Elijah has spent Christmases in Florida at Cocoa Beach ever since the incident on Christmas Eve when he was 17 that led him to despise the holiday with the desire to wipe away all memories and thoughts of the dreadful night 5 years ago. He's an aspi...
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Something about the seagull incident that stuck with me was after it had all happened, and that older lady came up to tell us how she wished she'd caught it on video. It got my mind-gears spinning, the factory was working over time, until I finally caved in. Once Charlie and I had set up our arrangement on the beach, both inspired by N. Tophold's hot cocoa, I was hitting the inspiration double-time. Thinking about not only pushing myself out of my comfort zone when it came to this whole competition thing, but also pushing myself in my artistic ventures.
I'd done my research while walking along the beach, and found a camera shop not too far away. I had to take a bus in order to get there, but when I arrived, I was able to find my absolute saving grace. A Hasselblad 500 series film camera, which I almost couldn't believe I was touching when I asked the workers about the one they had in the display case. I was thinking about it like a display pastry case, which you often assume are faux-pastries made to look extra delicious. And then when someone actually serves you a pastry directly from the case, you're kind of blown away that those are the real pastries, and not just plastic replicas made to draw you in. You realize the dream is as good as reality, at times, and it makes you question whether it's real, or whether you're deluded. But I held that film camera and I think twenty sparklers went off in the space around my heart; I wanted it so bad.
I did what my dad would've wanted me to do. He was my biggest influence on making gut decisions, somewhat spontaneous artistic decisions, if only at the expense of complete and utter creativity.
My dad often times would return from a day out, a grocery trip, a business trip, it didn't matter what: he would always return with some sort of spontaneous purchase. He called it his "artistic expenses", and he used to lie to me and tell me that those were the ultra important expenses I could write off on my taxes in order to fund my career in art further.
What a crock of shit. I wish taxes were cool like that.
That's what this film camera was going to be for me: an artistic expense. It's what dad would have wanted, and mom would have appreciated just as much. She never even questioned dad's artistic expenses, even when one of them happened to be a vintage hot dog cooker that laid down on the countertop and slowly (emphasis on slowly) rolled the hot dogs up and down until they cooked. They were always floppy and perspiring. They took about twenty-five minutes to roll and cook through. Even then, there was never a question of "Why does this hot dog gadget inspire you?" Somehow, it always just made sense. Or, eventually, it wrapped up into one of dad's collections.
He did a 22-page disposable camera book based on this vintage hot dog roller, and two hot dogs rolling together until they got taken out, put into buns, topped off with ketchup, relish, mustard. I didn't get it when he made it because I was, like, eight years old. But I loved it now. It was one of his less popular collections he had published, and it was kind of hard to find in stores these days.
