Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

books / photo / Tuesday — Comments Off
12
Jan 21

The sun, in all its muted glory

The photosphere is about 10,000 degrees, Fahrenheit, but it’s cooling at that level. In the chromosphere, scientists figure, it is about 7,800 degrees. The light and heat has to travel the 93 million miles here. It takes a little more than eight minutes. And, sure, we’re pointed the wrong direction, but we’re turning back the right way. But, still, despite all of that, the nuclear fusion can’t burn away the clouds for days, days, on end.

Finally, today, as promised, the sun:

Saw that for a few minutes. It was chilly, but bright. If you can only one weather condition in January, you take sunny, because it’s always going to be cold.

There was a meeting! And it was filled with things both new and old! Decisive and not! And nothing will be reframed in such a way that requires any of the substantive articles of the meeting to change! I took notes and everything! A few of them will make sense to me in a month or so.

So … like every 90-minute meeting you’ve ever enjoyed. And then also a lot of email, and some demo reels to review, and a few other light chores to address. So a normal day. Except the sun was out, and so everything was great.

Tomorrow morning starts with another meeting, so we’re back in the swing of things, is what I’m saying.

In the spring of 2019 Wright Thompson came to campus and, at the end of his visit, he talked about his collection of sports stories, The Cost of These Dreams, which had just been released the week before. Someone gave me a copy of his book and I finally got around to pulling it from the To Read bookcase. Yes, I have an entire bookcase of books waiting to be read. Doesn’t everyone?

I keep those books well away from the Have Read bookcases. We can’t have intermingling of texts. It would get too confusing. Why, just this weekend I had to go through all of the books to see if I already had a book I was considering online. (I did.) It was in the To Read bookcase, so I picked that one out for my next read, along with a few others. They’re now sitting on my nightstand, part of a multi-stage on deck system to ease the complaints of the To Read bookcase which is groaning under the weight of paper. It’s a beautiful sound.

I digress. It’s a shame I waited all this while to get to Thompson’s book. He is easily one of the best contemporary sports writers. Take, for example, this little tidbit in a longform story about the New Orleans Saints, which is really about Katrina, which is really about New Orleans, which is really about inequity.

This is part of an 11-graph sidebar arc you could use in a master class. I read it over and over the other night, just to dissect it, to imagine, as you often do, how the story part of it came to be. It would be inappropriate to share the whole sidebar, but here’s the return, where Thompson is describing Charity Hospital. It was a teaching hospital and was, you might recall, utterly neglected after Katrina.

He gets all the details, like any great feature writer. He gets the best quotes and writes about all of the moments in a contemporaneous way, so it’s difficult to determine if he was in the room, or heard about it later through the course of his reporting — which is terrific. The next time I see him I’m going to ask him this: You get people to tell you things, for publication, that you say they have never told to anyone. How?

Sometimes it’s simply because you ask. A lot of it is about the relationship, which is about time. How much time do you have to spend with someone to get them to talk to you like their oldest friend? How long until it no longer seems strange to them that you’ve asked? How much listening does it take to become a professional confidant? This is a particular kind of reporting. Thompson is great at it.

If you like stories and people and storytelling and A-plus writing, buy this book. It’s incredible at every turn. (Except the Urban Meyer story. Some characters are just beyond the redemption of soulful prose.)

Just don’t read it all at once. Read a story, put the book down and come back several weeks later. This isn’t a criticism. Indeed, the writing is easy and the subject matter draws you in. You want to keep reading. Problem is, Thompson, like all great writers, has recurring themes. Being a great writer, they are some of the big ones. So space it out. Think of it as a textual indulgence.

cycling / Monday / photo / video — Comments Off
11
Jan 21

It’s only a day away

Dreary day. Dreary weekend. Winter is here. We’re low on snow, but that’s just fine. I’m pretty sure it has snowed more, so far, on family in Alabama than it has here. So they’ve had their fill of snow, and maybe we can just go without this year.

Of course, the year when you don’t go much of anywhere, it might be nice to sit and watch it fall and not have to worry too much about it.

I am looking forward to seeing the sun and blue skies, which may return as soon as … tomorrow? Tomorrow! If so it would be the first sunny day since … January 4th. That was the only day that had nice atmospheric conditions this year. That is, in fact, as nice as it has been since the day after Christmas.

If you were here you could have seen a blue sky and the sun for the better part of six hours, since Dec. 26, 2020. In the last 17 days you could have seen the blue sky, or the sun, for 1.4 percent of the time. Which explains a lot, I’m sure.

I think the cats can tell. Phoebe is sleeping a lot more like this lately:

This photo of her hints at some sun, and it was taken on … January the 4th (see above):

Poseidon has lately found a new interest. He is a keen observer of car chases.

