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IU / photo / television / video / Wednesday — Comments Off on Mrs. Cooley would be proud
27
Oct 21

Mrs. Cooley would be proud

I took this photo yesterday of a westerly-facing tree outside of our television studios and didn’t share it with you. Shame on me. The light was catching it so nicely, and everything. So here’s the westerly-facing tree.

Trees, of course, face all directions. That’s the sort of useful information that you keep coming back here for, I know.

And also this insight, a phrase I coined today, but a feeling that has long been on the mind of any expert who has ever talked about their craft to a non-expert.

Shortcuts used shouldn’t always be the shortcuts taught.

It had to do with a conversation about writing, and the root of it is the cliche, you have to know the rules so you can break the rules.

Or “learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist,” which is often attributed to Pablo Picasso, or “know the rules well, so you can break them effectively,” as the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso supposedly said. (And hasn’t the web ruined us on standalone quotes? I no longer believe anyone said anything, but that everything was said by Abraham Lincoln quoting Calvin Coolidge.)

I’m pretty sure I learned the theme from my algebra teacher, of all people. Learn the rules to break the rules. And that’s what algebra was like for me.

How I got through calculus and trig is something of an open mystery.

More time in the television studio tonight. It was the sports crew shooting tonight, and those shows will start to come online tomorrow.

Here are the news shows from yesterday, though. All the local that is news, and all the news that is local …

And the Halloween-themed show that I teased here yesterday …

Why do trees face all directions? It’s a question of survival to be prosperous. Tree branches grow to give the most leaves the most light, because light means they can run photosynthetic process. The rest is us being misanthropomorphic.

errands / friends / IU / memories / television / Tuesday / video — Comments Off on A day that always seemed difficult, but was actually easy
26
Oct 21

A day that always seemed difficult, but was actually easy

I went to the recycling center to drop off some expired fluorescent bulbs. (Our closets have fluorescent bulbs. I have questions.) There are … one, two, three, four, five recycling centers in this county. Of those five, only one accepts this sort of light bulb. It is not our usual recycling center, which is to say, the closest one. It is three miles away from that one, an improbable nine-minute drive. So maybe it’s the next closest, but when I got down there today …

Always read the website yourself, that’s what I’ve learned. And if you ever meet anyone in charge of the solid waste management office, ask about these seemingly arbitrary Open/Closed days.

So I went to Lowes, for the second time in three days, because that’s the way it works. Lowe’s is 6.4 miles and 12 minutes from that recycling center. And today I needed to pick up a toilet seat. Because I broke the one I’d installed just two months ago.

Whoever heard of that?

I walked down the correct aisle, around a slow-moving couple who were deliberately deciding among off-white bathroom fixtures, and found all of the toilet seats were blocked by a scissor lift. Eventually a person wearing the “I work here” red vest and the “but please don’t ask me about it” expression walked by. I asked her if she could move the store equipment. We discussed the issue and she found that what I wanted was only partially blocked, so she didn’t have to find a person to move the lift. She squeezed in between that and the aisle and grabbed the thing. That was easy.

Paid, walked out, thought about it and grabbed those light bulbs. Turns out Lowe’s accepts those for recycling. That was easy, too. A theme emerges.

I had lunch with my friend, and a former student, Auston Matricardi. He watches things, talks to people, assembles sentences and applies punctuation for a living.

He’s a sports writer. A pretty great one, too.

And the building behind us there is where I work, and where we met. He was also a sports broadcaster. He’s one of those people that’s capable of doing whatever is before him.

The sort that makes the rest of us jealous.

Videos from the studio … here’s the morning show. They talked to a tarot card reader. And they got a lot of tarot cards read. Then they visited a haunted house, and that part is highly amusing.

It’s a fun show, all new people, the crew is largely new, and they are coming into their own nicely.

And this show is brand new, one of two the student television station has launched this semester, a fun look at students making films.

And today they shoot the news shows. One, which I’m teasing here, had a Halloween theme.

You’ll see that tomorrow.

This evening I got home and removed the new broken toilet seat and installed the new new one. So scarred am I from recent projects that I feared the worst, but it was simple: remove two plastic screws on the old one and line up the parts for the two plastic screws of the new one.

I wonder if I can get my money back on a busted seat which is still well within the store’s general policy time. We’ll find out Thursday! (Update: I did.)

But there will be much more here tomorrow. Who knows what theme it will hold. Don’t miss out!

television / Thursday / video — Comments Off on Watch these
21
Oct 21

Watch these

Got home late today, but in time for the last walk of the day. You might recall that my lovely bride had a surgery last week. Last Thursday she was limping inside after our trip to the Cleveland Clinic for the procedure, a rare surgery involving muscles in the leg compressing one of the arteries. Every day since she’s been doing the in-home stretches and taking three walks a day, each getting a bit longer. She was also on campus Tuesday and today. Last week was on crutches.

