Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

photo / Rowan — No comments
17
Sep 26

The statue, ‘Contact’

I’ve mentioned this and, if you’ve been reading along, you’ve seen some or all of these photos. But it seemed important to put them all in one place.

To teach one of my classes I must leave my building, turn right, walk to the end of the block, turn left and do another block. There, you run into this statue. And now I know it is coming, but it still catches me off guard somehow. So I’ve been taking these photographs, because it seems interesting enough. Next week we’ll start looking more closely at some of the details, but here we have the same work from four different sides.

This installation is called “Contact.” The artist is Seward Johnson. He was born in 1930, lived all over by the time he was old enough to go to school. He knew Georgia O’Keeffe. Served in the Navy during Korea. Did some sailing of his own, of a sort, taking a 2,000 mile canoe trip from western Alberta to the upper edge of the Northwest Territories on the Arctic Ocean.

He worked for Johnson & Johnson, which was the family business. He was also fired from the family business.

There’s a great anecdote about the man that makes him perfect for a college campus. In search of a career to support his young family he took a sculpture class. He left the class because the instructor talked theory.

He would learn his craft in other ways, and eventually he found metal work, which was what really clicked. Now he’s this world renowned artist with a huge body of work of large and life-sized sculptures.

Somewhere along the way he decided to find a way to help other sculptors, and in 1974 he opened the Johnson Atelier Technical Institute of Sculpture. This place works with artists on retaining control over their artwork and opening doors to learning previously mysterious production techniques, becoming a place where the art and technology advanced because of it. Artists from all over the world have been a part of the Johnson Atelier.

This is a trompe-l’œil painted bronze statue. That’s French for “deceive the eye,” Wikipedia tells me. The paint used here is a heavy-duty coating that is also used by the aeronautic and automotive industries. Seems to be holding up pretty well, compared to earlier photos. The blues aren’t quite as dark, perhaps, but that only adds heft to whatever story you’re about to imagine here.

Johnson died in 2020. There are several of his other statues around town and I’ll have to explore them all, but, first, we’ll take closer looks at this one, starting next week.

Onions, anyone?

I woke up, I read the news. I did some work. I had an early lunch. I got ready to go to work. I sighed at all of the things I need to do. This, I thought to myself today, is where I wrestle this week into control. And also tomorrow. Also, let’s not think about all of the things I should do around the house. It’s that time of the semester already.

And so we hopped in the car.

On campus I had a chat with a colleague around the copy machine. The water cooler is just around the corner, but that seemed a little too on-the-nose. I sent a thank you note to another colleague. I replied to roughly half a dozen student emails. I took care of a small task upon which I was overdue by an egregious 13 hours. I finished my notes for class. Right on time, too. As I scribbled out the outline of the last things I wanted to say today — I use a very small notebook and 75 minutes usually works out to about three pages of outline-stye notes. Today, comparing thoughts to my prepared slide deck, I turned it into four pages and offered a little silent prayer that the class would have a conversation with me.

They did! We sat in that super hot room, which is now baking at about 82 degrees, a remarkable improvement from a few sessions ago when I sweated completely through a sport coat while sitting still.

Today we talked about the social part of our techno-social lives. How the technology influences the culture and vice versa. I successfully resisted the urge to make any Star Trek references. We talked about how technology changes our expectations of things. I stumbled upon a great question … who have you talked to already today that is out-of-state, and how did you communicate with them. People dropped all sorts of states, one student talked to a relative in Jamaica. I had deliberately sent notes to people in a variety of places already this morning, just so I could make my point if they did not. But they did!

They’re becoming a class of talkers and that’s going to make all the difference.

Anyway, the first half hour flew by and then the second half hour did a slow crawl and then accelerated unexpectedly. It’s a 75 minute class and I think we wrapped up at 74 today. Just as I hoped and hoped as I planned.

They have to read a great paper for class next week and I hope a few of them like it. It can inspire great conversations, and in our techno-social lives that’s going to be key. Three students stood around and talked about that with me after class for a few minutes.

Also one student whipped out an iPod on cue, as if she knew where the class was going. She later told me she had a cassette tape Walkman that she’d discovered in her mom’s old things. And that she and her roommate go buy records. People are full of wonderful surprises.

After class I picked up my lovely bride and we drove home. We took part in the relative new ritual of sitting outside to read on Thursday evenings, because we know how to party. At about 6 p.m. she had to go inside for a meeting, and I stayed out for a bit longer to catch up on all of the ink that has been spilled today. This plane flew over head.

