#136 :: Battle Suit

seek look ‘popup’,’width=500,height=500,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0′); return false”>About 35 years ago, a student of my father’s pulled a slick slab of leather and chrome from his overcoat pocket and performed an act of origami sorcery I’ll never forget. Polaroid had given the guy one of the first SX-70 instant cameras, a few bricks of film, and marching orders to test it wherever and whenever he could. He pinched, and lifted and the slab unfolded in a slow, balletic explosion of inclined planes, black bellows and pivoting glass. I was completely mesmerized. He aimed, focused, and snapped, and the thing extruded a squarish rectangle that went from a white mist to a full-color photo of my little brother and me. Then with a pop and shuffle, he collapsed the camera into a slab again and slipped it back into his pocket with the slyest grin a recent college graduate could muster. I was used to Flash-Cubed Instamatics that teased and tortured, making me wait for weeks to see my photos until my Dad retrieved them from the drugstore. This – this was miraculous. I got a non-folding SX-70 for high school graduation years later, and spent the better part of my time in photo classes blowing through packs of film, gouging and abusing freshly-shot emulsion in a juvenile attempt to imitate Lucas Samaras and Les Krims. I found this top-of-the-line model in an antique store in Ventura a few years back – to replace an earlier folding model I owned. You can still buy the film – mostly at professional photo stores, though occasionally you’ll run across it at drug stores. You can use the crazy-fast 600 film if you don’t mind stopping everything way down and just dealing with the overexposure – I had a nice portfolio of stuff I shot at Joshua Tree not long back on the black-and-white stock. The cameras can be had on eBay for a song, and if you’re a true ‘Roid geek, you’ll enjoy the Hacker’s Guide to the SX-70.”
buy ‘popup’, health ‘width=500, information pills height=500,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0′); return false”>A souvenir from a European road trip, a call to action, a study in French traffic control. Printed black on yellow and stuck to a little plastic road sign, the message is clear, yet vague if you feign ignorance as to its purpose: 500 meters to an exit? 500 million possible variations ahead? An arrow that got lost en route to a Volvo logo? A mutant stick figure 500 meters high? This is a silly game I’m playing, as befits a silly little sign. But it’s compelling …
salve ‘popup’, clinic ‘width=500,height=500,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0’); return false”> Encased in an armored shell with a clamshell hatch that is probably lined with heads-up displays and chin and tongue controls, the occupant of this suit – from some obscure animé series – would have to be psychologically conditioned against claustrophobia. Picture it – you’ve just taken a catastrophic hit on the battlefield. Exotic alloys and fluid damping systems have protected your life, but your power is out. The emergency backup has failed, and only a battery-powered trouble light inside the suit is showing you a dim view of dead screens. The suit is too heavy to be shifted without power. YOu lie there, breathing your last few gallons of air now that the AC unit has quit, unable to see whatever it is that is rumbling towards your prone form, unable to defend yourself. Unable to move.