The three-time Ironman’s proper physical therapy and rehab begins next week.

The television shows the television students produced last night are online now. And here they are. This is the sports highlight show.

And here’s the talk show, where they spent the evening focusing on the NBA and the WNBA.

And so it was after 8 p.m. that I left campus last night. A long day, a late night. And there’s another early morning and long night tomorrow. You’ll understand, then, that I’m cutting this short.

bespoke / history / photo / television / Twitter / video / Wednesday — Comments Off on Time — do not bend
20
Oct 21

Time — do not bend

Stepped outside at almost the right time this evening. This is looking west down Kirkwood, through IU’s photogenic Sample Gates. At their dedication in 1987 then-Vice President Kenneth Gros Louis said the gates an entrance to the campus, but “an entrance from the campus into the greater world, the world beyond the university, of which this institution is a part, hopefully as a major civilizing force, as the preserver and transmitter of the best that has been known and thought.”

He said, “(I)t is a coming in, never a going out – either coming into the campus, or from the campus, coming into the community. We can never leave either. We enter the community and centuries of knowledge guide us. We enter the campus and obligations, commitments, and relationships with all of society, impel us. We are always entering, always moving through these gates on a continuum.”

Isn’t that something? I think about that speech sometimes when I walk through there, entering the community and the centuries of knowledge. It’s sometimes a nice feeling, thinking of it as a continuum. And sometimes that whole manner of thinking can bring about any manner of feelings —

Hey! Check out those cool lights down Kirkwood!

Yes, they closed a few blocks of that road for pedestrians and street dining and the local merchants have liked it. Only a few parking spots were lost and it made for a generally much more relaxed attitude in a high traffic and incredibly high pedestrian area.

As the weather is turning colder, that will soon go away. Hopefully it’ll come back in … sigh … five or six months when things warm up again.

I made this gif today and I’m glad I thought to do it. I’m exceedingly proud of it. Also, Emma is great, too.

Here’s the news show they shot last night:

And this is the pop culture show, from whence I made a gif last night to put in this space. This is the show that interviewed the student government president, and you can see that here. He’s an impressive individual. And the whole show is pretty nice, too.

This is the second episode of the new show. I shared the debut here last week. This show is all freshman and sophomores. They’re finding their way and having some fun. I feel like that part shines through, too.

The daily duds: Pictures of clothes I put here to, hopefully, help avoid embarrassing scheme repeats.

New pocket square, old shirt, older tie.

But how about these mespoke cufflinks?

Nice compliment-to-contrast, if you ask me. Which you did not. But, then again, you are here and the question is implied.

I just googled that phrasing, compliment-to-contrast. Most of the uses are in a handful of different medical instances. There are two uses in an interior decorating context. The closest one to my use was in 2015, when a wedding photographer, talked about mist that creeped into a photo shoot.

So, clearly, I’ve coined a fashion term here.

That’s my style, and it is also today’s contribution to the continuum.

bespoke / IU / television / Tuesday / Twitter / video — 1 Comment
19
Oct 21

New tie Tuesday!

Back in the suits this week. Just another series of things to customize some kind of way. Just imagine this in the morning.

You do the regular stuff. Shower, shave, and so on. Then you slap in some fresh collar stays into your shirt. Fortunately, I did all of the week’s ironing last night. But I still have to get a tie that works with this suit. And then a pocket square that compliments (but only just) the tie. So, anyway …

The daily duds: Pictures of clothes I put here to, hopefully, help avoid embarrassing scheme repeats.

Oh, and you have to make your pocket square behave in whichever way you want it to today. I found a great page with 52 ways to fold a pocket square. I’ve probably used two dozen, have found some to gravitate toward and will soon be making it up, I’m sure.

After that, it’s the cufflinks. And which should we bring together? The tie or the pocket square?

It’s an additional sequence of events, is all. You have to remember all the things you don’t want to forget, and allot enough time for it.

We were in the studio this evening. There was the traditional news show and the pop culture show, where the president of the student government stopped by for a quick interview. And they discussed bones and no bones days.

(You’re going to hear all about that elsewhere later this week.)

Those shows will both be online tomorrow.

Speaking of studio stuff, here’s one of the entertainment productions. It was produced last Friday. And there’s apparently ghosts.

Now, the campus is supposedly haunted. (I’ve never been on that tour. I’m always working, it seems.) But the building that particular studio is in doesn’t have any ghost stories.

Yet. Sebastian and Mia could very well be making some good tales for us these next few weeks.

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