A breezy, chilly day. And, later, downright coolish. That’s the season, and that’s a point we must concede. This comes with this season.
In today’s Criticism in Sport Media, we watched “It’s Time.” Here’s a little clip where Billy Brewer talks about how Chucky Mullins got to Ole Miss.
The problem was that I was able to find nine minutes of the doc to skip, but we just couldn’t cut out anything else out and keep the story together. So it ran the whole class. But this will be an interesting experiment. What will the class say when we talk about it on Tuesday?
In my org comm class we talked about different types of conflict, the way behaviorists used to see it, the way we view it today, the structural and contextual factors that create it, and why it is sometimes good.
And then we played a bit of the prisoner’s dilemma. I broke the class into two groups and sent one of them outside. This group played as the Las Vegas Raiders. The other group played as the Los Angeles Chargers. I told them each the circumstance. Last game of the season, if you win, you make it to the NFL playoffs and the other team goes home. If the two teams tie you both make it to the playoffs. What do you do?
I made the groups argue this out separately amongst themselves. I brought them back together to reveal the choices they’d made. This scenario actually happened a few years ago, and some of them actually remembered it, which made the internal conflict a little more interesting. Ultimately, though, both sides decided to play for the win.
This is how it played out in real life.
So one group won, basically. One student rightly noticed that if both groups had been left in the room they could have figured this out. But that’s the prisoner’s dilemma for you.
It’s an applied approach to understanding people and groups, this class, you see.
I took a grad school class with a guy who literally wrote the book on game theory. (There are about 6,000 books on game theory, to be sure.) He talked about it for an entire semester. And so, today, I was laughing to myself about his many ridiculous stories.
After class we went over the river. Had dinner at McGillins the oldest Irish pub in the city. The food was not the best I’ve had at an Irish pub, but the experience was fine. It was just up the street from the venue where we saw.
He does laugh funny.
It’s all one-liners and bawdy dark comedy. He does a lot of good crowd work. And he laughs funny.
Then every now and again he’ll do something very thoughtful, almost philosophical, which gives away the other nonsense. The problem with one-liners, though, is that they’re almost immediately forgotten. But the laughs remain! Even the funny ones.
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.
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
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.
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.
This weekend I improved my bike hipster cred with this new-to-me vintage belt buckle. I’d prefer that it was blue or orange or red, but the green will, I’m sure, grow on me.
I haven’t spent a lot of time looking, but I hadn’t run across a buckle like that before, rear derailleur looking all abstract, looking ready to climb. And when you know, you know, you know? So I bought it, and now it’s daily wear.
I have three daily wear belt buckles, which means I’m dangerously close to starting a collection. If I add three or four more I’d have a complete biographical collection. But I probably shouldn’t do that.
We went over the river on Friday night. A friend of almost 20 years from back home was in town. He used to live up here, too. And he was back for a conference, and heading up to New York to see his family. So we ventured over to pick him up for dinner.
And before we got there, we saw this sign.
Hmmmm …
We drove right beneath city hall. Built using brick, white marble and limestone, it is the world’s largest free-standing masonry building and was the world’s tallest habitable building when it opened in 1894.
Designed to be the world’s tallest building, it was surpassed during the phase of construction by the Washington Monument, the Eiffel Tower, and Turin, Italy’s Mole Antonelliana. The Mole Antonelliana, a few feet taller, suffered a spire collapse in a storm, and so this building stands a bit taller.
I’m sure we’ll discover more about it at some point in the future.
Our friend, Andre, suggested we try a Malaysian restaurant, Kampar, which has been shortlisted for a James Beard Award. While we waited the hostess gave me a new way to ask restaurant staff about their favorite dishes. She said the rendang daging was the reason she worked there. So we ordered that, and several other family-style dishes. And I’d work there for the rendang daging, too. It was a sweet, tender, slow-cooked meat. It offset the pickled vegetables well. Then, opposite that was a fried chicken done in a style that, by rights, I should not have enjoyed as much as I did. (But I want some more, even now, just thinking about it.)
So everything was great. We had about three bites before my lovely bride and I looked at each other and said, almost simultaneously, that my mother would like to try this place. So we’ll bring her when she comes up.
The weather is holding up. I got in 65 miles of riding this weekend, all of it just around the familiar neighborhoods. I’m trying to squeeze in every mile possible. You know the feeling, I’m sure, chasing the thing to forestall the thing.
That made sense right about here.
Now if this mild weather will just last until spring …
We were supposed to go over the river three times this weekend. But I only went two times. And it was still a lovely weekend, despite my coming up short.
