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Seen in a friend’s car…

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Atop Mauna Kea.

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Taken from Hilo, Hawaii
Panasonic GH1, 100-300mm at 300mm, f5.6

Had a pretty good view of the perigee moon tonight from the back yard. This was taken around 9pm.
Adjusted for micro-contrast and mild sharpening. The 100-300 is equivalent to a 200-600 on a full-frame camera.
Might have actually gotten a little sharper of an image if I had turned image stabilization off, since I had the camera on a tripod. Didn’t think of it at the time.

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A potent mix of sunscreen, soccer, sweat, ocean salt, beach sand, surf play, a meal and a long car ride.

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We are coming up on our 15th anniversary of moving to Hawai’i.  In Hawai’i terms, that means we are (possibly) approaching a status of Kamaaina, loosely translated as “long time resident” (the nomenclature and distinctions for  ”resident”, “local” and “Hawaiian” is slightly complicated for those not intimately familiar with the islands, and I will not bother going into it here–that’s a story for another time).

The islands work mysterious magic on those who dwell here.  For those who think the a move here does nothing more to you than give you copious fresh air and sunshine, think again.  To those of you contemplating a move to Hawaii–let this be a foreshadowing, of sorts!

Here is the rough progression of how it happens:

(Before you move to Hawaii).  ”SPAM?!!! –ew, gross! “

(Soon after you move to Hawaii).  ”There is SPAM in this dish?!!  Uh, No Thanks.”

(A few months go by).  ”SPAM, huh?…Oh, what the hell…”

(A couple of years go by). ”You know, I think I kind of like this!”

A few more months go by and you try your first full slice of SPAM in a SPAM musubi.

Another year goes by and you are happily taking a SPAM musubi off of every plate that passes under your nose.

A couple more years go by and you purchase your first can of SPAM, to make musubi at home.  (This is a watershed moment.)

A couple more years go by and you are starting to buy cans regularly, especially if you have children.

A couple more years go by and …

… yesterday I find myself in the local bulk discount warehouse outlet thingie, looking at and contemplating a bulk purchase of SPAM.

A … bulk … purchase …

And I had to reflect on the absurdity of the situation as I would have viewed it fifteen years ago.

I bought the six-pack.

Sigh.

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“That’s why we get so betrayed by the knowledge of appropriations, because we’re holding art to this very weird standard where it is actually about us. It’s about our own lives. It’s not about the artist’s life. Sometimes we want to be fooled, too. It’s silly that people can be so complicated, but then again we don’t have any other model. And a lot of us want to be fooled at the same time we get angry that we’re fooled. We want the artist to be a kind of Houdini who does magic tricks. And then we simultaneously want to find out that it’s an esoteric, comes from an esoteric place where we could never understand how the magic was made. And we want the cards to be turned over so we can understand and make the person seem humble and normal and like us. And then we get angry at them for just being a normal humble person. So what we want is very problematic.“

From A Conversation with Jonathan Lethem, discovered via the LPV Digest.