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Tuesday

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13
Dec 22

Start in ’22, end in ’23 … 1923, that is

So we got new phones. The Yankee’s phone was starting to show signs, and mine wasn’t too far behind. Makes sense, as she bought her old one before I did. But we got five-and-a-half years out of the old ones, and we were quite pleased with the deal she found for this go around.

She scoured the Internet, see, and now we have a wireless provider from Denmark. Sure, we have to pay our bills in Danish Krones, but that’s the price we’ve paid. Quite literally.

Anyway, they were supposed to arrive on Sunday or Monday. They showed up on Friday. I spent that evening backing up my old phone — no small trick! Many websites were consulted, because I was trying to back up my phone to an external drive. I was trying to do this because my computer doesn’t have enough room. After a long while I remembered I have this wonderful program called AnyTrans. Problem solved. Backup … backed … up.

So Saturday morning I turned the new phone on. It is bigger than what I’m accustomed to. And it doesn’t yet have a case. So use carefully, carefully, and use it only over soft surfaces.

We were supposed to receive charging blocks. Phones need juice. And, of course, Apple, sells those separately now. For environmental purposes. So consider this: Sunday afternoon we had a portion of our carbon footprint spent on computer-based messaging, and then a half-hour long phone call all wondering why those charging blocks didn’t arrive. The disinterested voice on the other side of the call had a simple solution. Proceed to your local cell phone provider store. They’ll just … give you some, or something.

Maybe something got lost in the original Danish.

Yesterday, we extended our carbon footprint when we drove to the cell phone store, donned masks and went inside demanding they give us those charging blocks, or else.

The else was implied. The implication was that if they didn’t give us those charging blocks … we still wouldn’t have charging blocks.

We still don’t have charging blocks. I think it was because we merely wore Covid masks, and didn’t lean into that implied no “Or else.”

“George” was impressed by his phone colleague’s tactics. (This is his real name, because he was cool.) He had us go through the story a few times. (I know, he couldn’t believe it either!) He talked to the boss. I think he called someone. We all shared a quality eye-roll and some good customer “service” jokes. He suggested we call the phone people once again.

So we further extended the carbon footprint — remember, these are sold separately now “for the environment.” Today, The Yankee spent more time on the phone trying to get phone charging blocks. And, apparently, the phone company will now send the phone charging blocks. Separately.

Thank goodness we’ve saved the environment.

Got my oil changed today. First time this year, so I’m a little overdue. But only in terms of mileage, and only just. Living in a pandemic and other realities have substantially depressed my driving. So I went to the oil place at the end of the day.

I think I was the last car they serviced today, and I’m not sure if that was a good idea. It’ll be some time before I feel comfortable about this because, while they did, in fact, vacuum the floorboards, they were done in about as much time as it took me to write these two paragraphs.

Also, the guy told me my right blinker was out, but my right blinker is not out. It’s possible he got the wrong note on the wrong car. End of a long day, and all. But what does that mean for, say, my oil pan?

You worry about these things. And you worry for a lot longer than it takes to change your oil these days, apparently.

I visited a nearby dollar store after that. Just thought I’d look for some gag gifts. You could hear people at the counter complaining about the prices of things. And it is true! Things have prices. And many of them are going up. “They” are trying to break us, it seems. Or make us go broke. These terms were used interchangeably.

I was mystified by how much Tupperware and plastic bins this dollar store was offering. I passed on the $8 LED lights. I was not convinced that they’d last more than a set of batteries, or even as long as that oil change took.

We haven’t looked at an old newspaper in a while. (OK, it has been almost a month.) Let’s go back to campus and read the alma mater’s classic rag.

This is from 99 years ago. I wrote for this same publication just … 73 years later. In the interim, design changed somewhat. But, in 1923, you sat down with this over breakfast, and maybe lunch, if you were a slow reader.

This is a four-page edition. Let’s pick out a few topics of interest.

Here’s a front-page story that’s telling. Record enrollment! Remember, this is 1923. So you’re in the middle of a still-poor South. An article in a story from the previous year explained they’d had a record graduation of 200-some students. So retention was clearly an issue, too. But electrical engineering was the biggest department on campus, agriculture was third and there weren’t nearly enough women on campus.

