Copia

Every now and then I cast an eye about to see the state of the art on photo storage, sharing and backup.  Like most of us I have far more digital photos than I know what to do with.  For the most part we manage the lot on iPhoto on my wife's iMac.  It's getting to the point where iPhoto is struggling to keep up and I've pondered LightRoom, but it's still a tad bit of overkill, I think.  For now we just using the various tricks of the trade to boost performance.  I think the next step will be to move the iPhoto library to an SSD drive.  Time to start saving up!

Given my technical background, one of the biggest things I look for in photo management of all sorts is preservation of metadata.  If you are not familiar with photo metadata, you should really acquaint yourself.  It's also worth acquainting yourself as to why it's important to separate photo sharing from storage.  Whether it's the EXIF data recorded by the camera itself, or supplementary metadata added, sometimes out of band, by management apps (e.g. face matches, titles & descriptions you add yourself in iPhoto or other tools), it's really important that software respect what's there as much as possible, adding layers of metadata non-destructively.

Alas this is one area where cloud photo services fail miserably.  I think the most pernicious case of this is Dropbox, which is such a handy service for the most part, but I think is nothing short of evil with regard to photos.  First of all it is loud and persistent in pestering you to switch to its photo import and storage module every time you connect a memory card or such to your computer (I understand: they want to nudge people in a direction that leads to paying more for storage.)  The problem is that if you make the mistake of succumbing to their come-ons, you'll find that they happily mangle and destroy any photo metadata that precedes them.  The comments on their blog entries about the photo features are full of customers complaining about this abuse, but they don't seem to be listening.  They are not alone.  Google Picassa also mangles metadata.  Facebook surprises me by actually trying to do the right thing, and getting a bit tied up in knots as a result.

For now I'm sticking with iPhoto, and I'll copy photos from there to Dropbox, Facebook, etc. as needed for sharing.  I'm also trying out AeroFS, and hoping for good things from them, from the general perspective of meddling-free file distribution and sharing.  I hope more people get familiar with the issues here (there are real consequences to having your photo metadata mangled), and that it adds up to a voice in the marketplace for better solutions, including on the cloud.

by Chimezie Ogbuji

I had only heard about this story briefly.  Then, while the details of what happened was being discussed, they showed some video footage of previous interviews with her.  I was very impressed by the conviction in her voice as she spoke about her desire to have young girls such as herself receive education and even more so when I considered she would have had good reason to be too scared to speak with such conviction: the very tumultous nature of Pakistan, of where she went to school (in Swat), etc.

She was speaking like a woman at least 3 times her age.  It was more than just the clear benefit of the very education she was advocating for that you could see in the way she was talking and hear in her voice, but something much more.  Something more than just a girl more mature than her 14 years of age.

Then, they showed footage of what I believe must have been her first (or one of her first interviews) with her father.  She was saying "I want to be a doctor" and was immediately overcome with emotion and couldn't finish her sentence.

Her father was sitting next to her and the moment didn't change the look on his face and it was the look on his face that tugged on some strings burried very deep inside of me.  It was the look of infinite love and pride for your child.  He was smiling with such powerful pride.  

I imagine her emotions were more than just being camera shy, perhaps the thought of the danger of her speaking out crowded her mind at that time.  Then the father says "Relax" and looks into the camera, still beeming with pride.

I'm not able to see that video without losing composure myself.  This is because I know how that deep love the father was displaying could be so efficiently transformed into the deepest kind of pain and helplessness a person can imagine.  I don't believe that the aggregate of all the pain-by-proxy Pakistan, the world at large, and even myself might feel on her behalf would come close to eclipsing the pain he (and her mother) must have felt.

The intensity of the love he was showing in that video is exactly the inverse of the pain he must have been feeling as she remained in critical condition, unresponsive, and without anything else to be done but to place his faith in the hands of the medical professionals who were fighting to save her life.

And so, when I read in the Guardian this morning that "Malala Yousafzai can make smooth recovery, doctors say," I was overcome - again - with an explosion of emotions, not just for her but for her family as well.  Yes, Pakistan needs to heal in so many ways, but that family needs to heal first and this is a great first step in that direction.

