I don’t feel like talking much, so here are some shots from wandering around the fabulous Boston. I adore this camera that I finally picked up for our trip. The Nikon FM3a blows any other film camera I’ve ever owned out of the water.

I’ve always been a Canon girl but I couldn’t even compare my old EOS to this little baby. It produces such rich and powerful textures within the shots. I just adore it!

I FINALLY got a new scanner and omg I’m like a schoolgirl at a JT concert. The squealyness is at a supreme high as I scan and scan till I cannot stop.

The scanner in question is an Epson Perfection 4490 Photo and it is DIVINE. I haven’t even begun to play with all the fabulous things it can do like scanning negatives and slides, yet so far its blown me away at how sharp and crystal clear it scans prints. I’m in love. That Digital Ice is GOOOD!

Sean is out at Ryan Adams and I sit here on a Friday night all on my lonesome scanning photos tlll my fingers form callouses. A big nerd I am and I’m completely content. Sad and pathetic and I love it.

The latest installment to Canon’s prosumer DSLR range has been “leaked” on Amazon today. The successor to the 8MP 30D, the 40D finally gets this range of cameras into the 10MP market and Canon has finally done something about their LCD screens..hooray! With 3 beautiful inches and new “live view”, the LCD screen alone would make me want to upgrade from my little baby 350D.

The 40D also boasts a 6.5 frame-per-second continuous shooting capability would be another seller for me as the “slowness” of shooting speed is the one thing that drives me crazy about the 350D.

Check out the  at DPreview and the specs and at Amazon. Should be announced in September. The salivating begins.

EDIT: Thanks for the heads up Julien..here it is on Canon

Jose Gonzalez, I think I love you.

FINALLY!

Finally it came to pass..the night that Jose and I crossed hearts and souls. Oh, how I’ve waited for the smooth swedishness to drift into my life in full bloom. After missing out on seeing the beloved on 2 occasions in the past 18 months, I was determined to track him down if it was the last thing I did.
Skite I will, but I actually discovered Jose long before there were any bouncing balls on San Francisco streets.
Last night at The Factory Theatre, Mr Gonzalez put on a simply perfect show. The audience sat in wonder and complete silence as Jose made love to them with a voice like dripping honey. Cheese factor on the poetry of my words, but he simply sounds that divine. With just an acoustic guitar and the tap of his foot, he filled the entire theatre with beautiful sounds and delighted us with songs off the new album.

I often find when I see an act who is essentially promoting their upcoming album, it can often be an almost let down, simply because you’ve never heard the songs before. However, this show wasn’t like that, as everything he performed seemed so familiar but with a new intensity and a little more seriousness to the weight of the themes in the songs.

I ALMOST felt I was going to walk away heartbroken as he only had “2 more songs” and Heartbeats was still nowhere to be heard. I adore everything on Veneer and was loving the new stuff, but if I hadn’t heard my Heartbeats, the song that made me fall in love with this man, I would have had to leave the theatre dragging my heart in a box behind me. He left the stage after performing Teardrop and Hand on Your Heart, which if you didn’t know anything much about Kylie Minogue, you would have had no clue was born out of a cheesy 80’s pop song. I have never seen Massive Attack perform Teardrop live, but Jose’ version was so powerful I can’t imagine anyone doing a better job.

Much to my relief, he came back out after getting lost behind the curtain, claiming he was “stumbling around in the dark”, to perform an instrumental, followed by the most gorgeous rendition of Heartbeats which actually sent gasps through the crowd and finishing up with Joy Division’s Love Will Tear Us Apart.

I was a very happy camper leaving the theatre and am now telling you all to go see him when he returns for the Falls Festival in December.

A Reminder’s review

Jose Gonzales on myspace

Mem Fox actually hates writing children’s books.
She told me so tonight, with an abundance of squealy notes and enthusiasm.
Mem oozes energy and is totally and madly in love with books. She is also totally and madly in love with reading and writing. The woman is mad for it.

When signing up for her course, I never imagined that I would get to hear her recite some of my favourite lines from Possum Magic and hear her recite her whole Sail Away poem/ballad.

She is desperate for children to be read to, she is desperate for the entire world to love books like she does and she makes you want to become a better writer, a better reader and a better advocate for literature. She is one of the most inspiring people I’ve ever come across.

As a teacher of young children, I have always adored her books, but I never realised how freaking funny and charismatic she is. Mem lit up the room, had us all singing on cue and shared how writing children’s books is one of the hardest things a writer can do. Who knew that most of her books were so defined down to the number of syllables in each line of text? Count them, its true.
Tomorrow I will teach poetry. Its what I do on Thursdays. However, I am scrapping my planned lesson and going to read Sail Away to my class with gusto and passion. Why? Because Mem told me to.

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Two of my favourite Mem articles : If I were queen of the world; Have we lost our way?