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books / IU / maps / photo / Tuesday — Comments Off
16
Aug 22

Unconcerned as the deer

I got a decent shot of the fawn on the lawn as I rode through one of the campus neighborhoods. Three or four seem to sit there every evening. It’s a grassy, wooded lot that sits next to an odd rental, and just down from a Civil War-era home. They’re on a slight hill, in the shade, munching clover.

I just saw two of them on this pass. Last time I spied three. Next time, maybe zero. Who knows the schedules urban deer keep.

That’s a standard width sidewalk, and I was passing by close to it, on the two-lane road. The deer were not at all concerned with me, or the occasional passing car.

There are five houses on that block, and the one small stand of trees. One block down there’s a more densely wooded stand. I suppose that’s where they live.

Back to Sarton. I’ve worked my way through about two thirds of the book. She’s telling the story of her house. She bought it in her mid-40s after her parents died, and the memoir, written eight years later, is about the experience, the hidden New Hampshire village and, now, her neighbors.

I bought this book used, and I was pleased to see someone had underlined a few bits here and there. I probably haven’t always felt this way, but now I like idea of happening on someone else’s notes, but people seldom write in the margins anymore, it seems.

I think about a version of her support and freedom of a routine once in a while. I think it’s really about efficiencies. A routine gets done and redone, and you get better and better at it. So you become faster and so on.

Isn’t that the point of rote work? It’d be different, of course, if you were talking about true craftsmanship, which she does a fair amount. From time to time she tries to compare the craft work of others to her own craft.

And here she is at her craft, jamming an incredible amount of work into two pages. It is masterful, really. This is not the full story of her neighbor, Albert Quigley. (Even more about what is an interesting measureIt is not she includes about the man, but consider how much information is contained in these two short, clear pages.

The Quigley home is now Nelson’s library.

I’m still waiting on all of the context clues to flesh out where Sarton’s house is. I have a guess, and I could definitively figure this out online, Googlefu being a craft of a sort, but that seems to be against the spirit of the book.

Slow going across the way. The big crane didn’t move today. Perhaps it has developed an affinity for the Poplars Building, which would be the only one. Crews were doing some work among the rubble below.

We have learned that the adjacent parking garage, just seen to the left in our view and separated by a narrow alley, will remain closed until the razing is completed. They need to move faster, then. Parking is a consideration, which explains why they waited until the end of summer — and the beginning of a return to a “normal semester” — to undertake the project. I’m sure there were reasons.

Unconcerned as the deer.

cycling / IU / photo / video / Wednesday — Comments Off
10
Aug 22

They didn’t just stand there and wait

Here’s a bit of my bike ride to the office this morning. It was gray and not overly warm and somehow that made everything seem a bit slower and quiet. Maybe just knowing the quiet is coming to an end, and that far too quickly, made it seem like a quieter morning.

Classes start the week after next. This is the last big, deep breath before the regular routine returns.

I rode my bike back the same way this afternoon. For just a brief moment, one of those idle lower brain thoughts that makes it to the surface around the filters, I thought the same people I saw this morning might be there this afternoon. How neat to see them all again.

They weren’t, of course. Because they are elsewhere in the Truman Show.

When they get around to remaking that, they should go the real psychological thriller route. And if that’s somehow informed by Groundhog Day, and grounded in really normally inscrutable things, more the better, and more unnerving.

Time for our daily check on the Poplars Building. Built in the 1960s as an off-campus dormitory, but failed in that role and as a sorority house. Also as a hotel. And a “research and conference center.” It’s last duty was as administrative offices for the university. (The pool was filled in and became Human Resources.) Some 400 people could work in Poplars.

This month it is being scraped to death.

They made some good progress today. If you use the window rows as metrics, they’re getting one or two of those each day. Given the way it was built you have to think they can hold that pace pretty consistently. What we can’t see are the lowest parts, obscured here by the parking deck.

It is interesting, but I’m not terribly interested in walking over there and breathing in that stuff knowing, as we do now, about old building materials in the air.

Anyway, the deck is staying, but also being rehabbed. They waited until this summer to do that, rather than anytime in the preceding two years when almost no one was parking there. But, now, of a sudden, the parking lots are full, and the deck is closed “until the fall,” we’re told.

Anyway, the Poplars Building is going to be a green space for a time, until such time as someone has the time to figure out a better thing for the space.

I’m sure that fellow wasn’t on the path this evening because he was catching up on The Daily Show. He looked like a Daily Show guy, didn’t he? In that brief glimpse you saw of him? Daily Show guy, definitely, right?

There’s a needle to thread in comedy like this. Probably two or three needles to be threaded, each with smaller eyes. But The Daily Show had 10 good minutes.

I’m guessing the comic work will be better this week than in subsequent weeks. Legal processes just aren’t that funny. But this is pretty good, as is Trevor Noah’s impression of the former president’s stage style is informative.

