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Between Saturday and the Revolutionary War

This is how my back feels. I carefully squatted down to pick up my mostly empty backpack. I put my mostly empty backpack on my home office chair. I slipped my laptop and my notebook inside. I zipped it up and carried it downstairs. Because I was being helpful, I went back upstairs I did the same for my lovely bride’s backpack. Same procedure, squat, chair, laptop, two notebooks, zipped it. I carried it downstairs. And there near the end of that little trip the muscles around my shoulder where this little incision suggested they might not like me to do that anymore.

So I did not.

How it works this semester is that we drive to one building, where she has her classes, and I drop her off. Then I drive over to the building where our office is, and where my classes are. There’s a parking deck right behind it. (We have, probably, the best parking arrangement on campus.) I go to whatever floor, park, and then walk down the stairs, around the side of the building and about half a block to the door. Up the elevator to the office, and so on. And about the time I got off the elevator, I didn’t want to carry my bag for a while.

Again, this is basically an intense pulled muscle sort of sensation. A “hey, you really shouldn’t” kind of thing. And I am fortunate in that I can obliged that feeling, follow the doctor’s advice and still do the things I need to.

Which, today, was class. In Criticism in Social Media we talked about this story which was OK enough to make two or three small points on. And we also talked about this story, which was worth a bit more dissection. Back with Dodgers, emotional Freddie Freeman details son’s health scare:

Max woke on July 22 with a slight limp and went into full paralysis four days later, prompting Freeman to rush home from a series at the Houston Astros. By Wednesday, doctors removed Max from his ventilator.

Five days after that, Freeman was back in the Dodgers’ lineup for the start of a three-game series with the Philadelphia Phillies, playing first base and batting third. He finished 1-for-4 in the Dodgers’ 5-3 win and was greeted by a long standing ovation before his first at-bat. The Phillies joined the applause from their dugout. The pitch clock was stopped as he stepped out of the batter’s box, removed his helmet and waved to the crowd, before then touching his right hand to his chest.

“I was doing OK tipping my hat and then my dad was sitting first row with my stepmom, and he was — I don’t know if I could call it crying, but he was choked up and teary-eyed,” Freeman said. “That’s what really got me going.”

Max spent eight days in a pediatric intensive care unit before being discharged Saturday. The next day, he began physical therapy.

At my next opportunity, I’m going to have to pick a few stories that aren’t emotional stories, lest I give my class the wrong idea about this. And looking at some of the documentaries I’ve selected for later in the semester … I need to do that soon.

In Organizational Communication in Sports my normal slide deck theme gave away to egregious fandom. And since Auburn got ripped off Saturday — this was one of about four games I’ve watched in three years, and what a clown car the whole thing has become — I turned it into hating on fans. My hope was that it would make for a comedic, and memorable, conversation. So it started with this.

I rather like that shaker theme, though. So I put up all sorts of unflattering photos of Georgia fans — I won’t reproduce them here, but they’re out there — and talked through Social Identity Theory. There was one photo of a Georgia fan, in his best Georgia t-shirt (it only had three stains on it) proudly shaking hands with some klansmen. Then I said, “whereas my guys are good Christian boys.” And here’s a shot of a big chunk of the team praying in the end zone. “And patriotic?” Boy you’ve got no idea!” And then there’s a shot of them celebrating with some ROTC students. It just went on like this for a while, talking about the cognitive choices of Social Identity Theory, the purpose of it all, the In-Group / Out-Group nature of sports. Most of this we all inherently know, but some days you get to put a name and some scholastic explanation to things.

I pointed out that, of course this is unfair. I’m cherry picking these guys in outlandish ways to try to make a point. You can do this with any fan base if you want to. It’s just easier with some then others.

We talked about Presentation of Self, which let me show people dressed up all nice for something as silly as a football game. We talked about Goffman’s notions of front stage and back stage. We talked about social identity as our fandom extends beyond the venue. Look, I’m wearing this tie, and this tasteful lapel pin, and so on. And then we came around to highly identified fans, and I talked about the most highly identified fans I know. And that’s where I played clips of Bama fans.

