29
Sep 23
Sep 23
Feeling foresaken by the fusion ball
Another gray day, gray all day. I’m tired of it. Oh, sure, when it started last weekend it was novel. There was rain in it for everyone. The rain stopped on Monday. We’ve enjoyed a heaping helping of blah since, notching just one sunny day in the last eight. I thought I’d left all of that behind, not found it in September.
These are the choices we make. I took some time today to make sure that was not my prevailing mood while grading things. I am appreciative of the ability to take a little while to do that. Feedback should be positive not sour, dour and dank. My grim feelings about featureless skies shouldn’t be reflect in feedback.
In the late afternoon, or early evening, my lovely bride returned from a series of campus meetings and told me to go ride my bike. Maybe the mood was on my face, or in my shoulders. So I did head out for a brief spin. Nowhere to go, nowhere to be, didn’t even have a route planned beyond “Turn left.” And so it was that I found myself riding around on a mixture of new and newly familiar roads. All of which just means it took me an extra few minutes to get lost.
I turned back because the conditions meant it would be dark 90 minutes before necessary. Indeed, I rode through a drizzle for a half mile. It looked worse from a distance, darkening the route before me, but it was merely annoying when I got into it. Also, every crazy, harried, hurried person with a car was on the road this evening. Fridays and full moons and all of that. Sometimes, you can just feel it, a stored up ball of everyone else’s angst. Every muffler sounds a little more ragged, all of the passes are just a little too close, the intersections feel a tiny bit sketchier. So I dropped off the busier road and soft-pedaled my way back to the house through a neighboring series of neighborhoods.
And I ran into this runner along the way.
And that’s it for the week. Let the weekend commence. I hope there’s been something mildly entertaining for you here this week. We’re at 4,800-plus words, 24 photos, nine videos, some decent music and a nod to colonial-era history in the last five days. Can’t say I’m not trying.
Have a great weekend, enjoy wrapping up September and break in October in the non-pumpkin spice way of your choice.
28
Sep 23
Sep 23
Things that stick on you
I heard my alarm, both times this morning. And I pulled up the cover and closed my eyes tight and smiled and stayed halfway-conscious because I had to get up and get ready for the day. Then my lovely bride came back into the room and touched my shoulder. She said “You need to get up.”
I did need to get up. I needed to get up about 75 minutes prior to that, but that’s OK, because the day starts late so I’m not behind, except that mentally I am. When you set an alarm and overshoot it, that sensation can stick with you. For me, it is on my mind for the rest of the day. No matter how accomplished, how full or how complete the schedule, it’s just sitting there: You were late, and so you are late. It clings.
I had an apple and some peanut butter for breakfast*. I got ready to head to campus. And then the cat escaped through the laundry room and into the garage. He then goes under a car and just sits there, feeling like he’s achieved a great deal, I assume.
We’d even made it into the garage on time this morning — this is often my fault — but now the cat kept us from getting into the car on time because he is an ordeal.
But we made it to campus on time, fortunately. And it was only marginally my fault this time that we felt pressed for time.
I stood in the hallway and talked with two of my students while the class taking place in our room wrapped up. Eventually they all filed out, an entirely predictable and uneventful arrangement, and we walked in. Over the course of the next several minutes a dozen more students came in. Today we reviewed their first video assignments. The work concentrated on asking them to achieve certain camera shots and motions. You are put with a partner, who is your video subject, and you show the basics. Some people keep this simple. “My subject is just standing there, and this is a low angle. Here is a shot of my subject from a high angle,” and so on. This gets the job done. One group got very involved, overly so, and tried to create something of a narrative. Kudos for originality, though it doesn’t figure into this grade. One of my favorites video sequences came from two women who clearly enjoyed this way too much. There was a lot of acting, the best unselfconscious, purely hammy, scene chewing kind. They were delightful. I also had three slide decks to work through with them. I managed to work through two of those and the class still went long.
On Thursdays I teach two sections of the same class, back-to-back, in the same room. There’s only a 15-minute break between them, at about 3:15, and that’s lunch. But if I go long, that sneaks into my lunch time. So I had a handful of grapes* while the second class filtered into the room.
Fortunately, the two classes are in synch, so the second section feels like a second try, albeit with a group of an entirely different personality. We reviewed the shots from their first video assignment, as well. And one of the best parts are the shots when someone chooses an extreme closeup. I will play those clips over and over until I can get the class to talk about the emotions they’re seeing in the shots. Getting them going is the key to the whole puzzle, I think. I had three slide decks for the second class as well. I got through all three. We finished with 10 minutes to spare.
I’m not sure how that happened, but I have a few guesses.
After that, it was email, and staring at this pile of things to grade, and then we hopped in the car and drove back to the house. Thursdays are busy, then, and everything piles up. Email, the things to grade, the daily dose of news, whatever else you’re doing. And that 20 minute drive always feels a bit off when you’re aware of all of those things you’d like to get done tonight, or at least started.
