Abigail on the Classics

Abigail here. I read in the newspaper this morning that Polaroid will discontinue selling its magical film. By this time next year, it will only be found on e-Bay and in museums and in stuffy old houses like mine.

I was just a teenager when the Polaroid camera came out, late 30s, I think. Of course my father had to have one. We got another one in the 1950s and another in the 60s. The Polaroid camera never failed to mesmerize me. Watching life materialize on that little black square was like watching a memory being tattooed onto my brain. It was like something from another time and place, beamed our way by a friendly but highly advanced life form on another planet. There was nothing else like it.

Few things could be so instantaneous back then. Now everything is that way. Lauren takes all her pictures on a camera that looks just like my old 35mm, but there is a little screen on the back that shows her the image the moment she has taken the shot. If she doesn't like it, she can press a button and it disappears.

I wonder how she knows so quickly which pictures aren't worth keeping. Time has a way of redistributing value. But she is young. . .

I've decided to read The Crucible again. It's been awhile. Reading it always makes me a little grumpy, though. There are so many little things that I don't think are quite right but I can't prove any of it. It's just a gut feeling I have. And really, does it matter? The Crucible is less about the Salem Witch Trials and more about McCarthyism anyway.

Still. Makes me wish we had a few Polaroids of what it was really like to live when Mercy lived. To see what she saw.

I will let you know how grumpy I am this time around. In the meantime, I'd buy up Polaroid film if I were you. . .