So there I was Tuesday night, washing dishes later than I should have been. Everyone had retired for the evening, but one of the cats came back to see what all this noise in the kitchen was about. As I was scrubbing I didn’t really pay attention to his approach, but he’s got two or three options available to him. However he chose to get there, I looked up, and there was the cat directly above the sink.
Sometimes a light will flash on the ceiling, and that will amuse and astound him, being a cat. Last night, however, I decided to hold the sponge up close to him and squeeze out the water into the sink, so he could see it from above. He’s one of those cats that likes water, so this was a captivating experience. We did this a few times, which lead to a series of photographs.
Why that didn’t wind up in yesterday’s post you’ll just have to solve for yourself.
Tonight we had a dinner and a movie date with colleagues. It was via Zoom. (Zoom has really helped our social lives!) One of them works in our school and the other is in Global and International Studies. We were going to watch a comedy, and instead we just wound up talking for hours and hours.
I was talking when it became obvious that the call was over.
Isn’t that always the way?
People who are still staying indoors — people who have both the ability and desire to do so, that is — are eager for contact. Some of them are talking to me after all. But no one has figured out how to wind down a video call yet. But when those nonverbals kick in … that’s when you can tell.
I wonder if anyone has decided the optimal number for such an interaction. We’ve basically been developing a wholesale interpersonal culture from scratch. Sure, the technology for this has been around, and yes, some people have used it professionally and even some personally, but the wholesale adoption is a different thing. Even if we’re diffusion of innovation laggards — and I’d say we are early or late majority at most — we’ve got to figure this out. Is this a meeting where one person talks to others? Will there be slides and someone droning on and on? Should I mute? Are we using the text chat or not? Do you have to stay backlit the entire time? Are we just being friendly? And isn’t that better than a work video meeting? Are we more, or less, courteous in crosstalk? And why do I keep pointing at things on my screen like I think you can see them?
I haven’t seen any Facebook Portal ads in a while, come to think of it, which is perfectly fine. You’d think they’d be everywhere, having come to market at just the right time. Maybe they are fighting it out over how Facebooky they have to be right now, who knows.
If they promised me only the Muppets could call me, and that the Muppets would answer when I called them, I’d buy one.
photo / running / video / Wednesday — Comments Off on I almost had to use the “overwriting” category here. Almost. 27 May 20
Here’s a little video clip I shot on a walk last weekend. Things just land in your phone and it’s easy to forget about them amid the rapidly accumulated photos and duplicates and, who are we kidding, we’re never trimming these things down to manageable numbers.
While you watched that I removed 15 photos from my camera roll.
There are now 3,958 photos on my camera roll. Even if I could, even if I wanted to delete 15 shots a day — and after a few days you start talking about some real choices, right? — I’d have an empty phone in just under 10 months.
Still, phones are better than wallet photos. And there’s just so many you can scroll through!
The next time you’re with some people, whenever that is, time how long it takes for someone to whip out a phone for kid or pet pics or to show you the meme they found on the way over. It’s startling. Phones come out much faster than wallets ever did. We are a visual society in almost every respect.
Pro tip: Words? Written words are visuals too.
See?
Now, you could say the word quickly loses all meaning, and you’d be right. I would say there was a severe oxygen deprivation going on yesterday’s run and that, furthermore, it is bad design to prove a point. There are 10 different fonts there, which is seven to 10 more than necessary, depending on who you ask. They are thrown together all slapdash just so I could flesh this out with another paragraph or two. I would also be correct.
We’re into the silly season now — a season we never seem to leave anymore — and so we’d do well to remind ourselves that two people can disagree with one another but still share common cause, find ourselves with different ranked priorities, but still behave with common accord and that there are often times degrees or even kinds of accuracy. It’s not a question of whether the sky is blue or the grass is mauve, but how many fonts you see there.
And if you see 10, you are also mistaken, because that doesn’t allow for the national triathlon championship fonts on the hat, which are blurry to the point of being obscure. Sometimes, when we are right, we are wrong, because we don’t know or see it all. It’s a difficult thing to acknowledge, one’s impenetrable personal surety. It’s a pride thing, a fear of weakness thing, an inability to show vulnerability thing, a tedious thing.
Sort of like this run was tedious!
(Phew! That was a close one, no?)
I didn’t even record the run in my app, because my app failed. We can both agree that the app was not right. We can also agree, because I will bear to you this testimony: it was not a good run on my part, but it did complete the standard issue neighborhood 5K and change.
Today I had a fast bike ride, so I’ve got that going for me.
