Yep, I’m ready for this to be over, too. And, finally, here we are.
Thirty-three percent of the people came to a morning meeting I run. And then there were two morning shows to oversee in the studio. That was interrupted by a tour. Immediately after I handed off the prospective new faculty member to someone else the singing show people stepped up with the latest news.
Two of the 18 people won’t be singing. That’s just live programming. Something will happen. But it requires a few changes to the script. So I had to go through the thing I set up yesterday and remove two people, and all the references to numbers. (The seventh contest was now the sixth, and the 11 was now the ninth and so on.)
This also allowed us to change the conclusion of the show, which was good. It was going to be too complicated, and this made it simpler.
And then suddenly it was time to do the show.
The singers came from campuses across the state, at least three of them. They were all good. Some of them were really quite spectacular. Goosebumps were given twice.
I wish I had the chance to photograph the other 11, but, again, they were all quite talented and they gave the judges a lot to work with.
The best part of the show is listening to the professional artists being so kind to the younger singers. Everything was a dose of encouragement.
There were two technical issues, and the usual sort of adrenaline a live show brings while you’re trying to wrap it up. Most importantly, everyone seemed pleased.
Before we’d even struck the studio they were already asking us to do it again next year.
Second-most importantly, I left campus at 5:30 today.
After 50.5 hours, eight shows, a field shoot, a photo shoot and meetings, editing, rewriting, meetings, tour-giving, other meetings and toner-fighting, the week was mercifully done.
The week that just keeps plodding on. But I’m feeling strangely refreshed after a mere 9.5-hour Thursday. After an 11-hour Wednesday, which followed an 11-hour-plus Tuesday that was preceded by a 10-hour Monday.
Best part of the day: It turned out that a meeting I had scheduled today is actually next Thursday, giving me an important hour back.
At 12:18 the script for tomorrow’s show finally came in, and I was able to devote my last free hours between now and then to putting it in the prompter. Also, another handful of people have been added to the two-hour program.
Also today, I did a field shoot. And I had a studio shoot, which I missed, because I had a photo shoot.
I crossed 40 hours for the week at about 5 p.m. feeling a special blend of tired from the last few weeks and focus on tomorrow that kept me from thinking of taking pictures of the guys taking pictures in the photo shoot.
Anyway.
Some of the students were shooting some sort of game show today. I didn’t see it, as I said, but some ceramic prop they brought got broke. I was told it was a piggy bank shaped like a giant basketball. Everyone seemed to think this was hilarious. I assume this will make it into the show, which will make its way online in due time.
For now, here’s one of the sports shows that crew shot last night.
Tomorrow: The big show! And other things! And then a weekend!
Another 11-plus hour day in the rowboat. Still waiting on the script for that television show I am producing on Friday. Of the particulars I know there will be singing; 18 people will sing separately; most of the music is in hand; apparently the music rights aren’t a concern; and at least 21 of the people that will be on camera have no studio show experience.
We’re going to have a great time!
I had to buy lunch, because I forgot to thaw out bread. It worked out, I wanted fries. So I got an inferior sammich from the place that has Several Dudes Incapable Of Making A Tasty Burger, But Nevertheless Do A Nice Job On The Fries.
They need to punch that name up.
I did the thing where you order online. I also did the thing where I selected the wrong store. The guy working though was great. He made my order for me again, was not put out by the effort of it at all, and didn’t even charge me, as I’d already paid their other local restaurant. I was most appreciative of all of this, an unnecessary level of service based on my own error, and a kindness I won’t forget.
I wish their burgers tasted like something, though.
There was a Zoom chat featuring two of our professors who have reported in Ukraine over the years, and a former grad student who is there today. Those presentations were incredibly interesting. And the grad student makes the second person I’ve “met” in Ukraine in a Zoom in the last week or so.
It’s hardly a family or friend thing, but now every day you’ll wonder about them. I see footage and find myself trying to figure out if that person in the background is someone that studied here. It must be terrible for all of those people who have loved ones in a place where a war is brought upon them — whether covered so extensively as this one will be, or not.
It’s interesting, the amount of realtime coverage, pared next to an abundance of people willing to tell stories like those two people. What we will hear will framed in the same ways conflict and humanitarian issues are often framed, as a media outlet’s story, a unit in the larger story. But with the ability, so long as Ukraine keeps their ability to communicate with the outer world, to hear from the people it is impacting is different. Refugees and death and strife are abstractions in large numbers.
When we had a chat with the former IU student last week we learned about what she was doing to distract her kid. When the former student we heard from today it was very much a conversation about his work, and how that’s evolving at the moment. The two professors who once reported in Ukraine talked about the culture, and about dealing with communist minders and hope.
