February 27, 2004
eurobread
i present my current favorite of the breads available at niedlov's breadworks - the european country loaf: half white flour, half wheat flour, all natural, and all euro.
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john perkins rolled into town late last night, around 9, right around the time we were finishing up house dinner. we caught up for a few minutes and finally ended up heading down to chattanooga billiards club for a couple hours.
February 26, 2004
snowday
two days ago i was wearing flip-flops, and cruising around in a t-shirt. granted, it was still a little chilly, and people gave me some funny looks for the flops, but who'd have thought there'd be snow on the ground by today? the weather in chattanooga this time of year can be so schizophrenic. its all worth it though for the wonder that is spring in this part of the country. when the weather begins to turn warm, and this city shakes off its winter slumber, its all i can do to stay inside at a desk for eight hours. thank goodness for Wi-Fi.
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for those of you enjoying the bread photos, the final installment will be back tomorrow. and for those of you fed up with the carbs, its only one more day. this morning i took roommate brent to the airport (he's going to chicago to see his sister and the thomas girls) and walked out without the bread-photos CD, so the passat-in-the-snow will just have to do for today.
john perkins rolls into town this evening for an impromptu "bachelors-weekend." he's getting married in 3 weeks and we decided to invite him down for a few days with the boys before he "ships out." poker tomorrow night, a viewing of the passion on saturday perhaps, and a big sunday lunch i hope before he heads back to st.louis.
February 25, 2004
(w)holybread
this is the famous niedlov's wholely whole wheat, or the "www" as john jokingly refers to it, and its cousins. i can't remember the names of them all, but they're all variations on the theme of being whole grain wheat breads (and rumor has it on the approved list for atkins types?).
hmm... i'm running out of things to say about the bakery, but there's plenty more pictures.
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February 24, 2004
lunarbread
angela sweet, of niedlov's breadworks, holds up a ciabatta loaf that's been cut down the middle to expose the crumb. i have another photo in the collection similar to this one but much closer to the loaf, and if you didn't know what you were looking at, you might think it was a satellite photo of some alien world. john and angela tell me that this is a pretty ideal "crumb" for a ciabatta loaf because of its consistent inconsistentness. you see, the holes in the crumb are of varying size and spacing, but they are consistently so... if that makes any sense. either way, it makes for a beautiful and delicious loaf of bread. i think i ate about a loaf and a half on friday afternoon. (okay, i think i just used the word "loaf" five times in that paragraph - somebody stop me.)
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shattered glass was actually much better than i'd expected. i think i was expecting your typical "be sure your lies will find you out" story, but was surprised to find it a great deal more compelling. the director's ability to cause you to sympathize with both sides of the story is impressive, and the acting is quite good. peter sarsgaard gives this speech towards the end of the film that nearly had me on my feet in a applause.
February 23, 2004
wonderbread
as promised, here is the first in what may be a 5 piece carbohydrate collection. we're working on the niedlov's breadworks website, and i was able to spend a few hours on friday and saturday playing around with loaves of bread down at the bakery. it wasn't nearly long enough. the sweets consider themselves artisan bakers, and the artisan element really comes out when you start to closely examine these loaves. it sounds kind of funny, be each loaf seems a small work of art on its own. this photo is a collection of most of the different kinds of bread that they bake, from the european country loaf to the wholey whole wheat.
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last night mesh and i caught the 10:15 (and only) showing of city of god. i hadn't really heard anything about it until he mentioned it at church on sunday, but its a pretty incredible film. a central/south-american piece, feels similar to some others like amores perros, and traffic. its shot with a great deal of style and a level of mindless violence that leaves one a little stunned. at the same time, mesh and i both expressed a little disappointment over how little emotional involvement the characters evoked. tonight is shattered glass, down at the bijou - the story of the fall from grace of fabricational journalist stephen glass. the show starts at 7:10 for all interested.
February 21, 2004
saturday evening post
i think this may be a first. posting a photo on a saturday that is... for the most part i've kept this daily photo thing to weekdays only, but seeing as i didn't really make it into work yesterday, and i'm playing catchup today, it only seems fitting to post an image. as some of you have probably already guessed, this is another photo from a show at lamar's. "the quiet ones" consist of the totten brothers (john, chris, and david) along with ryan (alimony) dixon. they typically put on a pretty rockin' show, and last night was no exception. celebrating the birthday of an 'el toro de blanco' bandmember, they seemed to have a little more fun this set than usual, and lamar's was packed like i've never seen.
i'm really looking forward to next week's photos. i spent the last couple of days photographing bread at niedlov's and i'm tempted to devote a whole week to those images. you might not think it, but the various loaves of bread that the sweets bake make for incredible photographic subjects. you'll see...
