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Visiting the Museum of the American Revolution

For a grading break, and before an afternoon and early evening meeting, we went to the Museum of the American Revolution. It’s one of those things you wonder why I waited so long to do. And it’s one of those days where my lovely bride braced herself when she said, “What time should we go?” There was that meeting we had to attend, so we were backtiming the day.

I said I’d found that if you want to read things you could spend a three hours there.

And this is where it pays off to do things with a person who knows what’s in your heart, but are afraid to say out loud. This incredible woman bought tickets for 10 a.m., which would give us more than four hours at the museum.

Worth it. And we didn’t even get to see one of the rooms. But here’s a quick look at some of what we saw.

Outside, because of course you must start outside, there are modern brick walls, nondescript, but for this sculpture.

(This is the first of three panoramas in this post. And it’s beautiful. Click to embiggen.)

This is a really, really fine museum. But there are a few silly things. For tactile people, like me, there are a few things you can touch. You remember reading about the Stamp Act. Here’s an oversized stamp you can touch. It is made of plastic.

There are a few areas where they’re trying to create an immersive experience. You walk under a recreation of a Liberty Tree, where you can touch a bit of wood salvaged (and preserved) from an actual Liberty Tree, the last surviving Liberty Tree, which was felled by a hurricane in 1999 in Maryland.

Pasted up in some of those areas are reproductions of handbills that the revolutionary-era people might have seen. This one was printed by E. Russell, who notes his shop is set up “next the Cornfield, Union-street.”

E. Russell was Ezekiel Russell, a printer of minor importance. He apprenticed under his brother, and then bounced around New England trying to make his business work. For a time he dabbled in auctioneering, but he returned to slinging the lead. He wrote a royalist publication for a time, but history seems to think that he just needed the money. Most of his work is remembered as small pamphlets. His wife, Sarah Russell worked in the print shop, and took over the business after he died in 1796. She’s remembered as a pioneer of female publishing.

And before we get too far into this, let me direct you to Museum’s site, for a look at what they consider the crown jewel of the collection, which they don’t let allow you to photograph, George Washington’s war tent. It’s a living piece of history, lived in during war and well documented in peace, it is a piece of linen that’s 250 years old, so there’s no flashes or bright lights allowed.

You’ll see a few glimpses of it, and the mini-doc that visitors watch before seeing the tent, in this video.

Washington didn’t sleep in it every night during the war, but that tent got it’s share of use. It makes sense that this is well protected, but you still want to walk under those flaps when you see it. You want to stand there, and try to understand the sense of the size of the space, and the great men — scared, cold, hungry, determined — that stood there.

This is the second panorama in the post, and this is thought to be George Washington’s sword. And, remarkably, it’s just … sitting there.

(Click to embiggen.)

When they read the Declaration of Independence in New York City on July 9, 1776, some of the soldiers and sailors tore down symbols of the king. British flags, tavern signs, the royal insignia, were all removed. Including a statue of George III, that had been sculpted in London. Much of the statue — he’d been riding a horse, wearing a Roman-style toga — was carried off to Connecticut and melted into musket balls, some 42,000 in all. A few fragments of the statue survived.

They’ve dug some musket balls out of a few battlefields that matched the composition of lead and tin here, so historians think some of this statue was sent back to the British in anger.

The Declaration of Independence was distributed, by design and format, as a fragile thing. John Dunlap was the original printer, in Philadelphia. It is thought that he printed about 200, some of them in great haste. Just 26 copies of the Dunlap broadsides are known to survive. (Including one that was found behind a painting picked up for $4 at a flea market in 1989!) The Library of Congress has two of the Dunlap originals, and only one of those is complete.

I got to see one of the Dunlap broadsides in a museum exhibit in 2003. No photographs allowed.

This is not a Dunlap broadside.

John Gill, Edward E. Powars, and Nathaniel Willis printed the first copies of the Declaration in Boston, both in newspapers and in this broadside. This is a second printing of the Gill and Powars broadside. (The bottom line is the differentiating clue.)

Historians don’t know how many of their broadsides were made or survive. But you can still go to the print shop when you’re in Boston. (I’m going there.) A master printer, Gary Gregory, does historical reproductions in the traditional style. (I’m going to talk him into letting me print a copy.)

Ssshhhhh … I think this one is a reproduction, but it is historically faithful version of that second printing. It even has the Gill and Powars errors off the Dunlap original. I wonder how much thought the museum or other experts give to the amount of creases and wear should be worked into reproductions.

General Hugh Mercer fought and was killed at the Battle of Princeton. Born in Scotland, Mercer was a surgeon during the Jacobin uprising in his homeland. He fled to Pennsylvania, in 1747, after the Jacobites were put down. He worked as an apothecary, and then served in the French and Indian War in the 1750s. He was wounded twice, once badly, and he became George Washington’s lifelong friend, moving to Virginia to dispense medicine there, and then came the American Revolution, where he quickly was appointed as a general in the Pennsylvania militia.

