Formulaic Catechism

As the year is winding down and I am trying to set aside more time for photo projects I have decided to do something a little bit different with this Journal in the month of December. I've decided to reflect on the accomplishments and failures of this past year. The tool that I am going to utilize to do this reflection is the Proust Questionnaire.

I'm sure a few people are familiar with the Proust Questionnaire. It is often used in celebrity interviews. You will find it on the last page of Vanity Fair and at the end of interviews by the heinous James Lipton.

The Proust Questionnaire is named after Marcel Proust. I don't know if anybody actually reads Proust, but I think just about as many people pretend to read Proust as pretend to read Joyce. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest authors of all-time. His life is best summed up by this line of dialogue from the movie Little Miss Sunshine:

"Yeah. French writer. Total loser. Never had a real job. Unrequited love affairs. Gay. Spent 20 years writing a book almost no one reads. But he's also probably the greatest writer since Shakespeare. Anyway, he uh... he gets down to the end of his life, and he looks back and decides that all those years he suffered, Those were the best years of his life, 'cause they made him who he was. All those years he was happy? You know, total waste. Didn't learn a thing."

But Proust did not create the questionnaire. The questionnaire was a a popular parlor game in Britain in the 19th century. It was taken by friends and families and the questions were meant to reveal something about the tastes, aspirations and personality of the person taking it.

Although this game died out at the the beginning of the 20th century, its spirit still lives on in the form of the quizzes and surveys that people fill out on social networking websites like Facebook and MySpace. An activity in which I never engage, so it might come as somewhat shocking to some that I am going to engage in this little experiment.

There are 35 questions on the Proust Questionnaire. Most likely, I will answer about 22 of those questions. I will pick out the 22 least interesting questions to answer and leave the other 13 answers to your imagination.

I do invite you to answer these questions as well in the comments section of this Journal.

However, while thinking about this questionnaire and some of the interactions I have had in the last few days I has reminded me of some photo projects I abandoned a few years back. It was definitely for the best that one of these projects was abandoned.

A few of you might remember some of these pictures and the nature of these projects from the old RMB Picture of the Day days.

The Labels Project

A Scene from the Woods

I hope you enjoy my self-serving look back on 2009.

Happy Turkey Day!

This day is often referred to as Turkey Day in the slacker way that some people use to be overly casual about certain events in a weak attempt to display aloofness in the vain hope that they will be perceived as cool.

I am not one of those people. I ca not be cool about a day that is as impotant as today. Although Willy has numerous deficiencies and I would be willing to list them for you on almost any day of the week, I do not think that he deserves to be referred to as a turkey. A bird that is both unintelligent and wretched to look at.

Willy is not a turkey. He is not even a jive turkey. Willy is merely Willy and while I have let many an important birthday slip by in the last few months, I cannot stand idly by while a member of FNSC celebrates the anniversary of his birth.

I say to you William McAlpine: Happy Birthday! You are not a turkey. Probably not a wolf either, but certainly not a turkey.











For more quality images of Willy, click on the link below:

William Ernest McAlpine

Old age never looked so good!

Meat in a Can

This a journal entry that is bound to be of very little interest to most, but a little general housekeeping must be done.

The website has been hit by small amounts of Spam lately. I have had to make a couple of small and not that regrettable changes to prevent this from happening in the future.

There are not many people that leave comments on this Journal, but the handful of people that do will notice that they will have to fill out a little CAPTCHA form to leave a comment now. This is not meant to dissuade people from leaving comments. In fact, having comments left on the Journal is one of my favorites. This little added security procedure will prevent me from having to delete unwanted and unnecessary advertisements.

The other change can be found in the Artistic Gallery and the Snapshots Gallery. People can no longer register themselves through the galleries. The galleries became very popular with a couple of big spamming companies and spending time deleting unwanted users was becoming tedious.

Therefore, if anybody would like a Username and password to have access to the extra features of the gallery, you will need to write me at bennett@photography139.com. I will gladly set you up with an account, so that you can enjoy the extra features of the galleries that come with membership:

• Commenting on pictures
• Rating pictures
  
• Favoriting pictures
• Access to hidden albums

I understand these to not be the most popular features out there (only 1 picture has ever warranted a comment and only 20 or so pictures have been rated), but I still hope that they will catch on at some point.

Be Aggressive!

On Sunday I descended into the depths of Missouri and Kansas on Sunday to watch Alexis compete in competitive cheerleading.

I had spoken with our Associate Pastor Andrea about good barbecue joints in Kansas City and she recommended Jack Stack for ribs and Oklahoma Joe's for sandwiches. I looked into both places and found that there was a Jack Stack in the same suburb as the competition so we checked it out.

In a word... divine!

Everything was great. The fried mushrooms, the warm carrot cake, the ribs, the burnt ends, the beans... everything. I was particularly impressed with a cheesy corn side dish. Teresa is researching the recipe and we (meaning not me) are going to try to replicate it for our Thanksgiving meal.

I should point out that the carrot cake was one of the top 3 desserts I have ever had from a restaurant. Right up there with the tiramisu from Cosi Cucina or the warm chocolate cake from the cruise.

Photographing moving targets in low light does not make for the best pictures, but please enjoy a few pictures from the day:




Statue in front of Jack Stack



Alexis



Elainie



Mom



Looking over the program.



Jason



Carla



Iowa All-Stars



Now we get to the point of the pictures where it is more or less: "Where's Alexis?"


























Write down your answers to "Where's Alexis?" and mail them to bennett@photography139.com. A winner will be randomly selected from all correct entries.


Teresa



Mom



Can you imagine what this many cheerleaders (and their moms) in one room sounds like?



Carla



Elainie



Elainie photographing.



We are the champions, my friends...



The Bennett women. I know Teresa will complain about this picture, but it was the only one of the 3 pictures I took where Mom doesn't look drugged out.



The medal.



I'm going to call this Alexis' gangsta look.



No comment.

It was a good trip, but I was glad to get back out of the state of Missouri. Very glad.

Window Project #2

Kelly's salon recently had their Grand Re-opening after all of their remodeling.

I hadn't put a picture up in Salon 908 since the remodeling, so I decided to do a window project for the salon.





For a closer look at Window Project #2, you will need to go to Salon 908.

Below is a closer look at the pictures for this project. It should be noted that the pictures below aren't in the same proportions as they are presented in the window.




















4 other pictures were under consideration for Window Project #2, but were rejected for various reasons. The rejected pictures:














I will be starting work on Window Project #3 possibly as early as in a couple of days. But most likely it will wait until the beginning of December. I do need to start giving some consideration to whether or not there will be a Photography 139 2010 calendar in the near future.