Bosca Dubh

42nd Avenue

West River Road, Minneapolis.

Sanford Middle School, Minneapolis.

The “Lake Wobegon” Scam Artist?

An interesting e-mail came over the transom today:

It’s my pleasure to invite you to my Father’s 70th Birthday Thanks giving service which is going to take place at Geneva United Methodist Church Geneva, Minnesota,united States on May 30th 2008, please Let us know if your compnay will be available on that day to take the Photography service for us and any other necessary things at the event,And get back to us with your package for like 5 hours, presently am not in the state but it’s my duty to take care of this part that’s why, I have to contacted you myself. Let me know if you can receive your payment with a CHEQUE from my client in the states.

There are a few things that are tip-offs here that something’s not on the up-and-up: the payment by “CHEQUE” (not how it’s spelled in Geneva, MN …), the stilted English, the suggestion that I might be an event photographer (take a look at the blurry Holga pictures and strange night pictures, and tell me if you’d really want me anywhere near your father’s birthday “Thanks giving” party…). But I find this almost touching in its lack of ambition: no crown prince of Swaziland, no royal family of Ghana, no lottery winnings from Spain or Ireland, just some guy at the United Methodist church in a little town near Albert Lea. Have the scam artists given up on their dreams and decided to settle down in Lake Wobegon?

A similar trick is outlined here: Scams on Artists, mnartists.org. The trick usually involves a cashier’s check that turns out to be bad, though after you’ve deposited it into your account, and a portion of that bad check being sent back to the miscreant (I’ll pay you $4,000, you keep $950 and send me the change . . .). And since it plays on the dreams and aspirations of someone with an artistic bent, it’s particularly cruel and nasty. Over at Daily Dickinson I pointed out another scam artist put to shame, this time by Emily Dickinson, or someone rather like her. It’s this sort of stuff that sucks the fun right out of the Internet.

night flare

West River Road, Minneapolis.

Now see these:

• uninvited guest from the narrative
• Weathered from Perspective Images
• The Candidate’s Toes from Unphotographable

light at the window, light at the door

West River Road, Minneapolis.

Now see these:

• Gate of the moon from Aperture First
• ARPEGGI from MONTMARTRE

court lights

Sanford Middle School, Minneapolis.

air conditioner service

It’s cold here; like, “it will warm up to -1 degree Farenheit” cold; like, your breath doesn’t just fog, it freezes into ice crystals that shatter at your feet. No one around here needs air conditioner service today . . .

Now see these:

• afternoon light from 1965 monochrome
• untitled from UrbanGhost

Best China

An interesting dinner setting at the “If These Walls Could Talk” exhibit at the Minnesota History Center museum.

Now see these:

• Dorothea Lange Depression-era photographs at Shorpy
• Steetley pier from Mystery Me
• resume time from the narrative
• Winter Worker from Perspective Images
• Look up and open from Elaine

Sit Here

An invitation to take a seat on a bed in the “If These Walls Could Talk” exhibit at the Minnesota History Center museum.

James and Doris

James Doyle and Doris Dahlstrom were among the many people who passed through 470 Hopkins Street, St. Paul, over the last century; “If These Walls Could Talk,” a multi-media display at the Minnesota History Center museum, documents their stories in words, pictures, and sounds.

Now see these:

• on the way up from milou
• wheel from 1965 monochrome
• requiem from Mad Media Studios
• flowers from BOXMAN fotologue
• Some trees, some snow from SUBJEKTIV
• devotion from Feldauge
• Mother and daughter from (donc je suis)
• shaftesbury avenue from straydog
• The Beaches from No Traces

river road nocturne

Now see these:

• Winter Solitude from Perspective Images
• Allons au cinéma from Elaine
• from behind the scenes of paris’ hidden kitchen from Rion.nu

lace of light

Now see these:

• Santiago de Cuba (Havana Club) from MAKING HAPPY
• frosty morning from Absolutely Nothing
• Don’t leave home without your camera from Still alive

snow branches

Now see these:

• Grey Stone Fence from A Walk Through Durham Township
• Stonescape from 3 a.m. from Kyoto
• Logan’s Shooters Bar & Grill, Logansport from fourteen places to eat
• encounter from bighappyfunhouse
• Inside the Cage from Black and White Dreaming
• Watching from Wood | Stone
• Full Up from Sopheava de Lumiere
• Winter Tree #1 from tomo (seen at “Film is not dead it just smells funny”)

night frost

birches

ahhh

Happy New Year! (Though this picture was actually taken on the 4th of July, at the Stone Arch Bridge; but fireworks are fireworks.)

A new year calls for a new plan. I’m diversifying my on-line production a bit this year, with a couple of experiments in addition to this site; and I’m scaling back a bit on this site to give myself space for the new projects and to focus a bit more on quality rather than on quantity.

• At “From a Farther Room”, I’ll be publishing a new picture three times a week: Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. This will also be the place where I’ll put out the occasional book review and list of pictures.
• Starting today, and continuing every Tuesday until December 30, I’ll be updating Fifty Two Encounters, a collection of completely unrelated tales that imagine interplanetary meetings. This week, you can read “The Glass Scarab”; next week, a lesson in Martian humours.
• Daily Dickinson will continue unabated, because {a} “Weekly Dickinson” doesn’t have that much of a ring to it, and {b} someone else already did all the hard work back around 1862.
• Another project or two are in the works, but are not yet sufficiently gelled to mention in detail.

The Secret River

Water and Stone of ...

By Michael Hartford

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