He and his men, a vanguard of some 350 soldiers, ran across two British regiments and some attached cavalry. Mercer’s horse was shot from under him. The British thought he was Washington, and so they moved in and demanded he surrender. Mercer, instead, drew his sword. He was bayoneted seven times and left for dead.

You’ve seen the painting that commemorates his death. And maybe history is like that sometimes. A high profile person was killed, and he was well-liked enough to become the centerpiece of John Turnbull’s first war painting. (When you look at the painting, you see Washington arriving on horseback. In the foreground Mercer was wounded. But you don’t see Hugh’s face. Turnbull used Mercer’s son, Hugh Jr., as a model.)

Mercer survived the battlefield. He lived, in agony, for a little more than a week. He gave this sword to his friend and adjutant, a Welshman named Jacob Morgan, and it stayed in their family for two generations. The photo above, the sword is paired with a bayonet that belonged to one of the units that Mercer ran across on that fateful day.

This is the hilt of his sword, posthumously engraved.

“Sword of General Hugh Mercer of the Revolutionary Army born in Aberdeen Scotland 1725 He came to Philadelphia from Scotland in 1746. Died January 12 1777 of wounds received at the Battle of Princeton, N.J.”

A handsome, large weapons display. Touch the screens to learn about each of the items in this giant case.

On the left you see weapons that were commonly in action from 1775 to 1777. Some, the display notes, were local, some captured, some left over from previous conflicts. On the right are weapons that show up later in the war, including some standardized French weapons were so important in the fighting.

I wonder if historians and docents got a little giddy putting all of those things on display.

And why is this humble little canteen just as intriguing?

The UStates branding suggests it belonged to the Continental Army, somewhere around 1777. The other initials might be people who carried the thing.

The every day items are just as fascinating as all of the big ticket items here.

These buttons adorned soldiers’ coats. They also date to 1777.

The museum then, note that gunpowder casks in 1776 also were stamped with USA, but these coat buttons, 25 per coat, were the first widespread use.

Archeologists found these all over the place at Valley Forge and other camps.

There’s a naval section. More pamphlets set the scene.

Here, friend, learn this MANLY SONG, and then join the American fleet. “A privateering we will go my boys, a privateering we will go!”

I wonder when they had time to do much sailing, singing 10 verses of this MANLY SONG. You know it’s MANLY because of all of the bravely dying and cheerfully dying going on in this song. Between this, and my 2009 experience learning about what life was like aboard the U.S.S. Constitution I don’t think the sailor’s life would have been for me.

Some people take to it naturally, however …

This is a faithful reproduction of the bow of a privateer vessel, built by Independence Seaport Museum’s boat-building workshop, Workshop on the Water.

That exhibit tells of 14-year-old free African American James Forten who volunteered aboard a privateer ship. He survived the war, became a prominent abolitionist, a wealthy Philadelphia businessman and the head of a hugely prominent regional family name.

This is the flag of the 2nd Spartan Regiment of South Carolina. The sign says that this is the first time it has been displayed since it flew over arms.

This sword belonged to Maj. Gen. Benjamin Lincoln, Washington’s second-in-command at Yorktown. Yorktown was where the British surrendered, you might recall. When General Cornwallis sent his second-in-command to surrender, Washington sent Lincoln to receive him.

This is a panorama.

(Click to embiggen.)

One of my ancestors, a great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather according to online genealogy, was at Yorktown. He was born in 1751 in colonial Virginia, served twice in the militia and helped guard an estimated 500 British prisoners after they quit the field in Yorktown.

There’s also an ax head on display with Lincoln’s sword. The continental soldiers used axes like that to chop their way through British fortifications at Yorktown. (If you were wondering, Benjamin Lincoln was apparently the fourth cousin, three times removed, of Abraham Lincoln through his mother’s side.)

These beautiful buttons, the sign says, were sold as souvenirs of George Washington’s 1789 inauguration as president. They were sewn onto clothing.

Don’t you want a copy of each of those? (Real ones, of course. Not repros. Never repros.)

Just read the text on this sign. Go ahead and read it. I’ll be waiting on the other side of the photo.

“Charges spread through the partisan press that the state’s inclusive voter laws encouraged election fraud.”

We’ve been fighting this same stupid “Can’t let ’em vote, that’s how cheating happens” battle for more than 200 years. We’ve been fighting it because it is powerfully effective rhetoric. It’s nothing more than that, but still we are fighting it

(Jean Jacques Rousseau may have been on to something …)

At the end of the part of the museum we saw — because we didn’t get to see everything today, despite four hours! — there was a section of digitized reproductions of photographs of Revolutionary War era Americans. (Much later in life, obviously.)

Jonathan Harrington had seem some things. (And if I knew this story beforehand I would taken a more careful photo.) Harrington was, at 16, a fifer in a company at the battles of Lexington and Concord. His uncle and namesake was killed at Lexington, the boy escaped, only to rally and reengage the enemy soon after.

There are no further reports of him taking part in any battles after Concord. He married two years later, and had as many as eight children. He was, apparently, the only witness of the first shot of the Revolution to be photographed. (There’s a bit more about the Harringtons, and the women of Lexington, here.)