All of that sun on Sunday was so nice and lovely, but the passing shadows told the tale. When I stopped taking pictures of the birds it was because the sun had scooted beyond the houses and was focusing on something else. A chill took over from the sun. Because that’s going to be the natural conclusion of things around here in May. I went inside because I was shivering.
And yesterday, Monday, I went on a bike ride and shivered some more. It remains the second week of May and jackets are required.
It was a quick and short ride. Today, a short and slow run. First time out in a while, dashing off a casual little 5K:
Because if you asked me to actually work through a 5K right now I could only laugh at you.
We talked the performing arts! Dance! Theatre! Musicals! I mentioned a classic Italian and sounded learned:
Of course, it is a conversation with the chair of a high quality program, so we know who the real learned person was. These conversations are fun, but here soon, as the reopening begins, or continues, or begins to continue, we’ll have to start thinking about some of these are framed. Which is just as well. We’ve had about 15 of these sorts of episodes now and a little change of pace is called for.
Which is why it’s cold, and I’m shuffling on slow neighborhood runs. See? The pace, she changes.
I’m getting to the point where I could do for some change. Thursday will mark nine weeks at home. That’s a lot, and I’m a homebody. One mustn’t complain overmuch. We have our health, and the health of our loved ones. We are still working. And sure, we have missed out on some activities, but those are relative inconveniences. It is easy to get caught up on the personal inconveniences. It should be easier, still, to maintain one’s perspective. I read that story about cruise ship crews and I think of the few I’ve been on, and the gracious and kind people who spend their lives working hard and working long hours for small amounts of money to make sure people have a wonderful experience, and this is happening in their office. It’s a terrible thing. My office is all-but-closed and we’re working from home offices. And, if that gets too stuffy, I move to the living room, or the kitchen island, or the deck as I did one day, or the front porch as I did another day. So I’ll stay quiet about what I need. My chief complaint, then, is the weather, which is out there while I’m in here. What I can complain about is inconsequential at the moment.
I sat on the deck all afternoon Sunday, I had a bike ride yesterday, a run today, and tomorrow it will be cold again. I’ll have a Zoom meeting or two. We’ll read about something sad that has happened somewhere, and something sweet and endearing that took place elsewhere. I’ll probably watch something I have had in a queue for a while. It’ll be Wednesday. (Or so I’m told.) And it’s all downhill from there. Patience and grace.
It started because of the cardinals. I was on my walk, because it was a run day and I didn’t want to run, so I took a walk, and on my walk I saw two cardinals. Fighting? Playing? Play fighting? Doing an intricate dance that tells the tale of their tribe? Anyway, there they were.
I got as close as possible, which is never close enough because I only had my phone on me. And the video is, well, it’s a phone video. But cardinals are awfully vivid and bold, aren’t they?
Shouldn’t that be a saying? It’s as good as “It is what it is.” It’s like saying you went to the grocery store and they had paper products, but not the soft good stuff, just some store-brand thing you’ve never seen before with a reasonably fine grit, in a pinch. “Hey, it’s a phone video.”
Anyway, the cardinals got me off the path and into the low brush and then I saw these flowers.
By then I’m down by the creek which will never not have a draw on me. And after a time walking on both sides of the creek I walked out of the woods, crunching leaves and snapping dead branches on the ground, and some guy who’s out walking his dog hears me and stops.
When I get close enough he says “Hunting for ‘shrooms?”
This is a question that’s a Rorschach Test, or maybe even just a straight up autobiographical clue. You tend to think people are doing what you’d be doing. Which is why I’d just assume that guy was down enjoying the rocks and the sounds of the creek. When, really, he’d be down there looking for mushrooms.
And then he walked away.
I’ve heard from friends who are looking for people to just interact with, and reading even more stories like that. This guy must not have that concern. Imagine craving human contact and, finding your chance, your first thought is to inquire about the fungi.
Best thing I did today? I got back into the yard from my walk and I decided to stretch out in the grass. The weather was nice and it’s almost starting to feel like it could soon become something of a constant. The grass is nice and lush. I pulled my hat over my eyes and my hands behind my head and closed my eyes and listened to the birds.
If you have the opportunity to recline in some lush grass and doze off while listening to the birds and the breeze I highly recommend it.
And, a little while later, I woke myself up with a little snore. The breeze was delightful. There were no insects to bother me. It was the perfect moment, stretched and compressed within a half hour or so. This is something that should happen more often, I think. And it’s all within reach. What an idea!
From work, students are sharing their graduation pictures. Cap and gown photos must be taken. That’s creating big crowds, from what I understand, in the traditional photo spots, even if they aren’t getting an actual ceremony. I feel for them about the latter, but the former is a concern. If only there was some way for people to learn the new rules of the road.