I didn’t look it up on the flight tracker app, because sometimes the mystery is better. This plane is on the usual route for airlines going to Europe, though, and I wonder where all of those people will wake up in the morning. I wonder if it is somewhere fun. I wonder if anyone looked out the windows and glanced down at the little places they are flying over and leaving behind to go somewhere fun. Let’s say Venice. Why not?

I went inside. Got cleaned up. Sat down at my computer to check the work email one last time, and do a few quick work related things that were on my mind. Set a fantasy team, checked the address of a meeting I have tomorrow. Attempted, once more, to wrestle this week into control. Succeeded, for half a second, in not thinking about the things I should be doing around here. Utterly failed at ignoring the work required of me next week or the week after. Then I recited the usual ritual: after that, there will be less today, and it will be easier.

Dear reader, this is a lie we tell ourselves every week. And already, my calendar is piling up into mid-October.

I was called down to dinner. We had barbecue chicken baked potatoes. We had barbecue chicken baked potatoes because my lovely bride had picked up some scallions. She doesn’t care about them, but I think scallions are a wonderful addition to most any plate.

Also, I do not have a good grasp of scallion-to-plate ratios. There’s a whole bag in the crisper. I retrieved it, found the good knife, pulled some onions out of the bag, considered what was in my hand, put some back, and started cutting. This was what I wound up with.

Note to self: four scallions is a lot of scallions.

They’re presented here for maximum comedic effect, but no matter how I pile and photograph them, that’s a lot of scallions. I was able to move things while cutting and eating so it didn’t seem like I was having a potato with my scallion plate. But there was a bite or two, right at the end, where it seemed no better than just pulling a handful right of the ground and eating it in your garden.

If you grow scallions I may come by and do just that. Not tonight. I’m good for tonight. But in the future.

music / photo / Rowan / video / Wednesday — No comments
16
Sep 26

We got the shirts

Spent the day working on today’s class, and tomorrow’s class, and also beginning to grade things that were turned in at midnight, Tuesday. And also all of the things that come with the job that are sorta related to the job. The biggest part of it is logging in to some system, service or platform over and over and over. The rest of it moves pretty quickly, happily enough, and I can get back to class things. This, I thought to myself today, is where I wrestle this week into control. And also tomorrow. Possibly Friday.

If I don’t have it by then, well, it’s the weekend and that’ll be great.

It’ll be Friday before we know it.

Before I knew it, today, it was time to head to campus for Org Comm.

The door knob fell off the door. I broke a pen. These two things happened within about four minutes of one another. (At least the elevator, electricity, and plumbing worked!) I kept everyone a safe distance from me after that, just in case I was developing super strength or telekinesis. I did not develop super strength or telekinesis. Well, I don’t know that I didn’t. I might have a superpower now, and just haven’t realized it yet. Super power origin stories are all just a tiny bit different, aren’t they? I do know I’m not invisible, but I don’t know if I can fly. Hang on, let me just open this window …

We talked about what makes sports organizations unique. We talked about the politics involved with sports. We talked about whether this competition or that competition is a sport. That one is silly, but students are always invested in this debate. Now I just have to keep that up. Next week we start talking about branding.

After class we hopped in the car and drove across town, well a few towns I guess.

We went to a public garden which, until this experience I am embarrassed to say I didn’t even know existed. They have more than 1,100 acres of gardens, woodlands, and meadows and over the years have created one of the premier horticultural display gardens in the country. It was dusk when we arrived, and we were there for a little concert, which happens there a lot. They also have seasonal attractions, educational lectures, courses, and workshops, and it is too bad, really, that it is an hour from our house.

The show was outdoors. A little square of land had been cut out of the trees. A path ran through it. The crew had hauled out several hundred old bamboo-style bar chairs. There was a stage that looked like it emerged straight from the trees. Behind it, we learned, was a fountain, which was synched up to a few songs. And soon after we arrived Guster came on stage.

This was their first show back after a six-week break. And everything about the place created a very chill environment for a band that normally sees a little more hype and energy from the crowd. Try as they might, only this one section worked themselves up. Of course they were right in front of us.

I think this is the song where The Yankee, way back when, really figured out she liked the band. Also, I’ve created a monster. This is only the second time we’ve seen them this year, she’s keeping count and saying we must step up our game.

Anyway, we got the shirts. I think they wound up giving them away.

We were on row E. My lovely bride and I met her god-sisters (just go with it) at the concert. We all had a nice time. Much rock was had, also some roll.

I was trying to count … I’ve seen Guster maybe 12 or 14 times over the years now, also in six states, but never in the same venue twice.

It was a nice set, with 23 or 24 songs. It was quite chill, I think that unnerved the band a bit. But we had fun, and I guess everyone else was thinking about tomorrow. I hope tomorrow is like today.

