Project 365: Gunslingers and Hitchhikers and other silliness

A year is a really. long. time. And 365 pictures? A LOT of pictures. There’s only so much wandering around, camera gripped expectantly in one hand, that a girl can do in search of the perfect photo opportunity. Sometimes, you have to get a little silly.

There’s a group on Flickr called Theme of the Week (TOTW) that I’ve been following for months now, but only recently started playing along. The people who post there are really quite clever and creative — but have WAY more time on their hands than I seem to! The theme this week was “Literary Genius” and I couldn’t resist playing along.

You know I’m a Stephen King fan from way back, and I think the first line to the first novel of his Dark Tower series is perhaps one of the best opening lines of all time: “The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.”

(You like the cracked desert texture on that? The background is actually a beige plush blanket, but I layered the image with a photo of a cracked and rusted yellow pipe I drove past and stopped to photograph the day before. I didn’t end up using the pipe picture, but it sure adds a bit of desert character, doesn’t it? Have I mentioned how much I love photoshop? And Stephen King? And, erm, George Lucas?)

And then there’s this one, inspired by Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy:

There is a theory which states that if anybody ever discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.

Yesterday, I had TOTW and Douglas Adams in mind when a woman walked past me pushing her dog in a stroller.

I swear, I stopped dead in my tracks four steps past her, debated it for a nano-second, and turned around and asked the woman if I could take a photograph. It’s a stroller. for. dogs. If that’s not bizarre and inexplicable, I don’t know what is!

The silliness has been with me for quite some days now. The TOTW last week was “Lyrically Inspired.” I’ve walked past this stump near my house maybe three million times and have never been inspired by it — and then in a flash last Friday on the way home from work, it leapt out and smacked me with both a stinky pun AND a TOTW idea. I called it (*snicker, chortle*) “I’m stumped!” I crack me up!

And the lyrical inspiration? Why, Rush’s “The Trees”, of course!

There is unrest in the forest
There is trouble with the trees
For the maples want more sunlight
And the oaks ignore their pleas

The trouble with the maples
(And they’re quite convinced they’re right)
They say the oaks are just too lofty
And they grab up all the light
But the oaks can’t help their feelings
If they like the way they’re made
And they wonder why the maples
Can’t be happy in their shade

There is trouble in the forest
And the creatures all have fled
As the maples scream ‘Oppression!’
And the oaks just shake their heads

So the maples formed a union
And demanded equal rights
‘The oaks are just too greedy
We will make them give us light’
Now there’s no more oak oppression
For they passed a noble law
And the trees are all kept equal
By hatchet, axe and saw

(I was ridiculously pleased with myself for this stunning combination of spot-on theme adaptation, excellent musical taste and wretched punniness, and was quite disappointed when Beloved only rolled his eyes at my obvious self-delight and the photo garned a measly two comments on Flickr. Sheesh, tough crowd!)

Moving right along, there were some less silly things that I photographed this week as well. Well, this one has an inherent silliness about him, but that’s along with a whole bunch of other good stuff and not the entire reason I photographed him! I love the sparkle of mischief and personality in his eyes — pure Tristan.

Much as I love the boys’ adorable faces, I like their other parts, too! (This one had to be judiciously edited to remove a curve of rather adorable bathtime bum cheek to make it safe for Internet consumption but take my word for it, the version I kept for myself is even *more* adorable than this one!)

(Simon long ago coined the term “fancy” to mean the way your fingers and toes get all pruney in the bath. When your digits get fancy, it means it’s time to get out of the tub!)

And although, or perhaps because, it is now officially autumn, Mother Nature still has many colourful gifts to share.

I figure with all the google traffic I get searching for various sorts of “postcards”, I’d put this up to give the searchers their money’s worth:

This one wins the prize as the most vexatious photo of the week. I really liked it, and apparently so did lots of other people. It has tonnes of comments, and plenty of people have “favourited” it — but it stubbornly refuses to jump into Explore even though other pictures of mine with half the number of comments and faves are in Explore right now. Very strange.

Oh well, it’s still a pretty picture, and that’s the whole point, right?