I deeply hope that she fully recovers and can use the platform she definately will now have to help her achieve the goals of her incredibly brave activism.  I may be able to empathize with how her father, when he got word of her attack and when he was on her side, must have felt, but I can't say that I know what her recovery must be feeling like for him.  

However, at least I have some sense of the magnitude of how that might feel, because I feel some of it now.

Continuing in the theme of too busy doing stuff to blog about it, this is a belated announcement of my new literary venture. I launched Kin Poetry Journal last month along with fellow founders Wendy Chin-Tanner and Eric Norris, and with plenty of help from Walter Ancarrow.  I'm very excited about some of the poets we have coming up, but then again I would say that so it's a good thing there's enough at the journal right now to let the content do the talking.

[Crossposted with the Kin blog]

Yesterday David Orr of NPR blogged, "It's A Genre! The Overdue Poetry Of Parenthood," in which he suggested that poetry celebrating childbirth and early infancy has ben historically rare, but is emerging as a new genre.  Maryann Corbett, poet and author of Breath Control, mused on FaceBook that she thought there have long been a fair number of new-baby poems, leading to an interesting conversation on her wall.  I've gathered up some of the poems that were brought up in the thread and elsewhere.

I'll start with Corbett's own "Circadian Lament, Sung to a Wakeful Baby,"(Umbrella Journal) which was linked by one of her friends, not the poet herself.

Go back to sleep. You’ve made a slight mistake

switching your days and nights around this way.

The time will come for nights you spend awake,

 

for cough and colic, ear- and stomach-ache.

Though now you babble charmingly and play

the infant hours away (a light mistake), …

I mentioned  Catherine Tufariello's "Aubade" (The Nervous Breakdown).

Your language has no consonants.

No babble but a siren’s cry,

Imperious as an ambulance,

Yanks me upright, drains me dry,

Returns me to the languid trance

Of timelessness in which we lie.

Your language has no consonants,

Imperious as an ambulance.

Kin Poetry Journal co-founder Wendy Chin-Tanner ups the ante by touching on all the brute biology of birth, including post-partum marital sex, in "Veteran", also in The Nervous Breakdown.

When our bodies parted, it was without

violence. She slid from me like a sloop

on the crest of that final mighty wave,

the surge sucking her backwards before

spilling over, like breath, like confession,

her arms reaching forward towards the dry

open shore and mine reaching down between

my legs to receive, meeting her, round bright

bud of us combined, her astonishing

glaucous eyes staring steadily,

curiously, seeming to see.

A correspondent mentioned "The Victory" by Anne Stevenson, a taut, sharp lyric.

Tiny antagonist, gory,

blue as a bruise. The stains

of your cloud of glory

bled from my veins.

Some of the discussion was about whether such poems are a new phenomenon. I suspect some of the explicit imagery and language of recent poems is new, but the topic certainly is not, though the article seems tangled upon this point, mentioning, for example, Blake's "Infant" poems from "Songs of Innocence and of Experience." That brought me to mind of the twist represented by To an Unborn Pauper Child by Thomas Hardy. Every good poetic topic wants for a strong, countervailing current.

Breathe not, hid Heart: cease silently,

And though thy birth-hour beckons thee,

Sleep the long sleep:

The Doomsters heap

Travails and teens around us here,

And Time-Wraiths turn our songsingings to fear.

The list could go on and on. One of the correspondents mentioned A.E. Stalling's Olives, which includes poems on early motherhood, and the NPR article itself mentions Morning Song: Poems for New Parents. The latter of course recalls "Morning Song," by Sylvia Plath, one of my favorite poems.

Love set you going like a fat gold watch.

The midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cry

Took its place among the elements.

 

Our voices echo, magnifying your arrival.  New statue.

In a drafty museum, your nakedness

Shadows our safety.  We stand round blankly as walls.

by Chimezie Ogbuji

I had the privilege of having (the equivalent of) front row seats to a jam session at the home of a fellow Taichi student was kind enough to let me come.  He hosts these sessions at his home every year, apparently.  It was a blast.  Good food, folk, and an incredibly talented group of musicians: 2 trumpets, an alto sax, drum set, viola, piano, and an upright bass.  

The drum sets and upright bass had rotating musicians (2 on each).  One of the trumpeters was also a fellow Taichi student who had never played with the group before.  I couldn't even tell as they blew some incredible music from their horns.  