Nah nah nah. Nah nah nah nah. Like today.

I try to put one more song up, maybe next week, and then figure out when we can see them live again.

bespoke / books / photo / Rowan / Tuesday — No comments
15
Sep 26

Yeah, but look at that jacket

It’ll be fine, but this is one of those weeks that feels like it is self-contained for good reason. It feels like one of those weeks where the design of the rollercoaster tricks your conscious mind that there is peril ahead. It feels like the sort of week that will feature that scene in every dramatic naval movie: we had to close this section off, and sacrifice some true blue sailors and friends, to save the rest of the vessel and, now, until the end of this scene at least, we will anguish over it for award season.

Yeah, I have no idea what that means. What it means is that if I can keep this week on the rails, keep it moving forward, and keep the events of the week within this week, then it won’t spill over into other weeks and we will, thus, see this week as a success.

There’s absolutely nothing going on as dramatic as all of that, but it just feels like one of those weeks. Next week won’t. The week after that definitely will.

I had a meeting with a student today to discuss social media. The student wound up doing two brief interviews with two of my colleagues. One faculty member discussed the nonverbal communication class she is teaching. She deftly shooed me out of the room with the coolest nonverbal signal ever. I stepped out an interview was had. I retreated to my office and tried to remember everything I learned in my own nonverbal class way back when. Another professor stopped by to talk about his research, and that was the subject of our second brief interview. It was great. This professor is a get-him-started-watch-him-go sort. He does it with such enthusiasm that it is hard not to want to lean into the conversation. Then the three of us sat around for a moment and talked about our favorite ways to end interviews.

I have three key questions I asked at the end of most interviews. You’ll have to pay me tuition to learn what they are.

I walked over to the other building, where my class is held in the fourth floor sauna. I prepared accordingly today, even though the heat outside has loosened its grip, the room is still a little overly warm. So I went with a seersucker jacket.

I bought that as a gag last year. I’ve worn it twice. Last night I thought, Why not? All day, no one said anything about it. I could take this to mean I did that right, or I could infer that no one was willing to confront me about the choices I’d made. What do you think?

The pocket square makes it all work. That was a last second add this morning. Brought the whole thing to life, I’d say.

Maybe the students are all too dazzled by today’s conversation and repartee to discuss my sartorial choices. We talked about Tarleton Gillespie’s 2010 paper on platforms. The first question someone asked was “Why 15 pages on what the word means?” That’s a fair question, and precisely why we read this paper. I have read Gillespie, I guess, half dozen times in the last two years. It holds up, it sets the tone, and the only problem is that it doesn’t think about how AI or LLMs figure into this at all. I’m sure he’s working on that at Cornell right now. (If you somehow find this and aren’t working on that, I tap danced around an answer for a few minutes and we should collaborate.)

When I teach this class online all of the students have to pose a question about the readings. And since I require to ask a question it seems only fitting to try to answer them. This is great fun, and some of the questions are thoughtful and challenging. Another way I challenge myself is trying to find new ways to answer the same questions. Also, I try to edit myself into something that looks like concision. (You might notice I wrote exactly 1,200 words here for goodness sake.)

Do they pay me by the word? No. Can I renegotiate that part of my contract? Also, no.

Since I’m teaching the class in person this time I am having them ask those questions and I am trying to answer as many of them in a class as possible, or at least what I think are the best ones. Today I got about a third of those in on the Gillespie paper. Also, I tried to play it cool about the reading they’ll do for next Tuesday. It is my favorite one of the semester. And I just have to dazzle them with something else on Thursday.

On the way back to the office I snapped the last photo of the public art installation. We’ve now capture it from all four sides. Here, from this angle, it looks like something bad has happened. Its her eyes. I’m not sure if that’s the intention, my interpretation, or perhaps something about the medium. She looks like she’s in a far away place, though. And only the way her feet work suggest a different story.

On Thursday I’ll make a separate post showing all four of them.

Next week I’ll start taking closer photos. I think there’s a lot to be learned from a closer look.

I wrote that cartoonishly overly dramatic bit at the top of the post, and this is what I’m doing about it. I returned to my office after class and did up some lecture prep for tomorrow and Thursday. I’ll finish each just before the classes. Then I went to the library. So pressing are events I spent time at the library.

Which is to say, not pressing at all.

I got a call on Saturday from the local public library that a book I’d requested via ILL (which is one of the best innovations that we have in a polite and civil society) had arrived, and would I please come and check it out, because the clock is already ticking on its due date.

So I picked that up. Our local library is opened like six hours a day, and it is entirely volunteer-driven; you have to time things right. Tonight I received a casual little invitation to take part and volunteer. A little over-the-shoulder “come work with us” sort of thing.

