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Troubled by a peur du jour? COVID is a trendy choice — particularly if, like me, you’re of the wrong age; the wrong sex; and were inexplicably absent on Immune System Installation Day back in the womb. Or maybe the economic collapse has you distraught over an inability to pay this month’s bills; or perhaps disquieted by a realization that, if you can pay this month’s bills, your life savings might be drained in the process. Maybe you’re casting a nervous eye toward the receding ice caps, the erosion of civil discourse, or an emboldened North Korea. If you’re lucky enough to live near my home in Vancouver, then you’re now at the epicentre of the North American Murder Hornet invasion.

Death by viral infection; death by exposure; death by nuclear fallout; death by hornet venom — so many fresh new demises that weren’t nearly as probable just a few months ago. If only there was a place we could go and hide for a little while — a kind of “safe place.”

I might just have a solution…

Several years ago I did something wildly out of character — I took a class in self-hypnosis. A few articles hinted at its potential benefit to migraine sufferers, and as a decades-long combatant, I thought I’d give it a shot. I’ve experimented with every medical, scientific, and pseudo-scientific “cure” known to man, and none has yet succeeded. Which make me an easy target for snake oil approaches. Enter “self-hypnosis” school.

I don’t much like taking classes. Classes contain people. And more often than not, all the people in a class are of a like mind with one-another, and of an unlike mind with me. Within the first hour of the first class, I discovered this experience would be no different.

On our maiden voyage into self hypnosis, we were told to clear our minds and recollect a distant, long-forgotten memory. I closed my eyes, shut off my brain, and immediately flashed back to an experience I had not thought about in decades. It was high school, and I was on stage in the school’s auditorium, performing in front of the entire student body and faculty. This was the era of prog rock, and my ‘band’ consisted of me on Rhodes electric piano, and Ralph on an enormous drum kit, which comprised about an octave of tuned toms, gongs, snares, and whatever else Neil Peart, Carl Palmer, or their ilk would have hammered on back in the day.

The performance was going well — and we easily navigated our way through numerous odd time signatures and key changes, until we reached my favourite part: the part where I stomp on the fuzz pedal, crank my Fender Deluxe Reverb to maximum volume, then slide it in front of the piano’s four 12″ speakers to create a feedback loop that screams like a dying banshee. Using all the strength available to my scrawny high school physique, I would then shove, angle and tilt the 88-key monstrosity around the stage. The changes in distance between the piano’s amp and the Deluxe Reverb amp would alter the pitch and timbre of the banshee howls, which allowed me to actually “play” a melody composed solely of feedback.

At least that’s how it normally worked. And indeed, that’s how it worked for about the first half of the feedback solo… but then, right at the climax when it sounded as if the banshee couldn’t possibly scream any more, she didn’t. She died. The wails fell silent. Suddenly, the only sound emanating from the stage was the flailing of Ralph’s 5/4 stick work and the thunder of his double kick drum. My contribution to the atmosphere was no longer auditory, but olfactory in nature — the distinct smell of burning electronics wafting from my Rhodes.

A wave of panic washed over me. I’d entered unknown territory — territory that could well define my very reputation and permanently impact my delicate high school psyche. The endorphins hit with the intensity of a car crash. I was going to have to improvise my way out of this. I looked back at Ralph. His eyes were wide as dinner plates. Knowing instantly that something had gone awry, he’d leapt into frantic drum soloing mode.

Time slowed to a nearly imperceptible pulse. Within the span of a single second, I somehow managed to conceive and consider several courses of action — ultimately deciding that the best path forward was to find a way to keep making some sort of sound. If I didn’t make a sound, and make it soon, the audience would likely figure out that my piano had blown up, and I’d be standing there like an idiot in front of the entire school.

So I reached out with one leg, and kicked over the Deluxe Reverb amp, which contains a spring reverb that, when jarred, creates an explosive crash. The enormity of this sound, when experienced at full volume, was reflected by the front row of the audience — all of whom winced in pain. Perfect! I kicked the amp again, sliding it into the base of the piano with an even greater crash. Then, with amp underfoot and wedged against the bottom of the Rhodes, I began to kick it repeatedly — in time with Ralph’s drumming — as I tore into the guts of the piano hoping to find and repair the issue; ripping off the top shell, and tossing it aside to a smattering of audience applause. White smoke spiralled upward off a circuit board, and glistened in the hot stage lighting.

Gazing down at the charred, melted electrical components, I knew for certain there would be no miraculous resurrection of the piano. But the audience had bought into the dismantling, kicking, and crashing sounds — believing them to be all part of the act. I looked back at the flurry that was Ralph — who, under the influence of his own adrenaline rush, had pushed the tempo to imminent embolism range.

With the piano now dismantled and the reverb springs still quivering within the inverted amp, I’d done all I could. I needed an exit. With both hands, I lifted the amp to my waist, then tossed it several feet across the stage. It landed with the most incredibly horrific noise ever heard, and as the sound of colliding springs echoed around the auditorium, I calmly walked off stage. Ralph played on for another thirty seconds — sticks and feet flying in a frantic effort to match the sonic intensity of the pummelled amp — before kicking over a few cymbals and calmly walking off himself. 75% of the audience sat in stunned silence, while the remaining 25% cheered loudly — pretty much the usual response to any performance I would give. I had snatched success from the jaws of defeat.

When my hypnosis classmates and I emerged from this first session, the instructor informed us that whatever memory we just experienced was our “safe place” — the place where we feel protected, comfortable and totally at ease. This, she said, was the place to which we could always return when we needed to feel balanced and secure. She mentioned that, while everyone’s “safe place” would obviously be different, most involve relaxing on the beach, or fishing, or maybe sharing a meal with friends or family. Everyone in the class confirmed that yes, these were exactly the memories they had.

When queried, I mentioned that my “safe place” is apparently a place of abject fear — where fate conspires against me at the most inopportune instant. A place where I’m forced — with no preparation and no time — to devise and improvise a solution. My safe place was the opposite of relaxing — it was an adrenaline fuelled panic rush of sheer exhilaration.

From that moment on, I was ostracized by my classmates. And for the rest of the semester every one of them would avoid making eye contact with me. To her credit, the instructor did continue to inquire about my self-hypnosis experiences for another class or two — until the time she had us visualize a shape and go ‘inside’ of it. Every single person in the class pictured the exact same shape — a box. When asked what shape I created, I said “I went inside a unipolar triangle wave that was being both modulated and folded by a pair of bipolar sine waves of different frequencies and I was enjoying watching and trying to predict the varying shapes that evolved around me.” That was the last time she asked me to share an experience.

