notes while making my C3 site:
Official pizza: Tomato, onion and feta cheese.
Official soft drink: Coke
Theme music: Death and Horror Inc. - pressures collide (scanning
rolls a&c), Front 242 - Up Evil(scanning roll b and processing),
Einsturzende Neubauten - Halber Mensch (thumbnails),
projekt sampler - beneath the icy floe (making quick.html),
David Bowie - Earthling (uploading to ativan and last tweaks),
and whatever of my Cds were in my roommate's jukebox when I finally
got home to work on my _own_ computer.
Official temperature: hot humid lightless basement type of temp.
Time: 10pm Friday started - 7:30am Monday finished, minus 13 hours of
sleep and 7 hours of just taking a break on Sunday but being too
tense to actually go hang out.
Some images on roll A were not scanned in, because they were crap or
because of requests by people photographed who later asked
me not to. In one case, a negative was destroyed because
one of the subjects believed the photo could be used against hir.
Rolls are lettered A-D, and exposures on that roll are numbered,
for easier requests or reprints, etc. Reprints are availible for
a SASE and $?? Canadian (which is $?? US thanks to the metric system).
One oft-requested photo was of the goths being barraged by sunlight
after seeing "Spawn" in the Plywood(?) Theatres of Oakland. I did
make two prints of everything and asked that people only take from
the prints in the front pouch of the envelope... this photo is missing
both prints. I don't smell a thief, rather someone who doesn't know
how to follow directions. The missing picture would be called
"c05.jpg"
"c15.jpg" is also missing, but it was underexposed so I really wonder
why both prints are missing... it had four faces in it, and it was
taken between performances by Seraphim Gothique and Subversion. Third
face from the right also sports cleavage. I'll reprint it and get a
better description.
Subversion didn't allow their images to be taken by photographs, nor
to have their images on the projection teevee. I got away with it
because I usually don't use a flash when I take nightclub shots (see
c10.jpg for how cool non-flash shots can be), but I didn't hear about
their conditions until after the shots were taken. I have the images
scanned in case it's kosher to post them, and I have a lighter to
destroy the prints if that's necessary too.
A story about the shot that didn't happen, let's call it
"c17-and-a-half.jpg": If you got into the c series, then you saw the
great shots I took of Seraphim Gothique. You would also have
remembered the outfit Julie Bloo was wearing. In the vendor's room,
while I looked at slave colars, I saw Julie bending over to sign
something on the table COP used. Her back was straight and nearly paralell to the floor -- I'm certain you can imagine the posture. If
you can combine the image of her outfit with the image of her position,
it would be illegal to show your imagination to minors. I kneeled
behind her [pun, sorry] and feigned taking a photo. Friends pointed
and laughed at me, and I stood up to laugh with them. I spotted two
other people on my left who saw me and they already had their own
cameras out and operational. I regret not taking the photo, if only
to show it to Julie privately so we could chuckle over it. What would
be even funnier would be a photo of all the photographers lined up
around the prominent derierre of Julie Bloo.
Rolls A & C: scanned at 75dpi, colour, 1.8 gamma, +25% brightness.
Shots in roll A that are skipped are because they were really awful.
Roll B: scanned at 85dpi, colour, 1.8 gamma, +0% brightness, and if
b00-01.jpg is what I used to get it right. These scans don't do
proper justice to the band shot nor the "Let's Go To Work" shot.
BTW, after taking b01.jpg, nobody could agree who should be Mr. Black.
About shots b04.jpg through b14.jpg: I could bitch about how the
show was rushed, the models walked too fast to set up a shot, the
monitors got in the way, etc etc, but the real reason why these look
like crap is because I've got an full-auto camera and I'm still a
smallfry photographer. I get what I pay for, and I didn't pay myself
anything. So's you know, for a roll of nightclub shots I usually
shell out ($10 film + $15 develop + $10 first prints + $5 second
prints) $40 for a roll of 24 or 36, of which six shots (at most)
are worth seeing 8"x10". I might use two or three rolls in a month
-- Convergence III used four. I either need to be stopped, or to be
apprenticed [hint hint].
38 shots on roll b! and I'm glad I didn't miss b37.jpg [sniggers].
Just finished scanning in roll b, and Up Evil has just started playing
track 1 again. The scanner's light has burned an image into my
retnia. I'm taking a break at 1:48am.
3:00am - decided to pick up email. Saw Jen publish some mistaken
information about Siobahn and Matt being co-organizers. Decided to
double check my information before trying to "correct" her and I find
out that my C4 email addresses, URLs and such are out of date. Start
to wonder what else I'm missing and resist calling Matt and Siani at
4 in the morning.
