long electric-razor swan song of the cicadas, telling them summer was almost over. In fall, they trekked into the hills to the north of their city to oversee the colour changes. George feels that he can remember them dragooning the blushing, self-bonsai-ed sumacs into ragged lines along the ridges. He dreams they held tuning forks aloft to trigger the sky-slide of golden poplar leaves in crisp afternoons where the frost still defied the sun under the trees
Occasionally Georgeâs four maiden aunts would travel considerable distances to babysit nature somewhere else. They drove, with plaid car rugs in a 1952 Chev, to discipline the tides of Maine and the autumn hillsides of Vermont. On liners, and later in airplanes, they journeyed to supervise the white cliffs of Dover, the Alps and at least one coral island. They tried Florida once, but gave up on it. You only got palms and sand organized when hurricanes blew them away, and there didnât seem to be any proper progression of seasons. The aunts were devoutly deciduous. They also said the fruit was overrated
.
âIâd have given my eyeteeth for a nice Mac apple,â one said, dismissing Florida for all time
.
Itâs not just by the ocean or on the fall hills that George remembers the magic proprietorship of the aunts. Aunt Louise looms largest, as she did in the flesh. She comes to him sometimes at the mall. Aunt Louise taught him about artefacts. She was the family keeper of photos, pressed flowers and old dance cards. Shrunken heads and scalps would have been her department too, if theyâd had any
.
A sign on the booths near the food court seems to bark. âPhotos! Four poses! Three minutes! Two dollars!â Next to it, another sign offers full colour in four-and-a-half minutes for just a dollar more. The curtains on the photo booths are cut short so you canât pop in and run off porn-to-go unless you can levitate or Yogic-fly above the hem of the shortcurtain. Either that or you donât mind having your oeuvre, your style and your anatomy critiqued by the coffee drinkers in the food court
.
Years ago, he went with Aunt Louise to the photo booth at the old railway station in his hometown. The pictures are much more expensive now than they used to be. He seems to remember them being a quarter, although you only got one picture. That picture came out of a slot, newborn-wet with vinegar-smelling chemical, in a little chromium frame. When the cardboard backing dried, you pried out a prop-piece to stand your portrait up, or a cardboard loop to hang it. The picture was supposed to be art. Todayâs pictures are more utilitarian. They come in strips and can be cut up to put on licences and IDâs or mailed to friends or stuck on the washroom wall
.
Next to the photo booth of fifty years ago stood a machine like a one-arm bandit. It had the alphabet and the numbers, zero to nine around its face. It had a pointer like a single clock hand and the bandit lever on one side. If you put in money and moved the pointer around, you could print letters on a metal disk, pierced with a star-shaped cut-out and stamped with a four-leaf clover and a crown. You could identify your luggage and purchase good luck for a quarter
.
George believed the machine actually transformed the quarter. He didnât think of it paying for the disk. He thought of it being widened, pierced, and engraved as a sort of free magic service. The silver of the quarter returned to you in the talisman
.
Itâs been fifty years since Aunt Louise and George made a talisman or had a picture clink down into the slot of the photo booth. The impossible-to-understand station loudspeakers intoned echoingly over their heads. George was about six, tagging along with the big woman in the tweed coat with the brooch of painted leather oak leaves and trillium that felt the way dried mushrooms feel now. Aunt Louise understood magic and history. She saw the sense of crossing the
Occasionally Georgeâs four maiden aunts would travel considerable distances to babysit nature somewhere else. They drove, with plaid car rugs in a 1952 Chev, to discipline the tides of Maine and the autumn hillsides of Vermont. On liners, and later in airplanes, they journeyed to supervise the white cliffs of Dover, the Alps and at least one coral island. They tried Florida once, but gave up on it. You only got palms and sand organized when hurricanes blew them away, and there didnât seem to be any proper progression of seasons. The aunts were devoutly deciduous. They also said the fruit was overrated
.
âIâd have given my eyeteeth for a nice Mac apple,â one said, dismissing Florida for all time
.
Itâs not just by the ocean or on the fall hills that George remembers the magic proprietorship of the aunts. Aunt Louise looms largest, as she did in the flesh. She comes to him sometimes at the mall. Aunt Louise taught him about artefacts. She was the family keeper of photos, pressed flowers and old dance cards. Shrunken heads and scalps would have been her department too, if theyâd had any
.
A sign on the booths near the food court seems to bark. âPhotos! Four poses! Three minutes! Two dollars!â Next to it, another sign offers full colour in four-and-a-half minutes for just a dollar more. The curtains on the photo booths are cut short so you canât pop in and run off porn-to-go unless you can levitate or Yogic-fly above the hem of the shortcurtain. Either that or you donât mind having your oeuvre, your style and your anatomy critiqued by the coffee drinkers in the food court
.
Years ago, he went with Aunt Louise to the photo booth at the old railway station in his hometown. The pictures are much more expensive now than they used to be. He seems to remember them being a quarter, although you only got one picture. That picture came out of a slot, newborn-wet with vinegar-smelling chemical, in a little chromium frame. When the cardboard backing dried, you pried out a prop-piece to stand your portrait up, or a cardboard loop to hang it. The picture was supposed to be art. Todayâs pictures are more utilitarian. They come in strips and can be cut up to put on licences and IDâs or mailed to friends or stuck on the washroom wall
.
Next to the photo booth of fifty years ago stood a machine like a one-arm bandit. It had the alphabet and the numbers, zero to nine around its face. It had a pointer like a single clock hand and the bandit lever on one side. If you put in money and moved the pointer around, you could print letters on a metal disk, pierced with a star-shaped cut-out and stamped with a four-leaf clover and a crown. You could identify your luggage and purchase good luck for a quarter
.
George believed the machine actually transformed the quarter. He didnât think of it paying for the disk. He thought of it being widened, pierced, and engraved as a sort of free magic service. The silver of the quarter returned to you in the talisman
.
Itâs been fifty years since Aunt Louise and George made a talisman or had a picture clink down into the slot of the photo booth. The impossible-to-understand station loudspeakers intoned echoingly over their heads. George was about six, tagging along with the big woman in the tweed coat with the brooch of painted leather oak leaves and trillium that felt the way dried mushrooms feel now. Aunt Louise understood magic and history. She saw the sense of crossing the
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