February 19, 2004
rock steady
we live across the street from what apparently used to be one of the classic SEE ROCK CITY barns. granted, in recent years i think this one had become more of storage shed than anything else, but it still had a quaint charm to it. for some reason they're tearing it down, or at least renovating it, and each morning when i come out it looks a little more pathetic. i hope that they'll replace it with another rock city barn, but at this point i'm a little skeptical -- "even the mona lisa is falling apart," i guess...
February 18, 2004
heavenly parking
i'm doing something a little different for today's photo. coptix has started using me for photography assignments in addition to my general programming responsibilities and yesterday i shot a handful of "chattanooga-ish" photographs for one of our clients. i don't know that they'll actually use this one so i thought i'd post it here. you've probably seen this parking garage downtown, across the street from the read house, if you're in chattanooga. i've always wanted to photograph it, and now even more so. i have to admit, this image has been doctored in photoshop a little to make the colors pop, and the blue sky was a bit of "post-production," but i like sense of unreality they lend.
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no time to write today -- got a big deadline for a client tomorrow that i need to make some headway on today. more updates on thursday...
February 17, 2004
women at work
more photos from the weekend. lang and charity continue to make progress on their "new" house on st.elmo avenue. i think they spent nearly a week scraping the glue off of the hardwood floors by hand in this room -- charity and kiko hard at work in this photo. apparently the floor sander gets all gummed up if you don't get the glue off first. somehow i managed to dodge ever actually getting on my knees and picking up a chisel for the whole process though - which i feel kind of bad about. (i'm serious, i thought the girls were having "girl time" while the boys were on the deck having beers...) either way, there's still plenty of work to be done.
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well i think the general concensus on the triplets of belleville last night was, as lang put it, somewhere between "really great" and "freakin' awesome." granted, the entire work has a bit of a melancholy feel to it, but i really do think i had a grin on my face from the opening scene to the final credits. it was such a rich film in so many ways: the hand-drawn animation, the musical editing, even the cartoon violence. go see it, or wait for it come out on DVD and buy it.
February 16, 2004
sunday lunches
i can't remember if i've ever mentioned it here before, but since we moved into the house on lookout mountain we've begun having big sunday lunches nearly every other week. it started as isaac's idea to bring people from his church, rock creek fellowship, together after worship, but since has expanded to include many other people -- sometimes as many as 40+ guests. isaac still manages the meals, giving food assignments each week to various roommates and friends, but the collection of people gathered and churches represented has become quite ecumenical, so to speak. (if you're in the area and would like to join us sometime, i can let you know when the next one is.) today's photo is from yesterday's lunch. as the afternoon wanes, folks tend to disperse to seats on the floor and couches, chatting, reading the paper, or even napping. (which reminds me, congrats to jes, er lee, on another ny times book review...)
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the independent film this week at the bijou theatre is called the triplets of belleville and, i must admit, looks truly fascinating. okay, yes, it is animated, but since when does that really say anything about the quality of a film (see finding nemo, the iron giant, etc, etc). and yes, it is french, so it has a few strikes against it. but check out the website, the trailer, and the reviews (a 90 on metacritic is pretty dang impressive), and join us tonight at 7:30 at the bijou to find out for yourself. oh, and for those who missed the house of sand and fog last week, its still playing.
February 13, 2004
view from a driveway
sometimes when i leave for work in the morning and i haven't taken a photo for the blog yet i scramble to find something to photograph on the drive down. granted, living on lookout mountain means that most of the time this isn't too difficult, especially if i get an early enough start. this is the view looking east from our driveway, pulling out onto mcfarland road. basically, at any ponit between 7 and 8 am you're guaranteed a pretty breathtaking view of both the sun rising and the fog lifting out of the valley. its hard to believe that i sometimes go entire weeks without appreciating this simple beauty just outside our front door.
