this_is_not_a_hypothetical_question squint What if all my fingers fell off just now, out of nowhere? 020630 ... Ariadani see: eyeballs 020630 ... Dafremen What the hell am I typing this for? 020630 ... kerry squint you rock 020630 ... squint *and thus kerry gives squint her first blather_compliment.* thanks with a smiley as an added bonus prize :) 020630 ... sabbie then, squint, you would bleed everywhere and your keyboard may very well never recover 020701 ... Achilles are you typing with your nose? 020701 ... squint close. I'm typing with my toes which rhymes with nose... and well the bleeding has gone down a little, but my k ewyboar;'d is ac tiig fubny fro m,...' thebl']ood ahahahahahaha sort of. 020701 ... Dafremen Looks like the ol' weight loss is off to a good start. Ten chubby little fingers down...a coupla spare tires to go. 020701 ... lycanthrope why would someone look better in black and white photographs than color? 020815 ... eddie monster black and white photographs leave so much to the imagination, but leave a very distinct impression. feelings are actually very simple actions that are more readily revealed threw a lense in black and white when you think about it, all of our feelings could be stereotyped into two catagories. good and bad. white or black 020815 ... eddie hence someone who is happy will look dazzling in black and white 020815 ... monster vice versa 020815 ... lycanthrope i see that the starkness of a face would be drawn out, it separated from sky, within itself, each curve would be juxtaposed with another perfectly, abstractly, the order we like to impose upon the world, but something would be missing. we see colors for reasons, there would be nothing cueing the tender colors of the lips, which sets them apart from the rest of the face, which are somehow more receptive, softer. And the imperfections are smoothed out, awash in white, you cannot see where the shade subtly delineates a foreigness, a strife within what we wish to pass for unity in a photograph. as for all emotions being black and white, i don't know. boredom for instance. good or bad? it's the need for adventure, but it also means safety. it's a luxury boredom. some people will not rest till they've found it. habituation and all. it means you've exhausted thigns to do momentarily. but it is different somehow from relaxation. but perhaps you mean more basic emotions...like surprise. now surprise can be either bad or good again. but you can see it loud and clear in black and white. i think it has less to do with emotions being black and white, than the fact that emotions are expressed on the structures of the face. the colors we've evolved to see most likely have different purposes; they mark the areas of savagery and tenderness which are beyond emotion, ancient, in the body. no point in wearing lipstick in a photo. there is the darkness, the suggested tension, but not the exactness of the color of ripe fruit, the color of fertile muddied water. and speaking of emotions, the emotion we describe as love combines elements of affection and hate. what color would love be? why leave it a shadow, an aggregate of black and white when colors have more subtle delineations. perhaps it is comforting viewing things so simply, hence the cliches. a black and white photo is also more distant, like a news photo, like something already in the history books, something we can't touch, it sets itself apart from reality, and makes no claims of being direct currency, needs translation. thanks for your input though. i'm asking because i truly am fascinated with black and white photos, and i want to know why. does anyone here feel they look better in black and white? is it just more forgiving? is it simpler? does something more essential get conveyed? like the blatherite before me said, does it break us down into binary, into little yes and nos which add up to something? or is a spectrum of color what we really deserve, questions with no yes or no answers, combinations which add up with no reguard to the cancelling out done elsewhere? one yes a no from another perspective, and colors to label this. does anyone here look good in black and white photos? i guess this was a hypothetical question. 020816 ... eddie monster i just bought a used vehicle and in the glove compartment was a photo of a girl. maybe the previous owner who knows. it's weird to see pictures of people you don't know. she was happy i think, with her hands raised to the sky. but something about her looked sad like something was slowly sucking the life away from her without her even knowing. she smiled with her hair in her eyes, almost looking drunk. whoever you are i still have your picture. it's my first car so maybe i'll have it blown up and framed as a momento. your car still runs great but it makes all these anoying rattling noises. the cure pictures of you 020816 ... lycanthrope there's a black and white photo of me, as a child, splashing around in some lake throwing handfuls of water into the sky 020816 ... . . 