Swanky

When you get the chance to see Yonder Mountain String Band three nights in a row, you take it. They played in Salt Lake City last Thursday night, then Friday at the Boulder Theater in lovely Boulder, Colorado, and Saturday night at Red Rocks in Morrison, and we were there for all three.
Usually when we go to Boulder, we stay at the hostel up on the hill and usually, it's decent (just decent). Well, we'd never been to Boulder in August and failed to take the hostel's lack of air conditioning into account. When we got back to our room at 1 o'clock Saturday morning, it was hotter than holy Hell. An hour and a half later, we packed up our stuff and found a hotel room with a/c. By 2:30 AM, we'd been up for 21 hours and we weren't thinkin' quite right, so we ended up at a swanky hotel (instead of say, the Best Western) and paid way too much, but we had cool air, a comfortable bed, a clean bathroom, and absolute peace and quiet, so we really didn't care. Saturday morning when we finally rolled out of bed at 11, we spotted the pool on our way to get breakfast and decided right then and there that we would spend the remainder of our trip in lounge chairs poolside. It was the best decision we've made in some time. I love Boulder.

?!

Seriously. How did it get to be August?!

Do yourself a favor. Listen.

I ____:

After all of my sadness about my SX-70 camera and photography in general earlier this week, it turned out to be a really great week for both. I am now the proud owner of this beautiful SX-70 Alpha "Sears Special" and four more packs of Artistic TZ. I bit the bullet and bought both. I had to. After my bummer of a Monday, I required some retail therapy.

I was perusing the lovely Bits & Pieces of a Happy Life blog by Erica, and found this little ditty and decided to fill it in with my answers. I love survey-ish questionaire thingies like this.

I AM: terribly excited to use this sweet new Polaroid SX-70 tomorrow (replacement for dead SX-70, thanks Nate!).
I WANT: Travis to come home from work. It's almost 8:30 on a Friday night!
I WISH: I could go on tour with Grace Potter and the Nocturnals.
I HATE: going to bed some nights. I'm like a kid. I fight it because I'm just not ready to sleep. I have websites to peruse, magazines to read, pointless random stories to tell...
I MISS: lazy summer days filled with nothing but popsicles and riding bikes.
I HEAR: "Ribs and Whiskey" by Widespread Panic, and myself clicking away on the keyboard
I WONDER: how I could get packages of Goofy Sours from Disneyland sent to my house.
I REGRET: getting out of the habit of walking everyday. I used to walk up to two hours a day and felt really good about myself.
I AM NOT: very motivated.
I DANCE: like an uncoordinated white girl/hippie at concerts and I don't care!
I SING: very poorly but out loud in the car all the time and in front of my computer if I've got something playing from iTunes
I CRY: "cry" isn't the right word, sometimes I get slightly teary at concerts because I feel so alive and usually they're outside and the scenery is amazing and I always feel so lucky to be there, listening to great music with my best friend.
I AM NOT ALWAYS: late, despite what my husband might tell you.
I MAKE WITH MY HANDS: most recently, a stitched felt Polaroid camera cover for a Flickr friend in Encino, CA, the lovely Fotonomous.
I WRITE: two blogs and on two Flickr accounts.
I CONFUSE: myself. I can be a real dumb ass sometimes.
I NEED: to travel more. There's a whole world out there that I need to see.
I SHOULD: get started on scanning my family Polaroids for a Christmas gift.
I START: too many projects.
I FINISH: not enough of said projects. I'm well-intentioned, but lose interest.

Happy weekend!

Burnt Cake

Today, July 21, 2008 is officially my worst photography day ever. Last night, after shooting three nice shots with my SX-70 and overpriced (but it's not your fault, Freestyle) new/old Artistic TZ film (that I've already fallen in love with), I pressed the shutter for a fourth time, and the camera made all its normal clicking, thunking and whirring but the film didn't eject. I hmm-ed out loud, pressed the shutter again and still no film.

I came home, and frantically posted on the Polaroid SX-70 group on Flickr about my trouble and after some very kind and helpful advice, I thought that it was a simple fix: the battery in the film pack was dead. I tried a regular pack of 600 film and shot five successful frames, and then it happened again. The film stopped ejecting. I did a little more searching and question-asking on Flickr and came to the conclusion that the pick-up arm inside the camera wasn't picking up. I carefully bent it down a smidge, and popped the now-ruined pack of 600 film in, and now I have a compounded problem. The film still won't eject, and now the camera is making a hideous screechy squealing noise and it won't stop cycling. I give up.

I thought long and hard about buying the Artistic TZ in the first place because it was $24.99 + shipping per pack of eight images (8!) -- that's about $3 per shot! -- and finally decided that this will be the only time in my life when I'll be able to use real SX-70 film in an SX-70, and not only that, but it's Time Zero. It's manipulable. Yesterday, as we sat in the shade at Creekside Park in Salt Lake, eating our sandwiches before a nice game of disc golf, I took the shot above and instantly fell in love with how beautiful and soft and oddly-colored this Artistic TZ film is and said out loud, "I think I'm going to have to get more of this." My mind was made up. I was ready to put down some cash for this lovely new but already expired film, and then my camera does this. I still want more film, but now I'm going to have to buy another SX-70 on top of it, and I just don't have the money to do both right now. I'm so heartbroken I could just cry.

And on top of all of this, I finally found a local place that could develop my 38-year old roll of Kodacolor-X that came with my pretty little Brownie Hawkeye, and of course, nothing came out on it. It was blank, save for one frame that has a dark corner. Sour icing on top of my burnt photography cake.

It's days like this that make me wonder why I do this to myself.

Grace Potter!

Last night we were dazzled by Grace Potter & the Nocturnals at a free concert at Snowbird. After belting out her amazing music for about an hour and a half, Grace hung out at the merch tent to sign things and take pictures with her fans. My friend Amanda and I stood in line for a couple minutes and then got to chat with Grace for about five (which is an eternity when you're chatting with a rock star!). I asked if I could take a picture of her with my Polaroid camera and she gasped and said "I LOVE POLAROID! We tour with like, five Polaroid cameras!" She told us that she did a Polaroid shoot with The Flight of the Concords and "did crazy stuff, like put my legs over the guys" (and at this point, she threw her leg into the air while she told the story) "and then I left all the Polaroids in a cab."

As Grace was signing Amanda's new shirt, I told Grace I met her at Red Rocks two years ago and she kind of rolled her eyes and smiled and said "I apologize. That was a... cuh-razy show." I just laughed and said how great it was and she said thanks. We took some pictures together and then I took the Polaroid and she signed it. Grace Potter kicks ass.

More shots on my Flickr, and this shot also made it onto This is Somewhere, the Grace Potter & the Nocturnals blog!