But the funny thing is, I do now flash to that high school stage performance whenever I get stressed, and I always feel calmer as a result of doing so. So it apparently works, exactly as promised. Which means, perhaps, that each of you can employ this same technique to define your own “safe space.” Only, unlike my teacher and classmates, I won’t judge you negatively if your space is a tad bit eccentric.

And for those left wondering, the answer is “No. Self-hypnosis had no impact whatsoever on my migraines.” So my search for the ultimate cure continues. Maybe next time, I should just try actual snake oil.

©2020 grEGORy simpson

ABOUT THE PHOTOS: Sometimes it sucks to be your own sole source of stock photography — particularly if you, yourself, are not a stock photographer. Unlike most bloggers, who can select appropriate photos from an online pool of billions, I’m stuck thumbing through whatever meagre puddle of images I’ve shot myself. Fortunately, both my photography and my essays are derived from my own personality — and since the psychiatrists have all assured me that I am, indeed, only one person, there’s usually a wealth of synchronicity between my words and my images. But this was not the case here, where I chose to write about a topic well outside my usual sphere of being. So once again, I had to dive into the Lightroom catalog to see if any of this years’ photos could suggest ‘hypnosis’ in any way at all. I like to think, if you squint your eyes tightly enough and spin around until you’re dizzy, you might actually believe these photos all work to support the article. Then again, I am a trained practitioner in self-hypnosis…

REMINDER: If you’ve managed to extract a modicum of enjoyment from the plethora of material contained on this site, please consider making a DONATION to its continuing evolution. As you’ve likely realized, ULTRAsomething is not an aggregator site — serious time and effort go into developing the original content contained within these virtual walls.

Possessed with a shoddy immune system and a hair trigger bronchial inflammatory response, I’m one of the more diligent members of today’s virtualized physical distancing “crowd.” Fortunately, as a devout and practicing introvert, I’ve worked from home since the mid-1980’s, and am comfortable with my place on society’s periphery — more eyewitness than participant. Like a sperm whale that needs but a single breath per hour, I can easily subsist for a month or more following a single social interaction. It’s made me uniquely qualified to endure the current social distancing measures with relative ease. As others succumb to the lassitude and melancholy of extended isolation, I simply continue to operate, as always, in my role as observer.

But even a whale needs oxygen; and even I need social interaction. So before my brain turns to mush from a dearth of human contact, I decided to publish a few COVID-related observations that I’ve jotted down this past month — totally random and without benefit of narrative.

CARTESIAN GEOMETRY: When lining up for groceries, my fellow citizens have proven to be fairly adept at maintaining two meters of separation between themselves and the person in front of them. Alas, when the line snakes back in on itself, they pay absolutely no attention to the proximity of those immediately beside them — blithely unaware that objects exist in a 3-dimensional space. While this is certainly a frustrating phenomenon, I can’t help but to be fascinated by the psychology behind it.

THE FIVE-SECOND RULE: We humans are also maintaining separation while we wait for an elevator. Upon its arrival, we then cram together into a coffin-sized box — returning to prescribed distances upon exiting. I have identified this as a modern variant to the “Five-Second Rule,” which is the mythical belief that it’s perfectly safe to consume food dropped on the floor, as long as it’s picked up within five seconds. In the future, because hoarding will insure the majority of humanity won’t have access to food, I predict the meaning of the “Five-Second Rule” will no longer be understood, and the term “Elevator Rule” will be used in its place.

NOTE TO SELF: Make sure, prior to the start of the next pandemic, that I’m not already seven weeks overdue for a haircut.

EXPOSING REGRETS: Had I ever known I would be forced to eat my own cooking for months on end, I would have put a little more effort into learning to cook.

NANOPHOTOGRAPHY: My photography style has been decimated by the pandemic. Though it’s still technically possible for me to photograph people using either of my preferred focal lengths — 21mm or 28mm — social distancing insures they will be rendered at a height of 7 pixels.

TELEPHOTOGRAPHY: In light of the above, and in order to conform to physical distancing measures, I’ve taken to walking around town with a 135mm lens on my Leica. Alas, with nothing going on anywhere, all this has done is enable me to bear photographic witness to the vast amounts of nothingness “over there” rather than the vast amounts of nothingness “over here.”

THE LAW OF RELATIVITY: I’m a tiny bit jealous of those people who were able to put the CO in COVID, and have isolated in pairs. Social distancing must be a lot more fun for those who can do it together.

DARWINIAN AMENDMENT: All this obsessive hand washing has resulted in the transformation of my soft, supple human skin into hard, leathery reptilian scales. From this result, I have devised two possible theories: 1) Reptiles have excellent hygiene; 2) Reptiles are the mutated offspring of humans who once endured prehistoric pandemics. It is highly possible — if not downright probable — that both theories are true.

SUBLIMINALISM: Am I the only one fascinated by the background objects chosen by each and every home-bound, self-isolated pundit that Skypes into cable news? The carefully selected artwork that obviously does not normally reside in that location; the curated collection of books selected to imply gravitas and intelligence; and the oh-so-popular framed diploma. It’s like you get mainline access to each and every individual’s insecurities, neuroses, and baggage. It’s a psychiatric treasure trove.

TINDERING YOURSELF: I continue to shave, shower, dress and groom as if nothing has changed, yet I know full well that I will not interact with another human being that day; nor the next; nor even the next. Why do I do this? At first, I thought it was habit. But I’ve come to realize that I simply like to look good for myself, since I’m the only person I ever get to see.

BLACKLISTS: I’ve recently started to maintain several blacklists. One contains the name of every company that continues to televise product advertisements depicting happy customers engaging in fun group activities and enjoying a life no longer possible. Another lists companies that feel compelled to email me and tell me they’re “here for me in these difficult time.” Just because I bought some crappy software from your company in 2007 doesn’t mean we’re BFFs — though I have been tempted to test the theory and call one of them for emotional counselling.

