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19
Feb 25

Over the snow and over the river

About last Wednesday … since I’m catching up from missing out on the week, and writing two weeks at one time …

It snowed Tuesday night, and well into the night. We woke up Wednesday morning to about four inches of snow in the great wide world. I set out to shovel it, so I could make my way to campus, but it was the thick heavy wet snow. Back straining work.

We have this snowblower. Last winter, we came back from a trip to find about eight inches of snow on the driveway. And it was a cold, cold evening. So as we shoveled all of that out of the way, there was no hope the exercise would mean body heat. A few days later, my lovely bride came home with a snowblower.

I assembled it, sorta, but never filled it with oil and gas. It didn’t snow again. So I put the blower in the shed and let it stay there until winter came back around. When the first big storm was forecast, I fetched the thing, went to the hardware store to get a few bolts and nuts to make the handles work as intended … and then watched two small snows, which< i estimated, weren't worth dealing with. But last Wednesday was the day. I've never run a snowblower and had no idea what to expect. I was a bit disappointed by the thrown.

But, snow blowed. Probably, walking up and down the driveway a few times was better than walking up and down the driveway and shoveling.

What’s great is that the roads were clear. So I went to campus and taught a class. We talked about books and printing.

By the time I got home that night, there was no snow in the way of anything. So I’m not sure if we needed that snowblower, but snow blowed, it works. (Now let me stow it away for the year once again … )

And then I started writing, which I did Thursday and Friday of last week, and will talk more about in subsequent posts. For now, we have to talk about today.

In today’s class, we talked about film making in various parts of the world. When it dragged, I turned the entire conversation to stereotypes, reinvigorating the class. But the problem is, you can really only use that one once or twice a term. But it did let me ask them what they thought when I told them where I was from. After a respectful pause, they got into it, and we all had a nice laugh.

One guy said, Country white. I asked him what that meant, and he thought I drove great big tractors. I said, no, I’m from the suburbs. And he said Lexus, then.

“Wrong suburbs.”

Then I told them about the Birmingham Bowl of 2010, when UConn was one of the teams and so the advertisements enticing fans of the Huskies to come on down. There, in the newspaper was an ad for the Wynfrey Hotel, a legitimate four-star establishment, proudly advertising their cable television and fitted sheets. My lovely bride’s old friends saw that ad and had a great time making fun of that.

“See,” I said, “stereotypes.”

For the record, we had running water, silverware, electrified crossing lights and everything.

This evening we set out to go over the river.

And if you go over the river, you have to cross a bridge. And wouldn’t you know it, we timed it just right for a dramatic sky, once again.

We had dinner at the James Beard nominated Kampar. We’ve been there three times in the last four months or so, and that’s apparently enough to make us regulars. People recognize us, which is funny because it’s a hopping little place, but they’ve set themselves up with a cheery, Malaysian corner store vibe. We came back with leftovers, and I am going to eat them soon.

I wonder when we’ll go back. It might not be long.

We went to the Miller Theater, the go-to place for traveling Broadway shows. Built in 1918, it’s only been the Miller for a few years. Originally it was the Sam S. Shubert Theatre and starting in 1991, the Merriam Theater. It’s only been the Miller since 2022. Names mean a lot. I wonder how many people use the old names.

Here’s the ceiling in the theater, which may or may not have been updated in a 1980s renovation. About it are six floors of offices and classrooms.

Here was the show we saw, the main players from Queer Eye are starting a tour. This was the first show, and it was a noisy, happy, loud, all over the place conversation. At least one of them needs to be taught that you don’t have to yell into a microphone.

It wasn’t my show, but it was a good experience, and a good fact finding effort. It was easy to get to the theater. We parked just a few blocks away. Getting inside was no harder than going up a long flight of stairs. We were able to exit the theater with ease. And they offer a Broadway bundle pack: here are the 16 shows this season, you pick four. We’ll probably try that next year.

Tomorrow, I will continue grading, and continue to catch us up on next week.

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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.