I ended it with mascots. Here’s a shot of 11-time mascot of the year Aubie in a library. And here’s Rowan’s mascot, with the way the university describe’s Who R U on his own page: fierce, ready to attack, full of aspirations and expectations. I dug up a shot of Rowan’s next football opponent’s mascot, a big black bear that’s goofy in the appropriate sort of mascot ways. Pio is his name, and his site says this bear represents the values and attributes of their students: gritty, confident, persevering, fun-loving and the first in the family to attend college.

Because, ya know, he’s a bear, and not a lot of bears go on to higher education.

The Yankee came to see what that lecture turned into. She said it went well. Said she might steal some of that material the next time she teaches this class.

We left our building and went across the street for a special presentation. Some of the faculty here know the filmmaker Ken Burns, and he graciously allowed them to screen the first episode of his upcoming documentary.

Six episodes, starting next month. We were asked to not discuss it at length, and I’ll respect that. But I’ll say this. Episode one was quite good, I can’t wait for the rest. Also, the voiceover casting is just incredible.

One of the professors, who is a professional film critic, talked a bit. A history professor, a public historian who is a key figure in the ongoing work at a nearby Revolutionary War site also spoke. She’s the perfect kind of historian, in my view. She has such an enthusiasm for her work that it makes you want to be enthusiastic about it, too. Maybe all teachers should be that way. I try to be that way. Maybe it comes through. For Dr. Janofsky, though, it is obvious, and infectious.

She passed around this piece of shot that had recently been pulled from the ground. For 250 years this had been buried beneath the soil, and just before that, it was hurtling at an enemy with great urgency.

Janofsky did not say whose shot this was. I’m assuming they know. We also know a lot about the muzzle velocity of 18th century cannons, and we know there was a fair amount of variation between them having to do with a lot of different variables, the type of shot, the canon, the powder and so on. I’ll just go with a number that keeps popping up for British cannons of the era, 487 meters per second. That’s a bit over 1,000 miles an hour. No one wants to be standing downrange of that, in any century.

And then something controversial, that had nothing to do with work or the Revolutionary War happened. I’m running out of pixels today, so I’ll type about it tomorrow, when there will surely be more to know, anyway.

adventures / history / photo / Rowan / Thursday / video — Comments Off
18
Sep 25

The goal is the goal

It was a busy day on campus. In my Criticism class we watched a documentary about the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City. It’s titled “Fists of Freedom.” You can find it in a few places online, including on the HBO app, but here’s a little tease from the night the doc won a Peabody.

Watching it took the full class. Tuesday we’ll talk about it, both the story they told, but also the craft of documentaries. We’ll watch a lot of documentaries in this class, and for these first two we’ll talk a tiny bit about the filmmaking as a format of criticism, too. I have worked diligently to create a wildly varied menu of documentaries. This one is historical and about track and field. (Good as it is, Bob Beamon’s world record long jump is my favorite part of that film.) The next one is contemporary and about tennis. We’ll look at an unconventional documentary centering on a diver after that.

In org comm today we discussed the overarching concept of the uniqueness of sport communication. Anyone that comes back next week will get to laugh at a lot of commercials as we talk about branding.

My godniece-in-law (just go with it) is a high school senior and playing some of her last field hockey games. So we went to see one of them this evening. Her little sister, my other godniece-in-law (again, go with it) played in a JV game, so we got to see both.

Now, I’d hoped to take a few photos of the senior, thinking maybe I could get one or two of her to share with her. The problem is I know nothing about field hockey. I’ve been to, I think, three or four games, and it’s still largely inscrutable to me. Fortunately, one of my students is a field hockey star. She gave me some tips today.

So we went to the games, I followed the suggestions of my field hockey folk hero. The game is played on the school’s football field, which serves quadruple duty as football field, soccer pitch, field hockey pitch and some of their field events for track. The field has a play turf surface, which feels like it’d be fun to run on.

I can say that because I set up shot behind the cage, which sits under the mobile soccer goal, which rests under the football field goal. The game is getting underway, I sneak back there. Sneak by walking at a normal pace. And as I’m fiddling with the settings on my camera, my godniece-in-law scores a goal. Missed it.

