Five years ago, I took this photograph. This is Ernie Pyle’s statue, just outside of our building on the IU campus.
These days, the celebrated reporter’s desk is one floor above my office at The Media School. He’s the patron saint of journalism around here. Today is now recognized Ernie Pyle Day, and this is the fourth one. (Today is his birthday.)
Today, to the literal minute, I took this photograph of the Ernie Pyle statue. Not much has changed. In some respects, a lot of things have changed.
But things are changing still. That’s the way of it.
Eight years ago this very week we visited The Newseum, it was still in D.C., and we saw Pyle’s old Corona typewriter. He carried it into Europe and the Pacific islands and typed his World War II stories right there.
Now this typewriter, Pyle’s Underwood, is on display here in Franklin Hall. That and more of his effects, his field jacket, his entrenching tool, a pipe and other items, are on display just around the corner.
I’ve been reading The Good Years, by the great Walter Lord. It’s a 1960 casual overview, something longer than the a Reader’s Digest version of history, a chapter-by-chapter read on key moments of the first part of the 20th century. Last night, for example, I read the 24-page chapter on the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and the subsequent fire.
Go ahead and play this while you read on.
Prominently figuring into that chapter is Enrico Caruso, the tenor you are listening to right now. He was visiting California with New York’s Metropolitan Opera for a production of Carmen.
He stars in a great apocryphal story about the disaster — some version of it you’ve run across before, even if it wasn’t San Francisco and Caruso — which you can read here:
It was one of those great moments in history that never actually happened: According to one legend, Enrico Caruso was in San Francisco during the earthquake of 1906, staying at the Palace Hotel. As people panicked and chaos ensued in the aftermath, the great tenor appeared — some said on the balcony of his hotel room, which didn’t exist — and sang an aria to calm the masses.
Or not.
I just learned that he died 100 years ago, to the day. Here’s the August 02, 1921 Evening Star from Washington D.C.
And I’ve reworked that long column to make this a bit more convenient for the web.
Coverage continues, on page 19:
The obit continues, “it seemed as if the very heavens today mourned the tenor’s loss, for scarcely had there appeared on the streets the first extras telling of his death than it became dark as night. Great clouds, heavy with rain, draped the skies.”
The piece details, at great length, that the famed tenor fell ill at Christmas, 1920. Caruso struggled with his health for eight months, including a trip back to his native Italy from the United States. He had several surgeries and struggled to recover — reports of his few public appearances varied, he looked in good spirits, but thin and unwell. Reports were that he’d never sing again.
He refuted that as long as possible.
And why not? The man, in all of his power, sounded like this.
A hundred years to the day … timing worthy of an opera star.
One of the first truly global superstars, he recorded 247 commercially released recordings from 1902 to 1920. This is thought to be his last one.
One production note … High fidelity wasn’t introduced until about 1925. All of the tenor’s recordings were made with an acoustic process — Caruso sang into a metal horn and the sound was transferred directly to a master disc via a stylus. He was one of the first artists to embrace the technology, others soon did when they saw his record sales. But the process shared only a part of his gift with his fans: the acoustic process captures only a limited range in the singing voice. Even still.
The kitties don’t seem to be fans of tenors. They’ve heard me sing enough that, I’m sure, no classically trained artist is going to turn them around.
But they are fan of attention! It was belly-rub-o’clock when I walked by Phoebe here:
And it was “Don’t stop petting me thirty” here:
Poseidon hanging out in his tunnel. He likes opera. He simply has the right attitude for it:
He also likes staring out of the windows:
I wonder what aria he’s thinking about as he studies the side yard. (‘O sole mio, definitely.)
I spend my fair share of time reading about presidents. I enjoy digging up the definitive biographies because the good ones, as much as anything, become about the times, and the people around the man. And somewhere in all of that you find a few repeating themes. One of them is that a lot of things are just frustratingly beyond the control of the White House, no matter what they’d have you believe. This means, of course, that presidents generally take a bit more credit than they deserve for larger national events, and they receive a bit more blame than they deserve for them, too. Another theme that repeats is that the good ones know who they’re speaking to: simultaneously their constituency and history.
There’s another theme we cling to a lot, as Americans, and it shows up in those not-exactly-hagiographies. It’s a part of the American myth that’s not universal, nor transferrable across time or issues. It’s one part of our American optimism this notion that, sometimes, a man meets the times.
I was thinking of that when I was watching this speech today. It’s not perfect, and heaven knows people will disagree on things big and small. But if there’s anyone on the national stage that can speak credibly about empathy, this president is one of those men.
It’s a man who understands his moment. Whether it moves the needle, or even just loosens the screw that’s holding the needle down, remains to be seen, of course. But it’s clear, particularly in the ninth minute and sprinkled throughout, that the president’s writing team knows their man’s strengths.
(The other idea that keeps recurring is that none of them are as good as you thought. A few of them are as tough as you’d imagine. One or two are even bold. Most just really want to hold serve, and try to do well by people. And then there’s Andrew Johnson … )
Meantime … the local mask advice that will be listened to, or dismissed, according to each and their own.
I pulled all of this together right after Cleveland announced their new team name. I like these montages and appreciate the work that goes into these rollouts. In this case they’re doing nothing less than staking out their new identity in front of a multinational audience. It’s no small thing, and worthy of a bit of study.
(And if you think this is nerdy, ask me about the breakdown I used to do with the more effective Super Bowl spots as a classroom exercise.)
Anyway, I let this sit and breathe for a few days. I watched the video again and was pleased with my off-the-cuff impressions. And since I don’t have anything good for you here, please enjoy the new Cleveland Guardians video.
"City on the rise" and "forging into the future from our ironed out past."
You know what's coming, right?
And then a lot of local cultural color: city of fire and water, blue collars, scholars, and roots. pic.twitter.com/C5yWQQ3KYm
You've got specific-instance references. Anyone could figure it out, inferring with a bit of baseball acumen and the matching visuals, but this insider stuff solidifies the third person subjective and possessive.
As an aside, and a matter of taste: I'll argue all day long that Tom Hanks doesn't get his due for his powers as a voiceover artist. Initially, I thought he was the wrong person for this.
More on Twitter, check me out on Instagram and did you know that Phoebe and Poseidon have an Instagram account? Phoebe and Poe have an Instagram account.
Friday / IU / site / Twitter / video — Comments Off on A fresh new front page look, and lots of video here 23 Jul 21
There’s a new look to the front page of the website. You’re going to want to check that out. It’s another small little reminder of our trip to Washington State last month. These images will stay in place for two or three weeks, so be sure to visit the front page early and often. For now, just click the image below and you’ll be on your way in another tab.
There are seven nice images there. Did you see them all? Did you count? Make sure you saw all seven.
One of them is, admittedly, a bit of a miss. That’ll teach me!
A thing we do here every few weeks is look at some of the things I’ve thrown on a work account. I need a special banner or a cute name for this, but, for now, it’s just another place I can show off a bit of cool research that people are done. Also, it pads out this post.
"Cellphone access should be a social resource, not just an economic one," says @IUMediaSchool's @YyjHarry, co-author of a 7-month study that draws a line from access to well-being.
