Put On Your Big Girl Panties and Deal With It

How did I miss this new bumper sticker with my name on it? I'm only afraid I might have them on backwards.

I'm just coming down from my Oscar party. Did you think Brokeback Mountain got robbed,—or are you just as happy that Crash won?

This past week, I wrote a piece for a round-table discussion on "what people don't say about Brokeback."

I thought some of the other participants were fascinating, especially the therapist who has a lot of "clients" like Jack and Ennis— and the porn guy who made me burst out laughing at his critique of the rather unrealistic portrayal of anal sex implied by the movie. It just goes to show how Hollywood can put that only-on-celluloid spin on any kind of sex! Good reading, all around.

I'm going to write a separate bitch-fest on the fashion side of the red carpet, that I'll post tomorrow. I'll just say for now that I wore a silver lame number with impossible decolletage, my "Carmella Soprano" fur jacket,  "diamond" bunny necklace, a wiglet straight out of Valley of the Dolls, and matching Birkenstocks.

May I ask your advice, on some projects that have been bedeviling me? I have a little blog news, too.

1.  I need a reel-to-reel tape recorder. I want to make some digital copies of music my  father lent me — fabulous old tapes of music from India, California Indian songs and stories, and even some young-as-a-spring-chicken Doc Watson.

I have the Harmon-Kardan CD Player/Recorder that converts analog to digital— for example, from a cassette deck, or a turntable— but I cannot find a working reel-to-reel, that I could either have for free, for pennies, or to borrow.

I don't want to buy a new machine because I won't use it again, and this is going to take some hours of recording and editing... I don't have the budget for a luxury hobby!  Any leads? Let me know.

2.  I need to scan some of my old books and manuscripts which were written in the Stone Age, before digital files. (Sensing a theme here?)  I need them scanned with OCR software, so they will be text documents that I can then edit and convert into PDF's.

I Google'd "book scanning" and such, and found a long list of companies that profess to  do this very thing. They were pitching themselves to corporations and schools, but I figure I'd call them anyway, since I'm accustomed to not seeing "For Starving Artists" written on the home page.

I have called FIVE of them... the top links on Google, and only one guy called me back. He was at a convention in Chicago and yelled, "Whaddya want?" like I was calling for a cab on a rainy night.

I said, "I might have some business for you, I need a series of books scanned," and he rang off, saying he had no time to talk. Never heard from him again.  I could have been Melinda Gates, and now he'll never know.

I'm convinced there must be people out there who have the page-feed scanners, the OCR software, who do this for a living, small projects, whatever. Is there someone in the South Bay Area like this? Or anywhere? Please let me know if you've done this or have the perfect referral. I have copies which can have the binding broken, etc.

3. My dad is always recommending good things for me to read; I love his taste in books. So I asked him to write some book reviews, and you'll find them down my right-hand sidebar. It's called "Grandpa's Book Reviews, by Bill Bright." That was Aretha's idea. He'll update them every month or so.

On the left-hand sidebar, scrolling down, you'll find a list I made of my father's books in print. I feel so silly, I never looked at them in Amazon before. He got so many great reviews! No one ever says, "This ISN'T Linguistics! Who are YOU to talk about language!" ( Which is what many people say when one writes about "erotica" for example).  Anyway, I hope you enjoy them, 'cause I'm very proud.

5.  Oh, let's just go back one more time, to the issue of traditional mediums and what-the-hell-to-do. What do you do with hundreds, even thousands of beautiful photographs you'd like to immortalize online?

I know the negs should be saved for posterity, if  it's art photography or legacy stuff. I'm not even talking about all the cute dog/kitty poses.

I have been completely flummoxed by this sort of thing. It's so labor intensive... I'll do a dozen photos, and wonder where the day went. And I'm not even doing particularly great quality. My Valentine project was one of those.

Here, I'll give you an example of something to cherish: my maternal grandmother was the first pianist at the first Nickelodeon theater in Fargo, ND. She played piano for all the silent movies, and was a HUGE fan of all the first actors and actresses to make their mark. This was the early 20s.

She would write away for autographed photos— and what lovely prints she received and collected!  Gorgeous photography by the great Hollywood snappers of the time, beautifully printed on exquisite paper, signed in great gushes of fountain pen ink. Pola Negri, William Hart, Lillian Gish... a treasure trove of these jewels.

Of COURSE I want to scan them and make a little online museum of them, with notes on the portraits and players.  I'm a huge old Hollywood buff, and this is the buff's great dilemma!

Have any of you been faced with this kind of project, where you didn't have piles of money or time, but you wanted to do it justice?