And, lastly, Daniel Bakeman, at a remarkable 109, was the last survivor receiving a veteran’s pension for service in the American Revolutionary War. If you believe his story, that is. It seems he might have served in some militia units. And then was a teamster for the military, then became a farmer in New York.

He had difficulty proving his service, but was eventually judged credible for pension purposes. Congress, on February 14, 1867, passed a special act which granted Bakeman a pension of $500 a year. Presumably he collected that twice before dying in 1869. Two other men were his last contemporaries to be pensioned for the Revolutionary War. By that point in the late 1860s the government was busy fending off requests from Civil War soldiers. (We have a history of treating our patriots poorly.)

My (apparently) great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather was not on the photo display. Of course I looked. But here he is.

He is buried in Illinois, in some woods between two fields, an all-but-forgotten family plot, I’d guess. He was laid to rest in a place that, even now, is quite rural. That photo, if it is indeed the man, would have been taken sometime in the first five years of the Daguerreotype style of photographs, and he would have been between 89 and 93 there.

The Museum of the American Revolution, my lovely bride’s idea, is fantastic. When you go, let me know. I’ll definitely go back.

history / links / markers / New Jersey / photo / We Learn Wednesdays / Wednesday — Comments Off
17
Jul 24

So much about light

There was the eeriest light in the sky and on the trees this evening. The rain clouds came in from the west at the same time as the sun was going down. The photos don’t capture it, but it doesn’t matter. We need the rain that’s coming in now.

The grass will approve. Of the rain, not the last of the leaking light. And so will the flowers. They’ll be interested in the rain, though the flowers will miss the light a bit. They do love to show out.

This giant hibiscus is always looking for an audience.

And the hydrangea, a bit more understated, deserves some attention too.

There are other plants and flowers to see. I’ll try to show you some more in the next few days.

Usually, that’s a code for yard work. That is the case this time, as well. Fortunately, the heat wave is about to break. I will try to get philosophical about it this time. The yard work, not the temperatures.

We return once again to We Learn Wednesdays, the feature where we discover the county’s historical markers via bike rides. This is the 41st installment, and the 73rd marker in the We Learn Wednesdays series.

The only reason I’m counting is to see where this ends up. I started from a database and I know how many markers are on that list, but I’m not sure how I’m going to reach that number. But not to worry! There’s still plenty to see! Light helps with that.

The Finns Point Range lights served as a point of entry and exit for maritime traffic between the Delaware Bay and River. In 1950, after the Army Corps of Engineers dredged the channel to 800 feet wide and 40 feet deep, the Finns Point Rangelights became obsolete.

Erected in 1876 for the U.S. Lighthouse Service at a cost of $1,200, the Finns Point Rear Range Light is constructed of wrought iron as opposed to cast iron typically used in similar towers. Wrought iron was considered ideal for a tall structure exposed to both high winds and elements because of its resistance to corrosion and stress fractures.

Prior to automating the lamp in 1939, imagine the lighthouse keeper climbing each of the 130 steps to the top twice each day – once at night to light the lamp and again in the morning to extinguish the flame.

Efforts to Save the Lighthouse

In the years following its decommissioning, the Finns Point Rear Range Light went through a period of neglect, and the lighthouse keepers home burned to the ground. The toolshed is believed to be all that remains.

Through the efforts of a local citizens group called the “Save the Lighthouse Committee” and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Finns Point Rear Range Light was restored in 1983. Today, the lighthouse is part of the Supawna Meadows National Wildlife Refuge.

The light gets its name from the 17th century Finnish colonists who settled there in the 1630s. Jump forward 200-plus years, Congress put $55,000 for two pairs of lights to help navigation. This was the second light, the rear range light.
The Kellogg Bridge Company of Buffalo, New York made the parts for this tower, and it was all shipped by rail and then carried by mules. It was designed to be higher than the first, to aid with visibility and navigation, which was placed one-and-a-half miles inland. That front range light was put in a spot prone to flooding. Today you can only get there by boat. Eventually, river dredging made the lights obsolete, so that front range light was razed in 1939.

At the rear range, over half a century, four people were in charge, Edward Dickinson (1876 – 1907), Laura Dickinson (1907 – 1908), Charles W. Norton (1908 – 1916), and Milton A. Duffield (1916 – 1933). Laura was probably Edward’s wife. But that’s just my guess based on what usually happened when the head keeper died or could no longer keep up the work. His family would keep the lights going — this was a serious business — until a new head keeper could be hired.

Sometimes they kept the job for years. Not all of the women who did this work inherited the role, but these were some of the few jobs available to women in the government that weren’t secretarial. The Coast Guard records several women who worked on various lights for decades. Just a few of them: Julia F. Williams in California, 1865-1905, Catherine A. Murdock in New York, 1857-1907, Maria Younghans, Biloxi, Mississippi, 1867-1918, Ida Lewis in Rhode Island, 1857-1911, Kathleen Moore in Connecticut, 1817-1878. Who knows how much good they did for safety and commerce. Between them, the last two women are credited with saving almost 50 lives between them.