Speaking of what is today the College of Agriculture, this was the beginning of a boom period. The campus-proper is 16-square blocks, but of course there are things all over the state, and the acreage mentioned here now make up the test units spread across town. I spent a bit of time in these fields and barns.

Ag journalism major, ya dig?

The rest of that story is full of process, none of which matters anymore, but at the time, the gist was “patience is a virtue” and “hurry up and wait” and “your younger brothers, or your kids, will reap the benefits.”

The university itself, you see, was in some financially dire straits at the time. It took a long time for them to rise up to meet their peers. This period, in fact, was the beginning of that achievement. The effort continues to this very day, despite the current endowment being … $1.05 billion dollars.

Arthur and Mary did OK. They are buried in Birmingham. She died in her early 70s in 1979. Arthur lived until 1989. He was the yearbook business manager the previous year, so ink was in his blood and I have some of his work. His dad was a prominent newspaper editor in the state capitol. He had a brother who was a small town editor, a wildly successful humorist and a state lawmaker. That guy, Earl, is in the Alabama Newspaper Hall of Honor. For their part, Arthur and Mary raised a doctor.

Bruce and Ethel Jones went back to Birmingham. He died in 1965, I don’t know when his wife passed away. They had a son, Claude Jones, who died just a few years ago, and that man had a full and interesting life. They have a daughter who still lives in the Birmingham area.

Which brings us to Posey Oliver Davis. He started without much at all, really. He was surrounded by subsistence farms and postbellum cotton, which burrowed deep into the red lands, as it was called at the time.

He became a school teacher, went away to college in his early 20s, and graduated seven years before this was published. For a short while he was at Progressive Farmer, then went back to campus in 1920 to become agricultural editor for the Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station and the Alabama Extension Service. (I interned there.)

In our last look at the 1920s, WAMV came up. Davis begrudgingly took on a role there, struggled, moved the old gear and the new gear into Comer Hall (where I studied, seven decades later) and started WAPI (a station where I worked in my mid-20s). He became a pioneer of the medium.

He rose through the ranks at Extension and would become the longest-serving director in Alabama Extension history, viewed as a regional and national leader in agriculture during the Great Depression. Put it this way, when people talked about Extension’s mission of outreach, it would have been easy to think that’s what the O stood for in the man’s name. Frustrated by farmers that didn’t take the good scientific advice that Extension agents could offer, he doubled down. It would have been easy, one supposes, to ignore those that ignore your good works, but that wasn’t P.O. Davis’ style. “We must reach more people,” he famously preached in 1939. It’s a clinical, dry, passionate editorial — a catalog of what was being down, which illustrated what more needed to take place. Much of what Extension became in the second half of the 20th century, and beyond, started right there.

This piece that the paper is referring to? The one 16 years earlier? It got a lot right, hits hard on Davis’ recurring theme of crop diversification and misses a bit of the point and impacts of the Great Migration.

Not that the man could see into the future.

And, finally, here’s a little column filler. True today, as it was then.

I’ve looked ahead. Of the surviving issues of “The Plainsman” that are available, we’re going to jump ahead a bit further into the 1920s in our next irregular visit to the old paper, sometime early next year. But something interesting is coming. Just you wait.

There will be other interesting things in this same space tomorrow, so come back and for that.

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6
Dec 22

Travel day photos

This is a filler post, as we spent most of the day traveling today. We woke up in Savannah, picked up our last little shopping treats, had breakfast, sat in the park and then got an Uber to the airport. It was after 9 p.m. when we got back to the house in Indiana. So, you can imagine.

I don’t know if Tom Hanks or David Moscow is still looking, but I found the Zoltar machine.

No one was as excited about seeing this banner as I was. Most things that interest me don’t seem to appeal to anyone else, which is weird. I’m sure it’s them, and not at all me. Anyway, Repurpose Savannah “is a women+ led 501(c)3 nonprofit establishing a sustainable future through the deconstruction and reuse of historic buildings.”

This is a movie prop poster. It is currently displayed in the window of an appliance story that’s set up to look like a 1960s retail shop. I want the actual poster, and some of the bakelite that was inside.

On the same block, the SCAD theater is also going to be a part of that movie. The parking spaces are also currently filled with period cars. For a time, this part of Savannah is pretending to be Cocoa Beach, Florida.

This is the Cathedral Basilica of St. John the Baptist, home of the Diocese of Savannah, which covers 90 counties.