INCONGRUITY: If the letters we use to communicate are called the “alphabet” and not the “letter system,” shouldn’t the numbers we use be called the “enadio” and not the “numerical system?” Or does this make too much sense? And yes, I realize this has nothing whatsoever to do with COVID-19, which is precisely how I know the brain mush is settling in…

©2020 grEGORy simpson

ABOUT THE PHOTOS: “Pandemic” was shot just prior to the lockdown using a Minolta 28mm f/2.8 M-ROKKOR lens on a Leica M10 Monochrom. Although not its original intent, it now serves as a rather dark and foreboding depiction of a single individual’s sphere of contagion. “Cartesian Distancing” illustrates the proper (but rarely adhered to) 3D social distancing technique, and was photographed with a Ricoh GRIII in the early days of the pandemic. “Over Here” was shot on a Leica M10 Monochrom fronted with a 1967 Leica Tele-Elmar 135mm f/4 lens. The photo itself is not all that compelling, but having mentioned that I’d recently started to hunt for photos with that particular lens, I did feel compelled to include one — both as an example of that experiment, and as an example of why I’ve decided to abandon that particular experiment.

REMINDER: If you’ve managed to extract a modicum of enjoyment from the plethora of material contained on this site, please consider making a DONATION to its continuing evolution. As you’ve likely realized, ULTRAsomething is not an aggregator site — serious time and effort go into developing the original content contained within these virtual walls.

I recently strolled into my building and caught site of a freshly printed stack of newspapers, piled high and awaiting distribution. “You can get fined a whopping $109 for driving with a dog on your lap” screamed the headline — the only actual news story to adorn the front page.

Several things should have come to mind: Such as why, in a world immersed in fear, uncertainty and chaos, this particular story rates as front page news. Or why so much physical space is being occupied by such a wordy headline — surely a decent copy editor could have honed this down to something snappier? And the word “whopping” — really? That’s the adjective they chose to describe the fine? Even if I offer blanket amnesty for the use of trite colloquialisms, I still don’t think “whopping” is the word I’d use to describe the enormity of $109 Canadian dollars. That’s less than the cost of the average cable TV bill — yet I guarantee you I’d get more enjoyment cruising around town with a Clumber Spaniel on my lap than I’d ever get from a month’s worth of broadcast television. That’s not whopping. That’s value!

But, curiously, I didn’t think about any of these things. Rather, all I could think about is how unjust, arbitrary, and vague this law really is.

What if your dog’s a better driver than you are? What if you’re blind? Are you telling me a sightless human is better equipped to guide a vehicle through traffic than a service animal? Would such a fine be levied if the human slid over into the passenger seat and relinquished total vehicular control to the pooch? Is the law really about sharing a seat, or is it about whose hands (or paws) are on the wheel? Would I still be fined if I sat on my dog’s lap, rather than he on mine?

And isn’t this whole lap law discriminatory against dogs? I didn’t read anything about it extending to any other sentient beings. If I drive home from the pet store with a goldfish named Rudy swimming in a Ziploc™ bag upon my lap, am I getting the same $109 fine? And if not, what’s so great about Rudy that he’s excluded from the law?

If this legislation really does apply to all living creatures, then what about plants? Would operating a motor vehicle with a 5 cm tall Tillandsia nestled between my thighs cost me $109? What about a 2 meter tall ficus? What about inanimate objects? Will I receive this same fine for driving home from Ikea with a queen size mattress perched on my lap? I’m pretty sure it would impede my ability to drive, but it’s most definitely not a dog. So where’s the line? My seatbelt is on my lap when I’m driving. So are my pants. Yet, were I to remove either, I’d be fined once again. Is there no logic? Is there no consistency?

If the legislators are singling out dogs, then why? Are they suggesting it’s a public safety risk if your beloved Norfolk Terrier rests her head upon your lap as you drive her to the euthanasia appointment? Call me a moron, but I don’t believe this is a greater source of reckless endangerment than taking your pet racoon for a joy ride — lap or no lap.

Frankly, I’m sick and tired of seeing dogs bear the brunt of such senseless discrimination. My building allows cats, but not dogs. What’s the rationale here? Siegfried & Roy can live next door in an apartment full of lions and tigers, but the nice young couple down the hall can’t have a happy little pug?

Most buildings that do allow dogs will limit their size and weight to only the smallest breeds. Many of these possess the very qualities that neighbours find the most irritating — barking constantly or racing around the hardwood floors as if it had a pair of Energizer batteries up its butt. But an Irish Wolfhound? Most buildings will ban those outright, yet they never bark, don’t shed, and are guaranteed to sleep for at least 23 hours/day. Plus, their back legs are long enough to easily reach the clutch.

The depth of banality behind this law is incomprehensible. What if you drive an autonomous vehicle? Will you still be fined? Seems to me that it doesn’t much matter who or what is in your lap when you’re tooling around town in a car that’s guided by satellite. And speaking of satellites, I bet you $10 they don’t let dogs ride in those either.

It’s a silly world, chock full of silly people making silly laws, and writing silly articles about them in silly newspapers. Fortunately, you can always count on me to see past the daftness, and provide a counter-argument both sensible and wise. Maybe it’s time I run for mayor.

©2020 grEGORy simpson

ABOUT THIS ARTICLE: Like most people in the world, the bulk of my media consumption this past month has been dominated by COVID-19 news. The virus’ toll is staggering, and the prognoses devastating. Worldwide demand for fresh content from irreverent wordsmiths, cheeky photographers and experimental musicians is currently rather low (in contrast to our vast importance during normal times). Consequently, I see no benefit to penning an article that encourages hand washing and social distancing — you all know this already. It’s not like anyone visits the ULTRAsomething site for news and public health alerts. In light of this site’s current irrelevancy, I flirted with the idea of shutting it down for a couple of months — before remembering that it’s irrelevant even in the best of times. So I decided that the best thing I could do is to continue doing what I do: publishing total frivolity for the enjoyment of those who seek it. Whether that decision makes me a welcome distraction or a “covidiot” is up to the judge and jury of social media. So stay safe. Stay vigilant. And whatever you do, don’t drive around town with a dog on your lap.

REMINDER: If you find these photos enjoyable or the articles beneficial, please consider making a DONATION to this site’s continuing evolution. As you’ve likely realized, ULTRAsomething is not an aggregator site — serious time and effort go into developing the original content contained within these virtual walls.

Almost daily, for the past 20 years, life’s more perfunctory tasks have guided me past a drab little collection of pizza-slice windows, poutine joints, head shops, weed stores, and one ramshackle corner lean-to — its architecture the product of disrepair more than design — painted in grime and demarcated only by a spiritless little sign that reads “Canada’s Oldest Adult Store.”

I never once considered this sign might mean anything other than what I thought it to mean — a conclusion reached not just by the neighborhood in which it canted, but by my assumption of the way in which words are summed in the English language.