4:00am - starting to process the images. Curse at how my usual tools
aren't on my friend's computer, so I start surfing to get the tools I
need, like WinZip and PaintShopPro (sorry, but Aldus Photostyler just
doesn't cut it if all I want to do is crop, rotate and make
thumbnails).
6:00am - Can't sleep. Gonna install Paintshop Pro so I can use it.
Gonna process the scans into individual images,
and make larger (better quality) cropped pictures of the better ones.
The portrait of "tall goth and handsome" turned out well; in every
shot I have of him, his eyes glow like a replicant from Blade Runner.
I HAVE to get a huge one (300 dpi) of the "resevoir.goths: Let's go to
work" shot. b00.jpg is a great shot, so great it doesn't need to be blown up. ("KABOOM!" says Julie, telepathically from Texas.) Actually,
only a few of the grainier b/w shots benefit from being larger. Okay,
NOW I'm gonna sleep. 7:30am, and I will _not_ watch cartoons.
2:00pm - Awake. Jessie (the dog) hasn't eaten much, and I worry if
she's wound up because her roommates aren't around. I decide to not
cheat on the thumbnails (by defining WIDTH and HEIGHT on the
tags) and make real ones; the thumbnails will be 100x150 or 150x100.
I wish I could remember the prog that would do batch transformations
instead of batch conversions. Roll B shots are 100x140 or 140x100.
It makes me wonder how much of the shot is cropped. I aught to take
the best dozen of these and fine-tune them... there are more shots
that are as good as "resevoir.goths".
I have reason to believe that there were replicants (a-la Blade Runner)
in attendance at Convergence III. Among my photos are two people whom
I've taken more than one picture. In each picture of these people,
their eyes shine much like the special effect in Blade Runner (anyone
remember Dekert's eyes shining?). I've done some higher-quality scans
for showing this detail. It wouldn't be so bad, except EVERY photo
I have of them is with shining eyes. The colour shot is the usual
"red eyes," but he's not looking into the flash! b32.jpg has
Stephanie with the shiny eyes, but she _is_ looking into the flash
and her eyes don't shine in every photo I have of her.
I'm doing gamma corretion (+ and -) on for the b/w thumbnails... gamma
is a funny thing. I can increase it to get the background and better
detail, but faces and other bright objects get washed out. I'll put
a caveat on the webpage. I also airbrushed the area above Spanky's
head in b34.jpg, because it was really really bright, unbalancing the
image. Oh dear, how long before I become one of those
cyber-neo-impressionists? [confession: I touched up b08.jpg so that
both her eyes glow instead of just her right one. *sigh* the camera
always lies; the photographer, moreso. Still, she had beautiful eyes
which I didn't capture well in the photos.]
5pm - Did up a logo quickly (Matura MT truetype font), then shrank
and smudged one of the Lydia pictures for decoration. I can't really
run the Fnord server on this machine since it always wants to use the
phone before it lets you do tcp/ip. Time to put on new music and start
into the annotations and HTML. I think I've got a copy of /bin/vi for
MS-DOS kicking around somewhere on the Jaz Drive... yeah. Oh yeah,
"Third Uncle" by Bauhaus.
6:20pm - wrote the first html page. I was playing with Jessie for a
while, but now she's whining a bit... I guess she's upset because I've
been ignoring her to work on this.
Whoever has read this far deserves the Alice in Wonderland pictures I
resisted putting up on the site. They're at
http://ativan.netdesign.net/~moses/c3/alice/. Knock yourself out, and
please don't go there if you're a minor because I don't need the
lawsuit from your legal guardians. I'll stick an apropriate disclaimer
on it to chase away the anklebiters.
6:50pm - Jessie doesn't want to play anymore, and I'm too restless to
just stop for a while. More Coke, pop in a Nettwerk sampler CD and
check email before I get back into writing the rest of the HTML. If
I remain spartan, I should be done in time to get a pitcher of beer at
the Catacombs tonight.
8pm - dinking around, trying out the index.html on ativan to get the
colours right and try some of the links, uploading files, and surfing
the web to get proper hyperlinks for some of the text (like "Blade
Runner" and "Convergence 3"). Picked up my mail from Siobahn and I
get a shock: Matt resigned! No wonder he's not returning my calls!
I'll finish writing letters and then take the dog out for a walk to
calm my nerves. (I'm geting behind schedule here. Arrgh... must be
done before last call at CAtacombs!)
9pm - Uploading the photos, smarting from Carcajou's reply to a letter
I wrote to the list (about meeting Wench). I really know how to put
my foot in my mouth. More twiddling with pictures, wrote
replicants.html and cheated on the thumbnails... read the html source
and see how. Now with my feet wet I'm on to the real pages... and only
four hours before last call at the bar! I'm missing something though.