All of it, together, paints a slightly better picture than any of it alone. Which is as good a way as any to lean into the fog of war, to say nothing about the copious amounts of propaganda and misinformation.
But there’s another interesting avenue to consider. The abundance of real expertise on … everything.
This is a thread that will explain the implied poor Russian Army truck maintenance practices based on this photo of a Pantsir-S1 wheeled gun-missile system's right rear pair of tires below & the operational implications during the Ukrainian mud season.🧵
This guy, who was a defense contractor, has an opportunity to explain some stuff to us about mud and tires and roads and its utterly fascinating. Earlier, let’s say January, there was much discussed about the ideal time to invade Ukraine, and it came down to the seasons. It came down to mud. And now here we are.
In its finest form the Internet is a terrific place for us all to learn important or interesting things.
There were two sports shows tonight. Some of the sports guys were at the last home basketball game, and so the next line up was ready to step in and held things down admirably.
If the older guys aren’t careful the young guns will come for their jobs.
Those shows will be up tomorrow. Here are the programs the news team produced yesterday. First, the desk show. It’s short, but has some real quality, sincerity and a little gravitas to it.
Here’s the magazine show. Also, the two funny guys are back, with their funny jokes. That’s what is going on in the thumbnail.
And, after another 11-hour day, we are just 40 hours before the big program we’re producing on Friday. There’s a lot to do between now and then.
The day started bright and sunny, and the week is trending that way, according to the forecasts. I will see it in the morning, and that’ll be about all I see of it this week. There’s a lot going on, and it’ll be lighter than usual here.
So almost non-existent?
If you want to be cynical about it, dear straw man construct.
What would be the point of inventing this dialogue, otherwise?
To pad the post with paragraph breaks and an empty construct?
Who’s being cynical now? And on Monday, even.
Exactly.
It was a day full of meetings, most of them over Zoom. I don’t know if you’ve been in a meeting where the person in every Zoom window simultaneously raised their eyebrows and watched 10 pairs of eyes get wide simultaneously, but that happened in my first meeting of the day.
Someone mentioned something about a specific deadline on a particular project which pushed things up considerably. No one else was familiar with this date. I consulted two notebooks and my batch of post it notes and saw no such date. We decided maybe the speaker had misspoken. Perhaps he was thinking of another deadline for another project, and another group of people. It would be understandable, everyone has more than one project.
One of my large projects will wrap this week. I’ve been producing a singing contest show. And my last meeting of the day was with the organizers of that event. We have the names of the contestants now. Eighteen will enter, 10 will advance to the finals. Fortunately, I do not have to produce the finals. I spent three-and-a-half hours on the semifinals this thing, going over details we should have well in hand by now. But at least some of them are in, so I can finally write the show’s rundown. Another meeting on this tomorrow, and more all week. At some point all of the music will come in. And the scripts. And the entire speaker’s list. At least I have a crew for the show.
We have hit none of the deadlines I established for this project. It will still be better organized than when we did this same event last year.
Here’s a show the students posted this weekend. I like the shows like this, where the crew working on it just seem to be having a ton of fun.
They, and their fellow IUSTV crews, will produce at least six studio shows this week. It’s a delight to watch them grow.
Anyway, I left the office at 7:30 tonight and, yes, I am keeping score.
Let’s check in on the cats, as we so often do on Mondays. Phoebe found some morning sun and proves once more that it’s a pretty good life to be a cat in this house.
Poseidon would agree, except I framed this so that his sister said it. So, to be difficult, he would probably find fault with that, and try to bite her. It’s a good thing he’s occasionally charming, I tell him, he can be a trying cat.
Not that you’d ever know it from handsome looks like that.
(I have to play this cool and dish out some compliments. He’s sitting next to me as I type this.)
After hours cake in an after-hours newsroom. I passed through the campus paper’s office as they were wrapping up the 155th birthday celebration of the IDS. Think of that, a student newspaper for 155 years! I have a reprint of the original front page, and, today, I had the last piece of cake.
Didn’t taste a day over 135 years old.
Also this week we learned that one of the writers of that august publication was a finalist for a prestigious national Hearst Award, continuing a 12-year consecutive streak of having a finalist or winner from IU. Also, the current editor-in-chief of the paper was named the photojournalist of the year by the Indiana News Photographers Association.
Furthermore, we learned that a podcast two of our interns worked on are nominated for an NAACP Image Award this weekend.
Other students were raising money for a high school newsroom this week. Game design students saw the video game debut at Steam’s Next Fest, and still more game design students rolled out their game for sale this week.
Fight devious rats! Get hired by using your demon powers!
