"Back at the market, I muse how the photos that I take invariably bring out what I think of as local and therefore interesting."

"You're not likely to find me taking a picture of the Polish guy who was standing on the street with hand extended asking for a few coins. Or of the stores along the main drag -- they have a ubiquitous face to them that could appear anywhere at all: places of cheap clothing, a few tattoo parlors, many barbers and butchers too. I like walking up one, peering into another, but my camera waits."

Weekending somewhere obscure in Ireland, Nina reveals her approach to censorship by photographic framing.

And this says something about why I don't — like Nina — put great effort into traveling to distant places. If I were in that Irish market with my camera, I would frame the discontinuities and weird juxtapositions. I'd be drawn to what would disappoint the traveler who's looking for the old world where things are authentic and true to that particular locality.

Nina's phrase is "local and therefore interesting," but what would seem interesting to me would be the inevitable intrusions of the non-local, the very things that spoil the trip for those who formed their  idea of what they would find if they expend great effort going somewhere from of photographs framed as Nina has done.

There are many photographs at the link. It's all very romantic and beautiful in the photographs. Enjoy them. They are probably more enjoyable than taking the trip yourself. But for Nina, I believe that the trip is enjoyable in large part because she is searching for photographs like that, and it's a difficult search that requires a thought and skill. It's exciting and interesting because of the effort it takes to exclude what would not be pleasant to see. I suspect that just outside each frame is something jarring, like a Nike T-shirt or a Miley Cyrus magazine cover.

Think about that before you succumb to the fantasy that travel will be beautiful. These photographs are the lure but also the set-up for disappointment when you see that it's not like that at all, even if it is some non-touristy spot like Ballina by the Lough Derg or Limerick or wherever Nina has alighted.

Drudgetaposition of the Day.

Links:

Drudge.

"LARRY PAGE: Here’s What’s Wrong With My Voice."

"Rod Stewart: Steroid 'addiction' shrank my manhood!" ("The steroids will take down the swelling in any membrane — including your k--b-- — and it’s what you do when you’re in a bit of a pinch and need to do a show and you can’t sing.")

AND: Meade read this and asked "What's 'k--b--'?" I said, "All I could think of was 'kielbasa,' but why couldn't you print it?"

I google the phrase "The steroids will take down the swelling in any membrane" to find a website that will print the unfit-to-print word. "Knob!"

What's with the dashes before and after the "b"? Damned editors. If I have to guess the word, get the dashes right. Knob. The Daily News — which is what Drudge linked — must have gotten it from The Daily Mail, which wrote "k**b," getting the asterisks in the right place... and displaying what must be the British decorousness about a word that seems more funny than dirty to an American... at least to this American. The Daily News probably just didn't know what the word was supposed to be.

"Al Gore made $200 million. Good for him!"

Said Meade. Acknowledging that I got the reference, I said, "But he didn't do it alone..."

Meade has his computer screen open to Drudge, the right 2/3 of which looks like this right now:



It's all about smiles, as the dolphin in the lower right corner makes clear. Meade says, "Wow, George P. Bush looks like Nixon," and I say, "And Obama too... strangely." The Gore smile is waxen. For all I know the pic is of a wax depiction of the GoreBot, the ManBearPig we've come to dread.

Meanwhile, there's Leo, our new Gatsby, apparently "vibrantly alive." The word "vibrant" appears only once in "The Great Gatsby":

He felt their presence all about the house, pervading the air with the shades and echoes of still vibrant emotions.

I think you know what to do with that sentence. And if not, my belief in the harmony of the universe — or the mystical shades and echoes of pink dolphins or the reliability of the Althouse commentariat — tells me that betamax3000 will show you the way.