Being behind is purely a mental construct, one that should have little to no power, but somehow it can hold a lot of sway over you, draped right over your shoulders, trying to hold you down. So you start ticking things off the list. What else could you do, anyway?
*I had a delicious and full dinner.
Let’s take a quick look at the Re-Listening project, where I am playing all of my old CDs in the car, in the order in which I acquired them. After this entry I’ll only be three discs behind!
Josh Joplin Group’s “Useful Music” was already an artifact by the time I picked it up at a used record shop. They’d originally released it in 1999 as Josh Joplin Band under the SMG Records label, and then again, with some new members, in 2001 by way of Artemis Records under their final name, Josh Joplin Group. (Big shakeups in nomenclature were an artistic signature around the turn of the century, you see.) This was Joplin’s sixth record, and so he was to become a nine-year overnight success.
It’s a radio friendly record, but didn’t get a lot of commercial support. Despite that, “Useful Music” hit number 22 on the Billboard Independent Albums chart. Three singles were rolled off, including the moderately successful, and altogether enjoyable, “Camera One.”
Odds are, if you ran across this Atlanta-based band, this was your first exposure. It quickly scooted to the top spot of the Triple A chart, which, at that time, was the most successful independent release ever. Soon after, that song was featured in an episode of Scrubs.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen that video, though. He looks like an angry singer, which is a shame for what was ultimately an incredible AOR friendly record.
If you picked up this disc because you heard that song on the radio, this was the first track you heard when you loaded it in your player.
The second single got a lot of spins on what still passed for alt radio in the summer of 2001. And we were still referencing it this summer, which is pretty great good for a pop tune.
This is a perfectly little encapsulated post-grunge pop song, if you ask me. It is one of several songs on here I never really gave it’s due when I was listening to this a lot.
But then there’s this, which should have never been attempted. Nevertheless, it’s catchy in ways that defy convention. I was on a long straight country road on a sunny day when I heard this recently, and it stuck with me for days.
They released one more single, in December of 2001. And on the re-release, which is the disc I have, there’s an alternate version of the song featuring some new instrumentation and an orchestral accompaniment. And it changes the song, except for all of the places where it doesn’t. It was, and remains, intriguing. The thing is, I listen to this so rarely that I forget that this track closes the record, and so it’s a pleasant surprise almost every time.
The Wikipedia page tells me the Josh Joplin Group disbanded in 2002, which was before I picked this up (I’m contextually assuming I got this in the summer or fall of 2003) but that live performance above was from 2019. All told, Joplin has released 11 albums, most recently with the band Among the Oak & Ash, which also featured the great Garrison Starr. Here’s the newest thing he’s published on his YouTube channel, just four months ago.
It’s always nice to see people continuing to do what they love.
Like this grading I have to do now, for example.
27
Sep 23
Sep 23
I’m going to show you something older than the country
Decided to go old school today. I have prepared three envelopes to send to other people. Now I must find a local post office. Let’s look at a map …
Hey, I found the post office. It’s downtown, in an old house. Many businesses around here are in retrofits. In this case, the post office is sharing an old house with a salon and a little garden center gift shop. I guess I’ll stop by there on Friday.
Tomorrow, of course, will be a full day of classes. Today was a fair amount of class prep. There’s not much fun better than practicing a lecture quietly to yourself, to test your slides. There was also an hour-long Zoom seminar. It was the sort that was of course well-intentioned, but could have been summed up in a single sentence.
But at least there was a good handout. A thoughtful How To sort of thing. Could be useful stuff, under the right conditions.
If anyone would like a copy, I can mail it to you. Or we could do a long Zoom call.
We went for a bike ride today, enjoying the first bit of sun we’ve seen since last Friday. We did see a little sunshine this morning. And I think 10 or 11 photos made it down on Sunday, but that’s about the only thing we’ve seen in the sky not shaped like a rain cloud. Until today.
We did the usual loop, which is a pleasant little 21 mile loop. My lovely bride said her legs were dead. I said I need to ride more, because twice a week doesn’t do me any favors. This was about 17 miles into our ride.
We’d just chatted our way through the first three or four miles, and then spent about 10 miles dropping one another. It takes me miles to catch up to her. But, right after that photograph, I got away again, and pedaled furiously, thinking “If I can make it to that T-intersection, she’ll catch me on the next little hill before the colonial-era house” … but I stayed away.
She was chasing me when I found this barn.
At some point, earlier, I managed a shadow selfie.
Some days it is hard to stay on her wheel. It’s always more difficult to get back to the garage door opener before she does. Somehow, all of that led to us meeting another of our new neighbors today, our fourth, setting a new record.