That local preservation group the sign mentioned wanted to move the light to a park, but that project failed. They did get it put on the National Register of Historic Sites in 1978.

After the restoration in the ’80s, the tower was opened to limited touring. In 2004, a re-creation of the keeper’s dwelling was built as part of the property. Today it serves as an office for Supawna Meadows Wildlife Refuge.

If you’ve missed any markers so far, you can find them all right here.

adventures / history / journalism / links / markers / photo / We Learn Wednesdays / Wednesday — Comments Off
10
Jul 24

I really buried the video here

I’m feeling mostly better, thanks. Progress is progressive, and I’ll take every positive signal possible. Now, it takes twice as long for the fatigue to kick in, and so on. By next week, or perhaps next month or next year, I’ll be approaching the maximum allowable approach to 100 percent.

This allows for time, which I am told must be accounted for. I don’t necessarily agree with that. One could say I don’t believe it, because I don’t believe it. I’m sitting in this chair and I feel great!

I only believe in time when I must crawl around on my knees for something.

That’s not entirely true. I only believe it when I have to stand up, after crawling around on my knees.

A wise person learns when to be careful of one person’s criticism. A singular critique, no matter how nuanced, no matter how well-intentioned, no matter how accurate from an independent perspective, is just that.

But then there’s this.

It’s something news leaders should really do some soul searching about. Are we doing our job of informing the American public so that they can do their job of voting in an informed way? If many people don’t know the facts, the media needs to take some responsibility for that.

That’s Margaret Sullivan, the former editor of The Buffalo News, where she was also the vice president. She is the former public editor of the New York Times (a position they axed, wholesale, a while back, for times just like these) and media columnist for the Washington Post. Sullivan is the executive director of the Craig Newmark Center for Journalism Ethics and Security at Columbia University and is currently doing some terrific work for The Guardian. I’m not being critical of Sullivan, indeed I agree with her here.

But there’s two things here. Three things. First, she’s 100 percent correct.

Second, that this is a position we are in, that this is a thing that needs to be said — and ignored — says a great deal. We shouldn’t have to be doing this sort of soul searching, because we should already be doing this sort of soul searching. The responsibility is baked in and, often, ignored. This is the civic duty in which we were all trained, and which is now so often put aside for clicks, subscriptions, outrage. Dismissed for access, favor and larger corporate interests. The business model, in this configuration, hamstrings itself and everyone dependent upon it.

Third, and the less obtrusive, point, now that I’ve given you a thumbnail of Sullivan’s impressive bona fides: who are the news leaders here? Hers is only one pen, and she is well regarded by her peers. Sullivan does her part in trying to set tone. This interview with Public Notice, a quality independent outlet, furthers that conversation somewhat. At least she uses “We.” There’s a complicity in the problem, and she knows it. (And, if you read that, you do to, now.) For a media critic to have a criticism is proper. For it to go unheeded, for the sake of a dollar, with so much at stake, is a dereliction of civic responsibility.

Separately, but also related …

Some 16 years ago (give or take), there was this notion that companies and events would hire journalists to cover their programming.*

This, I guess, is what that mutated into. NATO’s newest weapon is online content creators:

Mingling with the top brass and world leaders at the NATO summit in Washington this week will be some fresher faces on a unique mission: social media influencers recruited to improve NATO’s image with young people.

NATO invited 16 content creators from member nations including Belgium, Canada, the United States and Britain to attend the summit. The United States is running its own social media mission in support. An additional 27 creators were invited to the summit by the Defense Department and the State Department, which last year became the first Cabinet-level agency to establish a team dedicated to partnerships with digital content creators.

The creators have large followings on platforms including TikTok, YouTube and Instagram, and cover topics ranging from politics to national security to news, current events and pop culture. In the space of 48 hours this week, a band of creators met with top officials from the most powerful institutions in D.C., including the Pentagon and State Department. At the White House, they met with John Kirby, President Biden’s national security communications adviser. At least two creators were granted interviews with Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

The tools, of course, exist to reach desired audiences directly. And now an enterprising entity can. This will come with varied results, of course. Some such influencers may have a great grasp of their subject matter. Perhaps more than a parachuting journalist. This could be useful. Some could have less. This could become propaganda.

Think on that awhile. With the news media diminished, and avenues to the public zeitgeist easily and readily available, what are the best approaches for an agency or nation-state to deliver its message? And who defines “best?”

It’s a brave new world out there, where the Huxleyan and the Orwellian meet.

*Yes! Our best media thinkers invented corporate hack stringers for everyone!

We went for a bike ride with one of The Yankee’s running groups. She’s running with two groups. One of them has a subset of people who do triathlons. And, once a week, they do a brick workout. They go out for a ride, and then they run.

So we went to that nearby town. Parked at one of the group member’s houses, and went out for a ride. This was the ride before the group ride. We just went … that way for a while, and then turned around to go back for the group ride.

So it was a warmup ride. Also the headwinds were about 15-20 miles per hour. I worked quite hard to stay on her wheel.