Specifically, when faced with a phrase whose meaning needs parsed, I simply work my way from right-to-left — summing words in that order to define the intent. In mathematical terms, the following formula depicts this technique:

(Canada’s + (Oldest + (Adult + Store))) = Meaning of Phrase

Following the brackets as if we were in a middle school math class, we begin with the word on the right, “store,” which defines the purpose of the establishment — to sell something. We then add the word immediately to its left to further define the establishment as an “adult store” — euphemistic lingo for “a store that sells blow-up girlfriends, silly costumes, and befittingly garish silicon hot dogs.”

Continuing in a leftward path through the equation, we next modify the phrase “adult store” with the word “oldest,” which tells us that this is “a store that sells sexually-themed products that’s been in business longer than any other store that also sells sexually-themed products.”

Finally, at the far left sits the word “Canada’s” — which, according to the formula, further narrows the meaning to be “a store that sells sexually-themed products that’s been in business longer than any other store in Canada that also sells sexually-themed products.” And this definition, summed in this way, has been my assumed interpretation of this sign for the entire 21st Century.

But a couple of days ago, for reasons I can attribute only to the lingering effects of a recent flu, those four little words grabbed my attention as I stood waiting for the crosswalk signal to change. The more I stared at the sign, the more I realized I didn’t have a clue what it actually meant. The mathematical formula I used to derive its meaning was little more than a presumption — and one I could easily invalidate.

Consider the phrase, “Mental Health Care Professional” — many of whom will, I assume, be reading this post for some evidentiary research into my future hearing. What happens if I sum those four words using the same right-to-left formula I’d applied to the store?

(Mental + (Health + (Care + Professional)))

Doing so causes me to arrive at the assumption that a “mental health care professional” is “a professional who cares for peoples’ health but who is, themselves, mental.” I’m quite certain this isn’t the intended meaning of the phrase, since very few people want their health needs met by someone with mental issues.

Because the actual definition of “mental health care professional” is known, I used this definition to modify my word-summing formula, so that it produced the expected result:

(((Mental + Health) + Care) + Professional)

Having derived a new formula, which produced an accurate result, I naturally chose to apply it to the “Canada’s oldest adult store” phrase:

(((Canada’s + oldest) + adult) + store)

Crunching the English with this new equation tells us this phrase actually means one of two things. Either 1) it’s “a store that sells Canada’s oldest adult” or 2) it’s “a store that sells products meant for purchase by Canada’s oldest adult.”

I’m not 100% certain, but I’m reasonably sure it’s illegal to sell human beings in Canada, so I’m going to assume the second meaning is true. Besides, since North American culture places absolutely no value on age or experience, it would make no sense for a store to try to sell such a thing — particularly the oldest and therefore culturally least-valuable version in the country.

But even the second meaning is doubtful, since it would imply that this is a store that sells products targeted specifically at a single individual — the oldest person in Canada. That’s a seriously exclusive clientele. And what happens if the oldest person in Canada doesn’t live in Vancouver? Why have a brick & mortar store when your one and only client is more-than-likely going to be ordering online?

With my natural inclination toward knowledge, and a realization that my 12 year-old blog is built upon a desire to communicate effectively, I sought the answer the only way I knew how — I walked into the establishment.

And my original assumption proved rather accurate — I saw no old people for sale, nor any old people perusing the wares.

Which means I have absolutely no idea what the correct formula is for summing words in a phrase. If the meaning of one 4-word phrase requires the words be summed in a certain order, and the meaning of another 4-word phrase requires a different summing order, how can anyone hope to speak English and actually be understood?

It’s moments like this that I’m thankful for my propensity to communicate through the unambiguous medium of photographs. I mean, there’s no way those could ever be misinterpreted…

©2020 grEGORy simpson

ABOUT THE PHOTOS: Three floods in the condo and a flu have prevented me from taking any new photos this year. Fortunately, I can still cull from the massive backlog taken during December’s Tokyo trip. All are from the M10 Monochrom using a variety of lenses. “Tindertown” used a v4 Leica 35mm f/2.0 Summicron; “Surrogates” used a Leica 21mm f/3.4 Super-Elmar-M ASPH; While “Venus de Vending,” “Warholier Than Thou” and “Counterculture” all used a pristine Minolta 28mm f/2.8 M-Rokkor, but to wildly different effect.

REMINDER: If you find these photos enjoyable or the articles beneficial, please consider making a DONATION to this site’s continuing evolution. As you’ve likely realized, ULTRAsomething is not an aggregator site — serious time and effort go into developing the original content contained within these virtual walls.

I arrive in Tokyo numb-of-mind and lethargic of body — a common result of an 11 hour flight, 17 time zone changes, and an utter inability to sleep on planes. In lieu of rest, I stroll the aisle, hang around the galley drinking apple juice, and execute numerous farcically unrealistic tai chi exercises — the motivation for which, I assume, comes from breathing stale 767 air for 8,000 km. All the while, I gaze enviously at the rows of sleeping passengers, each blithely unaware of the medieval torture devices into which they are buckled. I make my usual stab or two at aerosleep, which yields nothing but a stiff neck, a painful back, and a nasty cowlick.

It’s not just the physical discomforts that prevent my sleep, but the total absence of inner peace, harmony, and calm. I’ve long harboured a suspicion that airline travel is technically impossible, and I’m not too keen on being 35,000 feet over the Pacific Ocean when the world figures this out. Curiously, I can trace the origins of my flying perturbation to that day when, as an Electrical Engineering major, Boeing offered me a job. I could barely orient a pair of AA batteries properly, and they want to entrust me with designing aircraft?

Like a child who pulls the covers over his head to hide from a monster in the room, I’ve developed my own rather ridiculous fear-coping mechanism. I’m sometimes calmed by the sound of droning machinery — a situation that should work in my favour, given that a 767’s jet engines produce a rather potent sensory-engulfing blanket of drone. But I can never quite decouple my mind from the fact these are airplane engines — propelling a giant chunk of metal that isn’t technically supposed to be airborne at all. So I’ve taken to putting on noise cancelling headphones and playing Éliane Radigue’s Trilogies de la Mort — a 2 hour and 49 minute masterpiece of continuously droning oscillators from an ancient ARP 2500 synthesizer. I find it enticingly therapeutic — even though one play gets me through only 25% of the flight.