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17
Feb 25

Welcome back

Yes, I’m aware you didn’t go anywhere, it was actually my departure several days back. But last week required even more attention than normal. I went to campus every day last week. And that’s nothing, of course. Most people have these job things. But I did that daily, and then went home where I still had to work on three-quarters of my regular weekly workload. And I also had a massive project on the side that took about 40 percent or more of the week, besides. But we’ll get to all of that.

First, since I’ve been negligent, and it was made clear that this is my fault, let’s cover the site’s most popular feature, the weekly check in with the kitties.

This is the expression you get when you aren’t holding up your end of things, by the way.

You know what to do.

When Phoebe was sufficiently satisfied that I was remedying the problem, she was able to relax and take a nap.

But our cats are big on shift changes. So while Phoebe napped, Poseidon kept an eye on me. Get the post up, he seems to be saying.

And even when I convinced him, he remained skeptical. He’s always watching.

The cat just wants to be loved, and he never gets any attention. Just ask him.

Anyway, my reaction to the cats is best expressed as Uncle Samuel L. Jackson.

Monday of last week, in my International Media class, we spent about 15 minutes talking about the Super Bowl and the halftime show. They had, of course, picked up on some of the symbolism, and they told me about some things I’d missed. I was able to share a few things that hadn’t caught up to them. It was a good way to warm up the class, and then I asked, “The Super Bowl, start to finish, including the halftime show, is one of our largest media exports. What does that show say about us to people in other parts of the world?”

And on that, I let them think. We talked last week about media and culture, and I could sense the moment where they were ready to move on, but I also know, and knew, what was coming ahead in the class. This week we’re talking about film in places like northern Indian, Saudi Arabia, France and China. All of which is a bit of cultural importation and exportation. It’s going to be a recurring theme in the class. We’re talking about media, but culture is at the heart of it all. They’ll see. Perhaps as soon as this week.

Anyway, this was much of the mood last week. Cold, distant, but improving and optimistic. Some of that is about spring, which will never arrive. And some of it was everything that demanded attention.

It was also bright, for all that had to get done. If it could get done, meaning it was all gray. Very gray. Would I get it all done? Stick around here to find out.

Until then, mind your gauges.

And keep it 600.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go present myself to an intro sports media class, for a bit of the “This is who we are and this is what we do” song and dance.

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3
Feb 25

No, I won’t complain about it for the next month

At the first of the month, I do the boring computer stuff. I clean the desktop and the downloads folder. I empty the trash. I update my boilerplate file and a spreadsheet where I chart web stats. It’s boring. It takes just a few minutes. And, on a grim and gray weekend such as this, it didn’t take long enough. But that’s done.

I stayed inside, at least until last night, when I carried the garbage can down to the end of the drive. It was 25 degrees but it somehow felt much, much colder. The pains of winter in the vain hopes of an early spring.

Back home, leaves will be budding on trees in two weeks. They’re already having temperatures in the 70s. It isn’t the winter I mind so much, it’s knowing that here, at the start of February, we still have two or more months of it.

But I’ll try not to grouse about it.

I also prepared two days of class conversations, and did some ironing. (Look how productive you can be when you don’t have to go outside!) And today I went to class and shared some of those notes and questions I’d prepared over the weekend. We are talking this week about media and culture. I’m not sure if I’ll do that very well. Next week, though, we’ll start talking about different types of media in different places, and hopefully that’ll go better.

In my campus office I sat and did work stuff, the unremarkable but necessary sort of work we all do from time-to-time. I feel like that’s what this whole week will be like.

Before I left, I stood in the window and thought the deep thoughts that one thinks while staring out the window. This is the view.

I’ve had worse views. My last one was of a parking lot, and a building that was being razed. Prior to that, there were three offices with no windows. Before that, it was the gravel lot that held the dumpsters. A few years before that I had studio offices on the top of a small mountain that looked down into the city. That was nice. But each view has its own pleasures, and this one does as well. There’s the corner neighborhood just below, but all of those trees beyond. In the middle ground, that transmitter is about half a mile away. It sits in the local electrical company’s backyard.

