Ruins

Feeling somewhat less wrecked tonight than I have for several weeks. Three in the morning has of late found me slipping into fitful sleep while the television drones, but I'm actually somewhat awake now. True, I feel as though I've been dragged several miles over gravel roads behind a truck, but I can probably stay awake for another half hour at least.

It gives me a chance to post this link onto which I stumbled yesterday evening. It's a site about the work of George Lawrence, an early 20th century photographer who is today best known for his panoramic photographs of the ruins of San Francisco taken a few weeks after the earthquake and fire of 1906. The site has good-sized versions all four of these historic pictures which were taken by a giant camera held aloft by a train of kites. There's also an extremely high resolution (20Mb, 11709x44716 pixels) version of his photo of the city from above the bay beyond the ferry building, the best known of the four. There's also interesting information about the Lawrence cameras themselves, and links to other sites about Lawrence and about San Francisco.

Morose

It's noticeably dark before nine o'clock now. Those lingering summer evenings have gone, and I barely noticed them while they were here. The late season insects drone behind the rhythms of the remaining crickets. That nights are cool again pleases me, but that I'm unable to look at the stars does not. Bending my neck to get a view of the sky is still painful. I can imagine this state continuing into the autumn nights of moonlit clouds, and thus me missing them. Having messed up vertebrae really bites.