My Possible Future Obsession

Tonight I was channel surfing and decided to check out the Documentary Channel (197 on Dishnetwork). I've gone to it many times, thinking I'd only watch for a minute, and ended up watching an entire show, being fascinated, and sometimes learning about something I've never heard of, like 'noodling'. Noodling is a way of catching ginormous catfish with only your bare hands. I know all about it now.

Tonight I stumbled upon a show called 'Other People's Pictures'. I was wishing I could walk right into my television. It spoke to me. Here's a description from NPR

All Things Considered, June 20, 2004 · At New York's Chelsea Flea Market, collectors sort through boxes and albums full of discarded snapshots: a black-and-white photo of a yawning girl, a Polaroid of a couple embracing at the kitchen table, a yellowed print of a group of Nazis smiling in the snow. Kaleidoscopic slices of life, these abandoned photos can sometimes bring in hundreds of dollars a piece. Other People's Pictures, a new documentary from filmmakers Lorca Shepperd and Cabot Philbrick, examines the lives and minds of nine people who collect these lost and discarded photographs. One man searches only for "male affection" snapshots of men embracing or holding hands. Another looks for pictures that simply tell an unfinished story. An Israeli immigrant who lost family members in the Holocaust and whose own family album was destroyed years ago, owns what he calls a "banality of evil" collection: photos of Nazis in everyday situations.

I could do this. I'm already obsessed with my grandparent's photo collection. I've looked at every single picture many many many times - some of them I've pondered. Some of them I was able to put names to after hunting down a long lost elderly relatives who held their secrets. There's joy and meaning for me in reclaiming a lost cousin, aunt, uncle or grandparent on an unmarked photo. There is a joy for me in looking at every detail of the picture, placing it in an historical context, and wondering what unknown drama might be related to it. I love the difference in the style of photo paper and dimensions used in different eras. I love the envelopes they've been saved in that sometimes have random notes or mathematical problems written on them. I could sit and look at them for hours on end, forgetting myself and time completely. I can see myself obsessed like the people in this film.

Aaaah, but time. When will I ever have time to for this love to become a full blown obsession?

*sigh*

Here are a few of my favorite snapshots from the family collection. I actually started a blog for the purpose of posting pictures like these for my family, but I haven't gotten very far. It's kind of overwhelming, and I want to write something of particular note about each photo. Instead I spend my time doing stuff like making a video montage of Piper Palin (and let's not mention the housework I'm ignoring - oh, I just did).

Priororities Rachel! Geez.

My mother is in the middle, her cousin Larry on the left, and my Uncle Bud on Easter morning 195? (I'd have to look up the specific date). See the tops of the Easter baskets? The cowboy gear was from my great Aunt Kay who couldn't have children. The television is to die for!

My mother with some kind of awesome cornrows, doing what all women are destined to do.

My mother, circa 1946 at Griffith Park, in what looks to be a stroller/lawnmower.

My sister's 12th birthday, August 1978. That's me in the front, my sister reading a birthday card, and my Aunt Julie and Uncle Greg. They always gave us music :)