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from the things-i-wanna-plug department: grandaddy is cool. so is bishop allen. and so is the apple iTunes music store for selling me both of them. yeesh. oh, trillian is cool too. i finally caved and bought the professional version this week, and not because the freebie version isn't good. its just such a quality product i felt compelled to support the developers. now they just need to port it for OS X.
February 12, 2004
coffee... for buzz?
i suppose its fitting to follow yesterday's entry with a photo of my other favorite beverage. funny how they look so much alike. coptix recently received a 48 ounce bodum french press as a gift. we were beginning to make 3 or 4 presses a day with the old 32 ouncer. thankfully now we're down to a, well, manageable 2 to 3 a day. but, as i mentioned before, apparently coffee is now good for you, and the more the better.
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from the "apple, here's my wallet" department: the new york times reviews a bunch of the iPod competitors today, and "The iPod is still smaller, more attractive and more thoughtfully designed than any of the upstarts." not that this comes as any surprise though. apple continues to do a stunningly good job of designing their products, and an even better job of marketing them. granted, i'm a sucker for a cool gadget, but ever since my brother tim got one for christmas i've had an insufferable case of iPod-envy. and you know, as soon as i can get my iBook paid off, i think i'm gonna buy one...
February 11, 2004
guinness for strength
a fresh guinness and a bowl of free peanuts now awaits me each tuesday night. we've relocated our weekly "BS hour" over to durty nelly's irish pub, and it seems to be working out well. they've begun to recognize us at the door, greet us by name, and seat us at "our booth." this is the kind of routine i can handle.
progress on the home-office is coming along. the cable guy showed up yesterday, and you can imagine where it went from there... he fixed the cable? (sorry, couldn't resist.) um, right, so tonight we set up the firewall, and the wireless hub and, with any luck, jump online.
February 10, 2004
frozen vw
i took a handful of photos over the weekend when it was snowy, and then didn't take any yesterday, so today's photo is from the backlog. the winter is always a difficult time for the passat - she's very tempermental. the hardware in the doors is particularly delicate and i'm beginning to worry that one of these days i'm going to get stuck either in or out of my car. for now, the driver-side doors only work from the outside, and the passenger-side doors only from the inside - which means i'm continually rolling down my own window to let myself out. she's got alot of character i like to think...
well, i should say that i didn't take any photos yesterday that can be used here on the blog just yet. i actually did take a few for a pulse story that's running on wednesday about valentine's day. mesh and i spent about an hour interrogating, i mean interviewing, the man-on-the-street about his/her plans for the holiday. mesh's three questions, which brought an assortment of responses, were: 1) what are you doing for valentine's day? 2) what's the most romantic spot in chattanooga? and 3) (the kicker) what is love? most people gave either joking or self-effacing answers to the first two and then suddenly seized with confusion when faced with the third. i think the best answer we received was something like: "uh. umm... let me call my wife..."
February 09, 2004
snowy reflections
for some reason i'm really drawn to reflections in car windows and, i think, for greater reasons than pure vanity. something about the way images are reflected in car windows always looks very cinematic to me, somehow weightier, almost epic. i guess its some coating on the glass that gives it that silvery sheen, but it has the same flattering effect that black-and-white film does where everyone and everything looks artsy and meaningful. i saw this reflection of myself and the house in isaac's long van window on saturday morning. it snowed an inch or so over the weekend and you can see the bits of snow stuck to the glass. there's another idea for a photo series: car-window-reflection-portraits. i've got to get my darkroom set up...
saturday, by the way, was very productive. brent and i built a loft in our bedroom with a lot of help from jackson. the idea is to get an office set up in the house for brent to be able to work from home. i'm looking forward to having my own "office space" in there too so i can do all this photo work and bloggery from home.
we watched the addiction last night -- one of my favorite vampire films i think. i hadn't watched it in years, and i'd forgotten how heavy-handed the philosophical and religious themes are in it. still its very thought provoking, and always provides a good discussion afterwards.
