Rowan « Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

Rowan

Monday / photo / Rowan — Comments Off
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.

cycling / Rowan / site / Thursday — Comments Off
6
Feb 25

True or false or maybe

I am floating rib deep into grading. I have 60-something quizzes to work through, and of course, there are plenty of other things as well. So let’s just get through this, shall we?

I have updated the art on the front page. It looks a lot like this.

Head on over to kennysmith.org to see the whole thing. If you sit with it for 50 seconds, you’ll see the whole assortment of 10 new photographs that I took on a beautiful spring day in central California last year. We were waiting for a lunch order over this beautiful bit of sand and sea. And I’ve held on to these photos specifically just to get through the interminable second half of winter.

I had a short bike ride this evening. It took me high into the snowcapped mountains. But I want you to look off to the side of this photo. Do you see that road?

That’s the radio tower bonus climb, sure to strike fear in the hearts of every exhausted rider, who has already slogged their way up the Epic KOM, climbing 1,364 feet over 5.9 miles from sea level. That bonus climb is an even sharper three-quarters of a mile, with an average gradient of 12.8 percent, demanding another 492 feet of ascent. I hate it.

But the route didn’t take up to that tower. I just pedaled right by, to my great relief (I don’t always know where a route will take me) and then back down into the tree line, where the green things grow, and the windmills mill.

In total, it was just a 22 mile ride, and pretty slow, even for me. But I did somehow collect four PRs on Strava segments along the away, including on two climbs.

Small wins are huge wins.

And, now, back to getting ready for more work.

memories / Rowan / video / Wednesday — Comments Off
5
Feb 25

Tomato soup in a bread bowl

On this date last year, we stumbled upon a video that The Daily Show had recirculated from, I believe, 2013 or 2014. It’s a classic bit of satirical comedy now, and so much of what TDS and it’s descendants do is on display here. Plus, there’s Jon Stewart’s pronounced cheesy New York accent. It kills me.

I know this was a year ago because, for some one-off joke about ordering a pizza, I made a gif about how he wants a real pizza, with the gestures and the over-enunciation. It still cracks me up.

I mention it here because there’s not much to the day. Ten years ago today I was still trying to catch up from a trip. Five years ago today, in 2020, was just another typical day … we had about five more weeks of those before everything got atypical, of course. Too much time in the television studio. I miss the people involved, the students, but not the rest of everything else that came with those long days and longer nights.

So it’s Jon Stewart thundering away about “an above ground marinara swimming pool for rats.”

Seriously, it’s a tight 10 minutes. Give it a look.

On campus today we talked about media and culture, and that’s the last day we’ll discuss that. It’s interesting, but it doesn’t hold the students all that much, I don’t think. Probably my fault. Next week we’ll start talking about different forms of media. Which, once we get beyond print, I’m sure they’ll start to think to is much more compelling.

Today, though, we talked about how we view other places through what we learn about them in our media exposure. And I mentioned the Super Bowl so I could bring this back up again Monday, when I’ll ask, “What does the world take see in us when they watch one of our largest spectacles?”

Today I asked them, “Does the globalization of media undermine national cultures?”

After that we had an afternoon-long meeting discussing the pressing issues of the day. Some of them about curriculum and university stuff. Some on national matters. Rather than the whole faculty and a formal meeting, it’s just whoever is around. And putting in the face time is good, so I make sure to be around for these more casual sit downs. Plus someone brings snacks. And I got to talk about the difference between administrative and judicial warrants. That’s not something I would have predicted last year, when watching that pizza video.

Here’s the A-block of last night’s episode. Desi Lydic is on the desk this week, and she’s been great there since they started this rotating panel process in 2023. I’d like them to go back to skewering media, since the strength of the show was always being media satire, but since no one else is covering the news, they’re doing more and more of that. It’s better in small doses. But there’s a lot of news these days, and, again, someone has to do it.

Lydic’s first turn at the desk was one of those magical weeks where the content gods smiled upon the show. She had four fantastic episodes, and she made it seem obvious: after 27 years and three hosts, our most prominent satirical news show, finally, at long last, a strong female voice, particularly post-Dobbs. I’m so glad she’s still doing this. If they ever lock in a host she should get an opportunity.

She’s apparently from Louisville. I wonder what her feelings on deep dish pizza are.

Rowan / Tuesday / video — Comments Off
4
Feb 25

The goosen and the geesen

On the way to campus today, we saw Canada geese. They were all sitting in one field, rose up for a bit of video and then settled back down again in the next field. I suppose they’ve got good worms over there.

The people that will plant that field in the coming weeks will benefit from their visit, I’m sure. It’s the circle of life, take the worms, leave something behind. But all that honking.

Probably, this is the flock that flies over our house. It’s charming, but only because they are passing through. If they were in your backyard, just honking away for hours or days on end …

I went to campus with my lovely bride today. She was teaching. I sat in the office. And then she came from a class and we sat there doing office stuff — I pecked away at email and some notes and so on — until it was time for her next class. For my part, I visited with a video production class.

The professor asked me to be a client. He brings in people every term and his students do some video work for them. My colleague knew I am working with a cycling safety group. So I spent the afternoon telling them about some of the relevant laws, what this safety group is trying to do, and discussing how these sorts of messages can be successful. Now they’re going to make some PSA-style or docu-style awareness videos for the group.

Next week I’ll find out what they’re thinking. Today, they asked a lot of good questions. They seem thoughtful and careful, trying to grasp this new concept that was put before them. Maybe that’s why the professor invited me to take part. For people who don’t ride bikes there’s a whole new series of things to learn in this sort of project. That’s always different than building messaging about something with which you’re intimately familiar. And the end product, which we’re aiming at motorists, in general, can benefit from their work too.

I’m fairly confident about that part. We’re definitely at the awareness stage of this still-new state law, and they were all interested in carrying this on. So all of the important elements are there. So this is exciting: I am looking forward to continuing to watch them learn and grow through their creative process, it is important, it compliments some volunteerism, I don’t have to grade things. That’s win-win-win-win.

Worth going to campus for. But, now, I must get back to my own class prep and grading, so let me do that.

adventures / photo / Rowan / Wednesday — Comments Off
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.