Do You Hear What I Hear . . .

Say hello to Gertrude.

She is the “new” camera I bought on Sunday at a flea market. She was the object of my drooling last week and, as it turned out that she was available for an incredibly cheap price, I snatched her up as quick as I could.

She is a Kodak Duaflex IV, vintage 1950’s. She takes 620 film, which is slightly smaller than 120 film and a bit more expensive. However, the film is still being made, which means that I will still be able to use her to take pictures, but not very often.

Her lenses are in fantastic condition – I just need to take some lens cleaner and a cotton-tip and do some detailing work to clean it up a bit. The really cool part is the viewfinder on the top of the camera, which you can’t see because the little hatch is down.

Even if I don’t use her she is still a great find, and I will gladly display her – she has such a great old-time vibe about her. I love old, film cameras . . . maybe sometime soon, I’ll get a brownie and a pinhole to complete the collection . . .

In other news, Mr. Random is all freaked out about his final assignments for class that are due on Saturday. We have some other stuff going on at the Random Non-Profit that is adding to his workload, and which is not helping his stress at all. I’m doing what I can, being as much moral support as I can be, but also staying out of the way as he needs to get stuff done. I have plenty of my own work to occupy me, so I just stress out in my own little corner . . .

Happy news! Mr. Random and I finally did get tickets to a concert at the National Cathedral this weekend, and I am extremely excited. I can’t wait to hear the acoustics in that building . . .

Major boos to the Washington, DC radio market! The much beloved WGMS classical radio station is going off the air soon, despite that fact that it was a very highly rated station (which is rare). Mr. Random and I actually listen to that station both before going to bed and getting up in the morning, and I listen quite a bit at work. I’m fairly ticked off that a quality station is getting the boot so that they can put on more sports talk and ‘Skins games. It sucks that there is nothing we can do about it – and it annoys me that we are always told to go on the internet or get satellite radio. First off, I don’t want to sit in front of the computer, or have the computer on, all freaking day. Second, I don’t want to have to cough up more bucks just to listen to the radio. . .

Yes, I know . . . I’m a total anachronism. I love old cameras and books and print newspapers and black and white films and classical music. I always hoped to share some of these things with my future children, the way my family shared them with me.

I remember being a little girl in Philly and on Sunday afternoons my parents listened to a radio station that played Big Band music and old standards most of the day. My parents were way into the Disco and the R&B and the Top 40, but they also exposed my sister and I to other music like that through the radio, since we couldn’t afford to go to any concerts and stuff. (We also watched a lot of Lawrence Welk and Hee Haw – yes, we were weird kids . . .) I was exposed to classical music through being in choir and concert band and school field trips (oh, and Bugs Bunny cartoons . . .), and then finding music on the radio expanded my knowledge a bit more.

Yes, I know you can find all of this stuff on the computer now – but it’s not the same. Everything is so fragmented now, so “you have to pay extra” to get something different or hunt through a bunch of stuff to find what you like. I know things were never simple, but they just seem to be made so much harder now . . .

. . . wait . . . I’m not saying this right . . . what am I saying? It’s hard for me to say what’s in my heart sometimes . . .

Yes, there are more choices out there. Yes, you can find whatever kind of music you want now, all you have to do is search for it on the internet. But you have to know what you are looking for first . . . and sometimes, you don’t know what that is . . .

Wait. That doesn’t make sense either. What am I trying to say? . . .

Maybe I’m just raging against the dying of the light. Maybe I feel like a lot of things that have given me comfort are being taken away, or changing too quickly for me to deal with. So much is happening – so much change in our own lifetimes – I just want some things to stay constant, that I can count on to be there tomorrow, next week, next year . . .

It’s more than just some stupid radio station . . . I think it just makes me more aware that I am getting older, and time will not stop for me. That I will become one of those old people railing about the loss of traditions, of those things that they enjoyed and clung to in the prime of their lives. A new generation is here who totally doesn’t care – the future is cool and bright and now . . .

I care. And I guess I am being left behind too . . .