My time in Tokyo is always tainted somewhat by a modicum of trepidation — the return trip consistently looms just beneath the surface of my thoughts. In some ways, travelling back to Vancouver is a better experience, and in some ways it’s worse. On the upside are the tailwinds, which shave a couple hours off the return flight, meaning a single play of Trilogies de la Mort gets me 33% of the way home. The biggest downside to the Tokyo-to-Vancouver flight is it results in a 41 hour day. And since sitting in a roaring tube of physical impossibility is, as previously established, not conducive to sleep, I’m forced to stay awake for 33 straight hours.

This year, my 41 hour day was on December 25th. Christmas Day. I’m rather certain this would make me the envy of several million children around the world, but my mind was consumed with fact-checking Bernoulli’s Principal for errors and oversights, rather than with thoughts of holly and mistletoe.

Through the miracle of human madness and its desire to partition time, I arrived back in Vancouver 8 hours before I left Tokyo. I breezed through customs, jumped a train, strolled home along eerily empty city streets, and dumped the contents of my suitcase into the laundry. 30 minutes later, my top-load washing machine chose that particular load to disprove the Property of Matter — the science of which erroneously maintains that liquids take the shape of the object containing them — and instead dumped an ocean of water into my condo, destroying the bulk of its flooring, several kitchen cabinets and a couple of walls.

And thus began a fresh new odyssey, which (six weeks later) continues to spawn new and thoroughly unwanted odysseys — in fact, there have been two additional condo-destroying floods since the one on Christmas day. And while the end is nowhere in sight, I suspect this latest visit from the entire Murphy family might just provide a topic for an upcoming article.

There are those who still believe in Ralph Waldo Emerson’s pronouncement that “it’s not the destination, it’s the journey.” Clearly, Emerson’s era preceded the invention of the airplane and Kenmore appliances.

©2020 grEGORy simpson

ABOUT THE PHOTOS: Since my life now involves staying home and entertaining tradesmen for 10-12 hours/day, I haven’t had too many opportunities to go out and take new photos. Which means I get to populate this article with a few more shots from December’s Tokyo trip — some of which were even taken in the daylight! All photos are courtesy of the Leica M10 Monochrom, using an assortment of lenses that I simply don’t have the time nor inclination to list. Obviously, the first photo is a metaphor for this article; the second is a curiosity; the third is simply amusing; the fourth one even I don’t understand; and the fifth represents the sort of unbridled joy I will experience once the latest journey finally ends… assuming it ever does end.

REMINDER: If you find these photos enjoyable or the articles beneficial, please consider making a DONATION to this site’s continuing evolution. As you’ve likely realized, ULTRAsomething is not an aggregator site — serious time and effort go into developing the original content contained within these virtual walls.

I’ve always been comfortably confident that not one single hoarding gene hides within my DNA. I am fastidious, tidy, and minimalist — perhaps even to a fault (should you choose to subpoena the opinions of an ex or two).

I have a strict one-in / one-out rule — if something new comes into the condo, something old goes out. It’s why I’ve owned hundreds of synthesizers in my lifetime, but rarely have more than a half-dozen in my studio. It couples nicely with my “if I haven’t used it in a year, then I don’t need it” policy — which does, admittedly, sometimes result in the premature disposal of some actually useful items. But such is the price one pays for being a hoardless horseman.

To date, the only physical evidence of a possible hoarding compulsion is my camera cabinet — which I acknowledge has far more old film cameras than any one person needs. However, my willingness to sell rarely-used gear coupled with the discipline to occasionally purge the shelves of inoperable junk seems to refute that possibility.

But just this month, after decades of minimalist smugness, I’ve uncovered evidence to suggest that I might indeed suffer from a hoarding disorder — hiding (as disorders often do) in plain site.

Yes, my name is Egor, and I hoard snapshots of Tokyo.

Later this month, I’ll be travelling back to Japan — where a mere 57 weeks after my last trip, I will spend 14 days snacking my way through dozens of different neighbourhoods while snapping photos with near reckless abandon.

To a ‘normal’ person, this probably doesn’t seem like aberrant behaviour. But in light of the fact I’m one of the world’s most parsimonious photographers, it stands out as a glaring anomaly. Under non-Tokyo conditions, it can easily take me two months to spool a roll of film through a camera — and that’s if I carry it every day! Even shooting digitally, my totals rarely exceed 50 shots in a month.

But Tokyo? I still have unscanned slides from my 1995 visit, un-catalogued shots from my 2015 visit, and un-viewed photos from 2018. Yet here I am — going again with the singularly specific goal of collecting even more photographs from the streets of Tokyo.

But, as anxious as the local chapter of Hoarder’s Anonymous is to receive its membership dues, I’m not yet prepared to pull out my chequebook. Maybe it’s not a hoarding foible at all, but one of my other many foibles cleverly masquerading as hoarding?

A likely candidate would simply be Newton’s Second Law of Travel, which states that “the very act of being in an environment distinct from one’s own wakes the eye and triggers the shutter finger, thus resulting in a mountain of crappy photos.”

But if this were the case, any trip I take beyond Vancouver’s city limits should result in a marked increase in photographs — yet it doesn’t. It’s only Tokyo. Besides, I’m not sure I’d classify my Tokyo photos as crappy. You might. You probably even do. But I don’t.

So maybe it’s not a case of becoming ‘less selective’ when I press the shutter. Maybe it’s just that Tokyo actually speaks to the same subliminal instincts that motivate all my photographs. I rarely take photos of things that interest my eye — I take photos of things that trigger some sort of instinctual je ne sais quoi that stirs a feeling deep within.

In spite of being a very visual person and photography being an obviously visual medium, when I look at my own photos, I’m not affected by them through the usual process in which an image triggers a memory. Rather, viewing my photos kindles the identical amalgamation of thoughts, instincts and emotions that drove me to take the photo in the first place. My best photos do not act as second-hand reminders, but as first-hand stimulants.

I’ve always said that photographers should photograph themselves. Not literally — like some Instagrammer run amok in a quest for more “likes” — but figuratively. And the fact I see myself woven into the very fabric of Tokyo is probably what causes the outpouring of photos taken there. I am practicing what I preach — I am photographing myself.

Granted, maybe I’m just trying to rationalize my way out of the horrific realization that my DNA isn’t hoarding-free. Or perhaps I’m just attempting to justify another self-indulgent trip of snack ‘n’ snap happy wandering around my favourite city. More likely than not, these (and not hoarding) are the real foibles facing me… well, these and an egotistical need to make all my photos be ‘self portraits.’

