Faint Praise

Our pink Thanksgiving cactus is finally blooming, and as you can see from the buds there are lots of flowers still on the way. We have no open blooms yet on the plants that produce white or salmon-colored flowers, but it's only a matter of days.

I had a funny conversation with a student yesterday. One of the middle school boys is very into photography, and he knows I take pictures too, so he often comes to me with questions or observations about cameras. He's one of these kids who's intrigued by using film, which as I've said is a complete mystery to me -- I think being unburdened by the restrictions and hassles of film is one of the best developments in my life, and I mean it. But anyway, at some point I showed him one of my photography books, which I'd donated to the library years ago. He and I talked about street photography and he made some observations about a few of the pictures.

Yesterday he brought a friend to the library and showed him my book, and he came to me about 20 minutes later and said, "You know, Mr. Reed, when I first saw your photography I thought it was only so-so. But now I've looked deeper into the book and I've decided it's really good!"

Now, this boy is likely to say anything, and with a directness that can be downright painful. But I thought that was pretty funny. I'm glad he has decided I'm not merely mediocre.

It's hard to believe I put together my last book ten years ago. (Not counting one I did a few years back of my dad's photos from his Europe trip in 1957.) Maybe once I retire I'll compile another book. An Olga retrospective? I don't do as much street photography as I used to before I had a full-time job, but I could see picking it up again when I have more spare time. I remember that was one of my hesitations about starting work in the library in the first place -- that it would cut into my photography. But it's not like photography was making me any money!

As long as I'm on a roll talking about childhood stuff, as I have in several recent posts, here's another memory that came to me the other day. You know I'm a fan of book covers, having posted about good ones, bad ones and some that once belonged to my mom.

Well, I got to thinking about a copy of Arthur C. Clarke's novel "Childhood's End" that I owned when I was a teenager in the early '80s. I don't think I ever actually read the book, but I remember buying it based on the slick, futuristic cover art. I wondered if I could find an image of it online, and the answer, of course, is yes!

I'm pretty sure that's the cover at left, though there's a very similar, slightly earlier version with a less stylized typeface, and I might have owned that one. In any case, the illustration was the same. It's nice to see it again, and I was amused to find this cover made enough of an impression on another blogger that he also wrote a short ode to it. (In fact that's his image of the cover, at left, which hopefully he won't mind me reposting here.)

Once again, it's funny how some things make such a deep impression on our memories when we're young.