Music! Gonna pop in NIN - Downward spiral this time as I type out the
Sparky's page.
12:30am Sunday - looking like I won't make it for last call. I'm a
doofus for not remembering that I can use Netscape to view local HTML
files so long as my links are always relative. Just finished the
Haight street page, and I was perusing my #gothik and
alt.binaries.gothic collections to see about more cute pix to put at
the top of pages.
1:10am Sunday - Things are looking great. I decided to use movie
quotes for the "on to the next page" links because it's more cool and
I get to make some pop culture references -- that's very "in" don'tcha
know, tres "Spin" magazine. I need three more pictures for the top
of the page pix... so far I'm using Nightclubing Lydia, Jack
Skellington and the Oriental Death pictures. I'm gonna get Reseviour
Dogs for the b/w roll (to compare against "resevoir.goths"). Back
to Front 242 - Up Evil for the music. Wish I had my own music here.
FUCK is this Netscape browser annoying. Doesn't respond to mouse
events while it's getting pictures, and pauses for 8 seconds before
getting any file. Why is it so hard to find a bloody Resevoir Dogs
picture? It took me an HOUR to find a picture, I got the right one
by total dumb luck (first one I downloaded, sight unseen and I had
to download it to another server first), and write one letter to TJ
about Matt stepping down. ...oh, christ, this photo is worth it.
Aaron Wooster knew that I was going to take a shot because we looked
like Resevoir Dogs, and he put his hand up to his face just like Mr.
Blonde. Aaron rocks my world. EdVamp is looking sideways like Mr.
Pink, kinda sorta.
I better get a confirmation of the woman standing next to Griffin
in b20.jpg. If it turns out to be Miss Charming from Wench and I
don't recognize her, I'll look like a real chump. Robert/nightbird
would know. No link to a website on the C3 page, but I may have
the names for the SGothique band members... damnit! Am I using the
16-bit version of Netscape? 80 bytes a second, my ass. Okay,
"Tycho, Bysshe, 'Quinne and Julie Blue." I remember Aaron saying
their names once, outside the Marriot hotel.
Ugh. I'm so tired and (not burntout, but) toasted that I started
kvetching on the "friday.html" page instead of in this text file where
it belongs. Fuck it, I'm gonna leave it there. Said I'd sack out at
5:30am, but I'm checking my email to see if I got confirmation on
that photograph.
6am Sunday - Robert couldn't confirm, and has asked Wench to reply,
so I'll have to wait until Monday prolly. I just uploaded the latest
files in case Robert decides to browse around or anyone else does
for that matter (planning for security leaks and all that). Jesus
was this a large undertaking. I'm gonna force myself to sleep now
that it's 6am.
2:30pm Sunday - Awake. I'm gonna move to home with this. Raj is
looking after Jessie now, and my net connection is faster from home.
I'll need the faster connection for more cute pictures for the tops
of pages, because I'm going to break up the photos into more pages...
maybe 10 photos a page for ease of downloading. Right now I'll see
if I can find the Obsidian CD I loaned Lou, and what I can "acquire"
off of her hard disk while the Jaz disk is connected to her computer.
9:20pm Sunday - I've got Coke, I've got Triscuits, I've got music,
I've got two-days growth on my head that feels like velvet. Let's
get to work. I came home, checked email, got onto IRC in time for
someone to say "I like depression better; more range of emotion" which
sent me balistic, to calm down in time to listen to someone privately
confide in me troubles she's been having with her immature (as in "I
don't know what I want") boyfriend. Shower, phone calls, get food-like
stuff, mutter about doing laundry.
I'm browsing through my stupidly large sound sample collection off of
alt.binaries.sounds.movies for more movie quotes to go at the end of
the pages. I found one that sounds great (darth08.wav) but doesn't
look so good. So I'll stick the sound sample on the website too... and
then I'm reminded of cuff.wav and I have to put that one on as well
because it's smirkworthy. Am I going to put links to sound samples
sprinkled throughout the site? Well, we'll see.
Gotta acquire notamask's page, and harvest links from it for the
bands that I have photos for. I ask Metacrawler for "spawn movie
pictures," and I get five lame links followed by an ad banner for
the Spawn movie. Those guys are getting really good at hitting target
markets. Found http://smash.mgz.com/spawn/spawn.htx, which is a hell
of a lot better than www.spawn-themovie.com (the offical site). It
even has a photo of Angela, who only made a cameo in the film.
Remember: that Melinda Clarke was the one who could fill clothes so well
in the role of Jessica Priest. Also gonna get a quote from Lost Boys
to lead to the Saturday night photos. I've got a feeling something
appropriate about partying is in there.