©2019 grEGORy simpson

ABOUT THE PHOTOS:

Really? You want technical information on this collection of photos? You’re as nutty as I am…

REMINDER: If you find these photos enjoyable or the articles beneficial, please consider making a DONATION to this site’s continuing evolution. As you’ve likely realized, ULTRAsomething is not an aggregator site — serious time and effort go into developing the original content contained within these virtual walls.

For an organic lot, we humans sure like the comfortable confines of boxes. If we can categorize, classify or limit ourselves in some way — any way — we will.

We segregate ourselves by sex, ethnicity, culture and belief. Are we introvert or extrovert? Tall or short? Rich or poor? Liberal or conservative? A morning person or a night owl?

Inhabiting boxes simplifies life. Each has its own rigid limitations, boundaries and rules. The more boxes we can use to define ourselves, the less we have to take responsibility. Direction is determined. Choice is eliminated. And we — as humans — are defined, packaged, labelled, and marketable.

Not content to live only within metaphorical boxes, we confine ourselves to physical boxes too. We partition our planet into countries, and divide our countries into states and provinces; provinces into counties; counties into cities; cities into neighbourhoods; and neighbourhoods into houses — which we further divide into smaller, purpose-oriented boxes called rooms. We give those boxes names that define their acceptable functions. We dine in the dining room, bathe in the bathroom, and place our beds in the bedrooms. Within these rooms, we have designated boxes for storing pre-ordained content: sideboards in the dining room; vanities in the bathroom; dressers in the bedroom — all of which we divide further into sub-compartments. We have a drawer for socks, a shelf for stemware, and a bin for expired tubes of medicinal creams. And when we eventually pass from this earth, what do we do? Entomb ourselves in tiny boxes for eons.

Just how many barriers do we need?

I am obsessed with organization — an obsession that has, historically, relied heavily on a partitioning mindset. I don’t just have a drawer for my socks — I have subdivisions within that drawer to further delineate and classify those socks. The tidier my environment, the freer my mind… or so I thought.

But over the past couple of years, I’ve come to realize that rigidly adhering to my traditional definition of “organization” has had a significantly negative impact on my music.

Contrary to the content that appears within ULTRAsomething’s virtual box, music is my raison d’être. Music is what feeds my soul and it’s what feeds my body — quite literally in fact, since designing, developing, testing and documenting electronic music products has been my primary source of income for over 35 years.

As you might expect with something so integral to my very being, I’ve been particularly diligent at micro-organizing the craft’s myriad tools and techniques into tidy little clusters of function, purpose and intent.

Consider my “home office,” which is really just a small bedroom crammed full of computers, synthesizers, audio processors, mixers, effects, sequencers, microphones, speakers, amplifiers, and other assorted gadgets. Not content to merely place the music gear on stands and shelves within a singularly purposed room, I felt compelled to subdivide that gear into sections. One-third was grouped into an area meant for “composing.” One-third was dedicated to “product development and testing.” And the remaining third was for “live performance” — a particularly curious classification, since I don’t even perform live.

This allowed me to instantly test products in the “development” section, improvise new music and ideas in the “live” section, and work on carefully nuanced recordings in the “composition” section. Neat. Tidy. Orderly… and a total disaster.

If I needed to test a new product’s compatibility or functionality with an instrument that wasn’t currently in the “development” section, I had to disconnect it from where it sat, physically move it to the development section, and route a bunch of cables to connect it there. If I played an interesting improvisation in the “live” section, I had no way to record it or turn it into a composition — that function was built-in to the “composing” section. And if I sat down with the actual intent of composing something, two-thirds of my music making equipment was unavailable to me — resting in either the “live” or “development” portions of the studio.

So, while the arrangement was logical and organized, it wasn’t the right kind of organization. I didn’t need to build more boxes within boxes, like some kind of elaborate matryoshka doll. I needed fewer boxes. I should not have to go to a box and retrieve the ‘thing’ I need — the ‘thing’ should come to me when I need it. Yes, Henry Ford figured this all out way back in 1913… color me a slow learner.

Upon realizing this, I spent the past couple of months reinventing my concept of organization — tossing significant chunks of thought, time and labor into creating an organizational system that transcended partitions, and moved into the realm of neural networks.

My musical environment now functions more like a brain, and less like a filing cabinet. Every piece of gear is fully online and communicating. Any instrument or effect can feed into any other instrument or effect. Anything can be used for development, improvisation or recording. Anything and everything can be immediately grouped or ungrouped as needed. Streamlined fibre optic cables have replaced heavy copper snakes for the purpose of switching, merging and routing hundreds of discreet audio and automation data streams — allowing for instantaneous repurposing and reordering of every chunk of hardware.

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Invigorated by this method of ‘open’ organization, I’m considering applying it to the rest of my condo. Why have any walls at all? If I’m hungry, why not push a button and have all the necessary items for preparing and eating food appear before me — regardless of where I currently stand or what other activity I’m engaged in? I’d push another button, and my bed would appear — bringing with it my sink, soap and a toothbrush for the nightly pre-sleep ritual. Everything should come to me — instantly, effortlessly and automatically. Yes, William Hanna and Joseph Barbera figured this all out way back in 1962 when they created “The Jetsons”… color me a doubly slow learner.

My new approach to physical organization completely eschews a traditional reliance on purposeful segregation through division, and instead embraces access, openness and relationships.

Can you imagine the human potential if the world’s metaphorical partitioners were to one day try this same approach?

©2019 grEGORy simpson

ABOUT THE ARTICLE:

You can take it as a literal and tedious discussion about how I reorganized my recording studio, or you can take it as a metaphor for society. Your choice.

ABOUT THE PHOTOS:

My original intent was for this post to have no media accompaniment besides the “song.” But upon looking over last week’s roll of Tri-X, I discovered that — without even knowing what the topic of this month’s article would be — I seem to take an awful lot of photos that imply organization. So, rather than hide them on a hard drive for all eternity, I opted to publish a few with this article. All were shot with a Leitz Minolta CL, fronted with an uncoupled (scale focus only) Cosina Voigtlander 25mm f/4 Snapshot-Skopar, loaded with Tri-X, exposed at ISO 400, and developed in Rodinal 1:50.