On Friday we went over to watch a field hockey game. The team we were cheering on won, 1-0 or 2-0, it was difficult to see the tabletop scoreboard from across the field. They are on the verge of going undefeated for the season, and I finally got to see them ply their trade across a bumpy, lumpy field on a beautifully warm and sunny fall afternoon.
Our favorite player was a defender and that is most certainly a big part of why they pitched a shutout today.
On the way back over, I managed to get this shot on the bridge.
And in the driveway, I could hear the geese before I could see them. I’m not sure if I really saw them, even as I was trying to take a photo. They can make for a beautiful photo, in better light.
There’s a slew from the river back that way. Maybe that’s where they were headed.
I’d been fighting a sore throat and woke up feeling like I was losing the battle on Saturday morning, so I did not make the second trip over the river. There was a 5K that my lovely bride ran, and she was kind enough to tell me to stay in bed. I still got my t-shirt, though.
I went outside that morning to do outside chore and was rewarded with a few minutes of beautiful light.
You could probably write a poem or two about scenes like that. They might come off maudlin, or Irish, or both. That would not make them bad.
Some of the bushes are still doing some amazing work, here at the end of October. They have to be confused. Cool yesterday, outrageously warm tomorrow.
I found this tree on a Sunday afternoon walk at just the right time. What a lovely tie dye moment. If you’re going to go maple, go maple with flair.
Another shot from that walk.
And then we went back across the river again, meaning we went over the bridge, which gave me this shot.
We went to the Flyers game. Hockey! People sliding on frozen stuff. And, at times, the ice was a part of the display. Makes for a nice canvas, really.
The Flyers have an impressive graphics package. The LED ribbons are everywhere in the venue, and they make an impression. Then they shoot pyrotechnics out of the screens that are raised and lowered around the central scoring display. There’s a lot to see, and it’s not all on the ice.
On the ice, the good guys got off to a bad start, and then it got worse. Starting the third period it was 4-1. The home team battled back, putting two pucks in the net in the last two minutes, but the clock ran out, and so they have started the season 2-6-1. They’ll get it figured out soon. I’m sure we’ll be back to see it happen.
We went for a poke bowl. This was when I learned something about poke bowls. The fish is raw — which is not my thing. Eat it fast and in big chunks, then.
And, next time, order the ramen bowl, like you initially planned to do.
Anyway, it was a lovely night for dining outside. We were the only people at the place, so we timed it right. And the food was good, except for, you know.
The purpose of that trip was to go see a rock ‘n’ roll show. I am, of course, going to get two posts out of this.
Opening the show was Melissa Etheridge. I bought her first albums as cassette tapes. They were loud and a little rowdy and a lot intense. Or, as she said last night … (Excuse the video quality, we were roughly a quarter of a mile away.)
That’s a good summation, the raw lyrics, the talented guitar work, it all worked very well.
For me, it was all about those first three albums — even though I was playing catch up. Someone played me a song as a teen and that 12-string guitar got my attention and her sound kept it. Superstardom was obviously on the way, the drama was there, and she was belting things out as fast as she could churn them out, and she’s been prolific for decades. Sixteen studio albums, five of them platinum, two golds. She’s supported them with 43 singles, including 11 that charted and six landing in the Top 40. She’s moved more than 25 million units, not counting whatever her digital sales are. But, again, for me, it was the first three records. Time and place. Lightning in a bottle. An earnestness that matched a feeling, whatever it was. If I had to narrow it down further, it just might be about this song. And, man, I still can’t believe this happened. It’ll take days to get over this. (Update — Still not over it.)
Amy and Emily doing melody on the song about two people running away together, or just running away? I do not know the extent to which a pop ballad can move a person, but there I was, thinking, No way 16 year-old me could have pictured any of this.
I suppose we could have left then and I would have felt as though I’d had my fill. How often can you say that just a handful of songs into a show? But you don’t do that, because there’s always the potential for magic in the air. They rolled out a piano and Etheridge put down her guitar and played a Joan Armatrading classic.
One day, someone is going to figure out that Melissa Etheridge has just been riffing on Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel and Joan Armatrading her whole career. And why not? It works.
She’s 63 and still brings it. I’d never really had a desire to see her in concert, and I see now that was my loss. She put on a terrific show, and that was only the first half. We’ll get to the rest of the show next week.
Back at home, we have a new friend in the backyard. I just happened to catch this in the light as I went about the evening chores. Much better to see it than feel it.
It’ll be interesting to watch that web work evolve, I’m sure.
Meanwhile, over in the giant leaf district, we will find giant leaves.
That plant sits next to the water spigot, so it gets a bit of extra water whenever that’s on. I assume that’s why it’s taller than me now. Thankfully the brown-eyed susans that are growing next to it have no similar ambitions. But who knows what they’ll get up to this weekend.
And you? What are you up to this weekend? Make sure it is a good one!
