beast,
But maintained a certain independence
Like so many of my friends
Who (unlike him) are bipeds.

He had a good sense of humor,
And was personable,
And was primal:
He had a lust for the chase.

He was tall, and lean, and had neat hair,
and he was neutered.
He attacked a couple people,
And for good reason.

I learned more from him than I did from the following:
High school teachers,
College instructors,
Television and the internet and most people.

And every time I come home
And unlock the door and step inside,
I expect to see him, coming to greet me
And imagining my adventures (from scent).

My house is cluttered and empty.
Sometimes there are folk, and it is less-empty.
Sometimes I do stupid things.
I wish my old dog was around.

Some Poetry

2008-11-10T17:59:00.000-08:00

The following are a few poems I wrote.

Wallet

I bought a new wallet
but then,
after,
I didn't have any money to put in it.
In fact,
I lied.
I've already got a perfectly good
wallet with
no money in it.

Italian Sonnet

The poets and the poet's analysts
In following tradition of the times
Confine their focus down to fourteen lines.
Though praising masters for their language,
They rip and rend the verse for evidence.
The warm and fertile womb that was inside
Lies cold and barren, shredded of its pride,
Raped in an alleyway by Academics.

When writing an Italian Sonnet,
It is important to note that
The best thing you can do is
rock
and
roll
and
fuck
it
all
up.

Tools

Computers are for term papers, and other formatted nonsense.

The typewriter has his place with wanna-be beats, and
certain curious children
hunting an idealized
Punch!
after de-cobwebbing it in grandma's basement,
then moving on to the mason jars.

The pencil you sharpen and make precision attacks,
and then as the fight wears on
you have to re-sharpen,
and back and forth like that,
like D'Artagnan.

The pen is more human:
he will die on you.
Unexpectedly.
Somehow you don't even give him a proper burial.
You chuck him in the heap
next to crumpled sheets
that are
stained
with his dried entrails.

Cherry Creek

2008-11-10T17:45:00.000-08:00

This is a flash-fiction story I wrote for English 270.

Cherry Creek
By Jacob Butcher

I sat in the bed of the rusted Chevy, watching my sun set, watching the prairie turn from yellow to purple. I imagined foreign painters who would get this scene exactly right.

I heard Kaylee coming a mile away; even though she lived on the res her whole life, she never got good at climbing through barbwire fences. When she showed up each evening, I never knew what to look at, her or the sunset - they were so close. She yelled when she started to get near, “You should get a damn license so I don’t have to walk my ass down here every night.”

I waited until she got closer, then said at a normal volume, “Wouldn’t make a difference,” I slapped the side of the truck with my hand, “she’s got no wheels.”

“And some shit, eh? Engine’s in the wrong place,” she said and pointed at me. We laughed, and then she climbed in and plopped down next to me.

My paradise: Kaylee and me, sitting in the back of a run-down truck, talking over the endless silence and watching the fading horizon.

She was moving away to school. Education was a rare pursuit for people here, and I would have felt terrible trying to keep her here with some sentimental lines, so I kept quiet.

“Why don’t you come with me?” she asked.

“I don’t want to,” I said, half-lying.

I could feel the sun seeping up from the other side of the Earth, up through the dirt, through the bed of the truck, burning a hole through me.

Who the hell is Josh Ritter?

2008-09-29T18:29:00.001-07:00

Who the hell is Josh Ritter, you say? Well, my dear ladies and gentlemen, you'd better fucking find out.

The Temptation of Adam
Written by Josh Ritter

If this was the Cold War we could keep each other warm
I said on the first occasion that I met Marie
We were crawling through the hatch that was the missile silo door
And I don't think that she really thought that much of me

I never had to learn to love her, like I learned to love the bomb
She just came along and started to ignore me
But as we waited for the big one, I started singing her my songs
And I think she started feeling something for me

We passed the time with crosswords that she thought to bring inside
What five letters spelled apocalypse she asked me
I won her over singing W-W-I-I-I
Oh she smiled and we both knew that she misjudged me

Oh Marie it was so easy to fall in love with you
Fell almost like a home of sorts or something
And you would keep the warhead missile silo good as new
And I'd watch you with my thumb above the button

Then one night you found me in my army issue cot
And you told me of your flash of inspiration
You said fusion was the broken heart that's lonely's only thought
And all night long you drove me wild with your equations

Oh Marie do you remember all the time we used to take
Making love and then ransack the rations
I think about you leaving now in the avalanche cascades
And my eyes get washed away in chain reactions

Oh Marie if you would stay then we could stick pins in the map
Of all the places where you thought that love would be found
But I would only need one pin to show where my love's at
In a top secret location 300 feet under the ground

Oh we could hold each other close, we'd stay up every night
Looking up into the dark like it's the night sky
Pretend this giant missile is an old oak tree instead
And I'd carve our name and hearts into the warhead