At the start of the second half the two teams swapped sides, so I walked over to stand behind the other goal. And back there, was this, which covers the high jump pad. For some reason, they’re really quite serious about staying away from this cover, which is just all kinds of dangerous.

Soon after, a gentleman walked over and told me to leave. So I walked back over to the stands, properly chagrined. It was the first time I’ve gotten in not-trouble at a high school in decades. Such a rule breaker am I.

Leaning against the post of the soccer goal felt comfortable. I haven’t done that since I was 20 or so. And, from back there, watching the game come toward me, I understood what was going on much better than the side-view you get from the bleachers. I have been assured by the people I’ve asked — including a chat tonight with my godniece-in-law’s grandfather, who is my godfather-in-law (just go with it) — that there many rules about what you can and can’t do in field hockey. They mysterious and inscrutable rules to us mere fans, but grounded in safety. He was a field hockey coach for 20 years. He’d know the rules, right? He did not tell me all of the rules. I’ve come to conclude they’re meant to be secret.

Most importantly, the home team won both games.

adventures / Friday / history / photo / Switzerland — Comments Off
27
Jun 25

Across from the Matterhorn

We walked from our hotel through Zermatt, 5,310 feet elevation. We boarded a train to go up. Up to the Gornergrat ridge, which sits 10,285 feet above sea level. There are two stops, and then you’re there, at the top of the world, it seems like, except for what you can see opposite.

It ain’t bad.

The high mark, of course, is the iconic Matterhorn summit, just over there.

Mountains, being great skewers of time and space and distance, are always misleading. The Matterhorn is actually six miles from where we are standing.

Here’s a broader view of the view. This is a panoramic shot of sorts, so you know what to do.

(Click to embiggen.)

And here’s a slightly better closeup. Doesn’t look like anyone is climbing it today. At least on this side.

Tomorrow, Europe’s highest open-air theater (really, a flat spot with a screen and several rows of chairs, which we passed on the way up) is opening for the season and they are showing “The Matterhorn Story,” a play that depicts the first ascent of the mountain, in 1865. It debuts tomorrow. We’ll be gone by then.

Where we were today was above the tree line. But there were a few things growing that high up.

Oddly, I didn’t have most of the same thin air effects I was complaining about on our visit to Jungfraujoch. I must have acclimated in the last 48 hours.

(I did not.)

Way up there is a humble little chapel, dedicated to St. Bernard — patron saint of the Alps, skiing, snowboarding, hiking, backpacking, and mountaineering, if you go in for that sort of thing.

I’m not Catholic, but I’d like to find out how a person who lived in the 11th century and canonized in the 17th century picks up snowboarding as something to protect. Snowboarding just dates back to 1965, after all.

Anyway, the altarpiece is carved wooden figures in a relief-style with alpine flowers above the altarpiece. The tabernacle is decorated with grapevines, the altar table is made of stone slabs with a cross.

There’s also a little hotel and restaurant and gift shop up there. A development waiting for other developments, unless it’s a one-night novelty, I’m sure. As a guest, your options are the views, the observatory, two short tourist experiences and going back down the mountain. One of the tourist things is a beautiful 10-minute movie that shows you the four seasons on the mountain. The other is a three-minute VR presentation of paragliding over the Matterhorn. We’ve seen people doing this all over, and made jokes with the in-laws about getting them in one of those rigs.

We got close.

I sat in one of those chairs, too. (Not pictured.) I joined the flight in-progress, so I went through it again, just to see everything. It was shot on a nice 270 degree camera, so you can see a great deal. Almost just like doing it! I was hoping my mother-in-law would stick her arms out and soar through the sky …

There’s also a nice display of a first-generation engine at the Gornergrat summit. (There are two others a bit further down, as well.) These are historic and legendary pieces of the Swiss railway system — albeit “reinterpreted” for their installment in 2023. The signs don’t tells us what was reinterpreted, but I’d like to think they looked exactly like this when they first took on their job of going up and down the mountain in 1898, when they opened this system. Today, it is the oldest, still-operational, electrical cogwheel in the world.

Even still, these engines had a shorter trek than their modern descendants. The original rail station was about 230 lower than today’s peak spot. Regular folks did the walk. Others, of means, were carried up in sedan chairs.

Hopefully they felt self-conscious about that.