And don’t call it a raid.

IU / photo / Tuesday — Comments Off
9
Aug 22

Enjoy this blog reading experience

Let’s look at some buildings. This one was cool. Plus the evening sun was shining on it. This is back in Milwaukee, by the way. And according to a hasty search — Google Maps, Google Street View, Google and Wikipedia — I can tell you that this is the Associated Bank River Center.

Such a sexy, historical name. The Associated Bank River Center was completed in 1988 and, for a time, was the second tallest building in Milwaukee. (Now it is the fifth largest, after which people stop counting, I’m sure, because, really … )

The red and green are meant to pay homage to the city hall building, which you just see to the right there. (For just under two years, the Milwaukee City Hall was the tallest habitable building in the world. Oh, to be in Milwaukee in 1895, I guess.)

Anyway, back to the foreground. The Associated Bank River Center is undergoing some renovation. It is used for offices, but also for parking, making it that most convenient 20th century design, mixed-use!

A marketing subcommittee wrote this:

Associated Bank River Center brings together the best of Milwaukee. A living intersection of the arts, finance, business, tourism and dining inspiring the City, Associated Bank River Center perfectly encapsulates Milwaukee’s historic roots and points to its transcending future. Renovations to be completed in various phases over the next several years.

But, most importantly, that view, and the brown Milwaukee River.

And, also 28 stories and 820 underground parking spaces, a large conference setup, a tech lounge, whatever that is, food market, bar and health club compliment the “completely renovated lobby experience.”

Which is how you know a marketing subcommittee wrote that. No one has ever, in the history of lobbies, had a lobby experience.

Nearby, the 12-story Hotel Wisconsin was a $2 million luxury hotel. It drew a huge crowd wen it opened in 1913. Over the years, Eleanor Roosevelt stayed there, and so did Laurel & Hardy. The hotel also had a lot of retail and locally prominent restaurants inside over the years, as well. By the 1970s or ’80s it was really showing its age, and the hotel closed in 2003. It was renamed The Grand Wisconsin – which just sounds cool and you probably can’t say that about adding the word ‘grand’ to every state name – and was renovated to create more than 100 apartments.

We didn’t go inside, but now I regret it. The second-floor ballroom was, in 1913, modeled in the style of Louis XIV and some of the ornamentation and the ceiling has been restored. The lobby’s ceiling features American flag shields, badger imagery, terra cotta State of Wisconsin shields and leaded glass panes bearing the state shield, too are on display. The lobby sounds like an impressive .. experience.

This is yesterday’s glimpse of the destruction of Poplars, at IU.

We just had so much to get to yesterday, you understand.

But, so that you can chart the progress, here is today’s glimpse.

Another week, for sure, perhaps two, before this feature grows even less interesting.

And, since we were full of content yesterday, here’s the briefly delayed and long-awaited photo experience that is the most popular feature on the site, the weekly check in with the kitties.

Phoebe looks like she is about to give a speech to her adoring public.

I’ll let you decide the tone and tenor of this speech. You can be assured her audience will be rapturous with delight, either way.

And, last Thursday, Poseidon tried his hardest to make sure we accidentally took him with us.

We did not. There was no room in that suitcase for stowaways.

adventures / history / IU / photo / Thursday — Comments Off
4
Aug 22

A post about tearing things down, and building things up

I’d like to tell you about a building I’ve never been in. It is a building you’ve never heard of, most probably. You won’t care at all, until you do, but that’s my job here.

This building was erected in the 1960s as an off-campus dormitory. It had an indoor pool. It wasn’t considered very attractive, even in the 1960s. (I KNOW!) Derisively, it has been called a project of Bland & Boring Architecture Inc., which is a firm that probably doesn’t exist by that name. And if someone is using that, they should change it, posthaste.

Anyway, this place failed as a residence hall, all 150,000 sq. ft. of it. And then it failed as a sorority house. All of this is odd because the only thing more under pressure in a college town than parking spaces are living arrangements. You can be sure that truism goes back generations. And yet, here’s the Poplars Building. Failing as a place to live, it became a research and conference center, and this town’s first premium hotel. We’re in the 1970s now, and the promotional material promises a bufeteria. And I know what you’re thinking.

Bufeteria? Did Elvis stay there?

Yes he did, in 1974.

Fans stood in the alley behind the hotel, after one of his two shows here, but they were once again disappointed by the Poplars, and by the rock star. He skipped out after one night, when he was apparently scheduled for two. We can’t say, here, that this is why the hotel concept fizzled, but there’s certainly a correlation.

When the hotel was on it’s last legs the university took on Poplars and turned it briefly into an academic unit, and then used it as administrative offices. The pool was filled in and became Human Resources. Some 400 people could work in Poplars.

Now, it is coming down. This is from a story from last October.

