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books / photo / Rowan / Tuesday — Comments Off
18
Feb 25

Now, finally, a card carrying member of the local library

Last Tuesday, since I’m touching on two weeks in one, the winter weather rolled in. We were on campus, because I rode in with my lovely bride. This was the before.

She had her two classes to teach. I sat in the office for a while and tried to get in some work.

My students were reading and writing about Tarleton Gillespie’s Politics of Platforms. The abstract, if you’re interested in this sort of thing.

Online content providers such as YouTube are carefully positioning themselves to users, clients, advertisers and policymakers, making strategic claims for what they do and do not do, and how their place in the information landscape should be understood. One term in particular, ‘platform’, reveals the contours of this discursive work. The term has been deployed in both their populist appeals and their marketing pitches, sometimes as technical ‘platforms’, sometimes as ‘platforms’ from which to speak, sometimes as ‘platforms’ of opportunity. Whatever tensions exist in serving all of these constituencies are carefully elided. The term also fits their efforts to shape information policy, where they seek protection for facilitating user expression, yet also seek limited liability for what those users say. As these providers become the curators of public discourse, we must examine the roles they aim to play, and the terms by which they hope to be judged.

It’s a 2010 piece, and it reads like it. There’s nothing wrong with it, but those 15 years are about 40 in social media years, I think. Despite it feeling far away from the students, in perhaps more ways than one, it remains an excellent foundational piece for what is to come in the class. And I have to read 71 students reactions to the piece. And also comment on what they say. It’s fun. Sometimes it is challenging in the best kind of way. But it is time consuming.

In the afternoon I visited another class that I’m not teaching, but I am working with a bit this semester. Students are making videos and I guess I am acting as a client-consultant. Two weeks ago, I gave them their first briefing. Last Tuesday, they came back with proposals. And they had to get that in quickly, because of that weather that was rolling in during the early evening.

We left campus at 4:45, as campus closed and the snow was starting. There are a lot of commuters on our campus, and so they wanted to get everyone back to where they needed to be, just in case some real weather hit the roads. Sensible. We made it safely. It looked like this.

And the snow, in the end, wasn’t that bad. But I’ll right about last Wednesday tomorrow. Today, I must turn to today.

While last week was so busy, I am returning to my normal pace this week. Just a few days on campus, and much of my work done in the home office. While those students were reading Gillespise then, I am now looking at the work they’ve put into the next reading assignment, Bernie Hogan’s The Presentation of Self. The abstract:

Presentation of self (via Goffman) is becoming increasingly popular as a means for explaining differences in meaning and activity of online participation. This article argues that self-presentation can be split into performances, which take place in synchronous “situations,” and artifacts, which take place in asynchronous “exhibitions.” Goffman’s dramaturgical approach (including the notions of front and back stage) focuses on situations. Social media, on the other hand, frequently employs exhibitions, such as lists of status updates and sets of photos, alongside situational activities, such as chatting. A key difference in exhibitions is the virtual “curator” that manages and redistributes this digital content. This article introduces the exhibitional approach and the curator and suggests ways in which this approach can extend present work concerning online presentation of self. It introduces a theory of “lowest common denominator” culture employing the exhibitional approach.

I find this to be a challenging piece, because Hogan brings in several really important concepts and weaves them together. He does a nice job with it, but there’s Goffman, there’s the ancient (to modern students, anyway) German critic and theorist Walter Benjamin, environmental psychology with Roger Barker, some computer science with danah boyd (who not everyone understands), electronic media with the impressive Joshua Meyrowitz and on and on. There’s a lot going on.

Everytime I read this one, I pull apart something new. And I find it is a good litmus to see where students are. One part of this assignment asks them to ask a question about the reading. I answer the questions. Some of them ask about elements that are very practical, or otherwise operational, and that’s great. Some of them ask about the conceptual or theoretical elements of the reading, and that’s terrific. And, for whatever reason, what they ask about here is a self-sorter for the rest of the term. Neither is bad, and both are necessary, but you can get a real sense of most of the people based on how they approach that particular reading. It’s interesting, and I’d like to know more of why that is.

Anyway, last week, and last Tuesday were busy. Today, I’ve just begun reading about this Hogan paper. And then I took the recycling to the inconvenience center across town.

