Wednesday

IU / photo / video / Wednesday — Comments Off on No time for titles
2
Mar 22

No time for titles

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.

(The first was another grad student, last week.)

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 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.

IU / photo / television / Twitter / video / Wednesday — Comments Off on It’s a Wednesday
23
Feb 22

It’s a Wednesday

I know, I know, I haven’t shown off the kitties yet this week. Let’s fix that right away! I know! I know! Some of you come here specifically for that.

Phoebe has been enjoying some extra blanket time in the chilly weather.

But Poseidon found some sunshine and contented himself with catching some rays.

He is not happy with my work schedule. Far too much time in the office, not enough time petting him.

And Phoebe says I should stop working at home.

They might be on to something, I don’t know.

One of those not-sure-how-it-got-away-from-you days, but there it was, full and complete and long and mildly interesting. After the day of editing and emails and meetings and Zooms, it was time for a night in the studio. Tonight was a sports night.

Those two shows will be up tomorrow. I’ll share them here then, of course. But, right now, I can show you the shows the news division did last night. Here’s the regular news show. It’s a nice, short, tight newscast with tons of information, well packed and delivered.

And here’s the magazine style show.

More tomorrow. Until then, did you know that Phoebe and Poseidon have an Instagram account? Phoebe and Poe have an Instagram account. And keep up with me on Twitter, but don’t forget my Instagram. There are also some very interesting On Topic with IU podcasts for you, as well.

books / history / IU / journalism / photo / Twitter / Wednesday — Comments Off on The downhill of Wednesday
16
Feb 22

The downhill of Wednesday

Another day hanging out with the great Ernie Pyle. I wonder what he’d say to me today, if he could.

He’d say “I’m almost 122 years old. What do you want from me? And why are you hanging around this statue anyway? Maybe you could go write something.”

The joke is on him. I’m mostly editing today.

I had to give a tour today, actually, and I walked our guest by the little display of Ernie Pyle artifacts, which is when I always say he grew up in a small place about 80 miles to the west. His dad was a tenant farmer there, and the town of Dana was bigger then (population 893) than it is today (population 570).

Then, as now, it’s a sleepy rural community. Today Dana is still a farming community, but maybe also a commuter’s exurb.

If you travel down Maple Street, the one road that the Google Maps car visited in Dana in 2008, you’ll see this.

I did not mention that to our visitor from Chicago, but only because I had to discuss the Roy Howard papers, the Cold War photographs and the paintings from the university’s collection that adorn nearby walls.

A look in the control from this evening’s sports shoots.

They produced two shows tonight, of course. The highlight show, which included segments on the upcoming games, a historic Black Hoosier athlete and this week’s athlete of the week.

They’ve been adding all kinds of elements to that show. And, of course, there’s also the talk show. They discussed Indiana baseball and Indiana softball, which are both kicking off their seasons this week.

Those two shows will be up later this week, and I’ll share them here.

Until then, here’s a look at a few of the other IUSTV shows that they’ve put online in the last day or so. (They keep very busy!)

Here’s the pop culture and campus events show. There’s a subtle little thing in the interview that most people won’t catch, but I was especially proud of, and a new segment that’s just about jokes.

And here’s the news show. I think everything in this episode was done in one take. Easy, casual. Just needs more.

And here’s the film show, which I teased in this space last week.

And that gets us through most of the day, which was an easy 10-hour work day. After the last few works of busyness two 10-hour days in a row doesn’t seem that challenging.

If you find yourself saying things like that “You must ask yourself, ‘Why?’”

I will celebrate by reading myself to sleep. Back to reading Kluger. I got this book for Christmas a few years ago. I read most of it last year, but set it down for some reason or another. As I wrote about a third of the way through it …

I’m in the last 50 or so pages now, and we’re actually in the trial. This is an insightful treat. It’s early-18th century colonial America, the printer has published some mean things about a governor and that’s against the rules in a way that seems draconian to modern American sensibilities. But we learn that, even then, the legal system of the day was still wrestling with the philosophical nature of truth. How can you decide what libel is without understanding what truth might be. It’s a narrowly defined world.

