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Tuesday

music / Tuesday / video — 1 Comment
17
Apr 12

We get musical (Or: They don’t get any cooler than Levon Helm)

All Levon Helm has done is sing anthems, become an actor, get cancer, lose his voice, ignore doctors and start singing again. He also won, among his other awards, a Grammy for 2011’s Ramble at the Ryman — and you’re missing out if you don’t at least know this performance a little bit:

The rambler, his family announced today, is in the final stage of his battle with cancer.

He released Dirt Farmer in 2007, some quarter of a century after his last studio album — remember, he was diagnosed with throat cancer in the 1990s. Dirt Farmer gives you the impression that everything was on his terms, because Levon Helm, that’s why:

There’s also some sort of Steinbeckian quality to it. And I don’t mean to overwrite this here, but he’s one of the last few balladeers of the South. It doesn’t matter that The Weight is set in Pennsylvania, that’s a boy from Arkansas sharing his pain and joy. The Band, at perhaps their peak:

And now I’d encourage you to listen to a man approaching 70 singing his absolute soul out:

Thing I saw today

Driving in today, I passed the largest bathtub in the world:

It won’t fit our master bathroom, yet, but I can knock out a wall. I will also need to knock out a wall in the neighbor’s place, but I’m sure he won’t mind if I pitch him the idea just right.

The key is in the delivery.

Speaking of deliveries, I discovered tonight that my phone won’t take a picture fast enough to catch Trey Cochran-Gill’s baseball in flight:

It is in there somewhere, as Auburn pitches to Samford late in this evening’s game. If you find it, do let me know.

Auburn won 7-5, by the way.

Had a big media meeting on campus today, which will set up another big meeting in a few weeks. And now I have to pack. We’re taking a conference trip this week. I have to figure out how to get four days worth of clothes, including a suit, in a carryon.

The good news is there will be pudding for all of our Alabama expat friends. Stopped by Dreamland this evening to get just enough to make me the most popular boy at the conference.

journalism / links / things to read / Tuesday — Comments Off
3
Apr 12

Things to read

Just a bunch of links today, I’m afraid. But good links. So do check some of them, and the selected excerpts, out.

LinkedIn: Online publishing up 24%, newspapers down 28%

How has our economy evolved in the past five years? Which industries are shrinking or growing through these challenging economic times? These are some of the questions that the Council of Economic Advisors (CEA) delves into each February in the “Economic Report of the President” (ERP). This year, the CEA worked with us to glean further insights into industry trends both during the recent recession and after its end in June 2009.

[…]

The fastest-growing industries include renewables (+49.2%), internet (+24.6%), online publishing (+24.3%), and e-learning (+15.9%). Fastest-shrinking industries were newspapers (-28.4%), retail (-15.5%), building materials (-14.2%), and automotive (-12.8%).

Since this great economic sorting out isn’t yet settled, I’m sure some of the industries in that terrific chart are still moving around.

Meanwhile.

C.S. Lewis, replying a letter to a young fan, on the what really matters in the craft of writing:

1. Always try to use the language so as to make quite clear what you mean and make sure your sentence couldn’t mean anything else.

2. Always prefer the plain direct word to the long, vague one. Don’t implement promises, but keep them.

[…]

4. In writing. Don’t use adjectives which merely tell us how you want us to feel about the thing you are describing. I mean, instead of telling us a thing was “terrible,” describe it so that we’ll be terrified. Don’t say it was “delightful”; make us say “delightful” when we’ve read the description. You see, all those words (horrifying, wonderful, hideous, exquisite) are only like saying to your readers, “Please will you do my job for me.”

You should read the full letter, which is full of masterful advice.

Steve Yelvington says “adaptive HTML5 layouts on the “everything just works” principle will eclipse smartphone, tablet apps.”

Two First Amendment stories.

My boss once observed that I was something of a First Amendment guy. As a journalist himself, he understands, though all of us should. Those stories are more than a little abhorrent. But if anyone needs to have that explained: the Founders thought it kind of important. They put it first.

Sports: Auburn hired a new women’s basketball coach, Terri Williams-Flournoy, late of Georgetown. On her first day in the new job she said “We want to cause havoc as much as we can.

Like the sound of that. Before she took the job she called Nell Fortner, who just resigned from the position. Fortner is the best. Flournoy, or others, might be better coaches, but the athletic department will never find anyone that loves the place as much as she does. This is what she said when the new coach called: “She knew that it would be a great place for me to bring my family and she just kept going on and on and on about the community.”

The new NFL uniforms, in poor photographs. I’m not sure if it is the imagery or the new gear that is underwhelming. And “fast is faster”? Ugh.

Auburn / baseball / Samford / Tuesday / video — Comments Off
27
Mar 12

“Hit hard! Left field!”

On the occasions that Auburn and Samford play each other in some sport — as they did in football last year, as they occasionally meet in the non-revenue sports and as they do in every year in baseball — my loyalties are not torn. There’s my alma mater and there’s my employer. I’d like for both of them to win.

But since everyone doesn’t get a trophy in collegiate sports, I hold out for a good finish.

Auburn was at Samford tonight. They’d trailed for most of the game, but took a 5-4 lead in the eighth inning. In the bottom of the ninth the Tigers’ Justin Bryant was on in relief. He hit a batter. Then he allowed two singles, so the bases were loaded.

Sophomore Phillip Ervin walked to the plate for Samford:

Samford wins 8-5. The Bulldogs are now 17-8, the Tigers 15-10.

More here.

Auburn / baseball / hobby / photo / Tuesday — Comments Off
20
Mar 12

These pictures look perfectly composed to me

I think squirrels need Instagram treatments too:

For the record: I do Instagram the old-fashioned way. I shoot through a window screen and lower the shutter speed on the camera to kill the exposure. I’m an old school member of pointless photographs.

I was about to step outside and take this picture in the last of the high evening’s dying light, but the cat snuck out behind me. She sits and watches squirrels and birds all day. Sometimes she gets agitated by this and meeps and peeps at them. We think this is cute. And then we read it is frustration.

I felt bad about that once, for about 25 minutes, and then I remembered how often she wakes me up in the middle of the night, just to show off how good of a “hunter” she is that she found and retrieved one of her toys. I stopped feeling bad about it after that.

Anyway, I was stepping outside, Allie sneaked out around me. You’d think with that much time staring at the wildlife she’d consider going out to play with them. “Pickup hoops, anyone?” Or at least chase them. But no. This cat just goes outside and rolls around in the dirt.

Our cat thinks she’s a dog.

Baseball night. Auburn, fresh off winning a road series against 12th ranked Mississippi, was hosting South Alabama for the Tuesday contest. Determined not to look ahead to this weekend’s homestand against 12th ranked LSU, the Tigers put John Luke Jacobs on the mound.

He pitched shutout baseball for eight innings, allowing only three hits and two walks. He struck out 11:

A five run fifth inning cracked it open for Auburn and the Tigers rolled to a 7-0 victory. (Jacobs, as the Tuesday starter, leads the team in strikeouts, and leads Auburn’s starters in hits, runs and home runs allowed, opponent batting average, ERA.)

By this point, unfortunately, I’ve noticed a suddenly less-than-good feeling for the evening. So this is abbreviated, but I’m going to go try and sleep off this general feeling of mild blah.