Got a gig!
I’m taking the show on the road!
Chimiru’s One Cat Band
(and her army of virtual robots)
That’s a joke.
Called back >> by popular demand.
>>> Master Gardener of Appalachian Soils.
I’ll be away from technology for a few weeks. I gotta say… >> I need a break.
All this writing has been fantastic at reconnecting my linguistic centers over the last nine months. I’ve almost remembered how to use proper grammar and punctuations. It has also been a huge battle conquering layers of conditioned fears and anxieties. I won. In case ya missed it. This is my 130th Post.
The blog is so full, and I think it’s time to start sorting out the topics.
Keep em separated. Psyche Tips, Gardening, Dark Humor
Cartography Club…
Btw In case ya missed it.. I won the last challenge, so I am disqualified from winning the next Challenge.
I’ve been submitting maps anyway, (last 4 wins) especially if it seems like there is low participation. This week the Big Dogs started out earlier. “Tower” is definitely their theme!
AND
My mind is already in the Garden.
Recalling the lay of the land and the work was done last year. The work I hope to get to (re-organizing tool sheds and repairing/storing/replacing the rust/tools.) Then there is the new project of converting the old raised bed system.
My first cub lives nearby and will come in for a visit during my stay. I might get to meet his love bug…! I like the pictures so far.
Then again… pictures don’t tell the whole story.
Just one moment.
My step mom had albums of moments…
I found myself in the eras of her life…
and weirdly (if I see the camera coming) I’m caught mid-dodge…
or mid-bite looking all pink eyed straight into the flash as food is half in (or heading towards) my mouth.
She has so few pictures of me looking directly into the camera, smiling, or posing in a group…
XD Always volunteer to be on the other-side of the camera.
I may have a fear.
[o_o] A few Indigenous groups around the world — including some Native American individuals and communities during the 19th and early 20th centuries — were reported by outsiders as being uncomfortable with photography because of spiritual concerns, distrust of colonizers, or cultural taboos around images. But historians have found that many of these stories were generalized by non-Native writers and became stereotypes.
Some examples often mentioned include:
- Certain individuals among the Navajo Nation (Diné), where photographs of the dead could be spiritually troubling because of beliefs surrounding death and ghosts (chʼį́įdii).
- Some Plains tribes, such as the Lakota Sioux, were at times wary of photographers because photography was tied to colonial control, anthropological collection, and loss of autonomy.
- Similar “image captures spirit” ideas also appeared in non-Native cultures worldwide, including parts of Africa, Australia, and Asia.
Importantly:
- There is no well-documented evidence of an entire tribe formally teaching that “a camera literally steals your soul.”
- Many Native Americans enthusiastically adopted photography themselves once cameras became accessible.
- Famous Native leaders such as Sitting Bull and Geronimo posed for many photographs intentionally and even sold signed portraits.
Modern scholars usually interpret these beliefs less as “primitive superstition” and more as:
- concern about spiritual identity,
- fear of exploitation,
- resistance to colonial documentation,
- or discomfort with sacred images being controlled by outsiders.
^-.-^ I don’t think that answered the question, and after all that.. (scroll up to see what I asked…) What was it about photographs stealing your soul? Nah..
It was something about the sudden flash… (scroll up more…) Good grief! How did we even get here?
It was about anticipating the flash, and then we went into early cameras…
There was always something that scared me about cameras… the flash, because it blinds and leave large dark spots everywhere and take a long time for my eyes to re-adjust. Fireworks don’t do this.
Okay.. I see how you got there.
The blind sided.. Then
Flash paper, magicians…
The audience in awe, >> until you understand the mechanics behind it. Friction.
Or Fiction… the lie >>> LOOK A DIVERSION!
{audience heads all swivel in unison}
(missing the maneuver)
(switch pressed)
(FlashBang)
and the hot assistant steps out of the clouds… TA-DA!!
Looks like a One Man Show, but there’s a whole crew pulling off the illusion.
[o_o] That reads like the spine of a spoken-word piece about spectacle, technology, and misdirection — cameras, stage magic, propaganda, even celebrity culture all collapsing into the same mechanism:
control attention → trigger awe → conceal the machinery.
The “camera steals your soul” idea suddenly stops sounding primitive in that framing.
Not literally soul theft — but extraction:
- your image,
- your attention,
- your reaction,
- your belief,
- your participation in the illusion.
And the flash becomes symbolic:
- magician’s flash paper,
- early camera powder,
- flashbang grenades,
- paparazzi bulbs,
- media events,
- the blinding moment before the switch happens.
What makes it work is the layered metaphor:
- stage illusion,
- mass media,
- ritual,
- technological mysticism,
- social manipulation,
- performance itself.
It feels a little like The Prestige crossed with Guy Debord’s “society of the spectacle.”
<-.-> yep this is like a bunch of conversations merging. We really do chat too much.
I didn’t break into poetry..
I was trying to find words for what my mind puts together visually.
…. the point was lost chapters ago.
I know what it was though!
The Point:
There IS NO Trick >>> if you know the mechanics.
You are no longer Audience-all head swivels…
And
>>> a carny kid looks for where The Magician hides his switches,
Or guessing how many people are on the crew,
>>> from the amount of pulleys>>>> to Pull — Off the trick!
I guess that is the difference between a carny kid and a townie.
Carny kids see future jobs, >> being part of the show.
Townies attend to just to be Entertained.
Anyways, I’m off to perform a landscaping feat.
Traveler Chimiru 
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