And then came the group ride. They all just go out … that way … at their own pace for a fixed time. The diea is that they all return to the starting place at roughly the same time for a quick run. I am not running just now — I’ll get back to it one of these days — so I just kept riding into those headwinds.

When I turned around, I saw some bramble berries, so I stopped and had a few of those. Anyway, it all turned into a nice two hours. A 36-mile ride that felt pretty good after my recent almost-illness.

From today’s adventure, to a previous bike ride, then.

It’s time once more for We Learn Wednesdays, where we discover the county’s historical markers via bike rides. This is the 40th installment, and the 72nd marker in the We Learn Wednesdays series.

The state really should get around to updating some of these signs …

Pea Patch Island Heronry is the largest Atlantic Coast nesting ground north of Florida for wading birds. Originally a dredge disposal site, this vegetated high ground has been a nesting habitat for nine species of wading birds since the 1970s. It is one of the few protected areas available for these birds. Pea Patch Island supports between 5,000 and 12,000 breeding pairs annually.

Wading birds are highly social and thrive in noisy crowded colonies. However, the habitat available for these birds is being threatened by oil spills, industrial pollution, and pesticides. Protecting the heronry is critical to the survival of these species. By observing the population of these wading birds, the health of the wetland can be determined. A low population can be an early warning sign of environmental changes in these areas.

The heronry shares Pea Patch Island with historic Fort Delaware. It is a designated nature preserve with limited access and is managed by the Division of Parks and Recreation.

Local folklore has it that a boat loaded with peas that ran aground on a mud shoal in the 1770s. The spilled peas sprouted, mud caught in the vines, and so the island grew. Today they call it Pea Patch Island.

The seasonal ferry will take you there. And that’s what the heronry marker is about, ultimately.

As for the island on which it sits, In 1794, the island appeared on a map from the first time. Around that same time Pierre L’Enfant — you remember that name, he designed Washington D.C. — suggested that the island should be used as river defense. The installation burned in the 1830s. A new fort there became a prison camp during the Civil War. Pea Patch Island was only about 75 acres in size at the time. It was abandoned in the 1870s, but briefly came back to life during the Spanish-American War, and saw some service in World War I and World War II. It got larger in the interim. Earth dredged from the river was dumped onto and around the island in 1906, giving it the modern size, about 300 acres.

It’s a state park. There’s the fort, and the birds, and that’s it.

The marker, above, also features illustrations of some of the birds you’ll find there, and their approximate nest heights.

Great Blue Heron (50 feet, tall trees)
Black-Crowned Night Heron (15 feet, small trees)
Little Blue Heron (1-2 feet, shrubs)
Great Egret (40 feet, tall trees)
Snowy Egret (5 feet, shrubs)
Yellow-Crowned Night Heron (30 feet, small trees)
Cattle Egret (3 feet, shrubs)
Tri-Colored Heron (2 feet, shrubs)
Glossy Ibis (low shrubs)

If you go over to Pea Patch Island, take your bug spray.

If you’ve missed any markers so far, you can find them all right here.

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20
Feb 24

You’re going to watch the video and follow all of the links, right?

Once this day got started, this day got productive. Let’s see, there was a late breakfast. And then I gave Phoebe some extra milk. I did dishes. And then I checked email, and updated various computer things. I pulled in the day’s delivery from the front porch.

I recently met someone who works at the local Amazon distribution center. She told me about the many different kinds of jobs in her building, and the one she’s doing now. I promised to check with her before we ordered anything heavy. Make sure she’s not working that day, ya know. Of course, I could barely pick up the box that arrived today. I hope she didn’t have to heave that to and fro.

I also took care of the garbage and recycling. This was an involved process. There was an extra bag of garbage. And more recycling than usual, owing to cardboard. I haven’t moved this much cardboard since we moved. Some of the cardboard that I recycled today was, in fact, from the move. The move was last June.

Standing at the giant bin, breaking down cardboard boxes by tearing tape with my keys, I narrowly avoided giving myself a cardboard cut. Paper cuts are bad, but cardboard should be registered and require a permit. Dangerous stuff. The guy that works there was patiently waiting on me to finish the task. He was standing down by the two cattle gates at the entrance. I was the last visitor of the day, according to his watch, which said 4:51, but he was ready to get out of there a little early. This was not the regular guy, Milton, that I’ve come to wave at, but another fellow. People are punctual about their early dinner plans, one supposes.

Anyway, the sun was out and it was an easy enough chore, even if it all took the better part of an hour this time. When I backed the car out to set off for the inconvenience center I looked into the yard and the trees beyond and said, “Spring is starting and you can’t convince me otherwise.” I said this to no one but the cardboard and the other recyclables, because there was nowhere to put a human being in my car. But nothing about the drive, the chore, or my return made a convincing counterargument, either.

The long-range forecast calls for the low 60s this time next week.