My mood about the weather probably isn’t helped that, everywhere I looked on the maps trying to find that transmitter, all of the road views where in June, July, September. Everything was thick, full, verdant. Warm.

Just 13 miles away from that window view, and in that same direction, is our home. When the sun gets that low it is time to head that direction. I got back just before it became truly dark. At least the days are doing their part of getting longer.

Let’s check in on the kitties, who remind me that I’m contractually obligated to point out are the most popular weekly feature on the site. That spreadsheet I mentioned proves it.

Phoebe has been enjoying the midday sun in the dining room. It’s a popular spot just now. Not a bad place to spend your afternoons.

Poseidon usually sits with me in the mornings, but I found myself on the sofa in the early afternoon recently and he took the opportunity to maximize his lap time.

Lap time is very important around here.

Tomorrow, I’ll go back to campus. Two days in a row!

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29
Jan 25

The answer is: it’s about 300 yards, but it isn’t linear

You don’t know how far away it is. How high it is. You don’t know what’s on the back side of it. You could eyeball it, but you’re not really good at that. Most people aren’t very good at that, actually. You can train the eye and a long period of experience would help, but most people don’t devote themselves to that, which is understandable.

Then, most of us don’t have the knowledge to hazard a guess about the mass involved, either. How do you estimate the weight of something that’s a bit far off, that you’re not used to assessing, that you probably don’t understand, not really, something you’d perceive differently if it was up close, anyway.

How large do you suppose that cloud is?

Saw that on the way home today. I think we were talking about the news at the time. Anyway.

We went to campus together today. Mostly because we both had to be there, and also because I dropped my car art the mechanic’s for an oil change and some TLC. I had a class today, then we had a faculty meeting. And after that I spent the evening emailing replies to students. Somehow, it made for a full day that started late in the morning.

In class, I had students do a library book project. It’s important to introduce people to the wonders that take place there. So, since it is the beginning of the semester, I sent them out with a simple assignment. Go pick up a book about media in any other part of the world. Your choice. (It’s a class on international media.) Start reading it, bring the book to class and come tell us about it.

Tell us why you picked it up, and what it is about so far. Tell us what you like about it. Sell the rest of us on checking out that book. And tell us why we might not want to check out the book.

In my mind, this assignment served several purposes. It sent students to libraries, either a local library or the campus library. The library experience! Some people don’t have a lot of those. Of course our campus library is currently under renovation, so their process, while effective, does not offer a true library experience just now. It made the students start talking, which is useful because I intend this to be a talkative style of class. It gave them some momentum in the form of easy points. And it introduces everyone to 16 new books.

We’ll do it again at the end of the semester, when I’ll narrow their choices a bit, when the class has crystalized it’s focus. And we’ll all have even more new books to consider. Someone is going to get beach reading out of this exercise, I can tell.

Me, that someone will probably be me. Four or five of the books I heard about today are books I now want to read.

When they’d all talked a bit about their books I shared one other little thing. I’d run across someone in Chicago who found at her library a family archival kit you could check out for free. Gloves, acid free folders, picture holders, tips on how to start preserving your family’s history. That, I thought, was a really thoughtful idea. So I quickly ran through what the local library here offers beyond all of those wonderful books. You can check out a book club in a bag, for you and seven of your friends. They have a seed bank. They have museum passes for some truly terrific places in the area. There are, of course, movies and music, but also board games and yard games. Different branches run different sorts of workshops all of the time. They have a makers space, with 3D printers and laser cutters and more. Libraries, I told my class, are magical places.

No one disagreed.

After class there was a faculty meeting. We, as faculty, met. There is an agenda, a shared Drive, a tight schedule, and our chair, an altogether fellow who has it all together, runs a good schedule. Somehow, how we always get out right on time, which was 4:45 today. Then the drive home, that cloud, the many emails, and now a late night effort to catch up on the day’s news.

Shoulda stuck with the cloud.