Spring comes, Summer waits in Syracuse. Canon s95.

Update: The trestle is part of a larger mural project “A Love Letter to Syracuse.” by Steven Powers.

Icicle. Shot with a Canon S95

So my delayed/back-ordered Christmas present finally arrived from Best Buy this afternoon! My wife decided I needed a Canon Powershot S95, as I often told her that I would like one.

In essence, it’s the pocket camera I’ve always wanted. Small, compact, yet capable; or so I’ve read.

I haven’t quite had the chance to put it through any paces yet, but I anticipate it becoming a constant companion, joining the ranks with my cellphone, Moleskine & spacepen in my pants pockets.

Therein lies its charm. Too often I find myself without a camera when I suddenly want/need a camera; or conversely, lugging my Canon 40D and backpack full of lenses around without taking a single frame.

For awhile there, my beloved fBHF filled the niche of a constant “on hand” camera, both literally & figuratively; but its bulk, lack of versatility, and the need to carry spare spools, not to mention the cost of film, lead to its retirement from daily use. (I also took a chunk out of her film advance knob this summer, when I accidentally clipped a cement fence post outside of Fordham. So I had been carrying her with a tad more careful trepidation than I had in the past, lest I cause any further irreparable damage).

A digicam that fits comfortably in my pocket, shoots both RAW & 720p video and has an added ADH warranty to boot sounds pretty good to me.

Maybe this will help snap me out of my creative funk; maybe it won’t; it can’t hurt.

Anthony Bourdain at FNCE 2010, Boston.

Ok, fine. Here’s one where you can actually see Anthony Bourdain‘s face. I like to imagine he’s singing “O Sole Mio,” but alas and a lack, he wasn’t.

He was the closing speaker at this past year’s Food & Nutrition Conference & Expo (FNCE) in Boston, giving a talk entitled “How to stop worrying and enjoy globalization.”

I thought he was an odd choice to address a room filled with registered dietitians, given his predilection towards… shall we say… foods on the “unhealthy”* side of the spectrum.

Yet Bourdain was funny, engaging and he assuaged any fears of being contrarian to modern dietetic paradigms, by acknowledging he was a father who wanted what was best for his child. The dietitians, for their part, had no reservations about Bourdain (no bad pun intended) embracing & applauding his commonsense point of views and raucously laughing at his witty banter impugning his fellow celebrity chef/ tv personalites Rachael Ray, Paula Dean, & current first-lady of New York, Sandra Lee.

I had some prior reservations about his talk, stemming from the whole “enjoy globalization” part of his title. But instead of espousing a nihilistic homogenized western culture that dominates and eradicates indigenous cultures (as I tend to connotate globalization), he was rather suggesting that we take the opportunity to expose ourselves to other cultures & cuisines, while we still have the chance.

Part of the whole “be a traveler, not a tourist” and “eat like a local” concepts that I wholeheartedly support.

So yeah. Good stuff.

*I put “unhealthy” in quotes, as I try not to think of food as “healthy” or “unhealthy,” but rather follow a philosophy, given to me by my dietitian wife, that every food has its place and everything should be taken in moderation, including moderation.