The rain caught up with the set and I had to leave prematurely, but took some pictures from the steps where I was sitting right in front of where they performed.  

by Chimezie Ogbuji

Wang Bi (226 – 249 AD) attempted to provide a one sentence summary of the 81 chapters of the Laozi ( The Classic/Canon of the Way/Path and the Power/Virtue ), written in the 6th century BC:

Emulating the root [by way] of bringing to rest the stem and branches

This is a bold thing to attempt for any piece of literature, much less one of the most translated of all. However, I think it is a very thoughtful analogy. He elaborates on this sentence in his commentary on the following line from chapter 16.4 – 16.5 of the Laozi. The original text and his commentary (immediately following) are below:

Generally speaking, while [all things] are of unending diversity, each one of them returns to its [common] root. [Their] reverting to [their] roots means stillness.

The ‘root’ is the beginning. [That is], each one of them relates back to that which began it. Once they revert to [their] roots, then they [reach] stillness.

This reading brings to mind this picture I took from the roots of a big tree, looking up at its branches.

It also brings to mind the general thrust of modern quantum physics and the ongoing search [ Large Hadron Collider purpose (Wikipedia) ]:

concerning the basic laws governing the interactions and forces among the elementary objects, the deep structure of space and time, and in particular the intersection of quantum mechanics and general relativity

Many of the experiments being run in the Large Hadron Collider seek to answer these questions by investigating (and attempting to replicate) conditions as they existed shortly after the Big Bang (the mother of all roots). Two and a half millennia later, we still seek to emulating the root.

Ikot Abasi, also called Opobo, formerly Egwanga, port town, Akwa Ibom state, southern Nigeria. The town lies near the mouth of the Imo (Opobo) River. Situated at a break in the mangrove swamps and rain forest of the eastern Niger River delta, it served in the 19th century as a collecting point for slaves. In 1870 Jubo Jubogha, a former Igbo (Ibo) slave and ruler of the Anna Pepple house of Bonny (28 miles [45 km] west-southwest), came to Ikot Abasi and founded the kingdom of Opobo, which he named for Opobo the Great, a Pepple king (reigned 1792–1830). Also called Chief Jaja by Europeans, he destroyed the economic power of Bonny and made Opobo the leading power of the eastern Niger delta oil-palm trade until he was deported in 1887 by the British, who established a trading post at Opobo Town, 4 miles (6 km) southwest, on the west bank of the Imo River.

Modern Ikot Abasi serves as a trading centre for the yams, cassava (manioc), fish, palm produce, corn (maize), and taro produced by the Ibibio people of the area; it also is known for boatbuilding, although a sandbar partially blocks the entrance to its port from the Gulf of Guinea. The town is linked by highway to Aba and Port Harcourt. Pop. (2006) local government area, 132,023.

by Chimezie Ogbuji

Chidi and I used a filter that was passed out during an organized viewing at the Shaker Heights Middle School athletic field to take direct shots of the sun. One of the 3 shots is a 'before' and the other 2 are with the filters. Unfortunately, you can't see the dot that is venus with the weak magnification capabilities of my Droid Razor, but it was fun do to.

In September I bundled together a bunch of news and updates from my literary work in one big update, and I continue to have trouble finding time to post updates here more regularly, so time for another big round-up.

A bike helmet (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Train Tracks (Photo credit: tony_donnelly)

A little under over an hour ago, I had a near death experience that I felt compelled to write about.  To a person who isn't aware of what I'm going through now or what I have been going through for many years, this might seem a bit hyperbolic.  However, I suspect that when this whirlwind of injustice I'm going through is finished, that today's events will be even more symbolic for me.

Lately, I've taken to bike riding every day near the Shaker parks where I am.  I ride about 5 miles one day, 3 miles the next day, and so on.  I'm 35, and getting to the point where my mind still thinks I'm as athletic as I used to be but my body is telling it otherwise.  My professional life had become very sedentary and the essential hypertension diagnosis that is the downside of the genes I've been blessed with has made me very self-conscious of my health.  Major changes in my life have given me the opportunity to rededicate myself to an active lifestyle.

