Wednesday, February 22, 2012

identity crisis

Oilchanges doesn't know what it should be anymore.  What should Oilchanges turn into?  This question actually stresses me out, though the stress so is minor, I should call it by another name.  I am concerned.  Has Oilchanges come to the end of its life?  How can it renew itself?  Is it just a matter of me becoming excited again?  Or perhaps I need to learn some new foods.  I was asking myself these questions while out for a walk last night.  I spend so much time in my house, at my desk.  It's a comfortable but somewhat boring life. I'm underemployed.  Six o'clock rolls around and I don't know what to do with myself.  If I cannot find a movie to interest me, a minor crisis happens.  Here are some old tacos.

              
Some foods are more photogenic than other foods.  Tacos tend to be among the foods that are not photogenic, though hard shell tacos are not as bad as soft shell tacos because at least the hard shell tacos are rigid.  If you arrange them nicely (or as nicely as you can), they cooperate.  They stay put.  Another factor to consider when taking pictures of tacos: garnish.  Photographs of tacos without a lot of fluffy garnish on them just end up looking empty and sad.  These are the sort of things one ends up thinking about when keeping a blog like this one.  The first time Oilchanges went through an identity crisis was after my mom called me and told me that the blog was getting repetitive.  Too many bacon sandwiches—it was still a recipe blog back then.  The phone call made me realize that I could divorce the content from the photographs.  The words could have nothing to do with the pictures.  That formula worked well for a while.  Here are some old greens.


Both of these pictures are from June of 2009.  Oilchanges was only one year old.  I've often wondered how many blog years there are for each human year.  You know, like dog years.  A one year old dog is like a seven year old boy.  The average lifespan for a blog is very short.  My hunch, then, is that one human year = 15 blog years, which means that this picture was taken when the blog was 15 years old, which also means that the blog is now pushing 50, which is too early to retire.  But what shall I do?  I would like to make a 15 minute documentary.  This is what I thought about as I walked around last night.  A 15 minute documentary about roadside shacks in western Massachusetts.  Funding would help.  Perhaps the blog could become a project-based blog.  It's hard to tell. 
        

         


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hi Jono,

Wish it would go back to being a recipe blog, I enjoyed that. And I liked the bacon sandwiches, repetition is not the worst thing when it comes to food. It felt homemade, in a good way.

No need to publish this comment, I just say, go back to the recipes.

Have you ever read John Thorne?
xx

Since I'm asking you for recipes, may as well share one of my own. Here is a good way to make coffee:
1/2 espresso, 1/2 hot milk. Break a cardamom pod into the milk as it heats. Stir a couple spoonfuls of dark brown sugar into the liquids, and sprinkle in cinnamon and a little five spice powder or anise.

Meg