When I bought the a Polaroid camera, ~OldnSlow asked me: why? The image quality sucks and it's expensive to run. At the time I said something vaugly about the Polaroid becoming its own style since the digital camera took over from it for instant photos...

...however, now that I've thought about it, there's a much simpler explination: it's fun. There's something inestimably entertaining and satisfying about hitting the shutter button and hearing then thing click and whirr away. Then it spits out a blank rectangle that three minutes later becomes a somewhat blurry photograph. It's like instant gratification, distilled. And then at the end of it you get a physical thing to keep a hold of rather than a file in a screen. The Polaroid is in its own way difficult to use, photos don't look like what you saw in the view-finder and you have to guess focus. Getting an even midly resonable picture becomes a matter of being familiar with the equipment... and then you wait.

And when you think about it, "fun" drives a lot of what we do and purchase. I could have had a much more practical, modern and reliable car than the Alfetta for less money, but the Alfetta's fun. I could have bought a solid state amplifier (ok, so I like the sound of tubes too) and not had to wait for it to heat up before use or had to turn it off every 6 hours to cool down. But it glows, it pings, it takes time to use and it's fun.

Maybe Kozue Amano was onto something when she drew ARIA: in a technological time of instant gratification and items intended to make our lives "easier", it's still more satisfying to take our time, slow down and do things, if not the fast way, then the fun way...



Ok, so all that was basically trying to explain why I've taken a sudden liking to indie pop/rock and pop/folk... seriously

Two Aussie bands worth checking out:

The Jezabels - [link]

Skipping Girl Vinegar - [link]

I've probably talked about them before, but meh.


And now to put that Krippendorff stuff into an essay...