Comments

[kmeelyon]

I have also been scanning lots of things. Tons of old photos. I can easily wind up with knotted shoulders, eyes glazed over from lack of sleep, and hours spent doing this. Since I had to study for a huge test last month, I allowed myself ten photos in the morning and ten at night. It didn't take more than fifteen minutes or so, and I have to say, it adds up nicely. I've been uploading mine to flickr, which I love (I pay for the account w/lots of storage). You might like it. Sorry, no other tips on making the scanning manageable. But 20 a day adds up fast.

[Sexy Lioness]

"...and matching Birkenstocks."

Susie, you made me shoot Pepsi out of my nose! I identified with that *so* much! I don't think I've worn shoes that weren't either Birkenstocks (one variety or another) or slippers in YEARS. Funny, but after a few years in Birkenstocks "girlie" shoes are pure torture.

I really should have been a dyke. Birkenstocks, disdain for fussy hair and makeup and an incredulous attitude about all the poor fashion victims in this world. Comfort is where it's at!

BTW, if I had a scanner I'd help you with those photos, but alas...

[Susie Bright]

I thought about putting myself on a "regime" of a certain number of scans per day. It is very hard for me to give myself regular habits like that; I chafe! I'm more of a "let's do it all day and be done with it," sort of person. But clearly I need some discipline to get through something this big.

I love my Birkies. I still have the heels, but of course, they're only comfortable lying down.

[sylvar]

I've been looking for cheap photo scanning, too. Based on weighing 25 4x6 photos at 90 grams, then weighing all my photos, I've got roughly 2700 prints to scan!

Walgreens used to offer photo scanning for $3.99 per CD (and a CD held about 100 prints), but they've wised up and now charge about 39 cents per photo. The best prices I've found online are about 25 cents per photo for 300dpi scans, in quantities of 1000 or more. That's not too likely unless I win the lottery, and at the moment I can't really afford to buy a ticket.

So it looks like I'll just be scanning them myself and fretting about the schmutz on the underside of the scanner glass. Le sigh...

[C.S. Lewiston]

Tell me all about mammoth long-term projects, Susie! I'm an amateur photographer with years' worth of unprinted photographic negatives, and I just bought a scanner for them. I guess it's gonna have to be "brush teeth, shower, scan a few dozen negatives" from now on!

As for Birkies, I never liked the way they looked. I swear by New Balance walking shoes. Hey, Michael Moore wears New Balance sneex, they can't be all bad!

[Melissa (oddharmonic)]

I would post to Craigslist in search of a reel-to-reel to borrow. I nearly bought one at a church yard sale a few years ago, but passed since we're short on space.

"Have any of you been faced with this kind of project, where you didn't have piles of money or time, but you wanted to do it justice?"

I have done some interesting scanning projects, but I have piles of time right now because of my current life situation. (After five years as a stay-at-home mother, I've been looking for work and not finding much since I'm only available to work outside the home during school hours and don't have a college degree.)

I've been going through old family photos trying to scan, annotate and preserve as much as I can before relatives who can tell me about their photos pass on. In the past three years, I've scanned several thousand photos and repaired a few hundred for scratches, color casts, mold and other damage.

I've answered a lot of ads on my local Craigslist looking for small scanning services. I haven't been the first responder to one yet, but I'm reasonably well outfitted (ABBYY FineReader OCR software, Adobe Photoshop and will acquire a Wacom tablet later this year) and I have a quick eye for proofreading and photo restoration.

[Steve]

You could find a reel to reel on EBay, or, if you're lucky, you might be able to borrow one from a library. If you have any connection with a university campus at all, check with the A/V department.

As far as the scanning and the photos - It seems to be my life these days! You could check http://www.laserfiche.com/company/index.html to see if it looks like something that would work for you. I think it costs a couple grand, though. It could be used, I think, for both photos and text, and will OCR as it scans, plus create a file structure automatically so you don't have to think about it.

[Darkneuro]

Suze: On the scanning... Check with paralegal/secretarial/transcription services in your area. I know here in Abq, there's a couple of transcription services that will scan into OCR, and that's HERE, so I would assume with a larger population the Bay area would have more.

[Susan]

Susie, my dad had a reel to reel in the late 80s (very late to have one of these dinosaurs, I thought). If he still has it, I'm sure it's something he can live without. I'll check with him on it.

[Susan]

Well, no dice on the reel to reel. Apparently, it's "long gone". I guess I don't get my packrat gene from that side of the family!

Have you tried Freecycle? I bet someone in your area has one in the basement...

[nick]

reel to reel: try your local college radio station. seriously. call and ask.