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As a floundering member of aamora, I never seem to have much luck putting a decent slideshow together. For this sad effort I took some old shots taken during the last decade and ran them through Picnik’s Vignette and Orton-ish effects. By that time my short attention span was running on empty so I went looking for a song that ran the same time as the photos in iMovie. The song I came up with was “Don’t Worry, Be Happy”. I shipped the slideshow off to Youtube only to find out that they wouldn’t let me use that song. Back I went to iMovie and found another song, “Walking on Sunshine,” that fit the bill. Back to Youtube I went with my revised slideshow. So far they have allowed the music to play which means if you click on the triangle below you will have to watch one mediocre pic after another as Katrina Leskanich shreds her lungs to the accompaniment of The Waves.

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“John Linton is a floundering member of aamora. He lives in Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, the state with the biggest name and smallest size.” Check out John’s other aamora posts here and see more of his work by clicking here.

Recently, aamora members were invited to join in a project called 23 hours. The premise of the project, conceived by Michael Van der Tol, was to cease all verbal communication for 23 hours (continuously) and photograph absolutely anything you are thinking, feeling or seeing during the 23 hours of silence.

Check out John Linton’s wordless day in this slide show (with sound) produced by Michael Van der Tol:

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“John Linton is a floundering member of aamora. He lives in Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, the state with the biggest name and smallest size.” Check out John’s other aamora posts here and see more of his work by clicking here.

You will find the Amsterdam escutcheon everywhere you look. It consists of three white crosses of St. Andrew on a black pale on a red shield. The black probably represents the Amstel River while St. Andrew is the patron saint of fishermen and Amstellerdam began as a fishing community near a dam along the Amstel River. It’s an ironic symbol for a city known for its Red Light District.

After our flight from Copenhagen, our first day was primarily taken up with a tour of Keukenhof. I’d describe it as a flower child’s Disneyland. That evening we watched the Remembrance Day ceremony in Dam Square and were fortunate enough to be on the outer edge of the 20,000 people packed into Dam Square when the panic took hold. More about that here.

Day two, Liberation Day, included a tour of the Anne Frank Huis. That evening we watched the Liberation Day celebration along the Amstel. It was a panic free celebration.

Day three included a walk through the Red Light District, the Rembrandthuis, and Van Gogh Museum. We noticed more and more garbage in the streets as the strike entered it second week.

Day four was taken up with more walking along one canal after another dodging bikes, cars and trams. If you go to Amsterdam you need to always be aware of what’s going on around you. The Rijksmuseum was filled with all the Rembrandt’s, Vermeer’s, and Van Gogh’s (not to mention some other guys who seemed to know their way around a canvass) that anyone could possibly want to stare at.

Day five was a bit of a bummer…we had to head back to the airport for our flight back to Copenhagen, but that’s another slideshow.

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“John Linton is a floundering member of aamora. He lives in Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, the state with the biggest name and smallest size.” Check out John’s other aamora posts here and see more of his work by clicking here.

The Investment

The boy wasn’t a boy any more. He had worked hard in high school and earned a full scholarship to Duke enrolling in the business department. The life of poverty he had endured as a child was receding further into the past. His job in the Duke computer lab furnished him with all the money he needed each semester while the summer internship at Barclays in New York City held great promise for the future.

One day he would unearth that old canvas bag that he’d carried his newspapers in, the one that contained those crushed coffee cans and all that money. No one had noticed that he’d pried the u-shaped nail loose from that old cabinet and then nailed it back on, leaving the letter with the money for the dog behind. He had sworn an oath at the old man’s grave that the money would not be wasted.

With what he was learning in class about the stock market he hoped to turn the thousands into much, much more. It might be nice to return to the old neighborhood some day and set up a foundation to give others a chance.

Maybe Elisha would even begin to notice him. Now that would be something.

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“John Linton is a floundering member of aamora. He lives in Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, the state with the biggest name and smallest size.” Check out John’s other aamora posts here (where you will find his previous “Secret” posts: “The Grave” and “The Lock”) and see more of his work by clicking here.

What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas…unless you bring a camera. Well, actually you’d not only need to bring a camera, but also figure out a way to upload the slideshow onto youtube. The whole process reminds me of the time we took some students to Washington, DC and a couple of the boys smoked a few joints in their room. We had no idea they had done this until we all got back to school and they decided to put some of the pics they took of their toking up in their locker for all their friends to see. When the school’s prince-of-a-PAL walked by he was not amused and suspended them for 10 days.

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“John Linton is a floundering member of aamora. He lives in Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, the state with the biggest name and smallest size.” Check out John’s other aamora posts here and see more of his work by clicking here.

When you have multiple personalities and like to take pictures the results can be all over the place. We recently visited Las Vegas which is Spanish for Sin City.