Oh Marie there's something tells me things just wont work out above
That our love would live a half-life on the surface
So at night while your are sleeping I hold you closer just because
As our time grows short I get a little nervous

So I think about the big one, W-W-I-I-I
Would we ever really care the world had ended?
You could hold me here forever like you're holding me tonight
I think about that great big button and I'm tempted

A Life Lesson

2008-04-14T22:08:00.000-07:00

For the past three or four weeks, I've had nothing but Frosted Mini Wheats for breakfast. You know what I'm talking about - one side's frosted, one's not. I love them. The other day I was at Wal-Mart, preparing to buy yet another box of said Wheats, when I noticed my good buddy Harrison Ford staring at me from a box of Froot [sic] Loops. I was informed by the box that if I purchased it, I'd also get an Indiana Jones Adventure Spoon.

Now I want you to stop for a moment and put yourself in my shoes: You're a person who
a) loves adventures, and
b) loves eating cereal.
Can you think of anything more perfect? I, sir or madam, cannot.

Needless to say, I bought the box of cereal just for the spoon, and I did not buy a box of Frosted Mini Wheats. Little did I know that this simple choice would unfold into a deep, revelatory experience.

I rushed home and opened the box to retrieve my prize. The spoon itself was pretty cool. It had a switch and a button on the handle which activated a little LED light, that in turn illuminated the transparent spoon-head. There were three different types of spoons that I could have received: A green-glowing spoon with a snake on it, a red one with an ant, and a yellow one with a skull. I wanted the yellow one, but I got the red one, and I'm ok with that.

As I previously stated, I'd been eating Frosted Mini Wheats (FMW) for the past month, so I was more-or-less a professional in the field of Wheats (note: not to be confused with a farmer, who is professional of a "wheat field"). I had a specific spoon I'd use that held the FMW's perfectly. I knew how to measure the perfect cereal-to-milk ratio - I was good. Then all hell broke loose...

Feeling a bit of pity for the still unused box of Froot Loops, I decided to pour myself a bowl. I dumped in the Loops first, like any normal person would (though I've heard that in Australia, the Loops go clockwise into the bowl), followed by a generous splash of milk. To my astonishment, the Loops hurried to the top of the bowl as if running from the milk. Something was not right. FMW would never do this to me, I mean, we had a system worked out: Wheats stay put in the bottom of the bowl while I carefully (yet liberally) introduce milk into their habitat. FMW would never float! Loops were not playing by the rules. Was this some kind of a sick joke? I glanced for a moment at Toucan Sam; his species-confused, hyper-evolutionary "bird finger" pointing right at me, and his cocky smirk which seemed to say, "Bought the box for the prize, eh? This'll teach ya! Better luck next time sucker!" Toucan Sam is a dirty saboteur.

The first lesson I learned is to never trust anything that thinks a painfully simple Aztec Maze is valid entertainment. The second, and more important lesson came to me after I actually ate the Loops.

After shoveling the last couple of Loops into my mouth, I noticed that I had a large amount of milk left. This came as a great shock to me. Whenever I would finish a serving of FMW, I'd have just enough milk left to wet my whistle before rinsing out the bowl in the sink. But this was outrageous. There was enough milk here to eat four or five chocolate chip cookies. The game had gone too far. It was time to end it. I gulped down the large remainder of milk in defiance, and felt overly-quenched. I set down the bowl, and let the milk settle in my belly, right next to the harsh realization that I wasn't such a hot-shot cereal expert. I had learned my lesson.

I had been familiar with FMW, and falsely assumed that I was familiar with all cereals. I began to analyze the other areas of my life, trying to determine where else I had overestimated myself. The truth is that as humans, we are capable of getting really good at certain things, but unless we push our boundaries and endeavor for something new, we'll only ever have a handful of things we're good at.

Perhaps there is a great purpose in getting really good at one thing. Perhaps it activates our interests and our confidence, and gives us the motivation needed to pursue the area even further. I've realized that I find enjoyment in being a cereal expert, and now I see the scope of my quest - it is much larger than I had initially expected. But being an FMW expert gave me a taste of what it would be like to be a professional cereal-preparer. And oh, what a frosted taste it was.

About This Site

2008-01-15T13:59:00.000-08:00

Dear Reader or Potential Contributor,

My goal with this site is to document my observations and thoughts pertaining mostly to the arts. Some of the topics I'll be focusing on are: Films, Video Games, Books, and Music. If you'd like to know more about me and why I find these topics interesting, then please check out my obligatory About Me page.

I'm currently undertaking a film project, in which I'm watching one movie a day for a whole year. As you may have guessed, lots of my posts will be about these movies.

edit: My film project was officially discontinued after my first day in the class "Film 104." You can, however, find a list of the movies I did watch by clicking this link.

