Neanderpundit

I collect cameras. I have done so for a long time, and I love to take pictures with the ones that work as well as just look at the ones too old to use. It’s an easy thing to collect, because with the advent of digital, cameras that were once the exclusive area of the very wealthy can be had very inexpensively.

Case in point, I just recently acquired a Contaflex. Now, not too many people in north american even know what a contaflex is, most people are familiar with Canon, Nikon, the other Japanese makers. Contaflex was a postwar company that made cameras far and away more complex and sophisticated, for their time, than anything from any other manufacturer. And they had Carl Zeiss lenses. For those of you in Rio Lindo, Carl Zeiss practically invented light. I mean, the finest lenses in the WORLD. Shit, Hasselblad has zeiss even this day. In 1957, when this Contaflex was shipped from Deuitschland, it cost as much as a good used car. Today, it’s bloody difficult to give one away.

So for a couple hundred dollars I have a collection of cameras that once would have cost a kings ransom. And I’m accumulating more all the time. Oh, a few hold their value, like blads, and leicas, and of course there will always be a market for a good Nikon F, but for the most part, the very fine cameras of the last two generations are now nearly worthless. Because of their cost, people took exquisite care of these cameras as well. It’s as if you could go buy a perfecly preserved 1957 Thunderbird for $400. Amazing the things of great value that just become worthless. Like ten year old computers- the difference being, a vintage Argus C3, or Bell & Howell 16mm movie camera, will still work perfectly at it’s chosen task, while a ten year old computer is worthless.

What do you collect?

Dammit, I miss smoking. I miss having that comforting pack of smokes in my shirt pocket. I miss carrying a Zippo, the Man’s way to light a smoke. And by the way, fill that bastard with leaded gas, you sonofabitch, don’t go putting any unleaded bullshit in it. I miss standing in the wind, lit smoke hanging out of the corner of my mouth, raking leaves. Hell, I even miss being out of breath. I miss having the reek of tobacco on my clothes, the fumes in my car. I miss sitting back at the end of a meal, putting my feet on the table, and lighting up. I miss flipping my butts into a fireplace. I miss the way I felt first thing in the morning, lighting that first smoke, sucking it back while I waited for the energy to put feet to floor. I miss rolling my own- the ritual of opening the pouch, folding up the edge of the paper, sprinkling in just the right amount of Drum, rolling up the paper and sealing it, and lighting up. I miss keeping those roaches on the fireplace mantel and putting them in a pipe at the end of the day, remembering each moment of the day as I smoked that last smoke.

I don’t miss the 4 bucks plus a pack,twenty times a week, and as I’m a cheap bastard, I’ll deal with it. But, still.

Anyone who has been around me in the hours following consumption of my Deer chili, or Linus the Dip, (an evil, addictive concoction eaten on tortilla chips which tastes like more) or even (in my case) califlower soup, knows not to stand downwind of me. I can clear a room, and in one case, cleared a building. Gyros and onion rings cause me to fart like the burning brakes on a semi. The worst, of course, is Deer meat tacos with homemade salsa verde. So after having eaten a bucketload of that, one would imagine that the seat of my jeans would be about the most toxic place on the surface of the planet.
Continue Reading »