Stephen MacLellan

Back in the world

We're back, after a week in Turkey for Spring break. Sometimes it is hard to readjust to life at home after being away, even for just a short trip.

There will be more pictures when I get around to editing and posting them.

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The Halloween Vegetable

For Halloween, I grew up carving pumpkins, like most people. But this year, we went back to the mythical roots of the jack-o-lantern, and carved turnips. Supposedly, this is also what the Irish did, before adventures to the Americas brought decorative vegetable carving to our favorite bright orange squash.

Really, we just couldn't think of what to do with the bumper crop of turnips we recieved in our farm share this year. Yikes.

And two years ago, we carved a butternut squash.

Spooky, scary!

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Truthiness

This weekend, we went to the Fluff Festival in Union Square. This event, which is put on by the Somerville Arts Council, is a celebration of peanut butter's favorite friend. And really, who didn't eat countless peanut butter-fluff sandwiches as a kid?

Well, it turns out that Fluff is a semi-regional product. Our friend from California had never heard of it, and she ate her first fluffernutter at the festival. I think it might be a difficult product to begin to appreciate as an adult. Just like Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs, Fluff is primarily consumed by those of us still in elementary school.

To be perfectly honest, I do have a container of it up on one of the shelves in my kitchen. It is not often used, and I really only bought it out of necessity. The first school I worked at was peanut free, so I tried making an almond nut butter sandwich. People say that it tastes delicious, just like peanut butter if not better. They are lying. It does not. And so, out $6 for the jar, I opted to buy some Fluff to make the whole affair more palatable. We only ate Skippy (smooth, no chunks) when I was growing up, and to this day it is hard for me to eat any other brand. I was a pretty picky eater, and my family is still amazed every time they see me eat pickles or cheese or anything with mayo on it. At Italian resturaunts, I would get garlic bread with no cheese as my dinner and loved it. Sometimes kids do strange things.

And sometimes, those strange things are just fantastically interesting.

One of the third grade kids in my afterschool likes to make up stories. We start out talking about real things, having an actual conversation, about Pokemon for example. Then all of a sudden he is talking about how he has every card ever made except for one that he gave to his friend who didn't have any Pokemon cards, and how his best card has 3 million HP and does levels of damage that don't sound within any realm of Poke-possibility (spend much time around children in middle elementary school and you very quickly become well versed in the language of Pokemon), and how last year he sold all of his brother's cards on Ebay for $40,000. I know that this kind of behavior is common, but it is just so interesting how he talks about it like it really happened, even as he is making it up on the spot.

It is also a great creative exercise for him. He doesn't really like writing in school, but it is clear that he loves to tell these stories. In the past two weeks, he has:
- talked to me for 45 minutes about all of his success on World of Warcraft (a game his older brother is very into)
- explained how a science lesson started off by pushing a rubber ball up a ramp (real) and then bounced off several trampolines in the classroom and then out the window and over the school and off roofs and cars and people and then back to the classroom
- told me about all of the fake money he has and has used with success, including a dollar bill on a string that he pulled out of the store's cash register after he used it to buy some Pokemon cards (when I asked him if that was stealing, he explained that the owner of the store has a fake charity collection jar on the counter for a dog named Charles who is purple and "very obviously drawn with crayons" and is also not the same purple dog that I made up as I was talking to him)

Now, if I could ever get him to tell me what actually happend at school...

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Pinhole

It has been a busy summer, but I did get to play with the pinhole camera my brother gave me for Christmas last year.

Using the camera is still very experimental. Exposure times are just guesses, not made in any kind of scientific way. But that has also meant that I haven't taken anything too seriously. Normally (well, back when I used a film camera regularly) I didn't take too many pictures because I only wanted to take ones I was sure were going to be good. With this camera, I can just take pictures, and not worry about them too much.

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We like to move trees around

H and I put up our little silver tree tonight, so it is starting to feel like Christmas season. I am genuinely glad that I don't work in retail, because those poor people have been listening to non-stop Christmas carols since before Thanksgiving, and they must be sick of it. I am mean, and don't want to get a real tree just yet. Probably by the end of the week I'll relent, but until then, this is what we have.

We have seen lots of people bringing their Christmas trees home this weekend: big ones on cars, a little one on the roof of a Mini Cooper, some being walked, and even one carried by a biker. That's how you know you're in Cambridge.

Speaking of things carried on bikes, H and I went to the Taza chocolate factory on Saturday. There were boatloads of people there, all shuffling along in the crowded space, entranced by the ever-present chocolate aroma. This was no Willy Wonka, unfortunately. No river of chocolate. No soda that makes you float. No oompa loomas. That's all for the better, though. I was worried I would fall in and get sucked up one of those tubes.

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Nahant, part two

I found my card reader, so here are my pictures from bright and early on Nahant.

These are two other submarine-spotting towers.

My polaroid right after developing.

In other news, it was my birthday yesterday (Sunday). Having a birthday always makes me think about what I really liked about the last year and what I want to do in the next one. Kind of like New Year's resolutions. I think one of them will be to read more. I like the idea Heather, of Walden Street, had, the book club of one. I think I'll try that. Look for something in the sidebar in the next week, if I get around to it.

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Repurposed

Bright and early Saturday morning, my brother and I drove out to Nahant to get pictures of sunrise on the beach. Of course, rather than waking up at 4:30 am to get there in time, we chose to just stay up and then go to sleep after we were done. We got lots of good pictures, and it brought me back to doing my senior project. The spot where we were taking pictures has had several military purposes over the years, from early American defense of Boston onwards. Most recently, the site - which is now a marine biology lab site for Northeastern University - was part of the Nike missile system surrounding Boston. During World War II, there were gun emplacements and several large concrete towers for spotting U-boats or other German naval vessels.

This picture is a 4 x 5 Polaroid instant color print taken with my homemade pinhole camera, a 10 minute exposure in the early-morning light. In it, you can see one of these towers (it is the rectangular thing in the center of the frame). It just so happens that this tower is owned by the family of my brother's friend, whose house is just feet from the structure. So, after his friend woke up, we went over and visited him and got to go see it from the inside.

It is always interesting to see how former military sites are reused or adapted after they are no longer in service. Some of them get bulldozed. Often they are bought and used by towns, for schools, highway departments, or other public services. If they are abandonded in place, they often become covered in grafitti and strewn with the remnants of teenage partying. This submarine-watching tower is now home to a darkroom, a pinball machine, and a set of bunkbeds, which are on the very top floor.

I'll put up more pictures after I hook my card up to my computer. Until then, you should go see my brother's pictures here.

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A bench

After making a bunch of the little Swedish footstools, I scaled the design up to a full-sized bench. This one looks awfully nice in my apartment. I'll have to build another one, because this one and another one almost just like it are getting sold.

These are pictures from before they get painted or stained. One is now a bright cheddar orange and the other will have a cherry stain on the top and a red milk paint on the legs. I'll have more pictures after they are all done and in their new homes.