Social cues and overcoming instinct and habit are going to be a considerable issue going forward.
Meanwhile, at least two of my former students here have heard today that they were nominated for Emmys. That’s very exciting for anyone, but to be in there in year three of your career must be another thing altogether. And while they deserve all the credit because of the quality of their work, we can only rightfully assume it was our instruction that got them there.
I interviewed an epidemiologist today. It’ll be a podcast tomorrow. And also some video clips for television, which meant more time playing in new software. There’s always something new to learn. This is something that people should say more often, I think.
It was a fine interview with important information and it felt productive. That’s a win.
One of our god-nieces will soon celebrate her birthday. Her big sister — and I think they have the dynamic where they work and play well together, while also each delighting in pushing the other’s buttons, but if one of them gets picked on by someone else there will be H- E- double-hockey-sticks to pay — asked us to make a video. It was a sweet thought by an older sister, and so we made a little video.
We would have made the video anyway, because the kid can’t have a proper birthday party under stay-at-home orders, but mostly I want to point out how awesome the pre-teen is in all of this. They’re both swell, really. Cool kids, except for the pushing-each-others-buttons part, but I understand that’s part of the sibling deal.
Anyway, all of that to say there were multiple takes of this video. And there were outtakes. Here is one clip, and to honor the motif of multiple takes, I have uploaded and deleted and re-uploaded several different versions of this, which is brilliant in a meta-sort of way.
Right after this The Yankee says “I didn’t know which key to start in.”
Kazoos, y’all.
And then she asks if I want to start the video over again, because she’s considerate like that. I got to use one of my most recent trusty throwaway lines. I can handle it; I’m a professional.
It was funny and we’re still giggling about it and I could watch her laugh all day.
Besides, if you don’t emerge from their stay-at-home orders without at least a half-dozen new stories and three traditions and 15 new inside jokes then you’re just not enjoying your time.
Let’s look at the paper. We’re falling through a rift in the Internet’s space-time continuum, which intersects with so many rabbit holes, and we’re falling out, oddly enough, in this same town, on this same date, 111 years ago, 1909.
Yes, friends, people read the newspaper, even when it looked like this. And, for 1909, and for a very basic rag such as the Evening World, this has a lot of design elements on the front page. And front page ads! ¡Qué horror!
People were starved for information, as you’ll see, or they just wanted to take a break from whatever else they had to do, so they pored over every word. Like … the only sports story, and one of the few news pieces in the whole paper.
It goes on like that for a while. Coach Roach didn’t say the victors, in-state rival Purdue, were better at baseball. His players were just distracted, see. Wommins. Perfume. Fluffy clothes. Have you seen their corseted figures? And also the fans, including the “girls,” which are fine enough for a university, should have been there to cheer his men on the diamond. His lovestruck, distracted men.
Skel Roach played professional baseball for 10 years, including one game in the bigs, for the Chicago Orphans, which was three years prior to a newspaper re-nicknamed them the Cubs. And, you know, baseball is wild about statistics … let’s see if we can take a quick detour … Orphans beat the Washington Senators 6-3 in his one game. Roach was the winning pitcher. He threw a complete game, which didn’t even merit mention back then, he allowed three runs on 13 hits and was never seen again. Couldn’t agree on a salary with the club. He got shipped to the Orphans because their star pitcher was hurt. He was 27 at the time, and he played for six more years, but that was his high water mark as a player, a career that tallied 133 wins in the minors and across the prairie leagues. He coached throughout the midwest, studied the law and practiced in Chicago.
He got married just two months after this story about lovey dovey players not being hardened enough for matters of sport was published. It was his first year on campus, and he’d stay for three seasons, practicing law in Chicago around the demands of baseball. Apparently his time at IU marked the Hoosiers’ first success on the diamond, this criticism notwithstanding. He’d go on to practice law for 35 years and serve several terms as a judge in Illinois. He died in 1958.
Edwin Shelmadine was fighting for himself, and everyone like him. And he wasn’t going to give up.
Congress approved the increase for Shelmadine the previous March alongside a host of other veterans and widows. He was upgraded to $30 a month. His obituary talks about how he was hanging on to sign that first pension check, taking medicine he didn’t like to live for that happy moment, and he did, but only just. He went out for a buggy ride that same day with a friend and died.
His unit, the 48th Regiment of the Indiana Infantry, fought at Vicksburg, Chattanooga, Missionary Ridge, was a part of Sherman’s March to the Sea and the Carolinas Campaign. I wonder how many of those he was a part of.