Kluger has the records of trial, and he’s quoting the lawyers verbatim. Some of the themes they were wrestling with then are reflective of the arguments being made right now in Sarah Palin’s lawsuit against the New York Times. Whereas today it seems the court is weighing what appears to amount to negligence brought on by deadlines against the legal concept of libel, the judges in the Zenger trial are tasked with trying to decide whether carefully written and coded letters published in a backwater colonial newspaper could cause a king to lose confidence in his government officials.

The way the law was framed and the arguments made in such a way that the king seems was a delicate flower, and that his fragility was to be protected at all times. A convenient political and legal cover of the times, I’m sure. The published letters weren’t about the king, but rather about his appointed governor of New York (who was often appointed just to get him out of London, it seems). And since, as Kluger demonstrates, the governor was slotting judges into this trial in the hopes of getting a desired outcome, maybe the letter writers had a point.

Gov. Cosby had been a military officer of some success, married well, and then worked his way up to being appointed the governor of a small Mediterranean island. A personal gains scandal eventually followed him there, and in New York and New Jersey there were salary issues, and oppression and some land problems. Typical colonial stuff, the things that, just a generation later, led to revolution. So you wonder what became of all of these people’s grandsons.

Oh, the letter writers were some of Zenger’s legal representation.

There’s not a moment of Euro-American history in New York that doesn’t work like this, I’m convinced.

IU / photo / television / video / Wednesday — Comments Off on Another 11 hour day
9
Feb 22

Another 11 hour day

A meeting started the morning. We discussed manually propelled water vessels. I spent much of the rest of the day writing and editing and re-writing, and also doing social media things.

Speaking of social media, which we weren’t doing at all, I decided to show off my own homemade bread!

I kid, of course. But since I had soup for lunch on Monday and Chick-fil-A takeout yesterday, it was back to the PB&J today. I thought if I made a bad homemade bread joke on Twitter I might someone game the algorithm.

Alas, the algorithm was on to me. Should have used more yeast for my sourdough.

Thankfully the sandwich held up until I could eat it at 1:30. That seems outlandish, but I didn’t have my breakfast Nutri-Grain bar until after 11. There’s a lot of rowing — meetings and doorway meetings and many emails and phone calls — to be done, you see.

I did step outside for 45 seconds to see people are more aware of sunlight than florescent light.

They are in a field production class, and I hope they got it in before the sun set on them. They were facing the west, after all.

To the studio!

They were shooting sports tonight. And outside the studio I ran into Olivia Ray, one of our alumni. She works in Indianapolis now as a sports reporter there. Graduated here five years ago and is now teaching a class. I remember critiquing her senior-year demo reel my first y ear here.

Time flies.

She met with some of today’s students, serendipitously a sports shoot. And while those shows will start to appear online tomorrow, I can show you the news shows their peers shot last night.

Everyone going the same direction here?

And now it’s pop culture time.

When it was all over my day clocked in at 10 hours and 50 minutes, but only because there wasn’t 10 more minutes of work to do today.

And another 10-plus-hour long day of rowing tomorrow, too. So dinner, dishes and bed again this eve —

Oh, I forgot to check on something last night and so I did that after the dishes and, sort of wished I hadn’t. There’s a small water problem in the bike room. So we moved out the bikes, pulled up the mats and the workout mats beneath them. After careful examination, it seems that it isn’t a leak, nor does it does it seem to be something soaking in from outside. Finally some good news. It’s an exercise or a spill problem.

So we moved out the bikes, pulled up the mats and the workout mats beneath them and will try to dry it out overnight. Lots of scrubbing and fans, basically.

history / IU / memories / photo / television / Twitter / video / Wednesday — Comments Off on Just before the weather arrived
2
Feb 22

Just before the weather arrived

The weather will start coming down in a bit. The forecast has solidified. We stand to get anywhere from three to nine inches of snow and a few quarts of ice. All of the local hardware stores are out of zambonis. Supply line problems, you understand.