That one shows a helicopter pulling away after a pursuit ended when the driver jumped out of his car and ran into Los Angeles’ storm drain system. We can all agree that if part of your night has found you in the storm system, you’ve likely made some unconventional decisions. This, I said as the helicopter moved away to its next assignment before they killed the web feed, is the problem with car chases. Often, you don’t get a resolution. Maybe the next one! Maybe tomorrow!

Take this one, for example. Poe was watching here a guy who worked his way into a Motel 6, where the standoff began. They didn’t stick with that one, either. “It was not immediately clear if the driver was located and arrested,” says the station’s website. Which, if you’re going to write it, stick with it. Maybe the next one! Maybe tomorrow! On the other hand, it’s better than watching a dramatic accident unfold in front of you.

And it’s an influence thing, too. He’s klutzy enough on his own. Let’s not give him ideas.

This evening we went for a walk and saw the pond out back was starting to freeze in layers:

Of course we tested it out:

And after our little walk, which was only about three miles because it was 24 degrees, I pedaled on the bike for an hour.

Got in a nice 20 miles before dinner. That’s the world course from the UCI Championship in 2015, which I’ve mentioned here before. I wonder where I might ride the next time. Maybe tomorrow!

Friday / photo / site — Comments Off
08
Jan 21

A mediation on …

There was a peculiar color in the air — is a phrase that has never been crawled across the web by Google’s spiders. It’s also wrong, in the sense of how we use language, which is why it’s never been written, one supposes. But it is particularly accurate in how we use science.

Color is, you might recall, the range of wavelengths based on how matter behaves in light, each substance’s combination of atoms and electron configuration send signals to the inner bits of the eye. Those signals work their way back to the command center for processing. Rods and cones, brain interpretation. And the brain says “There was a peculiar color in the air.”

So, really, it should be, my eyes and brain were detecting odd things brought on my the angle of the sun and various atmospheric considerations.

What I’m saying is that this usually green shrub held an unusual yellowish hue. So, yeah. There was a peculiar color in the air.

And it just hung there, for much of the day, or at least as long as I stood at the window looking at things, nodding ponderously, re-considering, not for the first time, how light works.

Photons, bouncing off things. What a concept! Once you can wrap your mind around that, the sky — with it’s shorter, smaller wavelengths — is the limit.

I changed the photos on the front page of the site to more generally reflect the season. Three of the photos in the set, including the one below, are from this year.

So click on over to the front page to check out the new look. And check back often, those do get updated.

And have a great weekend! Check back on Monday, when we’ll look in on the cats, and see if we can’t make up something interesting that did or didn’t happen over the weekend.

In the meantime, visit Twitter for more, and check me out on Instagram. And, hey, did you know that Phoebe and Poseidon have an Instagram account? It’s full of timeline-beautifying cuteness. Check them out.

books / history / links / music / Thursday / Twitter / video — Comments Off
07
Jan 21

Sing and sing and sing and sing

I finished reading Jon Meacham’s Songs of America. Yes, Tim McGraw is listed as a co-author. He did contribute some sidebars. They were included in the book. For the most part it wasn’t clear why. Meacham doesn’t need the help with history, and maybe twice McGraw contributed something to our understanding of the music. (And he’s certainly capable of doing that, but it didn’t really pay off here.

It was a lot more like the guy at the next table over just offering his opinion on a song you just played him. Maybe he knows it well. Maybe it sparks a memory from long ago. Maybe he’s hearing it for the first time. And he figures, well, since you’re talking about it and played it for him, he should probably offer a paragraph or two of thoughts on the matter.

And that’s what Tim McGraw did. I wondered how this arrangement came to be. It’s Jon Meacham. Which kinda diminishes McGraw, who has three Grammy wins and 17 other nominations among his other honors. He knows music, this is not a matter of dispute. He’s apparently written five other books, and one of those was a bestseller. But here, why was he here if a few sidebars was all he was going to contribute.

And then, at the end, they mention it. They are neighbors.

Anyway, it was an interesting book. You’re going to learn about songs you know. You’re going to discover important songs you haven’t even heard of before. Here are two little excerpts, from Meacham.

Susan B. Anthony had gone down to vote in the 1872 Grant-Greeley election. She was arrested and taken before a federal judge. The judge asked her if she had anything to say after her conviction for … voting.

Ward Hunt was on the U.S. Supreme Court. History doesn’t remember him especially well. He didn’t let her testify, read aloud his pre-written opinion, told the jury how to vote and immediately overturned motions for appeals. Anthony was charged with a fine. She told the judge she would never pay. She never did. Probably you’ve never heard of Judge. Hunt. Everyone learns about Susan B. Anthony, even if only a bit, in grade school.

Just go ahead and play this video while you read the text in next image.

