Wednesday « Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

Wednesday

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26
Feb 25

Didn’t even realize this was the last Wednesday of February

On campus today, remembering some great advice I once reserved from a former news director, and some equally good advice I received from a faculty colleague, I talked scheduling. It was one of those things you plan ahead about what things you should highlight and discuss, and then suddenly it all disappears when you sit down to do it. Oh well, main points shared. Camaraderie achieved. No one’s lunch was interrupted. Also, I set up another meeting for next week, because I want to be the appointment guy, not the walk in and interrupt your flow guy. That’s how you develop real camaraderie, I’m sure of it.

Anyway, my fall classes look set. A conversation I had last week was fruitful in making some changes. I am not accustomed to having this sort of say in things. Three interesting classes, including one I am designing, but all of them are new to me. New ones take a little more work. I’m going to be proposing and hopefully designing a lot of new classes in the next few years. That’s the plan. Fortunately, I have a notebook devoted exclusively to just these ideas. I wonder how long it will take me to fill that one up.

In class today, we discussed television. Monday we did the same, mostly formats and history. But today it was Ghana, Kyrgyzstan, India. No one saw that coming before I gave the class a reading list.

Did you know the differences between how television works in all of those places? It starts with culture, is heavily influenced by the local languages, or regional historical politics, and, also, topography. Kyrgyzstan, for example, is incredibly mountainous, which limits what we think of as cable and over-the-air television. Also, their past with, and proximity to, Russia figures into what goes on television there, primarily cities versus rural, and you can probably guess the breakdown from there. For Ghanaian television, it’s a balance of history, cultural mores, and importing other products. India is similar, but not at all the same. There are so many languages, so many places where different parts of the country’s people overlap that television is a curious mix. And when the outsiders came, in the early 1990s, there was a lot of pushback. India knew something about invasions, and imported television was seen as a cultural invasion, and not at all welcome. Apparently that has subsided, but I bet there’s some older folks who remember that feeling well. Culture, it keeps coming back to culture. What you’ve got, what you’ll accept from other places, and what other places (the U.S. and Europe in these case, primarily) are offering.

Happily, a bunch of young people who don’t watch a lot of television themselves are going along for the conversation. And next week we’ll talk journalism. It’s a survey of a variety of media forms around the world, and it’s a lot of fun.

The view on the drive home.

This is how I know the days are getting longer. I don’t arrive in the driveway in darkness. I am pleased with this progression.

I haven’t been on my bike in four days, and it showed. Also, today’s route had two climbs in it, so I took my time, enjoying the two-hour effort, and covering 34 miles.

Just one Strava PR today, and it was a climb. It might have been the one pictured here, but they all look the same to me. I do wonder, though, why the avatars don’t get cold. If you pulled off and stopped pedaling, he’d just stand there waiting for you. But, way up there, he should be shivering. Instead, he is immune to the weather, the higher altitude, all of it. He just keeps pedaling, so long as I do.

I have to stop making excuses to not ride. “Schedules” and “work” and “dinner.” Whatever. I should probably ride uphill more. It’s not like my avatar will mind.

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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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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.

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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.

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22
Jan 25

First day of class

The first installment of the new class, International Media, went … OK. It’s syllabus day, which is an easy day, but also tedious. You just talk about the class in a meta way, and little is conveyed in terms of knowledge or thoughts challenged. But don’t you know they know where the various policies are in this 10 page document. They know what they’re getting into, at least.

And what they are getting into is a newly designed course. And my first class that will be taught in 75 minute sessions. The last two years I’ve been online, or leading three-hour classes. I have to figure out what 75 minutes feels like. I apologized preemptively for these sorts of rough spots.

At least there’s a clock in the back of the room. Except I realized, that’s not a clock. It’s a timer. (For public speaking classes, I guess.) I noticed that at the last moment, and managed to get everyone out with a moment or two to spare. So it’s a new class for me. A brand new course design. It’s being held in a time block with which I must get reacquainted. And it takes place in a room I’d never even seen until I walked into the room after the previous class filed out.

We made it out together.

Now we’ll see how many of them come back on Monday!

I stuck around the office for a few hours to do some work, and then set out for the drug store on the way home. I shopped for, not drugs, but vitamins. And I saw this sunset on the last chilly leg of the drive.

My suit got a compliment today, so at least I did that part right. Now I just have to iron for the twice-weekly meetings between now and May.

So as not to dive too deeply into the minutiae, The Washington Post is dying of a thousand self-inflicted paper cuts. They begged off running endorsements before the election. Some of their stellar newsroom members have left in protest of that, and some other things. The tenor is really changing in that venerable old newsroom. And no less than a 40-year veteran of the place, a Pulitzer Prize winner, was publicly critical of a recent editorial they published. These are all the by products of choices they’ve made, either at the hand of the new boss or the insistence of the owner, one of the oligarchs presently prostrating himself before the president.

Funnily, Jeff Bezos came up in passing after class today. It was one of those questions a student asked on the way out the door. It was a simple answer, one the student didn’t know, and that’s perfectly fine. Not everyone knows the things you know. But in that class they’ll learn a few of them. And we’ll probably wind up talking about Bezos and the Post. I’ll try to pretend not to be disappointed in the venerable old rag when we do.

But, then, I saw this ad as an interstitial ad on one of their stories. And, friends, I can tell you a whole table full of their sales and marketing people sat down together and wrote this nonsense.

Right after that I saw the first mentions of the indefinite pauses to the NIH process. This is important, important stuff. It’s difficult to state how vital the NIH grants become to local economies, to the fields they fund, and to the scholarship they help create. And we just … stopped them today. Even if you wanted to start the panels back up next week, even if you did it without change — and you know that won’t be the case — we’ll have done some real damage to the whole system. A system which is, in fact, one of those things we run better than just about anyone else in the world.

This isn’t just some small nonsense we’re talking about. Some colleague(s) at my current employer are working with some NIH grants on various small business grants. I don’t know the details, but it’s likely some scientific entrepreneurial enterprises. I looked up the grants at one of my alma maters. These are the departments that benefited from NIH money in fiscal year 2025 at UAB.

For FY 2024 UAB received $334,417,936 from 612 awards. This is critical money as states continue to cut back on university funding and administrators and scholars are forced to find their financial support elsewhere, as in these previous reliable grants. You wonder, now, how rickety the whole higher educational system is.

Not that that medical research is a worthwhile reason to maintain a sense of urgency or continuity. Not that there are patients around the country desperately trying newly developed techniques or therapies or medicines that might stem from those grants. Not that people around the world benefit from them daily. If you’d like to approach this from a strict dollars and cents perspective, by all means. NIH reports that for each dollar they dole out, it turns into almost $2.50 in terms of economic activity support. That chart also represents a few hundred jobs from highly skilled experts. Who knows if it is too early to worry about a brain drain, but hamstringing specialists and experts is certainly a dangerous strategy.

The largest beneficiary of NIH grants in FY 2024 was the famed Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, which earned 1,512 grants that totaled $857,947,550. Most of that, $821 million or so, goes into all of the amazing research they do there. You know, cutting edge Johns Hopkins.

What could possibly go wrong?