Maybe a link to Midori's site (http://www.fetishdiva.com/midori/home.html)
from one of the decoration pictures as a thumbnail of Michael Manning's
portrait of her?
All I could find is the Lost Boys 2 script I found when I was working
for Time-Warner in Los Angeles. It'll have to do. Hey! I can use
that old superdeformed family portrait of the Endless for Saturday! I
hope I still have it. ...I do, but in black and white. It'll have
to do. 12:42am Monday and it looks like I'll be finished, but in time
to get a pitcher of beer at Power tonight?
People had better think this site is supercool, because I've been
putting a fuckload of effort into this. Still, if I push it on people
then I'll look uncool. *sigh* Could someone get me a manual of how
to blow one's own horn? And how can I get _paid_ for this?
2am Sunday - FINALLY! The last word typed, now just to do some last
editing... just as last call was made at Power tonight. Damn. And
where are these mosquitos coming from? I'm on the eleventh floor for
chrissake. Must remember to stick the proper submliminal messages
in the http headers for these pages (I'm not kidding, I put in
subliminal messages for your web browsers), and to check links, and
put align=center on the tags for the band photos, remove quotes
inside the tags I lifted out of notamask's C3 page so it looks
like I actually got the links myself, or at least it looks consistent
and will consistently fuck up badly written commericial web browsers.
Yeah, the last bit about my drunken state in Saturday is beating a
dead horse, and self-indulgent. Or maybe not. I get too neurotic
about proper behaviour sometimes... I should just let my foot have
easy access to my mouth while I won't embarass anyone but myself.
Any other bells and whistles to add? More sound samples, more
quotes? More contextual links?
Here's an idea: a C3 "Seven Deadly Sins" checklist. Did anyone
get all seven? Letsee, I remember Aaron telling me in the BART
how the seven cast memebers of Giligan's Island were the sins:
Giligan, Skipper, Professor, Thurston, Mrs. Howell, MaryAnn, Ginger.
Sloth, Anger, Pride, Avarice, Gluttony, Lust, Envy.
For once I didn't get Sloth, but I nailed Pride (over TinGoth),
Avarice (getting the JtHM book when I already have all the comics
at home), Gluttony (boozing up Saturday night), no Lust (I shit
you not -- I had a fancy for only one person which I acted upon,
and I think I was very mature about it. I was just happily
playing with all the other humans) and no Envy (because I felt
like we were _all_ fabulous at C3). I super-rarely commit an
act of anger, I was constantly busy (if I wasn't lying very very
still for sleep or hangover).
Better idea: Deadly Sin awards for achievement above and beyond
the call of duty. I'm a shoe-in for Gluttony, any one of the
organizers had reason to cut loose and get Anger after what they
went through. I didn't meet any snobs who would deserve Pride,
nor anyone so pathetic to might have committed an act of Envy.
Fabulous idea though. I wonder what the trophies would look like?
My head still feels like velvet. Should I put a "Don't do this"
disclaimer after the drunkeness paragraphs at the bottom of
saturday.html ? Nah, it would sound contrived, as if I'm trying
to be socialally concious. I am, but it should be a given to
not do what I did.
Okay, done the "You suck" page for those who don't want to
read my annotations. I think I'm ready to go to press, so I'll
just upload all this (including new versions of the photos
and thumbnails... can't stop fiddling with the gamma on some
of them), after I save this text file, and hope that it
flies. 4:30am Monday 11 Aug 1997.
7am Monday - Uploaded the .tar.gz file, expanded, and it's looking
good. I'm going to send mail to a few people to get first dibbs
at it, point out mistakes, and some first attempts at getting
names to faces. I spent the uploading time on IRC, where a
teenygoth named "MWGacy" came on.
Wait wait, MWGacy as in the member of that reprehensible band?
Yeah.
Well, at least you admit they're reprehensible.
Hahaha
stop using big words
...and that last comment got me into fourth gear right from first. At this
point the Undernet decided to collapse into a dozen pieces, and when I
finally found the teenygoth he left before I could goad him into a situation
where I'd rip him to shreds. I'm a little wired, you see.
9:10am - Near the 60-hour mark from when I started, and still under. Just
sent the email out to invite previews, and noticed I still had the word
"quack" in a few places. I use "quack" as a unique word to look for things
that I left unfinished. I got the Skin Two link, the Roderick's Chamber
link, and the Alice easter egg finished (including the script to insure
that only _my_ visitors see it, and a few Alice Cooper pictures from The
Last Temptation.) Dare I say my graphics repository is now bloated enough
to be useful? The script was an idea I had from seeing people say "Don't
link to my stuff; just link to my page." Why didn't they use a CGI script
to prevent foreign links?
Jesus, I need to sleep. I'm so wired.