On the way back, I finally stopped at the local library for the first time. I got a card. Paid two bucks for the privilege. Listened to two old volunteers struggle through the new library member process and, then, bicker about world events. One couldn’t believe this was going on, and surely it won’t get worse. The other could not stand to talk about it, saying it made them ill. They were discussing Medicare and Medicaid at the moment, and if that’s the prism through which they see everything, that’ll tell them enough. And it will get worse.

I found this inside one book, which I did not check out.

It’s a small enough library that, even though there’s only one fiction series I read — Craig Johnson’s Longmire is a guilty pleasure. I generally read history and biography, but I have stacks of those, floor to ceiling, here at home already.

Anyway, I’ve been trying to get to that library for what seems like ages, and today was that day. I got the three most recent books from that series the library holds, but I’ve already read two of them. I’ll read the third next weekend. After that, I suppose I’ll be taking advantages of the wonderful interlibrary loan system. I too, could benefit from reading a tiny bit less news. Where I’ll cram it in, I don’t know, but I’ll start with weekends, I think.

books / history / Thursday — Comments Off
19
Dec 24

Three more quick museum notes

Before we went to the museum yesterday, I had a look at the gift shop online, and I knew I wanted one of these, so I picked up one as a little gift for myself. I couldn’t tell you the last time I bought something at a gift shop, and I almost talked myself out of it, but, in the end, I’m glad I got one. This is a lapel pin version of the flag which, according to tradition, George Washington used to denote his headquarters during the war.

Looks fantastic on my lapel.

And then, as we were leaving the gift shop, pleased with my purchase spending four hours in the past, I saw this flag on the opposite wall. This is a reproduction of Washington’s standard.

But wait! While the original is preserved by the museum, and was not on display, this one has a story that would have been unbelievable to the first president.

This reproduction went to space with Sen. John Glenn in 1998, orbiting the earth 134 times, covering 3.6 million miles on the Space Shuttle Discovery, 199 years after Washington died.

Also, I took a quick photos inside the gift shop, so I could see more closely consider the books I want to one day read. I made a list on Amazon, and if you want to see 25 of the best books on display (there were probably 40 or so, total), you can see what I’ll be reading in the future.

books / cycling / Indigo Girls / music / photo / Tuesday / video — Comments Off
27
Aug 24

Really got a lot in here

Do we have a lot for you in this post. Let’s jump right in! First, I just came in from watering the pothos plants, and I checked on the spider. She’s still out there doing her thing.

I’ve decided this is a she for reasons that don’t have any basis in anything, really. But he, or she, is one industrious spider. Every day that web disappears. Every night it returns. Almost in the same spot. The angle of it has shifted in the last few nights. Maybe this is better for catching things coming off the prize-winning plants back there.

Looked up how long spiders can live, and this is not a long-term location for my new friend. I’m going to wind up re-positioning this arachnid, if for no other reason than I’ll want this little section of sidewalk back. And also because this is too close to the house, and I don’t want it coming inside when the weather turns.

I bet she’ll have great success in the woods out back.

I got in a late evening bike ride. I started a little too late, which is funny because I’d just been mentally patting myself on the back for how well I time these rides. Usually, I’m back just as it gets dark.

It was still daylight when I started. Here’s the proof, this is about halfway through.

You know how those late summer evenings get, though. The sunset and the gloaming happen more quickly than you’ve lately been expecting. This photo was just four miles later.

And this was an accidental shot, but look at that blurry wrist!

The problem — if you want to think of it in those terms, and I don’t — is that soon after that last photo I made an impulsive decision to add on a few miles. Turned left to add a circuit, instead of heading straight in. That gave me almost six extra miles, which was nice. And about three miles into it, I had to pull the headlight out of my pocket and light the road in front of me.

I have a lot of light on the back of the bike for oncoming cars. But the other thing that’s nice is that I was on sleepy country roads. Over the course of the last six miles of today’s ride I was passed by five cars, and only two of them came by when it was truly dark.

Anyway, another delightful, slow, 22-mile ride is in the books.

You might recall we went to a rock ‘n’ roll show last Thursday. On Friday I wrote in this space about Melissa Etheridge. Today, and for the next few days, we’ll have a few short Indigo Girls clips.

This year they’re celebrating the 30th anniversary of Swamp Ophelia. And this is a deep cut, a tremendous song off a lush album. A song I don’t think I’ve heard live in decades, and apropos of the moment.

I’ve been in awe of that line about the summer since the 1990s. It’s not fair what Emily Saliers can do with a few lines of verse.