Time now for the ninth installment of We Learn Wednesdays, where I ride my bike to find all of the county’s local historical markers. Seeing things by bike is the ideal way to do it. Learn new roads, see new things. Counting today’s discoveries I have now visited 19 of the 115 markers found in the Historical Marker Database.
The two markers we’ll learn about have to do with churches, and they’re only about 100 yards apart. First, we’ll visit the Old Pittsgrove Presbyterian Church.
Today, the Pittsgrove Presbyterian congregation maintains both its original church, built in 1767, and its current church built in 1867, plus two historic cemeteries. This is the second church.
And the keystone above the door. I think the incongruity of the dates has to do with Civil War-related delays. But that’s just a guess.
The congregation was officially organized in 1741 by the Presbytery of Philadelphia. The original church building was constructed of cedar logs. The land came from a man who is buried in the cemetery out back. I saw his marker. Originally, it had two large stoves and plain wooden benches. In 1767, the log church was taken down and this brick church was built in its place. It’s older than the country.
And so it has earned itself one of these, National Register plaques, just for sticking around. But there’s more to it than just standing.
There are dozens of stories out back. This is a relatively new headstone for Col. Cornelius Nieukirk.
commanded his Company of forty men at Billingsport, under Lieut. Col Josiah Hillman, July and August 1777, and probably saw General Washington when he visited the fortification, August 1, of that year.
I bet he regaled people with that story a lot. A lot of soldiers probably did.
Nieukirk served off-and-on in the local militia, until he finally stepped away in 1794.
Without doubt he saw later service. His military sword, worn during the Revolution, and that of his great grandson James P. Nieukirk of the Civil War, have been presented to the Salem County Historical Society.
His grandson, incidentally, survived the Civil War, having fought in some particularly bloody battles, and was in a POW camp for about half a year. He’s buried elsewhere, having died in 1916. Buring here, you can find the resting place of two dozen other Revolutionary War figures. Two died during the war. One, Jerediah DuBois, would rise to the rank of general during the War of 1812. (He was a drummer boy during the Revolution.) You can also find a Col. William Shute who was, in his younger days, a lieutenant in the French and Indian War. Jacob DuBois, the captain of a company of minutemen organized in 1775 is also buried here.
Now, the DuBois name is well represented. And their descendants lived up to it. One of them was a prominent 20th century man, Josiah DuBois. He died in 1983.
(A) prosecutor at the Nuremberg war-crimes trials and a leader in efforts to rescue Jews during World War II, died of cancer Monday at Underwood-Memorial Hospital in Woodbury, N.J. He was 70 years old and lived in Pitman, N.J.
He spent recent years running a private law practice and lecturing on the Holocaust.
In 1947, Mr. DuBois was appointed deputy chief counsel for the prosecution of war crimes at Nuremberg.
The American Jewish Committee credited him with saving the lives of thousands of Jews during the war. He’s buried about 20 miles away.
One of the more prominent markers where we are visiting, however, belongs to a long-serving minister. For 46 years he tended this flock. His papers are held at Princeton.
I don’t know what you call them, but there are two or three of these floating headstones. From a great distance they’d look like picnic tables or something, but then you get close and you can tell, this is marking the spot where an Isaac Harris is buried.
Two men named Isaac Harris were buried here. A father and son. Both doctors. Both served during the Revolution.
And you can’t see it in this wider shot of the quite little cemetery, because I hadn’t noticed it at the time, but just off the frame there’s something of a message board, and behind the glass there’s a notice that coincides with the last time they fired the cannon we learned about last week.
The message reads:
The members who founded this church were seeking freedom of worship, and were willing to sacrifice whatever the need be. They were members of the Committee of Correspondence and the Committee of Observation as early as 1774. They were in all probability influenced by John Witherspoon, a prominent Presbyterian minister and the only minister to sign the Declaration of Independence. They participated in organizing the first company of Minute Men from Salem County. They served with distinction throughout the Revolutionary War as well as the War of 1812.
They founded a community, founded a church, and then helped create a country.
Also behind that cemetery, you’ll see the 1970s re-creation of the “Log College”, a building used as a school to train young men for the ministry. Here’s a peak inside one of the windows. There are just four of those bench-desk combinations.
And here’s one final look at the old church itself.
Picture that little church in this still-quiet bit of countryside, a community that today preserves more total acres of farmland and actively farms more acreage than anywhere else in the state, and think of this from way back when:
The immigrants who established this congregation came from Europe and were of the Dutch Reformed tradition. Their call to worship was by one of three methods – the sounding of the horn, a drum roll, or the blowing of the conch shell. When they arrived at what is now Newkirk Street in New York about 1644, they had the conch shell with them. … This treasured relic is still used today as the Call to Worship at the occasional worship services at the Old Church.
There’s a great deal more to discover, right there, I’m sure. But we’ll have more places to visit on the next installment of We Learn Wednesdays. Miss some of the markers? You can see them all right here.
