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IU / photo / Wednesday — Comments Off on The problem with amorphous sayings
20
Sep 17

The problem with amorphous sayings

We have this large classroom with stadium-style seating. And in the back of the room they built in a magic box that connects the room to the television control room. Take a few cameras up there, plug them into the magic box and then you can use the shots to make a show, record a lecture or whatever. We’re going to do that soon, perhaps for the first time. (We’ve only been in the building for a year, after all.)

So today we lugged a few cameras up to the third floor, and we carried a few armfuls of cables up there and plugged them all in to make sure it worked. And it worked, mostly. We now know what works and what we need to get the engineers to fine tune. And fine tune it, they will.

Anyway, in the back of that room next to that magic box there is a window with a nice view:

That’s the Student Building, which was recently renamed the Frances Morgan Swain Student Building. They picked a good name. Swain graduated from IU, married a man who would later become the school’s ninth president and she raised gobs of money for that building. (And even after they left for other roles at other schools, the Swains kept donating money to various IU funds and memorials.) That was originally to be the women’s building, but then a Rockefeller donation came through to make it the Student Building. All of this in a time when Swain was both an advocate for women in higher education and places for them to actually, you know, live.

When the Swains were at IU the population increased from 524 to 1,285 students. Today there are just over 49,000. He passed away in 1927 and she died in 1936. I wonder what they’d think of the place today.

The Yankee and I visited a bookstore today and I saw this:

The saying has always bothered me. I think, mostly, as a pragmatist. If I have the option to shoot for the moon or shoot for the stars, wouldn’t the latter be the more ambitious? Why do you see it as a consolation prize? I mean, sure, I could go visit the barren rock in orbit around us, or I could go see some other fusion-fission space phenomena, and maybe check out any planets moving around it.

But that’s the one part of it. And it occurred to me today what has always been off about the sentiment: “Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss you can use its gravity to go deeper into the solar system and we can still chat, until loss of signal, because you’re probably going to run out of battery power before you make it to another star, anyway.”

Now put that on a pencil tote and send the kids off to school with it.

We had a great dinner tonight:

I hope you did, too.

adventures / IU / photo / Tuesday — Comments Off on Oh my!
19
Sep 17

Oh my!

We had a big night of it this evening. The Yankee and I went to the Japanese steakhouse for dinner where the second best show was being seated with people who have never been to a Japanese steakhouse before. The third best, of course, was the gentleman who made our food.

The best show of the night, though, was back on campus. We went to see George Takei take part in a lecture series. He had a full house, as you can see from our near-the-back-of-the-auditorium seats:

He talked Trek, of course, but most of his lecture was about his activism, and his family history. He’s got that incredible story: internment camp as a kid, watching his father re-build his life as a teen, becoming an actor, becoming a politician and a activist and then his coming out and his continued activism. He’s funny, he’s poignant, he’s powerful and passionate. Like a true stage performer, he stayed in almost one spot the entire night. He must be a light tech’s dream, he never moves.

That’s why I could never be a stage performer. I’d hit my marks. And then I’d hit everyone else’s too. Also, the lines. I took some great improv classes in college — because the professor was energetic and it seemed like a good way to get ready for some less-interesting class — and I learned that I’d never do well with remembering my lines. And, lo, another performer’s career that wasn’t.

Also, I studied method acting, specifically, Stanislavski’s system, which seemed obvious and basic enough to not be real. And if you can’t experience the system that is trying to teach you to experience the role then you’re probably doing it wrong. I never could get past the part of the method where it wasn’t just a guy struggling to remember his lines and hit everyone’s marks.

I thought about that while enjoying ice cream cake tonight. It was a great experience.

adventures / Friday / photo — Comments Off on Things I saw today
15
Sep 17

Things I saw today

We skipped town after work today. In the parking deck we found a Karmann Gia sitting nearby:

I believe this may be a 1971 model. For a time during its 1955-1974 production run this car was imported into the U.S. more than any other.

Just a nearly perfect car design.

It doesn’t have much on the Toyota Camry though, am I right? I mean here we see the side view mirror and the sun, which is closer than it appears:

That’s something to think about over the weekend, huh?

Saw this at the barbecue joint we ate at tonight:

I wanna be big.

IU / photo / television / video / Wednesday — Comments Off on Anyone want to go bowling?
13
Sep 17

Anyone want to go bowling?

I visited the surplus store this evening. The surplus store is where all of the furniture and old equipment and supplies from the nine Indiana University campuses come to find a new life. If you need binders or filing cabinets or random chairs or old classroom desks or Adidas gear you’ll come away happy every time. It is worth a periodic visit for other things, too, under the You Never Know principle.

Lately, though, most of the stuff I’ve seen worth admiring has been in some mysterious “Not for sale” section behind staff only rope lines.

Tonight, though, I found these:

They must have been on display in some larger athletic department area. The images are pixellated up close, but you’d be impressed by all of the old logos from middle-of-the-road bowl games of postseasons past.

A television show the students produced last night:

And here’s another one:

And there will be two more tomorrow night.

IU / photo / Tuesday — Comments Off on This is one of my favorite autumn jokes
12
Sep 17

This is one of my favorite autumn jokes

You find the first maple tree you can, because it is always maples, owing to their physiology, and you wait until the first leaf goes. Then you point that out:

And you say “Maple leaves are quitters!”

You can tell a lot about a person by the sorts of jokes they like. The people that like that joke, the people that get that joke, are worthy of more such cynical, nerdy humor.

Anyway, I saw that leaf today. I had to deliver a lecture on recording sound — photographs yesterday, sound today, television tonight, video tomorrow, that multimedia experience is paying off this week! — gathering and editing. On the way back to my own building afterward was when I found that leaf, the first real sign of autumn, the first real quitter of the season.

And thus begins the long sigh into winter.

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