Keith's Odyssey to Planet Fitness: Latest reading, with lots of references

Saturday, December 27, 2025

Latest reading, with lots of references

The library books on hold arrived the morning of the 24, meaning I had to brave the traffic if I wanted something to read over the holidays. We aren't much for going to the mall, any mall, pretty well any time, and even more so in December. I was not surprised to see that South Center was a gong show, but there was hardly anyone in the library. I got in, found my books, saw another interesting one along the way and escaped.

So unlike a trip earlier in the week where I am quite prepared to say I spent more time sitting at red lights than I did driving. So much traffic.

Yes, it was minus WTF out then, and it still is now. Plus it's snowing more. And it's getting windy.

Yes, we put up our tree on schedule. Two photos for you. Yes, Celina loves it, and lurks under there almost as much as she does apricating.

Art Work by Sally Mann.

For whatever reason I thought this would be a picture book, but it's not. It's so much better than that. I'd read one of her other books, and cannot for the life of me remember which one. Nor can I find it in the library, so maybe it was a chapter about Sally Mann in another book.

In any case, this is great reading for someone just starting out in their career. Why? All the great advice. One of the great bits is, do the work. Keep doing it, and put only your best out in the world. That really resonates with me, since I was surrounded during much of my (so-called) career by people who couldn't or wouldn't do the work. I will cop to the accusation of putting less than my best out into the world, but the problem is that there is no general agreement on what is best. I look at earlier photos and wonder what I was thinking to take the photo, let alone publish it. And sometimes, the converse, finding an overlooked gem.

I told one summer student that if they wanted to get ahead of the majority of the job hunting crowd, all they had to do was reliably show up on time ready to work, and then do the work competently. At one time I had much advice about work life, but it is mercifully fading into a foggy haze. I blogged about it here, while it was still fairly fresh in mind. That is part 1 of a 5 part series, which I was told was amusing in places.

She was a prolific letter and journal writer and shares some of those. They're a fascinating insight into what's going on in her head during a very busy life. It tied back to a recent book, The Notebook, here. I've been doing a lot of writing in a notebook lately, trying to think about what I think of a particular project. No conclusions so far, except that big surprise, the initial concept is unworkable, and I'm unsure if the road from it to explore variations will bear any fruit.

It actually led me to another book, Borrowed Time by George Webber, (here), because that is a variation of what I was thinking about. That blog has several other books that are influencing my thoughts about a 2026 film project.

The Revenge of Analog by David Sax.

I thought I'd read this one before, but no. It's actually about 10 years old, catching just the beginning of the analog revival. It didn't really tell me anything I didn't already know. I checked out several of the situations mentioned and they're still around.

I certainly think of myself as an analog kind of guy. I tried reading books on an iPad, and once on a borrowed Kindle, but I infinitely prefer paper books. For my own photography I prefer film, and black and white at that, over digital, though of course client work and some specific situations is digital, unless of course someone wants to pay me to shoot film, which nobody has done, and I don't expect anyone will.

I prefer older cars that don't 'help' me drive, and I'd love to get a new 1984 Accord hatchback, just as it was made then. No infotainment screen. Although I will admit that having the map on a screen is handy when driving in some place you don't know, though I've never understood the vagaries of why the system behaves different ways at different times, which annoys the heck out of me.

I don't much listen to music any more, and when I do it's through a computer, and yes I know the music snobs are looking down their nose at me because of course a wax record on a turntable played through a tube amplifier is better. Except with my hearing I can't hear the subtle stuff anyways. The hearing aids are good, but not that good. Even with my poor hearing, autotune grates.