In class last night we did not talk about the weather. I warmed up, though, with a little history lesson of Voyager 1, the golden record and Blind Willie Johnson. Voyager 1 has been flying my whole life, and more than twice as long as my students have been alive. And these last few months, Voyager has been slowly, sadly, limping to its own end, decades after exceeding its mission parameters. It’s no less sad for the over-achievement. Perhaps more so. Doug Muir wrote something beautiful about it.

Also, a student asked me what I thought about Jon Stewart’s return to The Daily Show. Short version: It felt right. Last Monday’s re-start was a start, a clearing of the throat, a framing of the conversation. His return is going to be best understood over time. So let’s see what he does between now and November.

And what he did last night. My goodness.

My lovely bride and I did our first research in grad school on Jon Stewart. It was one of the first 2,200 or pieces of scholarship about the comedy-satire-politics show. I think the preemptive criticism in the run up to his return was overdone. Stewart still has one of the most unique and powerful voices in the much broader genre, and the circumstances today aren’t that different than nine years ago when he walked away. More acrimonious, but let’s not forget from whence we came.

If anything, the show runners have to consider how the Daily Show’s style of accountability — via the technological breakthrough of database queries and video playback — is finally more widespread now. That, if anything, blunts the ability for him to tackle his first real target, contemporary media. (People forget who the real satire subject matter is.) That part will need to be reshaped, perhaps, and along the way, he’s going to annoy everyone sporting a little letter behind their name. I could do without making the superficial punchline an ad hominem attack, I never liked that part, but he’s still got plenty of punch in his gloves. And the ratings are there too, much to the chagrin of last night’s subject matter.

For the actual class we discussed Ellen Ullman and Nicholas Carr. Basically, what is the internet doing to us, and why is it all bad? The Ullman piece was prescient, she wrote it in 1998, still stands by it, and, what’s more, was correct. The Carr readings date to 2008 and 2010. The latter is a book chapter of his, but that essay in The Atlantic should give us pause.

Over the past few years I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory. My mind isn’t going—so far as I can tell—but it’s changing. I’m not thinking the way I used to think. I can feel it most strongly when I’m reading. Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy. My mind would get caught up in the narrative or the turns of the argument, and I’d spend hours strolling through long stretches of prose. That’s rarely the case anymore. Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do. I feel as if I’m always dragging my wayward brain back to the text. The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle.

I think I know what’s going on. For more than a decade now, I’ve been spending a lot of time online, searching and surfing and sometimes adding to the great databases of the Internet. The Web has been a godsend to me as a writer. Research that once required days in the stacks or periodical rooms of libraries can now be done in minutes. A few Google searches, some quick clicks on hyperlinks, and I’ve got the telltale fact or pithy quote I was after. Even when I’m not working, I’m as likely as not to be foraging in the Web’s info-thickets—reading and writing e-mails, scanning headlines and blog posts,
watching videos and listening to podcasts, or just tripping from link to link to link.

For me, as for others, the Net is becoming a universal medium, the conduit for most of the information that flows through my eyes and ears and into my mind. The advantages of having immediate access to such an incredibly rich store of information are many, and they’ve been widely described and duly applauded. “The perfect recall of silicon memory,” Wired’s Clive Thompson has written, “can be an enormous boon to thinking.” But that boon comes at a price. As the media theorist Marshall McLuhan pointed out in the 1960s, media are not just passive channels of information. They supply the stuff of thought, but they also shape the process of thought. And what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.

I’m not the only one. When I mention my troubles with reading to friends and acquaintances—literary types, most of them—many say they’re having similar experiences. The more they use the Web, the more they have to fight to stay focused on long pieces of writing.

The first time I read that piece I saw a lot of the same complaints. And so I’ve been trying to change my habits — sometimes with more success than others. I think the change has been fruitful, when I’ve been most successful at it.

One of the assignments the students have to do soon includes an element where they chart their own media consumption. If this is done well some people will look at that and think, “Yes, that seems about right.” Others, however, will look at the data they’ve collected on themselves and be stunned.

Maybe that’ll mean something for them going forward.

Let us go forward together, back under the surface of the water.

I made this video before class yesterday with the intention of publishing it then, as well. Only I made a critical error in the rendering and exporting process. (A two-paragraph explanation of everything between now and then goes right here. An explanation made all the more hilarious because I teach this stuff. So I figured: Tuesday. Today, suffice it to say, instead of having to remake the entire video, I remembered Premiere Pro has a pretty decent autosave function, which was a big time-saver.) Having correctly rendered and exported the video, I was able to upload it and remain quite pleased with the result. I think you’ll like it too. I think the beginning and the end are the best part.

Also, enjoy the flounder, the sea anemone and the beautiful eagle ray.

Tomorrow, I’ll have a few more diving photos for you, we’ll go back in time to meet a local 17th century man of considerable importance and I’ll probably try to find a way to talk about riding my bicycle in place. Because, right now, I’m going to go ride my bike.

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15
Aug 23

Yes, the world’s best hobo song is included here

Last night I swam a mile. I didn’t know how much I would do, but it started raining on me at about 800 yards and I didn’t want to get wet, so I just stayed in the pool. Before you know it, that’s 1,650 yards and my shoulders felt like it.