All the hula hoops and bathing suits you want. Not a blowtorch can be found. Also, no crackers.

I could go for a good blowtorch just now. Probably be useful for the driveway tomorrow.

This was the view this morning. Grey, foreboding, and not just because we’d grimly stared at this forecast for the last four days.

For whatever reason, just before I ducked into the studio for the evening, the sky was this curious lapis blue.

We’ll all be asleep when it turns. It’s rained all day. As of this writing, temperatures have now dipped to just below freezing and will continue to fall for a few days.

The local school district announced yesterday that they would go virtual for the rest of the week. (And I heard some stories today about how that’s going over with parents, who of course now must make make all sorts of adjustments.) The county closed all of their offices around midday today. Just before 9 p.m. tonight the university announced that campus would stay open, but classes and work would be done virtually tomorrow. One assumes people in the particular office that makes the weather adjustment announcements were also out stocking up on salt and shovels, hence the late decision. Winter weather is a fickle thing and can be notoriously difficult to forecast (at least back home), but again, the National Weather Service sent up signal flares on Saturday and Sunday. I’d already staked out my WFH status. But late word was … reassuring? Is that the word there?

At that point I’m not sure if it mattered. People had made up their minds. Dear friends, we live in the county. They don’t plow out here — well, the roads anyway — and I simply will not tempt fate when ice is in the conversation. From 2021:

Also, the city doesn’t do an especially good job of winter road maintenance in the part of the city that we have to cross to get to campus. From 2018:

I’m sure plowing an entire city is a challenging task — ots of roads, traffic, changing conditions — but I’ve been assured it is a thing some places achieve.

Maybe it comes down to limited resources. Decisions have to be made, and none of them are about you. Or me! That road in the old tweet above? That’s a four lane highway through the heart of local commerce and the city’s growth pattern.

Tonight the sports crew was in to produce shows about … sudoku puzzles. Fire extinguishers? Ice dispersal? No, sports. I think it was the later, actually.

They’re doing a weekly feature this month they’re calling Historic Hoosiers to coincide with Black History Month.

And they are starting with one of the true greats.

I tell anyone within earshot about George Taliaferro. And I was talking about him in breaks tonight. They’re all too young to remember him, of course. And, indeed, some of the younger members of IUSTV weren’t even on campus when he passed away in 2018. But they all need to know him. I’m grateful for having had the opportunity to hear his story. I never met him, unfortunately, but there are a lot of really great videos online about him, and I hope they seek him out. His football was impressive, but truly the least important thing about him. We should probably remind ourselves about that of every athlete. I’ll say it about Taliaferro until everyone around here knows his story. Which means I’ll say that about him for as long as I’m here.

And if you’re getting weather, watch these videos on George Taliaferro yourself.

Here, he is telling his story to school children, which he did over and over. And you’ll see why that’s important in just a moment.

The sports shows they produced tonight will be up tomorrow. I’ll put them here. Until then, you can watch the news shows the news folks did last night.

This just needs to be longer, and have more stories and packages in it, really.

And here’s the pop culture show. Did you know all of these things? I did not. Pop culture might be leaving me behind. Maybe this is the year.

“The year” was actually several years ago. But I’m faking my way through it.

Anyway, they wrapped just as the temperatures hovered at 31 and 32. I walked out of the building and toward the car in a fine sleet.

I drove slowly to the house. And arrived safely with a nice peaceful feeling. Everyone is where they should be, and we don’t have to worry about tomorrow. Full day tomorrow, but at least it will be from home.

Good thing I bought a new office chair last month! And thanks to my mother for that.

The daily duds: The last one of these. And this is a good one to retire it on. It was new tie Wednesday. And new pocket square Wednesday. The latter was a Christmas gift from my in-laws.

Looks even better in person.

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