And here’s a 1997 classic to go alongside of that one.

That song — which went to number 15 on the US Adult chart, enjoyed a bit of air play on the radio and was in the last batch of videos I recall on MTV — was inspired by this documentary, which has become something of a classic on its own, while still remaining contemporary even as the sands shift around us.

That documentary itself is three decades old now. It’d be interesting to go back and see the modern version, just so we can marvel at what is and isn’t different.

I finished Walter Lord’s The Dawn’s Early Light. It is wonderful pop history, my first Lord book and I’m sure I’ll go find more of his writing later.

Militarily, his tactics are sparse, and written at a regimental level, but he’s not writing too much about the military action. It might be easy to get bogged down in that, or easy to get it wrong or be incomplete, all these years later, despite his excellent research. It’s a book about the time, rather than the conflict. He basically has it that the places the U.S. did poorly were down to bad organization and ineffective leadership. The places where we did better, Baltimore and New Orleans, were down to a key British army officer being killed and the Americans getting their act together.

And because it includes New Orleans, Andrew Jackson does become a minor character late in the book — a book which doesn’t sit on anyone for too long, come to think of it. Jackson has a few good lines in the text. This is, perhaps, the best one.

I’ve jumped ahead some 120 years in my next book. I’ve started reading about mid-20th century journalist and author, Richard Tregaskis. Updates on that text are something to which you can look forward. Also, more music tomorrow. And a swim! (Maybe … I’m trying to work up the nerve.)

books / markers / photo / We Learn Wednesdays / Wednesday — Comments Off
21
Aug 24

Don’t forget your hands

I was running late. Well, that’s not exactly fair. Let me back up. I was perfectly on time. But then I realized I forgot something, a notebook, and so I had to double back. That’s when the comedy of errors began. I’m sitting at a T-intersection, trying to turn right, and the whole of the town is going the same direction. And as the clock ticked by I waited.

I was supposed to be at a meeting, but now I was running late. And then a dump truck pulled out in front of me, that sort of road-joining that is mostly safely, but entirely annoying. That slowed me down some more, and so on, and then so forth.

I arrived at the meeting place to find the meeting had been rescheduled for tomorrow, which is today. The in-person meeting became a Zoom, which was helpful for file-sharing and the like. And that’s the story of the first meeting of the year.

The good thing about yesterday was that the meeting place was right next to a doc-in-the-box, which I wanted to visit anyway. I’ve been dealing with an unpleasantly persistent case of swimmer’s ear and I hear that medical science has invented an antibiotic drop that’s better than the stuff you can get over the counter. The woman, a PA I think, that I saw said that was indeed a thing, and she filled out a prescription. And, wouldn’t you know it, my pharmacy had it filled before I even got back home. So now there’s stuff in my ear.

Well, not right now, because it’d fall out as I sat here, upright. But I suppose there is stuff in my ear, because swimmer’s ear. It’s getting better, but not as quickly as it should, hence my side visit.

I wouldn’t recommend it. The swimmer’s ear, I mean. The walk-in visit was fine. I didn’t even sit down in the waiting area before they called me back. It was the most in-and-out experience you could imagine, as it should be for such a small thing.

Also, I got my palm scanned. Not for any street performer tarot reasons, mind you. This is how they identify people now. Not from the palm prints, but from the blood vessels. The nice woman at the reception desk told me that. I, of course, knew I could do four minutes of material on this. She knew it as well, because as soon as I started in, she handed me a one-sheet explaining the technology. The long and the short of it is that I have to remember to take my right hand back should I ever need to visit again.

So, note to self and all of that.

We had a nice moon this evening. The view from the backyard.

And the stars above us out front, to the west, looked fine, too. Watering plants in the evening has this reward. If you look up, you can have this nice quiet moment of wonder.

Not pictured, the plane going to Boston that ruined the first shot, cruising over at 30,000 feet. This was, of course, after I spent some time in the gazebo enjoying the fresh air of a cool summer night and the chorus of crickets and the song of whatever else was out there.

I was reading Walter Lord’s The Dawn’s Early Light. It is about the War of 1812.

This one, if I recall correctly, I got because someone my mother-in-law knows was downsizing. She had a great big stack and let me take whatever I wanted, so I of course came away with my arms full. It’s been in the To Read bookcase for a while. Published in 1972, I am just intrigued that a little side note like this one, from the British capture of Washington D.C., made it into a popular history book a century-and-a-half after the fact.