Curious thing: the roster for the unit lists an Edward Shishmadine, who mustered in as a private in December 1861 and left as a sergeant in 1865. His obit, where he’s Edwin Shilmade, (just like the paper and the Congressional record) says he mustered into the service in October 1861. What’s a few months and a completely different name at a remove of 58 years?
Shelmadine was a shoemaker. His obit tells us he had three wives. His first died during the war, then came a separation and his last wife survived him. Apparently he met all three in the same house. Presumably not at the same time.
I wonder what people from 1909 would think about the steps you have to undertake to offload a house these days:
Here’s that spot in the summer of 2014:
I wonder if it is any of those houses. Probably not.
Anyway, more from this paper after an advertisement from … the same paper …
Royal merged with Fleischmann’s and a few others to create the giant Standard Brands on the way to becoming the modern version of Nabisco in 1981. Royal is still marketed today.
Those are the most interesting things on the front page. Told you it was a rag. Well, there was a criminal conviction. A gentleman found his wife and another man in a hotel, which probably means a rough shack just off the road in 1909. He killed the other guy and pleaded insanity. Six of the jurors agreed, but the other three weren’t buying it and manslaughter was listed as a compromise conviction. His name was Good, even if neither he nor his wife particularly were at the fateful moment. But I don’t know what happened to him after his conviction and his wife isn’t name. No story, no clipping. And, really, that completes the interesting portion of the front page.
Let’s go inside!
Page two is a serial part of a feature following Theodore Roosevelt’s African safari. It’s literally history in the sense that, if you’ve read Roosevelt, or about him, you know that material. (If you haven’t, I recommend Edmund Morris’ Roosevelt trilogy. There aren’t many people, even presidents, who deserve that much copy from one author, but Roosevelt may, and Morris is the man for the job. Terrific work.) Moving on!
Page two also had a piece about a princess of Prussia who had to soon decide on a husband. Her family was going to be out of power soon anyway and she spent the rest of her days making socialite-style appearances and I’m sure it was all very lovely and worthwhile to the people in this area as there were a fair amount of German immigrants, but it seems a bit odd and gossipy, today, to speculate on a 16-year-old girl’s marital ambitions.
But this … There must have been some story here.
There’s just something so precise about this little brief. Not just the chairs, but the 114 of them. And there’s something so declaratively stern about that. It’s almost like the paper is saying “We’re too chuffed to bring it up again, but you know what happened, dear reader.” Surely people read about this in a previous issue.
It’d be a fool’s errand to try to figure out what happened, or whatever became of the chairs.
I’m not that foolish.
Page three had a serial installment of a book that was published in 1902. Why people are reading about it here, in the paper, in 1909 escapes me. They could just as easily order it from Amazon. The chapter in this edition of the paper is about a guy loading up a board of directors. And the book is called The Minority, so I just assume it goes on and on for pages about proxy votes and what not. None of the dialog is particularly interesting, so I won’t quote it. But, if you’re intrigued by my description …
The back page of the paper has a lot of those society listings which just seem to grow more odd to our modern eyes with every passing year. This note was one of them.
No idea what became of St. John, but I am sure she was a proud mother. Regester graduated from law school in 1905, ran for judge a few times and finally sat on the bench late in his career. He was also a state lawmaker and just had the look of an important man.
I wonder if you had to pay extra for all of that stuff around your ad:
Several new stores had recently opened. Most of the proprietors only shelled out for the brief text mentions. Not these guys.
No idea how long their store lasted. They had a great spot though, two blocks from the courthouse at the center of it all. There’s an auto parts place there now.
Did someone say biscuits?
If that illustration makes you uncomfortable, welcome to the precursor of General Mills! Gold Brand started after they won some big flour awards in 1880, so the label still had a meaning, perhaps. So grand is General Mills’ reach that on Wikipedia the subhead “Aeronautical Research Division and Electronics Division” comes before the diversification subhead.
All of it started with a guy who was a soldier and a businessman and a politician and had a great name, Cadwallader Colden Washburn, who worked alongside a businessman with a very regular-sounding name, John Crosby. They built something big. One of their successors, a Minnesota man named James Ford Bell, got the job the old-fashioned way, nepotism. Bell started working there in 1901. When his old man died in 1915 he became the vice president. In 1928 Bell started General Mills. He’d also play a part in Herbert Hoover’s European Hunger Relief Mission in 1918, worked in the FDA and perfected the look of a gangster. There’s a library and a museum at his university named after him. Big duck hunter too.
You know what sounds like a duck call, if you work at it a great deal? Kazoos.