Mark Twain said “Nowhere is there such a display of grandeur and beauty as can be seen from the Gornergrat summit,” but he got up there some other way. He wrote that in 1878, before this railway was completed, which wasn’t too long after the place started appearing in the travel guides (1856) and topographical maps (1862).

Cogwheel rails work on a rack and pinion system, which allows them to shorten the distance by mastering steep inclines. Static friction of the wheels provide the propulsion. The part in between the rails is the key, and in this case a setup like this handles inclines, the sign says, of 200 percent. Carl Roman Abt was the engineer that developed this setup, which has some clever ingenuity in design and reusability.

This is how it all connects together. It’s powered by a 275 volt three-phase current. TO save power, the engines act as generators when braking, so when it is descending, the engine is producing electricity. Recuperation allows that energy to be used on the next ascent. Today, three trains going downhill produce enough power for two trains heading up. (There are two trains an hour up here, too.) The rest of the power comes from Zermatt’s power grid.

If you look closely, you can see the teeth from the cogwheel system here. Since its earliest days, this has been an electrical system. The only steam engine that ran on these lines was the locomotive that helped in the construction. When it’s task was completed, they sold the thing to Spain.

Twelve photos, a history lesson and 900-plus words, so let’s call it here. In the next post, I’ll share some video from the Gornergrat summit. Don’t miss it.

adventures / history / Italy / photo / Thursday — Comments Off
19
Jun 25

It is dangerously hot

It is very hot. It was 91 degrees throughout the afternoon. We were outside. Conceding the sweat. Seeking out water where we could. (We could not find enough of either.) Trying to hide in the shade. Have you figured it out yet? Where we are? Here’s one last hint. This is the Basilica di Santa Maria delle Grazie.

So, if you haven’t guessed, we are in Milan, Italy. (But only until tomorrow.)

We took a Tesla Uber to get there. The basilica, of course, not Milan. No way I’d stay in that car long enough for a real trip. What a stupid car on the inside. Just a blank interior and a giant distracting screen with a UI that looks like it came from a cheap Canadian dystopian sci-fi show.

Both the car and this church are places I hadn’t ever thought of experiencing — some things you just don’t ever contemplate. For the former, I was grateful we only went a short distance and not over water or that the driver didn’t use the self-drive murder mode in our short trip. For the latter, it just didn’t seem a place I’d ever get the chance to see. Never something I’d considered trying. Not a goal. It was not unobtainable, just never on the radar.

Sort of like pedestrians, to the famous Teslers sensors.

Outside the Basilica di Santa Maria delle Grazie, we were given tickets. Inside, we had to display our passports. Then we went through an air filtration system — or so they said. And then, in another room, there it was, The Last Supper.

Leonardo da Vinci painted it from 1495–1498, in the refectory of the Convent, using a tempera fresco technique as both an experiment and an expediency to logistics. It is a fast-drying style, permanent in the sense that it doesn’t allow for alterations, but temporary as it relates to time. (Two early copies of The Last Supper are known to exist, thought to have been done by Leonardo’s assistants. The copies have survived with a lot of their original detail. One is in Switzerland, the other in Belgium.)

Today’s venerable works were once just things on walls. The room has been used as a stable, a hospital (during WWI) and a dining hall. At one point, in 1652, they cut a door in that wall, and through da Vinci’s representation of Jesus’ feet, to create a direct path to the kitchen. Late in the 16th century, the painting was considered all but ruined. The first restoration was attempted in 1726. However that went, a few decades later a curtain was installed, meant to protect the painting. Instead, it trapped moisture, and whenever the curtain was pulled, it scratched the flaking paint. Because of the way da Vinci painted it, much of what we see today is not original.

So the filtration process is amusing. But there you are. You walk through that one glass door from the filtration room and suddenly you’re confronted with the work of a master.

There’s also a display for the visually impaired.

The mural has gone through a series of more successful restorations over the years. A man named Luigi Cavenaghi was an innovator of his time. He worked on it from 1903 to 1908. At the time, apparently, addressing external factors (like the room, or the building) was a revolutionary idea.