February 06, 2004
party leftovers
isaac has continued to make a great deal of progress on his construction work in the kitchen. we now have a refridgerator/microwave case and more cabinets and counterspace than we'll know what to do with. as things were being shifted around last night i came upon this photoblog-entry-waiting-to-happen. these bottles have been sitting on the counter this way since i returned after the new year. apparently they're a few of the wine bottles that were sampled by the 40-odd guests at what has been called the best party of 2003 (and possibly 2004) that took place at our house on new year's eve. at one point i thought about doing the bottles-per-person math but gave up when the two numbers began to look about the same.
no big plans for the weekend. we may begin work on the loft up in our bedroom tomorrow, and mesh and i are meeting with bill (of the pulse) to discuss valentines day stories. thus far, we've had trouble coming up with any interesting ideas, probably because no one actually likes this holiday. And yet, the idea of taking a caustic, or at least cynical, approach to a holiday devoted to love seems a little in bad taste...anti-valentines-day partys notwithstanding.
February 05, 2004
journey vs. guilt trip
this sign keeps catching my eye whenever i drive down lookout mountain lately. perhaps i should say these signs, as they are all over the mountain now (i took pictures of three just on my way down this morning) and it appears to be a pretty common sentiment in churches these days. it was rainy this morning, so its not such a crisp picture, and if you can't read it, it says "Faith is a Journy, not a Guilt Trip -- Lookout Mtn. Baptist." something about it irritates me, though i'm having a hard time putting my finger on exactly what. its not that i disagree fundamentally: faith certainly isn't a guilt trip, but then, its not soley a journey either. but its ambiguity isn't what bothers me. i think its the implications that it makes about all other churches. that is, basically what its saying is that if you come to LMBC they won't associate guilt with "faith" like all those other guilt-ridden churches do. and its not even that i think they're pointing the finger at any particular church as much i find it worrisome that they'd put such a loaded statement on a roadside sign and clutter the landscape with them. as if faith weren't a diluted enough concept already...
February 04, 2004
i was born (a unicorn)
...I was born a unicorn. I missed the ark but I could have sworn you'd wait for me... I was born a unicorn. I could have sworn you believed in me. Then how come all the other unicorns are dead?...We're the unicorns. We're more than horses. We're the unicorns and we're people too...
last night stephen and i drove down to atlanta to catch the unicorns show at the earl. summer hymns opened (disappointing), along with a singer-songwriter nerdkween (confusing), but the unicorns definitely stole the show. they're 3 kids (they can't be older than 21 or 22) from montreal, canada who seemed somewhat dumbfounded to find themselves in a crowded room of adoring southern fans. the trip was worth it just for the presence these guys exude on stage; trading snipes at southern proclivities with self-deprecating canadian humor.
from the foolish-music-predictions department: you heard it here first; these kids will go far. (okay, so a few other people are saying it too, but this is the first place you heard it.) they remind me of a young flaming lips - heaps of experimental vision mixed with raw pop sensibility. check out their website, their tunes, and the insightful review on pitchfork.
February 03, 2004
spring series
as i mentioned a few days ago, the collection of films for the spring independent film series at the bijou has been fully compiled. you can find a list of them here. i think it may be one of the strongest series yet. i mean, just look at the list of directors: Iñárritu, Sheridan, Altman, Errol Morris... the hits just don't stop. the photo today is from a series of images i did on the bijou theatre for the next Pulse cover story. mesh wrote a piece anticipating the film series and we combined on a collage for the cover. keep an eye out for it -- should hit the streets tonight.
speaking of mesh and the film series... he's secured a position for himself as the new film reviewer at WUTC for the spring series. i think he'll be watching them every friday afternoon and giving a review on the air around 5, so keep listening for that.
February 02, 2004
rockin' the vine
isaac and the totten boys reached new levels of rock and roll hysteria on friday night at the vine. at different points during the night i actually began to wonder if they'd all survive the set. isaac kept resting on the railing to catch his breath and and drummer-chris had some trouble keeping his drums in the upright position. the fans were adoring and called for an encore before they even left the stage. this bodes well for the band and the venue it seems.
another hec-tick week coming up. got a late start this morning after a late night watching 28 days later. i knew that i loved this film when i saw it in the theatres, but i'd forgotten how much until watching it again last night. yes, its a bit gruesome and you may want to be careful how many females you want to watch it with as their screams tend to drown out the dialogue, but in the unforgettable words of jack black in high fidelity: "its so funny and violent, and the soundtrack..." well, you know....
from the shameless-self-promotional-plug department: the cambridge study center down in lakeland, FL has a new website. they've also posted their recent literary/arts journal which i have some photos in if you want to check it out.