Yesterday, my 12-year son and mom were teasing me that 5 miles is not that much and hardly a reason to have sore muscles afterwards.  So, I was swelling with alot of hubris as I was racing down the bike path that I take everyday, this afternoon.  I normally continue on the bike path and backtrack, however, as a result of the hubris, I decided (in a split second decision) to bear a very sharp right off the path towards a train track crossing.  My intention was to lengthen the path a bit and take a semi-off road path in the process.

I had a helmet on and some open-finger gloves and was blasting Outkast's 'Elevators (Me and You)' in my ear, feeling emboldened from the adrenaline pumping through me as I was peddling as hard as I could.  As I approached the train track crossing, I noticed there was a drop from the path to the wooden planks and I think - at the time - my intention was to hop down and back up.  However, about 10 feet from the crossing, I realized - in absolute horror - that the drop was much more significant and there was no way I was going to make it at the speed I was going.

I remember a shriek of horror escaping my lips - barely audible - and me panicking and pressing on the brakes.  Either I pressed only the front brakes or the back breaks were not as strong as they should have been, but the nearly fatal result was that my bike began to capsize forward in slow motion as I was thrown off the bike towards the crossing comprised of wooden planks and solid-iron train tracks.  I was flying towards the tracks at about 10 miles an hour and at an angle of about 45 degrees, head first.

My instinct kicked in and I tucked into a tumble, taking a majority of the impact on my left shoulder, then my helmeted head, and eventually my right knee.  I'm certain that were it not for the lucky angle in which I was thrown from the bike, my tuck, and the helmet which took a direct hit after my tumble, I would have been more seriously injured and probably would have been knocked unconscious.  This would have had fatal consequences, as I'll explain later. 

Now, when I started to get up, lying sprawled in the middle of the train tracks under the rays of a sun overlooking an incredibly beautiful day, I took measure of my injuries and was stunned to find out that the most damage I had sustained was a series of surface wounds on my left knee.  The back and left side of my head, which crashed into the floor of the train tracks, was not hurt in the way that would have led me to be concerned about a concussion.  In a previous life (so to speak), I had my skull bashed in such a way that I needed several stitches on my skull and was therefore aware of the sensation of a serious head injury.

However, the helmet did its job.  I got up, and my immediate emotions were: shock at being able to walk off the tracks, sheer joy from being okay, and then eventual embarrassment.   

I looked around and saw there was no one in sight.  I think no one witnessed this horrific bike accident.  I walked off the tracks to my bike, which was also relatively unscathed, with the exception of the back wheel which was wobbling a bit.  I gathered myself, pushed the bike to see if it was still functioning, and then froze in a chill as I heard the rush of a train ride through the spot where I was, no more than a minute or two after my incident.

I'm certain, that if I had been knocked unconscious, with no one to witness what happened or warn the oncoming train, there would have been yet another horrible chapter added to my life, except it would have been the last one.

I rode my bike gingerly to determine I hadn't broken anything, which is a good thing because I have no health insurance anymore.  I turned back around, stopped, got off my bike, and immediately sat under a tree to meditate first and then contemplate my near death experience. In retrospect, my life didn't flash in front of my eyes in the moments I realized I was tumbling at full speed towards the depressed crossing.  Rather, the only thought I had was: "I don't want to die, I have so much unfinished business!"

It wasn't until I sat down under that tree that it all hit me and I realized how petty all the craziness I have been going through is in contrast to all that you stand to lose when you die.  It was then that I realized also that the only other injury I had sustained was the shoulder that I tucked to break my fall and that took the initial impact.  

There was an ugly bruise on it, but nothing more.  The bruise, which doesn't show so much on skin as dark as mine, partially covered the inconspicuous tatoo I have had there since Halloween night in New Orleans, 1996 that reads: Umunne Kwenu.  It is a formal address given when speaking to a gathering of Igbos and literally means: 'Son's of my mother [my brethren], affirm yourselves.'  

So, I got up, smiled from the knowledge that I escaped a horrible death, called my mother to let her know what happened and rode my injured bike and body home.  The three lessons I take from this: 1) There is always a small victory in being able to walk away from a horrible situation 2) Bike helmets are life savers, for real 3) The fragility of life always has the power to wipe away hubris and almost any other such emotion in a split second.