One of Cavenaghi’s students, the self described failed painter Mauro Pellicioli, updated the restorations after World War II. He, again, updates the methods used for work on the famed wall. (During the war it was covered in sandbags as a precaution.) Pellicioli would become one of Italy’s most important restorers. Some of the most famous works you can see have experienced his work.

Later, Pelliciloli’s student, Pinin Brambilla Barcilon was tasked with the most recent restoration. It was the 1980s by then, and the art of restoration had become a science. She removed older glazes, and did much of the work that we see today.

On the wall, opposite is a painting by Milan native Giovanni Donato da Montorfano, descendant from a family of painters. His depiction of the Crucifixion (1495) is his best known work.

This fresco is believed to have some figured painted by da Vinci, as well.

We left Renaissance Milan, taking a bus from the Basilica di Santa Maria delle Grazie (which was constructed between 1465 and 1482). Here’s our parting view.

In retrospect, we could have taken those scooters.

We went over to La Scala, but the famed 18th century opera house wasn’t accepting tours. Odd, considering the many, many, tourists milling about. So we sat in the shade of the piaza until it was time for our tour of the Duomo di Milano.

The Milan Cathedral is beautiful, if you like the gothic renaissance style.

They started work here in 1386, and just finished the work in 1965. It supposedly seats 40,000. I wouldn’t know. The tour turned out to be a bust. We started on the roof, which was unimpressive. We came from the back left, across the front and down on the right side. When we got inside the cathedral told the tour, “Non oggi.” Not today. It seems there was an event scheduled for the afternoon, and our tour company can’t or didn’t check the cathedral’s event calendar.

What you can see from the back of one of the large parts of the church hinted that we missed a lot.

Someone else who was on the tour said he’d been on it before. He said we saw nothing compared to what we should have been able to see.

We’ll be getting a refund.

Took a cab back to the hotel. Cooled down in a restaurant that was conveniently located across the street. Settled in early, hoping that, this, day two, would be the end of the jet lag. Tomorrow, we are traveling by train.

history / music / video — Comments Off
11
Jun 25

If you’re hung up on wind chimes, Smiley Smile

It was coincidental timing that we saw Barenaked Ladies on Sunday. They were the headliner of the concert I’ve been touching on this week. And they, of course, did their modern version of Brian Wilson. Today, of course, came the news that the legendary musician Brian Wilson had died. It was not BNL’s best sound of the night, frankly. Then again, it’s not Ed Robertson’s song. (Every time I see them I think, Maybe this will be the night Steven Page strolls out from stage left … )

BNL is still a fine band, and they put on a nice show, that one is just off a bit. The live shows were always better with Page, but you understand why they parted ways in 2009. Anyway, here’s Page fronting Brian Wilson for BNL.

As a gag, Brian Wilson covered BNL’s song about Brian Wilson.

Some years back, Wilson talked about a song, and a sound, to which he aspired:

Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys estimates that he’s heard “Be My Baby,” by the Ronettes, more than 1,000 times. The very first listen, 50 years ago this month, still haunts him.

“I was driving and I had to pull over to the side of the road — it blew my mind,” Mr. Wilson said, repeating a story that has become something of a legend. “It was a shock.” Just 21 and already frustrated with his band’s basic surf music, he bought the single and set about deconstructing its arrangement and production.

“I started analyzing all the guitars, pianos, bass, drums and percussion,” he said by telephone. “Once I got all those learned, I knew how to produce records.”

Those records, many fans would contend, weren’t half bad, but if you ask Mr. Wilson, they still don’t stack up.

“I felt like I wanted to try to do something as good as that song and I never did,” he said. “I’ve stopped trying.” Mr. Wilson added: “It’s the greatest record ever produced. No one will ever top that one.”

You know it; it’s Phil Spector, Ellie Greenwich and Jeff Barry. It’s the Wrecking Crew, a wall of sound. It’s 18-year-old Veronica Bennett in those resonant Gold Star Studios.

My favorite will forever be.

Another bit of coincidental timing: as I write this, there’s an insurance commercial on using a brassy instrumental version of Good Vibrations as bed music. That song turns 60 next year.

Update: Some years back, BBC radio brought together a tremendous sequence of performances to celebrate another of Wilson’s brilliant pieces of art, and a classic song of our era.