In 1939, the Daughters of the American Revolution refused Marian Anderson’s participation in a concert at Constitution Hall under a “white performers-only” policy. Ultimately, a lot of DAR members left the organization, including Eleanor Roosevelt who would get the ball rolling for this Easter concert in front of the Lincoln Memorial. The contralto was in full force, a global star. No one knows how many thousands or millions listened on the radio, but one of the estimated 75,000 there in person was said to be 10-year-old Martin Luther King. (I’ve seen one reference on this, but I am struggling to find more.) He’d speak in front of Lincoln 24 years later, of course. She sang from the same spot that day, too.

Senator Mike Braun is from Indiana, and I have a question for him and the others who found themselves in this rickety position this week regarding the cynical political pandering of which he was a part. This was his message last week, and for quite some time:

And then yesterday happened — prior to which he was face-to-face with people in a way that rarely happens and he formalized his Arizona objection — but after the deadly assault, he wrote this:

So, senator, do us all a favor and explain this. You were certain, prior to the seditious raid on the U.S. Capitol, that this objection was something that needed to be done. Now, not at all. You withdrew your objection to the formal vote certification. So which is it, senator? Did you feel the wind change? Or are you that easily persuadable?

And which, in your estimation, is a better attribute for a United States senator?

history / overwriting / Wednesday — Comments Off
06
Jan 21

We failed, we can succeed

If you haven’t noticed it before, it was made a bit easier for you to see today: we’ve failed.

The failures are, at all levels, institutional. A lame duck president and his lemmings, too vain and disbelieving to face the inevitable, behaved in ways most seditious and terroristic. We have failed in the teaching of our civics. That so many continue down this path, listening to outlets that serve no purpose but to stir fear and anger, show we have failed in teaching media literacy. That so many have shown themselves so susceptible to this nonsense shows we have failed in teaching critical thinking.

A seditious mob descended on the United States Capitol while the elected representatives were doing the nation’s business. A woman died. The vice president and next several members of the presidential line of succession were in immediate danger. Someone erected a slapdash gallows in front of the building. Perhaps others will die in the hours and days to come. Dozens more were injured.

The failures are, at all levels, institutional. And, thus, the failures are, at every stage, also individual. Impressionable, angry people made these decisions, and they have been meet with condemnation and revulsion, with further consequences to no doubt follow.

In the days to come it will be natural to seek a single failure point. People will study video frame-by-frame and pour over photographs. Jobs will be lost. And there will be investigations, too. You simply can’t inconvenience Congress, foment a coup and commit terrorism on cable television and not trigger dozens of investigations. Some will yield startling results across a wide array of agencies and jurisdictions. Some will provide disappointing outcomes.

In these ways, and perhaps more, we’ll come to realize in the coming days, we have failed. It is a frightening thing to confront your failures. A challenging thing. A necessary thing.

How we succeed is no less challenging.

As I write this, the Congress has gone back to conducting the business of the people. In some ways glorious, in others no doubt quite frustrating indeed. That’s the way of the legislative branch. Sometime in the overnight, or tomorrow, they’ll plod their way through the ceremony and a new presidential administration will ultimately begin.

Today you heard from President Trump and President-elect Biden and you saw them in stark contrast. Tomorrow, and later this month, and, hopefully for the next many years over the course of many administrations of different parties and congressional configurations of different makeups, we will start to undo the damage we have inflicted on ourselves today, and in our recent past and, indeed, throughout our history.

History is an important word loaded with hints and allusions and inferences and truths. I like the pursuit of history. Telling the truth of a story is a noble thing. I like the humanness of it. It is not to be ignored. Ignoring things brings us here, seeing our problems manifest today.

If we simply stuck to the problems above — a narcissist-in-chief, failings of civics and literacy and critical thinking are ultimately as cultural as they are individual — the challenges to correct them are immense. But we like to think we are at our best when we are faced with immense challenges. It’s comforting, it fits us. And, friends, the immensity is before us.

I don’t pretend to have all of the answers. I know we won’t always be good at reaching for all of the remedies, even the obvious ones.

But, without trying to sound platitudinous in a too-tough week, I want to celebrate the words that become the ideas that move us. I hold onto the idea that we are an experiment. No less an architect than Thomas Jefferson and no less a keen observer than Alexis de Tocqueville used the word to describe us. An experiment is still alive in the moment, where the possibilities lay, where we can still impact the outcome.

The American Experiment. It really began with those few simple words that can stir you each time you really think of them, the ones found right near the beginning, in the preamble that you, perhaps, learned in school. The words that said simply, we are here “to form a more perfect Union.”

We are flawed, but we are forming. As I am sad and shocked and share in the hurt of the nation tonight, I think of those words, “to form a more perfect Union.” There’s so much power there. It was given to us. The power is still alive, in our hands, in our national will, where the possibilities remain, and where we must still determine the outcome. This is how we will succeed.