sepia and new tricks with old timelines

Michael Andre-Driussi · 11 Aug 2002, 05:11 · from urth-v0208.mbox · original

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From: Michael Andre-Driussi <mantis at siriusfiction.com>
Subject: (urth) sepia and new tricks with old timelines
Date: Sat, 10 Aug 2002 22:11:56 -0700
Message-ID: <urth-v0208-1559 at digest.urth.net>
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Adam Stephanides quoted me and wrote:
>> Is 1920 a good benchmark for natural sepia, for the clothing, for the
>> Lombard reference?
>
>All Miss Hadow says is that the girl's face reminds her of Carole Lombard,
>not the clothes or hairstyle; so the Lombard reference doesn't help to date
>the photo.

True; it mainly dates Miss Hadow, I guess.

Meanwhile, I've been fixing my sense of sepia.  Sepia is not an artifact of
aging (i.e., discoloration), it is only a style, one of two tones (sepia
and selenium) that actually =3Denhance=3D the stability of the print.  I
mistakenly thought it was both, that is, that there was "natural" sepia
(due to aging) and artificial sepia (which gave things a certain look as
well as a hint of antiquity).

That the photos are "faded" is the age indicator (as well as the fashion of
the clothing worn by the subjects . . . uh, those who are wearing
clothing).  That they are sepia points more toward the style question,
which still remains: when was "sepia vogue," that is, at what point in the
20th century did sepia tone prints drop out of fashion?

I was amazed to learn that the first Poloroid cameras in 1947 produced
sepia prints!  They developed b&w in 1950, but there was a crisis because
the photos faded rapidly and they had to scramble to come up with a new
formula.

Next up: new tricks with the timeline.  It would be really neat to have a
sequence of each section of the book with each subsection "date stamped."
So then one could see at a glance as Weer jumps from time to time.

I mention this because in trying to look up the announcement of the three
visitors (actually the two visitors while Bill Baton is with Weer), I saw
again as if anew the wonderful nested quality of it: the tale of Tilly told
by Smart; the mention of how Weer told the tale to Margaret (and then in
his dream Charlie the dog boy came between Weer and Margaret); then mention
of how he started to tell the tale to Bill Baton; and then the arrival of
Charlie himself . . . summoned by the thought, or so it seems! . . . and
Charlie kind of comes between Weer and Bill Baton in the office like he
came between Weer and Margaret in the dream.

Alden Dennis Weer
2274: frametale
1974: fat Weer goes to Dr. Van Ness
1920: Weer's birthday party, etc.
2274: Hannah and frametale
1953: thin Weer at Dr. Van Ness's office
1974: president Weer at Dr. Van Ness's office
1920: birthday party
2274: elm branches in the fire
1953: Dr. V
2274: exercise regimen; new races
1921: Christmas at grandfather's house
1920: Hannah tales
2274: frametale
1953: mirror test

Something like that, for starters.

=3Dmantis=3D

--=20

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