ABOUT THE MUSIC:

The embedded song is the first one I’ve published in 18 months, and only my second in two years. This dearth coincides quite precisely with the two years my studio equipment spent segregated by purpose. While the song is neither hummable nor danceable, its creation was itself a dance. With the push of a button, every audio channel in my studio was put into record mode. I needed only to waltz around the studio and improvise. I played a low, pulsing drone with the Moog Grandmother, grabbed a snippet of it with the Chase Bliss Mood pedal and began to play the two of them off of each other — the Moog continuing to be Moogish, while the audio snippet shifted through various granular recreations of what I played. This all happened on what had previously been the “development” third of the studio. Dos-i-doing over to what was once the “composition” station, I latched a note on the Oberheim OB-6 and gently twisted its knobs with my left hand, while my right hand played a second keyboard, to which I assigned a choir sound. I next, in real time, step-sequenced a pattern into the Korg Minilogue XD and set it to playing, then performed a Chaîné turn over to the “live” section of the studio, where I added additional undercurrents from the Novation Peak and Arturia Micro Freak, before moonwalking back over to one of the computers to add a final string crescendo. Real-time, improvised recording — from anywhere within the studio. Instantly. My next goal is to write stuff that’s actually good enough to publish for a reason that’s more compelling than “I haven’t published in 18 months.” But that’ll be a whole other psychological issue to address.

REMINDER: If you find these photos enjoyable or the articles beneficial, please consider making a DONATION to this site’s continuing evolution. As you’ve likely realized, ULTRAsomething is not an aggregator site — serious time and effort go into developing the original content contained within these virtual walls.

Success! After 11 gruelling years, I’ve finally devised a legitimate way to monetize ULTRAsomething. OK, maybe “legitimate” is a bit of stretch, but at least it plays to my strengths, rather than requiring I stoop to the far more distasteful act of self-marketing.

The concept leverages society’s current emotion of choice: negativity. Over the past couple of decades, cultural dismissiveness has progressed from its humble roots as an amusing sideshow of 1990’s tabloid television — through the birth of forum trolling at the dawn of the millennium, and into the very fabric of today’s formidably massive social media industry.

Mainstream companies, mainstream media, and mainstream politicians are all throwing billions of dollars into social media — riding the popularity of any influencer willing to pimp a product or a message in exchange for cash, merchandise, and the ever-enticing opportunity to gain even more followers.

It’s the Golden Rule of marketing, which states that people will “do unto those things that others do unto too.”

In less biblical terms, it means that if someone is thought to use, enjoy or believe in something, then their social media followers will want to use, enjoy or believe the same things. The more followers someone has, the greater their influence on the belief system of others, and the greater their value as corporate or political shills.

I’ve always cast a jealous eye toward influencers. How great would it be to use all the products I want to use, go where I want to go, do what I want to do, and actually get paid for it?

Unfortunately, my proclivities tend to be at odds with those of the general population, which means I have zero value as a traditional influencer — and therein lied the epiphany! In a world awash in negativity, someone so naturally contrary to the ways of the general populace could actually become an anti-influencer!

Rather than employing me to extol the virtues of their own wares, companies could hire me to use their competitor’s products. I would document these experiences on ULTRAsomething, and since this site’s very nature tends to incur the wrath, scorn, ridicule and disdain of the general public, any products I use; places I go; or things I do would be equally scorned.

Is Sweden sick of losing tourists to Iceland? Sweden needs only to send me on an all-expense paid tour of Iceland, and voila — Iceland disappears off a million bucket lists, and Sweden swoops in.

Perhaps Sony wants to increase their share of the camera market even further. What should they do? Send another batch of cameras to the same old bunch of ‘fanboys?’ Nay! I would suggest they ship me a box of Leicas, or a case of Olympus and Panasonic micro four-thirds gear, then tell the fanboys to link to my reviews. One look at what I’ve shot with their competition, and a rash of new camera prospectors will flock to the Sony fold.

Hey, Moog. Want to re-establish “East Coast” synthesis as the coolest and hippest? Send me a Buchla, and the blips, bloops and bongo sounds I make with that “West Coast” style of circuitry will drive the world back east to your fat, ballsy ladder filters, and your rafter rattling roar.

What’s truly great about my plan is that it requires neither pretence nor pretending. I get to be me. No matter what I do, where I go or what I use, I will genuinely find something I like, and I will write about it. Then, because very few people like what I like, the world will instantly hate the very things that are actually good about a product. Which means, if you’ve got something to sell or a message to deliver, I’m your most effective means at neutralizing the competitive advantages of your opposition!

So how about it, people? You folks in Shanghai want to increase your share of the Asian tourism market? Send me to Kyoto, and I’ll kill that town. Does Android want to bury Apple? No problem… just load me up with the latest iPhones and iPad Pros and marvel at your newly buoyant sales figures.

I am poised, ready, and uniquely skilled to be your company’s new secret weapon — I will be your Alienator. Once you turn me loose, you need only sit back and count the money.

The only stumbling block is that I’m simply too good at being an Alienator. Anyone who would benefit from my skill is unlikely to realize it since, by nature and definition, the mere act of suggesting such a concept to a company would result in immediate rejection. Which means I’m not just an Alienator but a living and breathing paradox.

It’s fun to be me — albeit not all that lucrative.

©2019 grEGORy simpson

ABOUT THE PHOTOS:

So here’s another thing that makes me ideally suited to be your company’s Alienator: FILM!

“Incongruity 1,” “Marxism, In a Nutshell,” “Stolen Moment” and “Bird’s Eye” were all shot on various antediluvian devices, called “film cameras.” Specifically, “Incongruity 1” and “Bird’s Eye” were shot with a Rollei 35T on expired Kentmere 100 and developed in Rodinal 1:50. “Stolen Moment” and “Marxism, In a Nutshell” were shot with a Minolta TC-1, loaded with Tri-X and developed in Rodinal 1:50.

Even the digital shots are of dubious acceptability, what with “Dystopia” being a B&W rendering of a flare-laden Ricoh GR III image, and “Incongruity 2” having come into being inside a camera that doesn’t even bother to record color information — the Leica Monochrom (Type 246).

REMINDER: If you find these photos enjoyable or the articles beneficial, please consider making a DONATION to this site’s continuing evolution. As you’ve likely realized, ULTRAsomething is not an aggregator site — serious time and effort go into developing the original content contained within these virtual walls.

Early in my journey along the dizzying arc of this mortal coil, I developed a disinclination for literalism. Much like Perseus avoided spontaneous petrification by looking at Medusa’s reflection rather than facing her directly, I find life is far less toxic and infinitely more nuanced when viewed through abstraction.

A subject photographed directly is often clinically precise, yet cold as stone. But a subject photographed metaphorically is infused with life — inviting exploration and interpretation. It’s why I avoid aiming my camera at fact, and instead point it toward connotation.