The bumpy, yet smooth, bricked road that is River Street, the primary tourist trap of Savannah.

Another version of this will become a banner on the blog.

If you go down there, though, you get great views of the vessels moving up and down the river.

I don’t care that there’s a tugboat in the foreground for scale, there’s not really a way to accurately convey the size of this thing, which started its voyage in Japan, made ports of call in Tacoma and Long Beach, then crossed the Panama Canal to visit Savannah. Four years ago, that ship rescued 11 Tunisian fishermen who were victims of a hit and run by another large vessel.

Here’s one more shot of our tree at Forsyth Park. Just on the other side, and trending a bit to the right of the trunk, 14 years ago, almost to the day.

Finally, here’s The Yankee, who planned this trip — which is why it was excellent — hanging out with Santa Claus. (She planned a really nice trip. She should have just made it longer.)

Another picture of her with a slight less authentic, but more lifelike, Santa is going on the Christmas cards this year.

music / photo / Re-Listening / running / Tuesday — Comments Off
29
Nov 22

A sidewalk shuffle

It was 58 degrees when I limped in from my run this evening. I did 4.25 miles, though I’d hoped for 4.5. I cut it short after I twinged my knee, which caused the limping, somewhere early in the second mile. And that’s how I came to spend the evening with an ice pack on my leg.

It’ll be 30 degrees cooler than that when I go to work tomorrow.

I’ll be somewhere much warmer, soon enough, for a brief time.

So I limped around the house, eating leftovers, cleaning up runaway rice, taking out the garbage, trying to find every way possible to bend over or squat down or get on hands and knees while wondering what I’d done to myself, waiting for the Ibuprofen to kick in.

We didn’t check on the kitties yesterday, and don’t think I didn’t notice that you noticed. You noticed. I know. This is the most popular feature on the website.

Phoebe has developed the habit of needing to be on the bathroom counter anytime I go through there. The easier for me to pet her, I suppose.

We have also come to the time of year where Poseidon has discovered a personally imperative need to be under a blanket. Any blanket near you will do. Body heat is important.

Sometimes it has been cool enough that they’ll even get near one another, which is otherwise unusual for these too.

Phoebe would like it to happen less.

Back to the Re-listening Project, where we’re listening to all the old CDs, in chronological order. These aren’t reviews, but just for fun, like all of music.

“6th Avenue Heartache was released as a single in April of 1996 and got a lot of airplay as it climbed to number 10 on the Mainstream Rock Tracks, and eight on the Modern Rock Tracks. It had Jakob Dylan singing over a Hammond organ and in front of Adam Duritz’s charming background vocals. So I bought the record. “Bringing Down the Horse” climbed to number four on the US Billboard 200, and it topped the US Heatseekers Albums chart. (I did that!)

This was a time when I was pretty sure that the judicious use of a well-placed Hammond organ was the most brilliant thing you could do musically. This record didn’t disabuse me of that notion.

Turns out, you can use a lot of that organ before you wear it out.

This was a car album for me, but it’s hard to imagine this didn’t play around our place a lot. Upbeat honky tonk from Leo LeBlanc who played with John Prine, Bill Medley, Aretha Franklin, Jose Feliciano, Merle Haggard, Clarence Carter and approximately everyone else, besides.

Sadly he died just before this record was released.

Gary Louris and Michael Penn are among the other huge stars that sing on the thing, but I didn’t realize all of that until much later. See if you can pick them out here.

Louris, who we’ll later hear a lot is in this one.

When I wrap up the Re-Listening Project I should start a Re-Louris project. I’m curious if there’s anyone he can’t effortlessly harmonize with.

Meanwhile, Michael Penn, who’s music I listened to ad nauseam, as if to dissect every possible tonal nuance, is in this song.

Speaking of over and over, the next record is the first one I’ve gone back and listened to twice on the Re-Listening Project. That has to mean something.

adventures / art / history / photo / Tuesday — Comments Off
22
Nov 22

Claude Monet at the LUME

This is Camille Pissarro’s “The Boulevard Montmartre on a Winter Morning.” Or part of that 1897 work, anyway. Circumstances, and shooting from the hip, and just trying to get the part I wanted. And the point is to say, guess what we saw today?

That’s the clue, and so was the headline, I guess. But the answer is, the impressionists!

Here’s part of Monet’s “Water Lily Pond.”