The getting wet joke is a lame family joke. We’d gone on a vacation, a dive trip, and my step-father and his kids had just been certified for open water diving. Now, some of us had been diving for a long time, and some of us took to water naturally, and a lot of us had learned from different companies and through evolving teaching methodologies. So I got to be the stick in the mud who demanded the safety meeting the night before our first dives.

Good thing, too, because we learned that my step-sister thought that giving the Heimlich maneuver was delivering CPR. (To be fair, she was young.) Anyway, she wanted to go to the pool, but I wanted to go over hand signals and hypothetical situations. It seemed a good idea. She hated every moment of it. Finally, after a refresher on rescue breathing, and a run through of the basic Caribbean fish signals, we decided we were all at least in the same chapter of the book. So it was time to hit the pool. But it was raining, you see, and so she wasn’t enthused by that. (She was young.) So the rest of us went to the pool. I stayed underwater so I would not get wet.

But last night, I swam that mile and then I floated in the water listening to the raindrops until I got cold. It was delightful in every way.

I swam a mile and I … liked … it?

I do not know what is happening.

Maybe I’ll go for another swim on Thursday.

My laps have been pretty decent, by my standards. My riding has been OK, but light. My running, lousy as ever. Now I just need to put them all in a consistent routine. That’s the part that always gets me.

Today, just more peaches. We tried the new blender. (It blends!) We had peach smoothies. And then we blanched peaches to freeze. Our freezer has a lot of peaches in it now. A new colleague came over and took some off our hands. I brought in three more baskets from the tree. I made myself another smoothie.

We goofed off in the pool until dinner time. It was a fine day. Just peachy.

So let us turn our attention to the Tuesday Tabs feature. This is for all of those extra browser windows I have open. Some of these are worth keeping, somewhere, but perhaps not worth a bookmark at this time. So I’m simply memorializing them here, so I can finally close a few more tabs. (There are so many tabs.)

This is a relatively new one, and I must say, not really, but I have to start somewhere. 10 Alternatives to bi-fold closet doors (you’ll absolutely love):

The most common alternatives to bi-fold closet doors include barn doors, sliding doors, pocket doors, French doors, and curtains. If you want a more unique option, consider swinging doors, a room divider, mirrors, bookcase doors, and industrial doors …

If you’re tired of the same old bi-fold doors, choosing an alternative comes down to the overall look you want. Ready to try something new? Give these different looks a chance when you’re ready to close the door to your closet.

My home office has a bifolding door set. Not a fan.

Here are some nice places to explore here. Maybe I’ll get to one or two this fall. 8 Adorable small towns in Delaware

“The First State” is an amazing state along the Atlantic Ocean, Delaware Bay and Delaware River. This peninsula location means it is full of beautiful sandy beaches, riverfront views and gorgeous parks. The state also has a rich history dating back to it being the first of the original 13 states to ratify the constitution in 1787 (hence its ‘first’ nickname). Among the big cities and prominent attractions are a number of adorable small towns full of charm, history, and opportunity. From the Dutch colony of Lewes to maritime villages or the scenic beaches of Bethany Beach, Delaware is a beautiful and friendly state worth exploring.

I wonder how long we’ll see stories like this, before they all feel inevitable, I mean. AI comes for YouTube’s thumbnail industry:

This March, when U.S.-based AI researcher Anand Ahuja launched CTRHero, “an AI to replace Thumbnail Artists,” he called it “his life’s work.” Trained on millions of successful thumbnails from various social media platforms, CTRHero could create thumbnails within minutes, reproducing faces with 99% accuracy, according to Ahuja. The tool outraged designers who felt their livelihoods were suddenly at stake: some threatened Ahuja with physical violence. Soon after its launch, Ahuja sold off the core technology for CTRHero.

…

For YouTubers, thumbnails are serious business, as they can make or break a videos’ reach. Top creators such as MrBeast test up to 20 different thumbnail variations on a single video, paying designers a reported $10,000 for a single video. This has spawned a microeconomy of freelance YouTube thumbnails artists around the world, who hone their design skills to attract clicks.

Stop me when it feels like everything is Ready Player One. How AI will turbocharge misinformation — and what we can do about it:

By some estimates, AI-generated content could soon account for 99% or more of all information on the internet, further straining already overwhelmed content moderation systems.

Dozens of “news sites” filled with machine generated content of dubious quality have already cropped up, with far more likely to follow — and some media sites are helping blur the lines.

Without sufficient care, generative AI systems can also recycle conspiracy theories and other misinformation found on the open web.

University of Washington professor Kate Starbird, an expert in the field, told Axios that generative AI will deepen the misinformation problem in three key ways.

Starbird is a brilliant scholar and one of the leading researchers in this field. Check out her work.

As you read this, I am eight CDs behind in the Re-Listening project. That’s the one where I’m listening to all of my CDs in the car, in the order in which I acquired them. I am writing about them here because, it’s a good excuse to post videos of good music. Also, sometimes there are memories attached to these things, but mostly it’s padded content. And all of it’s fun. Except when you run across that bad CD, sorta like the bad grape you weren’t expecting. There’s one in every bunch, and it all comes down to taste.