When I’m trying to take photos and J. Harvey Linton II is screaming in my ear, “Take the shot of the noble lioness while she’s still gnawing on the chew toy! Wait, be sure to get the red ball! Hurry! You’re always a day late and a dollar short! We already missed feeding time because you were staring at those slot machines!” the shots would often come out like this one:

When I’m trying to take photos and Brenda is yelling in one ear, “Put that camera away! The sign clearly says no photographs during The Blue Man Group performance,” while Butch is screaming in my other ear, “Dude! Never mind the rules! Look at all those huge toilet paper rolls cascading down from the cheap seats! Hurry! The shots gonna be sooo cool.!” the shots would often come out like this
one:

When they’re both distracted and I have a moment to myself the shots often come out like this:

At least there’s never a dull moment.

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“John Linton is a floundering member of aamora. He lives in Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, the state with the biggest name and smallest size.” Check out John’s other aamora posts here and see more of his work by clicking here.

(This is a sequel to John Linton’s “Secret Project” contribution, “The Lock”. You may want to check that out first by clicking here.)

The boy placed the old man’s paper on the step and left. The next day when he came to deliver another he noticed the paper he had left the day before was gone and that an SUV with out of state plates was parked by the side of the road. Before he could leave the paper a stranger opened the door. The boy asked the stranger if the old man was around and the man said that he had died. The stranger then asked if the old man had owed the boy any money for the papers. The boy told him how much and the man paid him and told him the paper was no longer needed.

As the boy continued his deliveries he noticed the old man’s next door neighbor coming out to get her paper, something that had never happened before. Every time he needed to collect from her he would have to bang on her door many times before she would answer it. When the boy gave her the paper she asked what the man had said. The boy told her and she said, “He’s Skip’s son, George. He arrived yesterday with his family and turned that house upside down looking for money he said Skip had stashed away somewhere in the house. His wife said all he found was $2,000 in an envelope with a letter that said it was for the care of the dog. Of course, he took the dog to the Vets to have him put down and put the house up for sale. He kept the $2,000.”

The woman went on to say, “The police found Skip dead after I called yesterday complaining about the dog’s constant barking. When George arrived he told the police that no one in the family could afford to pay for the old man’s burial and wanted to know if the state or the VA would pay for it. Can you imagine? I’m so glad I don’t have a son like that. George sure was upset at not finding more money. Serves him right.” With that the boy continued on his way.

A month later the boy visited the old man’s grave. After all, it was the least he could do for the old man.

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“John Linton is a floundering member of aamora. He lives in Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, the state with the biggest name and smallest size.”

Check out John’s other aamora posts here and see more of his work  by clicking here.

Michael Van der Tol, member and co-administrator of aamora, asked our members to contribute their favorite shot of 2009. He created this slide show for you to enjoy. Thanks, Michael, and Happy New Year everyone!

The boy had often wondered what was contained within the old man’s piece of furniture. He had been delivering papers for him for two years now and each week the old man would answer the knock on the door and allow the boy to stand in the doorway while he counted out the change he was to receive. The beat up old piece of furniture with its incredibly old lock didn’t look like it would put up much of a fight. What could the old man possibly have inside there?

He had heard rumors that the old man had survived the Great Depression and kept all his money rolled up in big wads and stored in coffee tins. Thousands of dollars, some said. Even though the house looked like it hadn’t been taken care of in a very long time, the old man must have had money to be able to afford to buy that Terrier of his a roast every couple of days to eat. That damn dog ate better than anyone the boy knew.

God knows the old man’s relatives thought he had money stashed away somewhere in the house. The old man said he didn’t like any of them. They didn’t care about him or the dog, he said, just visited every now and then in the hopes they would be mentioned in the will. “I like you.” he said to the boy, “You take the time to leave the paper by the door so I don’t have to walk to the street to get it.”

The next week, when the boy knocked on the door the dog barked, but the old man didn’t come to the door. The boy turned the knob and to his surprise the door opened and the dog jumped up at him excitedly. In the corner of the room the old man sat slumped in a chair. The old lock seemed to be taunting the boy.

This is aamora member John Linton’s contribution to the “Secret” Project. You can check out John’s other aamora posts and the other “Secrets” by clicking on the links in the next column over there —>>

There we were at Ephesus wandering the Roman ruins when my wife, Brenda, stopped to admire the rebuilt edifice of the ancient Library of Celsus.

“Look,” she said, “the statues representing the four virtues of Celsus: Wisdom, Virtue, Intelligence, and Knowledge are women.”

I replied, “It figures, Virtue is in the best shape while Intelligence and Knowledge have both lost their heads.”

At that point Brenda just walked away.

“John Linton is a floundering member of aamora. He lives in Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, the state with the biggest name and smallest size.“  ——  Check out more of John’s work  by clicking here and don’t miss his previous aamora posts – just click on “john linton” under “categories” in the next column    —–>>