It’s also why I like to hide stories in the space between written words. Why must literature be literal if it’s so much richer when figurative? Literalism, I believe, is best reserved for mathematical figures.

We are awash in the tangible. Architecture, cars, pets, landscapes, friends, fashion, etc. Anyone who wants a photo of tonight’s apricot-coloured sunset needs only to train a camera at the western sky and release the shutter. But what if someone wants a metaphorical sunset photo? Setting aside the relative unlikelihood of such a desire, how would one even go about creating such a thing? What camera would you use? Where would you point it? And when? I’m lightyears away from being clever enough to assign myself such tasks. Which is why I choose, instead, to simply stumble upon my metaphorical photos.

The hiccup with this particular technique is that it sometimes takes years to figure out just what each photograph is a metaphor for. It’s why I tend to glare at someone when they ask, “Did you get any good photos today?” It’s easier than saying, “I don’t know — ask me in a couple of years,” and then having to explain what that means.

This whole ‘shoot first, figure it out later’ scenario worked rather well when I was young. Time was still on my side, and never once did a client ask me for a metaphorical photo of anything — so I could take as long as I needed to figure out what it was I had photographed. I’m now at an age that only 15% of the world’s population would categorize as ‘young,’ and I’m beginning to realize that I likely have fewer years remaining than I have metaphors to identify.

So I’ve decided to leverage my internet ‘fame,’ and cloud-source the identification task. As an experiment, I’ve populated this article with a few scans from my two most recently exposed rolls of film. Perhaps some clever readers can help me identify exactly what I was photographing when I took these photos? I have no doubt that each and every one of them is an honest-to-goodness, bona fide metaphor… but a metaforwhat?

©2019 grEGORy simpson

ABOUT THIS ARTICLE:

This was originally going to be an article about metaphors in general, rather than photographic metaphors. But I couldn’t work through the paradox of how a parabolic writer could pen an article about metaphor without addressing the subject of allegory allegorically. To not do so would be disingenuous and conflicted. But to do so would create the literary equivalent of a feedback loop, which I’m quite certain would act as a catalyst for the formation of dark matter. And since dark matter emits no light and cannot be seen, there’s really no point in writing and posting such a thing. There’s already enough dark matter on the ULTRAsomething site… metaphorically speaking.

And since someone will inevitably want to know: All photos were taken on expired Kentmere 100 and processed in a 1:50 solution of Rodinal. The two horizontal shots come courtesy of an early 1970’s Rollei 35T, while the two vertical shots arrived behind the shutter of a late 1940’s Leica IIIc fronted with a 35mm f/3.5 Elmar lens.

REMINDER: If you find these photos enjoyable or the articles beneficial, please consider making a DONATION to this site’s continuing evolution. As you’ve likely realized, ULTRAsomething is not an aggregator site — serious time and effort go into developing the original content contained within these virtual walls.

There’s a turf war in my cranium.

Strolling along the smooth, grey surface of the gyri are the brazen, unflappable Yups. With their switchblades at the ready and their striking resemblance to a pop-art mob of jittery Keith Haring silhouettes, they roam my frontal cortex with a cocksure strut and a mission to seek and destroy all Yips.

Patrolling the sulci are the aforementioned Yips. Adorned in fedoras and clutching their signature piano wire garrotes, they lurk in the recessed shadows like a band of sinister killers from a long forgotten film noir — deftly dispensing the flashier Yups with ninja-like precision.

The Yips believe that I am what I am — that the more I’m me, then the more I am. The Yups believe I’m not all I could be — that the more I can feign, then the more I attain.

It’s a war without beginning and a war without end. Egor vs. Egor. Winner take all.

Like most of my psychological brouhahas, this month’s rumble raged over the right to control my creative output. Whenever my expressive motivations wane (as they have these past few months), the mental bickering escalates in both pitch and intensity — boiling over into an all out Yip on Yup dustup.

Faced again with another looming publication deadline — and set against the backdrop of my ever dwindling audience, my limited amount of time, and my waning creative motivations — the Yups proposed that the best way forward was to adopt the notion of “simplicity.”

There, on the surface of the gyri, it sounded logical. Multi-layered articles, metaphorically complex photos, and intricately textured music do not really lend themselves to quick and easy creation. Reduce the complexity, and the act of creation becomes easier. So with the Yups’ proposal seemingly sound and the Yips obscured in shadow, I opted to implement the plan — deciding this month’s creations would all be paradigms of succinctness.

I began, as always, with photography — turning my eye away from subjects rich in obscure, interpretive metaphor and toward those with the simplest and purest of shapes. Concurrently, I composed a new piece of music that dispensed entirely with sonic entwining and harmonic complexity, and instead relied solely on the old-fashioned elements of rhythm and melody. The article I would pen to accompany both was to be an exercise in pithiness — short, direct, and void of any allegorical allusions that required reading between the lines.

So what happened?

Well, as you’ve likely noticed, there is no music accompanying this article. Immediately after I completed a preliminary mix, the song was quickly assassinated by the Yips — all of whom abhor the banality of melody and rhythm, no matter how catchy.

The photos, too, were so mindlessly pointless that a small team of Yips off’d them straight into the oblivion of the Macintosh trash icon. However, in order to prevent publication of a nearly naked essay, I eventually opted to retrieve two of them from the dump, thus providing some contrast to the single Yip-inspired photo that begins the article.

And what of the article itself? What can I say? When you’re describing neurological processes like a jumbled fusion of Westside Story meets mid-20th century, expressionist-tinged nihilist cinema, then you’ve probably failed the simplicity mandate.

The Yups may hate it, but the Yips still own the turf. My creativity and motivation sometimes wane, but the Yips believe the path that got me to where I am now is the path that will take me to where I’m going. Even if the destination isn’t ultimately what I imagined it to be.

So if I’m going to create crap — and I will from time to time — it’s better to create it within the confines of truth than within some artificial construct beyond one’s self. Vive les Yips!

©2019 grEGORy simpson

ABOUT THE PHOTOS:

“Canada Place” and “Porteau Cove” are, indeed, the two bits of banality motivated by the Yups’ ridiculous desire to generate pablum in the absence of inspiration. “Neurology” was the Yips’ response — offering what may or may not be an actual photo of a wandering synapse.

REMINDER: If you find these photos enjoyable or the articles beneficial, please consider making a DONATION to this site’s continuing evolution. As you’ve likely realized, ULTRAsomething is not an aggregator site — serious time and effort go into developing the original content contained within these virtual walls.