But the museum trip wasn’t about paintings directly, but rather a digital introduction and interpretation. Art in the 21st century, remixing the old masters. (More on that tomorrow.) And getting photobombed in the transitional elements of the show.

There’s a part where you can take your picture on an iPad, and select a filter — a big hit pre-Instagram, I’m sure — and then have it displayed on the art wall. Here we are.

This is a small work of Paul Cezanne, “Landscape at Auvers.”

Cézanne was an innovator and influenced countless modern artists as he sought to both reflect nature and show his own response to it, whatever that meant at the time. His mentor was Pissarro, but he would eventually move away from the impressionist movement.

Edgar Degas is also an impressionist, but he also worked in sculptures, and this one is on display at the LUME. The one on the right, I mean.

This is “Dancer Moving Forward, Arms Raised” which was found in Degas’ studio and cast in bronze in 1920, a few years after his death.

Here’s another painting of Camille Pissarro’s. This is an oil on canvas, circa 1865. Pissarro is sort of the elder statesman of the impressionists, and the neo-impressionist movement. Oh, and also post-impressionism. Talent, longevity and a willingness to grow allowed him to cover a lot of 19th century bases. Now, if you aren’t particularly an art connoisseur, you might not be familiar with Pissarro, so let’s just say this. Over the course of four-plus decades, all of the artists of the era — Cézanne, Gauguin, Renoir, Seurat, van Gogh — were all influenced by the man.

Pissarro was a contemporary of Armand Guillaumin, and this is one of his works, the 1877 “Quai d’Austerlitz.” It shows the left bank of the Seine River in Paris where Guillaumin worked nights for the Bridges and Roads Department. Later he won the lottery, and decided to spend his time on landscape paintings. Excellent choice, moving on to things you love.

And this is Pierre-August Renoir’s “Bouquet in a Vase.” Big broad, rapid strokes. I wonder how long this sort of canvas took to complete in the hands of a master.

And since Claude Monet is the name on the event, here’s a Monet. This is “Charing Cross Bridge, London” a turn-of-the-century oil on canvas. You can tell without even reading the placard that this is Monet’s London.

He spent the Franco-Prussian War there, and he painted almost 100 paintings of the Thames during his time in smoggy London Town. Monet spent a lot of time playing with the light and the smoke and fog that gave the Big Smoke its reputation.

Group picture time! (This is just before the gift shop. Every thing in its place.)

I’ll have more from this fun Newfields exhibit tomorrow.

After dinner we went back to Newfields for Winterlights, and a quick walk through of the famous Lilly House. I was surprised to see this part of the house. They lifted this idea directly from my Pinterest page.

Here are some of the Winterlights. The big blue tunnel near the grand finale.

The weather was perfect. Everyone at Newfields was having a great time and full of the initial holiday cheer of the season. There will be a video or two from the lights show tomorrow, too. But it’s late, and, for now, I want to leave you with one final impression.

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8
Nov 22

We voted hard

We voted this morning. Took a quick trip to the local middle school where all of the sign holders were sunny and pleasant and one of the men running for local office was out greeting people at the 50-foot line. By the time we got our ballots I’d forgotten about them entirely. After walking 50 feet and then waiting 30 seconds to get my ballot, I’d forgotten all about those people.

The ballot here was front and back. One school funding referendum, one Senate and one House seat. There were a lot of local seats for council this, commission that. The jobs you seldom see campaigned for, because the campaign budget isn’t there, but the people in them impact the day-to-day business of this in a direct way.

We also had the opportunity to vote on whether two judges should be retained. It’s a system this state has used for a half century.

Once appointed, a judge must stand for retention at the first statewide general election after the judge has served for two full years. If retained, the judge is on the retention ballot every 10 years. The retention system is designed to allow appellate judges to decide cases fairly and impartially, free from campaign finance considerations, and without influence by partisan politics.

Everything is a tryout, I guess.

Tonight, the student-journalists are trying a new thing. The students from the television station presented a long collaboration with the newspaper students and the campus radio station. They covered the location elections from multiple locations, aired a special on the FM station and streamed live results and news on the web.

This is a big collaboration for them. It happened organically and, I think, that’s the best way. I’m very excited for what they’ve undertaken here, how it has played out and, mostly, for how I’ll get to brag on them after the fact.

Someone gets to be the cheerleader, and that person is me.