Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Journey to the center of my desk

We just got a digital microscope. I mean, it's for my kid, of course, but because it can take photos, it's now for me too. Let's pretend you're the size of a flea, hopping about my desk, looking for fresh blood. What might you find before I spray you with insecticide, shortening your lifespan considerably?

Can you figure out what you're looking at here? (Answers below.) My kid is also receiving his first subscription to "Children's Highlights" magazine so you can kind of see where my head's at lately.

1.) It's a crotch-shot, but of whom?

2.) What in the world could this be?

3.) This is intriguing. But what is it?

4.) How perplexing!

5.) Does this look familiar?

Answer key:

1.) It's the crotch of one hundreds of anonymous extras from the spectacular By a Waterfall scene in "Footlight Parade." Choreographed by the indomitable Busby Berkeley in 1933. From The Busby Berkeley Book.

2.) Why, it's a whoopee cushion, of course! Hours of prankster fun!

3.) It's a close-up of the eye of Tor Johnson, as illustrated by Drew Friedman in his exquisitely demented dot-dot-dot drawing style. From "Tor Johnson in New York" in the collection Warts & All by Drew and Josh Alan Friedman.

4.) It's an unfortunate child model in an ad for yarn, from the 1959-60 edition of McCall's Needlework & Crafts magazine. I hope the other children didn't taunt him too much after this came out!

5.) If you guessed a road map of Bridgeport, Connecticut--you're right! I was just there (passing through) last week. Looks better here than in person, but that's Bridgeport for ya.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Once again, kinda scary what we seem to have in common. Haven't checked CWW in weeks, and I see we're both photographing paper, very close up. FUN! Love those dot patterns. If you're lucky and still have an old TV (don't know if it works on the new ones), then put that camera on that flower setting and get inside those psychedelic moving dots. Yeah, I've just been using my close-up setting, then zooming in on the file in, ahem, post-production. But, now I'm thinking about digging thru the basement for that old microscope. Hmmmm.
-photomatt77