Grasp

Vials

This week at work we’ve been switched over to plastic vials to store flies in. We had been using Pyrex^* ones but, for whatever reason (economics? safety? processing convenience?), now it’s plastic.

Handling hundreds of vials every week, I had gotten used to their balance, their weight, their finish. I knew how to grip them and align them neatly. The plastic feels cheap, vacant.

^*I guess Pyrex based on the way they break.

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I’m currently auditing a physical anthropology course at Kyōdai. One of the advantages of being a student is, of course, access to the libraries. While all the books are of in the online card^† catalog, each library has its idiosyncrasies of how you check out a book.

Of the three libraries I’ve used, the Agricultural is the most automated: put your library card into the machine and place the book to be scanned by the barcode reader (this may take some of us several tries); when you push the “Check Out” button, a receipt is swiftly printed.

At the Science library, there is at least a person standing behind the counter to take your card, scan the book, and then stamp the due date on the checkout slip in the back of the book.

There is no barcode checkout in the Zoology library. You instead fill your name out on a slip of paper, and then tack it to the side of a triangular wooden block with a pushpin. You must then place the wooden block back in the book’s spot on the shelf: a placeholder.

^†I’ll defend the use of “online card catalog” by saying that some of the libraries do still have rows and rows of boxed, shelved, organized cards.

Work prints

Although I still shoot primarily with film, my workflow and my experience of pictures are digitally bound. I usually scan my photographs to put them online, or sometimes I have them scanned directly from the negative. Most of the photographs I look at carefully are online; occasionally they are in a magazine or book; only rarely do I see them mounted and hanging.

But holding a real print is different. John sent me a print of one of my photos along with some of his work prints:

• Azusa (love the Voigtlander), from A lens and some new photos;

• Junkyard man and some kids on a playground, from Nebraska: The Good Life [more];

• and my photograph of two people waiting for an elevator.

The paper stock is heavy; the edges, slightly warped; tiny impressions left on the corners from when the prints were left up to dry. Craftsmanship. Struggle. These are workprints.

To grasp, to apprehend, to absorb, to understand.