Someone else bought Sister Hazel’s third studio album so I didn’t have to. I’m not sure who gave it to me, because I did not write it on the CD and it has been at least 23 years and two months since it happened. My memory is good, but there’s a lot of stuff in my memory, ya dig?

“Fortress” featured three singles, “Change Your Mind” peaked at number five on the US Adult 40. “Champagne High,” one of the album’s better songs, reached number 22. “Beautiful Thing” did not chart, which, in retrospect, was probably a signal that the moment of success brought on by Sister Hazel formula had somehow passed them by. It’s a mystery to me, really, because it’s the same as what we were all used to from the boys from Florida.

They are rhyming the word “thing” with the word “thing,” though. Maybe people noticed.

But, look, the formula works. If you want a fun sweaty party band, Sister Hazel can take the stage and keep you happy.

As an album, “Fortress” was a minor hit, settling at 63 on the Billboard 200. The record you remember, “Somewhere More Familiar” made it to 47 in 1997. Nine years and four albums later they cracked the top 50 again. Maybe tastes change around them, but the syrupy, twangy Southern rock guitar and the upbeat harmonies stayed with the band. And you can hear it still, Sister Hazel is touring all over the eastern US for the rest of the year.

Next up is one of those albums you regret. It was released in 1997 and I got it in 2000 and I can only blame myself. The world wide web was out there, and I had three solid years to find out “Deconstructed,” a remix album, is just a bad project. Even if you like electronic music, you didn’t want this. There are no new tracks, and no real reason to listen to this. I have probably played it four or five times, total, and two of those were for the Re-Listening project. Anyway, Bush worked with DJs from the electronic genre of music to remix some of the band’s previously released songs. The first one is probably the best track … but … still … electronic, British or of any other nationality, just wasn’t for me.

Hey, it was a fusion idea that went gold, and settled at number 36 on the Billboard 200 in 1997. I didn’t like it in 2000. I don’t like it today. I never understood it on my few tries in between. Maybe it’s just me. (It can’t be just me.)

Let’s wrap up this post with a better one. Up next in the Re-Listening project was a 2002 purchase, something I no doubt got at a discount bin. Something Sony licensed for a few suckers just like me. But that’s not a problem, because “The Sound Of Country was a 2 CD sampler set full of important tracks. It grabs you right away, with some classic Roy Acuff.

That’s the more famous Acuff version, of course, but his 1946 original is something to behold. It’s not o this CD, but I have included it for you here.

One of the greatest songs ever recorded in the English language is also included here.

It’s a fundamentally perfect song. Chet Atkins is in there. The background vocals are none other than the Jordanaires. That song topped the country chart for eight weeks in 1958 and climbed to number seven on the predecessor of the Billboard Hot 100. At least three covers of that song have charted over the years.

I am pretty sure I bought this double CD, which was, no doubt, very cheap, for this one song. It was the correct choice.

I was going through a Roger Miller phase. I’d find reasons to play that song. I wasn’t the only one who fell in love with that. It won five Grammys in 1966. It should have become a Broadway show and a network miniseries. If it had come out a few decades later it would have been embossed on mudflaps. The legendary Buddy Killen played guitar on that song. His people knew my people. Maybe that’s it.

You get into some important later hits, too. This topped the charts in 1984, presaging what would become of country music a generation later.

Also atop the charts in 1984, was The Kendalls last number one.

The father-daughter act released 16 albums, seeing 22 singles making the top 40, and 11 climbing into the top 10, including three at the top of the chart. Royce died in 1998 (this CD was published in 2002), but Jeannie Kendall, who started performing at 15, is still strong more than a half-century radio.

The whole double CD:

Blue Eyes Crying in The Rain – Roy Acuff
Walking After Midnight – Patsy Cline
Oh, Lonesome Me – Don Gibson
Mama Tried – Merle Haggard
King Of The Road – Roger Miller
Big Midnight Special – Wilma Lee & Stoney Cooper
When I Stop Dreaming – Leona Williams
No Help Wanted – Bill Carlisle
Sweet Memories – Frank Ifield
It’s Only Make Believe – Conway Twitty
I Love You Because – Bob Luman
All My Ex’s Live In Texas – Whitey Shafer
Louisiana Man – Rusty & Doug Kershaw
Does Fort Worth Ever Cross Your Mind – Whitey Shafer
Okie From Muskogee – Merle Haggard
I Got Mexico – Eddy Raven
The First Few Days Of Love – Lorrie Morgan
Sweet Dreams – Don Gibson
Tennessee Waltz – Redd Stewart
Honky Tonk Merry Go Round – Patsy Cline
Night Train To Memphis – Roy Acuff
Tortrue – Kris Jensen
Thank God For The Radio – The Kendalls
God Bless The U.S.A. – Lee Greenwood

And with that, we’re only four CDs behind. The next installment of the Re-Listening project will feature an act that shows us what turn-of-the-century country and bluegrass music should have done.