Hopefully there will be some useful discussion generated in my posts. I encourage everyone to contribute their opinions, ideas, criticisms, or even simple corrections if I've made an error somewhere along the way. I welcome any suggestions on how to make this blog better. Basically, if you've got something to say, please don't hesitate to say it.

My email is:
jacobbutcher@gmail.com

2008 Movie Project List

2008-01-01T18:45:00.000-08:00

The following is a list of movies I watched for my movie project, beginning December 31st, 2007, and ending June 2008. They are listed in the order in which I watched them.

Once
A Face in The Crowd
Bukowski: Born Into This
Igby Goes Down
Bringing Up Baby
Nosferatu, A Symphony of Horror
The Thing
28 Weeks Later
A Scanner Darkly
Straw Dogs
Me & You & Everyone We Know
Vacancy
Futurama: Bender's Big Score
The Squid and The Whale
Suicide Club
The World's Fastest Indian
I'm Not There
Juno
The Seven Faces of Dr. Lao
Little Miss Sunshine
Close Encounters of The Third Kind
Cloverfield
Battle Royale
Delicatessen
Bug
Cannibal Holocaust
The Mad
About a Boy
Stranger Than Fiction
The Motel
Hope & Glory
There Will Be Blood
Mystery Science Theater 3000: Bloodlust!
Elephant
Heartworn Highways
Down By Law
Les Triplettes de Belleville
Duck Soup
The Devil & Daniel Johnston
High Society
Running with Scissors
Stalker
The Man from Earth
Gaslight
Annie Hall
Perfect Blue
Eastern Promises
Tetsuo, the Iron Man
Dark City
King of California
American Gangster
Good Night & Good Luck
Easy Rider
Event Horizon
Sunshine
The Seventh Seal
Winter Passing
Planet Terror
The Howling
Ladri di Biciclette
The Man Who Laughs
Pierrot le Fou
Pale Rider
Little Children
Paris, Texas
Last Life in The Universe
The Princess Bride
Science of Sleep
Castle in The Sky
Eyes Without A Face
The Jacket
Midnight Cowboy
The Magnificent Ambersons
M
The Girl Who Leapt Through Time
The Boondock Saints
Picnic at Hanging Rock
Rambo
Rocket Science
Once Upon a Time in The West
Where Eagles Dare
The Fifth Element
Million Dollar Baby
Solaris
Return to House on Haunted Hill
Halloween (2007)
Schindler's List
Faust: A German Folk Tale
Rebel Without a Cause
Chinatown
Broken Flowers
Eraserhead
Citizen Kane
Blade Runner
On The Waterfront
Casablanca
The Good Shepherd
Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid
The Usual Suspects
Ten Minutes Older: The Trumpet
Der Untergang
The Godfather
Hotel Rwanda
Rec
The Lives of Others
The Bridge
Ghost Dog
North by Northwest
Salo/The 120 Days of Sodom
The Omega Man
The General
Empire of The Sun
Vase de Noces
The Little Girl Who Lives Down The Lane
Cidade de Deus
London to Brighton
Teeth
Stranger Than Paradise
Nekromantik
Contact
Play Misty for Me
Mysterious Skin
Mystery Train
Atonement
Night on Earth
Island of Lost Souls
The Wild One
Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of The Crystal Skull
ils
Lolita (1997)
The Last Man on Earth
Pretty Baby
The Graduate
Permanent Vacation
Operation Petticoat
Heartbreak Ridge
2001: A Space Odyssey
The Haunting
El Orfanato
Repulsion

About Me

1985-06-28T16:56:00.000-07:00

The following are facts about me:

I write.
I play guitar, piano, banjo, ukulele, trumpet, violin, and harmonica.
I suspect that my favorite book is Bram Stoker's "Dracula", though I'd have to read it through again to know for sure.
My favorite movies are all by Wes Anderson (except for There Will Be Blood).
I love being scared, which is one of the reasons I love survival-horror video games.
I'm a fool for original PlayStation games.
I have a girlfriend.
I drink tea every day.
I'm extremely organized.
I can speak a bit of Japanese.
I like sewing.
I want to learn French.
I don't drink, though I occasionally smoke pipe tobacco.
Speaking of vices, I think pornography is a good thing.
I have a BA in English.
I value practical education.
I believe that age and intelligence have only minor correlations, however, once you're old enough, you are entitled to a certain amount of respect (I've not yet reached that age).
My favorite band is "the pillows."
I brush and floss, and I'm proud of it.
I do a crossword puzzle every day.
I have patience.
I am interested in electronics.
I would love to write and direct films and animations.
I take manual photographs.
I'm learning to draw pictures.
I dislike politics.

This is what I look like (middle row):

Lighthouse­