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IU / music / photo / running / Thursday / Twitter / video — Comments Off on Random Thursday things
12
Apr 18

Random Thursday things

I spent time in the television studio today. Here is a photo of a decorative lightbulb which descends from the conduits above to prove it!

But I obviously picked the wrong profession:

An installation at the Gardiner Museum in Toronto is more hands-on than your typical exhibition.

“YOKO ONO: THE RIVERBED” by the 85-year old artist, musician and activist, asks visitors to do several physical tasks, including pick up river stones —some of which include handwritten inscriptions by Ono herself—and place them in a pile.

But one woman appears to have taken the “hands-on” suggestion a little too literally. Rather than place her rock in the pile, she allegedly stole it, Laura Snapes reports for The Guardian. The rock, valued at a cool $17,500, was inscribed by Ono with the words “Love Yourself.”

Things are worth what people are willing to pay. And what a person is theoretically willing to pay and willing to insure are different things. And we’re a nonsensical people when it comes to former almost-celebrities. But still … and this part is worth repeating …

Seventeen thousand dollars?

And this evening I discovered Durand Jones & The Indications. Now you will too. They’re IU guys and they have a lot of soul:

Tonight:

Yesterday:

cycling / Indiana / photo / Wednesday — Comments Off on Makes you wanna ride bikes – if you can get off the sofa
11
Apr 18

Makes you wanna ride bikes – if you can get off the sofa

Someone brought their bike into the building today.

You’re not supposed to do that. But I do enjoy seeing a good bicycle every now and then. That’s a Little 500 bike, which is a neat treat in general, just not in the building, where it could be a tripping hazard or a wall-marking hazard or a theft-of-property hazard.

Seriously, someone left it outside a closed classroom. People are trusting, which is nice.

Outside? Spring?

On Monday morning, snow. And it was the sort of thing no one even mentioned. We were all so bored with it and over it. It wasn’t surprising to wake up to. It was inevitable. No one was even irritated by the absurdity of it anymore. Snow in mid-April. Then it melted, things started blooming and that evening I ran in layers and gloves.

This evening I ran in shorts and a t-shirt and was already warm in the driveway, before setting out for a quick 5K. Already warm. It was 62° degrees.

So I’m putting a question mark next to spring from now on.

Allie, is, also, over it:

And, look, when I tell The Yankee that the six-pound cat is holding me down, I really mean it:

IU / photo / Tuesday / Twitter — Comments Off on Views around the building
10
Apr 18

Views around the building

Presidents Hall is set up for an event:

Sometimes it is a reading room. Sometimes there are lectures there. Sometimes they have meals and other sort of events. Up on the wall there are oil paintings of each of IU’s presidents. It’s a neat space.

Oh, thank goodness someone thought to post a sign:

I walked by one of the student archival projects the other day. An April 3rd, 1939 edition of the New York World Telegram was about to go in the scanner. Al Capone, the TVA and the war dominated the front page. (Roy Howard’s byline is why this paper was being scanned.)

The Roy Howard archive is at IU, and that’s what this effort is all about. Here’s the next story in her To Scan pile:

Tonight:

adventures / family / history / Monday / photo — Comments Off on Stuff from after the conference
9
Apr 18

Stuff from after the conference

We were in Nashville over a long weekend at a research conference. It was nice to see friends and do smart-people things. And we stayed with friends who happen to live by the conference location. So we’re going to need them to move around and follow this event around the region. They should do this to the detriment of their own social lives and careers so that they could have the pleasure of hosting us for three or four days each year, and enjoy barbecue and the like, and our delightful company.

So we’ll start sending them some brochures.

Anyway, some extra things I saw over the weekend.

Look! Up in the right corner!

That doesn’t look like a familiar Sears font. A commenter on Flickr notes:

Sears Department Store was located at the southeast corner of Church St and 8th Ave North (the building is still standing) … Remember that agriculture was, for a couple of centuries, The primary source of revenue in and around Nashville. Sears, like Montgomery Wards and others, sold farm supplies and equipment.

Just south on 8th, right behind the main store, was the farm and auto supply store … The “Ghost Sign” you photographed is located across 8th Ave North from where the farm and auto store once was and this sign once had an arrow that pointed across the street. Sears moved to their new brick bldg on Lafayette (Now the Nashville Rescue Mission) in the late 60’s. I suspect this sign was repainted in the 60s just prior to Sears moving, hence it has survived (sans arrow).

That comment is eight years old and, today, it is just a parking lot:

But you can see a picture here, it was a grand old 1930s art deco building. Sears, this Nashville history site tells me, stayed in the building until 1956. A Ben Franklin went in, and then a jewelry store. Eventually it became a building for state offices. That site, in 2014, said the building was still there, but its fate was nigh. And the Google Street view, from 2017, tells the tale:

They paved downtown shopping and put up a parking lot. But The Tennessean put together a photo gallery.

Hey, look, this is where my folks got married!

Union Station in Nashville, Tennessee.

Farmland when we got back on the road:

And I don’t know what these are for …

Some agricultural concern, no doubt.

adventures / Friday / friends / Indiana / photo — Comments Off on Still conferencing in Nashville
6
Apr 18

Still conferencing in Nashville

Yesterday mass comm, today student work and poli comm. That’s the way of things, and so today I presented student work from The Media School, and from the programs at Middle Tennessee State and East Tennessee State University at the SSCA digital showcase.

And then we took a selfie:

Also, I responded to the top student papers in the political communication division. One of them was an analysis of the 2016 RNC speech. Another looked at the charisma in presidential campaign speeches. (It looked at the texts alone, which seemed a limited choice.) The third looked at the great Shirley Chisholm. These were graduate students and so you want to give them good feedback. I hope I did that.

And tonight I finally got a piece of Prince’s hot chicken. We went to a place that sold it as a part of their own menu. And the restaurant gave me one piece with my chicken and waffles. It was hot. And tasty!

(It’s the one on the right.) Now, it might not be the hottest. And I’m a spice wimp, but it was hot. And good. By the time I finished that piece I … I wasn’t used to it, but I’d come to terms with it, I guess. One of our friends said to me “Kenny, you’re glistening.”

At that precise moment I had started wondering whether I was perspiring or my eyes were watering.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
It was hard to tell.

A sign we found in a restaurant at breakfast:

And now I want some more Prince’s hot chicken. Or barbecue.

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