I came across a great youtube discussion of homemade instruments that was really inspiring to browse and follow links from. I wish I had more musical talent — I really have very little — to play in this territory. Speaking of projects, I got my hovercraft plans in the mail, and to be honest, they’re pretty piss-poor and incomplete — they really leave a lot to be desired and I think that when something is marketed to beginning amateur builders, a little more is required in the directions than Universal Hovercraft provides.
Anyway… Tomorrow we’re heading out of town for a baby shower, but today we went to the park (and later watched an old VHS copy of the made-for-TV Ewoks: The Battle for Endor). Not that I don’t take plenty of pictures, but I am always struck when I see parents who lug to the park large cameras and camera gear, but interact very little with their child… It’s odd to think that they see their child in great detail and completeness through the lens, from a distance, but that their hands-on experience with their child is zero — they might as well be a paparazzi following their family around.
The photographers that really creep me out though are the single guys who come — without kids of their own — to take pictures of little boys playing. They’re disturbingly common (the guy below being one likely example). I always photograph them in paranoia, just in case I hear something on the news that I think they’ve done.
Also disturbing are cranky old ladies in diapers and baseball caps, but that’s an entirely harmless sort of disturbing that often ends up being a quite friendly person that you later feel guilty for assuming that they’re cranky old ladies in diapers. Usually you can scrub the “cranky” part and find out that they really just want to talk to you at length about the weather.
And then there’s me.
Oh, and I added some new peanut ducks recently. The first one especially is quite impressive. I added some new kit cars as well for those that find that stuff interesting…
2 Comments
Very interesting post! I like the diversity of people in the park. I notice this kind of stuff all the time.
In Chicago I have never seen the strange guys with the cameras and no children. I do however, see strange guys with no children that just “watch” children play.
I actually never thought to take a picture of them. I think I am going to go that next time.
And I do also notice people not interacting with their children. Not necessarily like the jerk with the monopod. But more like people who are off in their own world not paying any attention to their children.
I always see people sitting around having some kind of annoying conversation on their cell phone. They almost never know where their children are. The children always try and play with my daughter and I end up having to baby sit 2-3 kids. This is annoying to me. Once I also had a child try and follow us home. The parent did not know and was no where in sight!
The single guys with cameras comment is creepy…I can’t believe they don’t get confronted more often by parents (wasn’t is his blog where the “why are you taking a picture of my kid peeing” story was told?). Something tells me that, were that a park stateside, those guys would be harassed and/or arrested fairly quickly.
That said, I have the feeling that a lot of them may well be there with completely understandable motivations – little kids do make good subjects for photos and, beside that, they’re fun to watch.
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