050310 ... oldephebe first...lycan and ed - thanx for educating me about the realm of aesthetics as it relates to the nuanced field of photography.... To no one in general: what if we all started loving one another? What if christians really started loving the owrld as christ commanded us to, as christ showed us by the example of his life? What if we learned to stand unmoving in the water as it churns, as it rises up and washes over us as it buffets us. This water is nothing but the projection of anothers personality, a projection of anothers pain poured onto us. what if we could learn to cultivate an attitude of unconditional love towards even our advesaries, towards all the sons and daughters of Man? We don't have to be the hapless marionette of our emotions or our cns and the myriad brain systems involved in transmitting that emotion to our conscious minds. In the midst of the storm we can hold on to a simple truth. This is what quiets the seas WE churn within ourselves. What if we let ourselves be shpaed, be born be made anew by the spirit of perfect love? God has many names. Whatever you call him or her, seek out that heart of perfect love, of peace of abiding peace, look up look up and let that thing go. ... 050310 ... oldephebe when you lift up hands that are made holy by his breath, whatever you're holding falls to the ground, falls into the sea of forgetfullness...yes it does..yes it does. You just try God and see howmuch of that baggage you can hold onto when your arms, when your spirit is filled with (his) treasure. ... 050310 ... p2 what's love got to do got to do with it? (not directed at anybody or in response to anybody) 050310 ... Ivory And to bring us back to that totally non-hypothetical question, here's Ivory! If, in fact, your fingers just suddenly fell off, I'd imagine that at first, you would experience some level of shock. Now, depending on how often this happens to you, the shock could be significantly less than if -my- fingers suddenly fell off, due to the simple fact that it has never happened to me before. If that happens, I'd recommend picking up a nearby basket or bowl of some sort with your mouth and holding it close to your computer desk. Then, you should scoot the fingers into said container. -Then-, I'd find someone to drive me to the hospital if I were you, unless you are skilled in driving with your feet. You wouldn't want to kill anyone on the way there, or more importantly, get a reckless driving ticket. :-] 050310 ... oldephebe What if some dreams are really a portal, a portal to another plane of existence or perhaps a portal to even the past. I say this because several years ago I had this dream where I had the distinct impression of traveling almost 300 years back in time to Colonial or pre-colonial central pa. I was formless, ethereal as if composed of mist and yet still sentient and I was observing things, as if they were happening in the present and I felt as if I belonged there, as if some part of me belonged there or had never left. It was unsettling. Here I was observing thick robust women doing the household chores, the men wrestling with the sod and I felt as if I, or some part of my eternal spark used to reside in this place. Before the dream ended, that same ethereal entity (me, my astral form riding the temporal eddies) traveled forward in time to modern times to witness the blight of suburban sprawl that had come to Central Pennsylvania. (Well, I mean what at least approximates suburban sprawl, I mean comparatively speaking if you know anything about the unremmitting rural quiessance and soul stealing ennui of Central PA circa 1975. ... 050403 ... Piso Mojado and perhaps they are just that dreams bring us to The Underworld (eg Hades)- the immortal realm where our souls came from and ultimately will return to. In "Dream and the Underworld", James Hillman suggests that we dream to prepare our soul for death- dreams are made up of the same stuff as our unconsciousness, as well as the mythical Underworld. In this underworld of our dreams we meet people who in the waking world we may or may not know (eg 3rd grade teacher or a stranger)- yet it is not just the dream-shades of these waking lives that we meet, but ancient archetypes using these familiar forms to teach us and prepare us for what will come when we leave this mortal coil. (For more on archetypes, check out Carl Jung.) 050403 ... r_r ! 090412 ... z does squint have leprosy or did he slam his hand in a door? 090413 ... unhinged squint is a she 090413 ... () (oops. sorry squint) 090413 ... fghio fghio 101114 what's it to you? who go blather from