“We might be out by the end of the month or the end of November,” says Tom Morrison, vice president of capital planning and facilities. “We do intend to demolish it, probably starting before the end of the calendar year. We haven’t bid that yet but that’s coming up soon.

“Rest assured we’re not going to implode it.”

That piece goes on to discuss the aging building, how, because it was a hotel, offices became mini-suites with private restrooms. That seems like a really great perk, but it also discusses how that became a detriment, and some other details. But, now, 10 months removed from that copy I can tell you two things. They are out of the building, and Morrison was correct: Poplars isn’t being imploded.

It is, starting today, being scraped to death.

This was at 9 a.m. this morning.

And at 10 a.m., they were making a bit of progress.

This is just a block away, so I can take these pictures, like this one, at the end of the day, with ease.

Who knows how long it will take. And no one knows, yet, what will go in it’s place. The current plan seems to be a green space, which would be nice, but that might also be a placeholder until a specific need presents itself. The biggest need is the parking deck next door. That’s been closed since early summer for much-needed maintenance work, and that parking deck is much needed, because parking is always in short supply in a college town.

Residential buildings are too, here, but that’s an entirely different and less interesting town-and-gown conversation full of predictable quotes.

Rather than fill your time with that sort of thing, I’ll try to provide some daily updates on the progress of the de-Poplarization going on nearby.

And this evening, we hit the road. Maybe you know where we’re going. Probably you don’t. It really comes down to how closely you’ve been paying attention to all of the platforms. Allllll of the platforms and, probably, whether, you’ve used Google with that in mind to try to determine the answer to this mystery which you didn’t know I was springing on you until just this moment.

I really should work on building the suspense a bit more, I know. There’s only so much time in the day, though, and all of these platforms need very subtle, sly, programmatically specific content.

So here’s your hint … we passed these along the way.

If you’re good you at least have a direction now.

If you don’t have this particularly geographical frame of reference (and I didn’t until earlier this year, so no fault will be found) just keep up with a few of these other places over the next few days. Content there will help flesh out the particulars. There’s always more on Twitter and big clues will also be found on Instagram, too. Of course, this will also be resolved tomorrow, so you could just wait here and refresh this page …

I really should work on building the suspense more.

Auburn / books / IU / memories / photo / Thursday — Comments Off
28
Jul 22

2×𝑚×𝑣2 + 𝑚×𝑔×ℎ = What, exactly?

I had four meetings today. The first was scheduled for me in advance. The second was scheduled for me while I was in the first meeting. Everyone knew about it, it seems, except for me. (Everyone knows more about me than me.) The third and fourth were spontaneous meetings of opportunity.

I was in no condition for any of these meetings, I think. So if my charm or humor or good answers or input were off by six percent, I apologize. I apologize and I blame the big tour I gave yesterday, an event from which I am still recovering.

Not sure how I became the tour guy, but I’m the tour guy.

I saw this bunny this morning. He is perfectly evolved to blend in with the cement. That’s an amazing summer coat, if you ask me.

The bunnies have the most curious sense of personal space. You’re fine in their eyes until you get about 18 inches away, and only then do they do the rabbit thing. Makes you wonder about how that comes to be learned. I bet each one has an experience, learning when to hop away. It’s a valuable lesson. One learned, I hope, in a not-too-painful way.2×𝑚×𝑣2

I looked through some old books today. There’s often a table of books someone is willing to donate. You can pick your way through them and, if for nothing else, it is a nice momentary diversion to read the spines. I picked up one for my lovely bride, and grabbed one or two for me, as well. Not this one. There are only so many writing handbooks I can process.

But this one fits in your pocket!

Does it? Which pocket?

Or maybe your hand!

Well, sure. Most books these days do come with the ability to be manually manipulated.

And we sprung for the spiral binding!

That’s not the selling point you think it is.

Sure it is! You can distinguish it in your bookcase!

I can’t read the non-existent spine, to see if it is the book I need to pull.

But it has this wire spiral! Easy to find!

What if someone already has that in a book.

Who would have another book like that?

I have nine of them in my office bookcase alone.

Oh? Wow. Well, this one is a writing style guide!

Seven of the nine I have in my bookcase have to do with writing or style.

And you still write like this?

Look, fictional book seller —

Fictional book giver-awayer.

Fine, whatever. You’re not really making a strong case here.

I was able to make a 2010 joke this evening, which meant I needed a 2010 photo.

Turns out the specific photo was from 2011, but it fit the point perfectly. My confusion of the date of the particular photo gave me an excuse to spend a few minutes clicking through old photos of happy times, so that was a nice part of the evening.

Also tonight, we discovered the joys of grilled wings, with nothing more than a simple salt and pepper seasoning. We bought a lot of wings, recently, and we’ll probably be returning to this style. I mention it because they were good, and you should know, and we can all want some more wings together.