I am up to the subsequent attempt to conquer Baltimore now, so there’s really only whatever happens there and New Orleans to go, I suspect. But it has become one of those books that you don’t want to end. It is my first Lord book and I’ll probably be adding more of his work to my bookshelves. Lord was a talented writer with an incredibly active voice.

We return once again to We Learn Wednesdays, the feature where we discover the county’s historical markers via bike rides. If I am still counting this correctly, this is the 44th installment, and the 76th marker in the We Learn Wednesdays series. And this one is relatively new. It is also not especially historic, but I published a similar one last year and the concept is nice.

A rain garden is a shallow basin planted with deep-rooted native wildflowers, grasses and shrubs. Their extensive root systems filter stormwater runoff and help prevent pollutants and sediments from entering our groundwater and waterways.

In addition to helping to prevent erosion and improving water quality, native plants provide essential food and habitat for local wildlife. Their seeds and nectar provide a valuable food source for birds, butterflies and other insects. Native plants are those that were here prior to European settlement. They are well adapted to local conditions and require very little care once established.

I just happened by this one the other day, seeing it out of the corner of my eye as I pedaled between two historic markers. I wonder why there aren’t more of these, wherever there’s a free spot.

There are always free spots.

Next week, we’ll visit a properly old site. If you’ve missed any markers so far, you can find them all right here.

books / maps / Monday / photo — Comments Off
15
Jul 24

Come for the book, stay for the cats, or vice versa

It was a low effort weekend around here. I blame the heat advisories. And also the sun. It’s possible that both of those things are related. Also, I should blame the Tour. The race was in the Pyrenees this weekend, and the mountains are where all the fun, and much of the grand scenery, is to be found.

We were actually watching the Tour, on tape delay, when the phone call came in Saturday. Turn on the news. The call and texts came at almost the same time. And for the time it took to get off of one streaming app and on to another — several looooooong seconds — and then to the news stations, we wondered. I chose ABC, because of my ABC roots, and because we also got there first. And that was not the Saturday night anyone expected. I turned it off for a while, and back to the race, and then turned it back on again. Just to see if there was anything new, to see if it had all been true.

I checked the calendar — the Tour is on, the sun is out, the temperatures are high — it is only July.

I started a new book yesterday. (I have three going right now, sorta. Just like the old days, almost.) This is Walter Lord’s The Dawn’s Early Light. Published in 1972, it is one of his 13 bestsellers. The blurb on the dust jacket says “Author of A Night To Remember, Incredible Victory, etc.”

“Etc.,” of course, is Latin for, “You’re doing something right as an author.” This is my first Walter Lord book and I can tell you, he’s doing something right.

Codrington is Captain Edward Codrington, captain of the British fleet in naval operations against the Americans. The man in charge had been back and forth, back and forth, on where he wanted to give the Americans what for. But finally it was settled, and Condrington was sailing upriver for the small fishing village of Benedict, Maryland, and then overland to Washington, D.C. The plan was to take 48 hours.

Lord tells us that the problem, on our side, was that the American government was a shambles. And almost nobody in Madison’s cabinet thought the Redcoats would come for swampy Washington. Who’d want the place? That was the thought of Secretary of War, John Armstrong, Jr. He had been a member of the Continental Congress. At this point of American history he was one of the most well regarded in terms of military experience, having served as an aide-de-camp to Generals Mercer and Gates in the Revolutionary War. He was also a fool. (Wikipedia tells me his peers were a bit skeptical about him.)

I bought this book eight years ago this week. I paid a whole penny for it. I’m 64 pages in — my reading interrupted by lightning — and I am comfortable saying it was worth the investment.

And with that, we can now continue on to the site’s most popular weekly feature, the check in with the kitties.

Phoebe would like an adjustment to her midday window curtains, please and thank you.

And here she is later, wondering why I haven’t adjusted her curtains more to her liking.

I took this photo of Poseidon because I was telling a story to a friend about how Poe was taking the heat for one of the humans in the house. It was a good illustration for the punchline, and his chin-rubbing was just perfect. He thought you might enjoy it, too.

And since we’re watching bike racing … and Poe is a big fan of bike racing …

He has been working on his aerodynamic positioning.

I haven’t put him in a wind tunnel, but that looks like a pretty good shape, don’t you think?