Maybe it was the jacket.

Anyway, the drive home.

The last few times I’ve been out at sunset I’ve seen that sun scrape happening where the orange light and dark of night meet. I think, I think, it is coming from the same area, but I don’t know what over there could be causing this. It’s a flat region, not a lot of big buildings, and surely that’s not a tree-line thing. One day I’ll get over there to figure it out. Just as soon as I find that pot of gold at the end of the next rainbow, which I’ll pursue just as soon as I finish this book I checked out (because the return clock is already ticking) which I’ll start just as soon as this week is fully under control.

cycling / Monday / photo — No comments
14
Sep 26

Doing and whirring, but never enough

Slept in and woke up traumatically, as if something was wrong. It was not unlike the adrenaline dump you can get in a dream, only I don’t know that I’d been dreaming. Also, I felt, for a few moments, as those something might physically be wrong. Counted all my fingers and toes. Everything on my face was in place. Caught my breath, let me fingers wake up (I’d been sleeping on them and they’d gone tingly) and, soon enough, everything was fine. But that was some kinda weird.

And then I got to it. I worked through the morning’s emails. I sent a message to my online class. It was a carefully crafted document that reminded them of upcoming due dates, mentioned the local football team, highlighted various events going on campus ranging from soccer to an art exhibit to career fairs, and so on.

I finished my notes, and slides, for tomorrow’s class. I prepared a bit of Wednesday’s class and Thursday’s, too.

I washed three rugs, and a load of towels and sheets, besides. I read the news. Put the kitty beds back out. I call them caves, but there’s another product with that name. Really, these are the most luxuriously lined sleeping bags that are cat sized. They almost never climb in them. They do sleep on them. And they needed washing, which happened yesterday. So thick is the microfiber and faux fur it took a full day for them to almost dry inside and out. But, today, one went back in the box in the window, and the other went back on the ottoman.

I submitted an extended abstract for a conference. I’m going to examine, and hope to present my observations on the agenda setting taking place in the new Saturday Night Live UK. I just discovered this show yesterday. Had an idea 20 minutes later, then wrote 1,100 words on it last night, before and after the football game. Made some edits today, and off it went. That’ll give me something to watch when it gets too cold to go outside, and something to talk about for 15 minutes next spring.

Caught up on the news, ate some leftovers, replied to a lot more email, the usual. It was a productive day, and I did it all this afternoon. Who needs mornings, anyway?

I had a nice bike ride on Saturday. My lovely bride and I went out together, but she wisely pulled the rip cord when it didn’t feel right. She’d already had one big workout that day and I slowed her down and made her wait too long for another. So I just pedaled myself around for 30 miles.

I like going this way because we’re actually below sea level here … that’s two places in this general area where I know that to be true. The other is 7-feet below, this one is about 5-feet below sea level. Also, the water is here. And I mean, here. The tide had come in, and I hadn’t given that any thought when I set about on that particular route.

Today, just after 5 p.m. when I’d done all that I could do, at least until later tonight, I had another ride. This one was one of the better rides I’ve had in a long time. I don’t know if I’ve ever understood the conditions that allow for me to have this sort of ride, but I’d like for it to happen again.

It was in the 70s, for most of the chosen route and the time of day the traffic was minimal. Everyone was where they needed to be. The bike was doing everything I wanted it to and my legs weren’t bothered by the effort at all. Some days, I think, I am limited by different things. Could be my legs today, my lungs tomorrow, the bike or the terrain or the time available on other days. But, today, it just all worked out.

I did my 25-mile time trial route, my 14th if my notes are correct. This was my fifth fastest time, and my second fastest of the year. And it could have been faster, but there was a stretch on the back half of that course where I realized that today was a day I could ride tempo, but I had no need to do so.

Even the cars that passed by behaved today. And I timed this to almost perfect. This is the last light, just before I turned for home.

This is one thing the Velominati got right.

La Volupte translates roughly to “voluptuousness,” and while the first thing the mind goes to is a sexual definition, my favorite is, “the property of being lush and abundant and a pleasure to the senses.” In a sport where pain is worn like a badge of honor, those times when cycling is lush and abundant and a pleasure to the senses are what makes us want to climb onto our bikes again tomorrow. When Bobet returned home from his ride on the Azur, his brother asked him how it went. His answer was simply, “I was flying today.”

I feel like I’ve had one small experience with la volupte. One. In 28,000 miles. And that was years ago. It’s not something you dream of or look back on too much, but it’s nice.

I’ll look back, though, on today’s ride, when I could elevate my pace and do it again, and then again, and wonder why I didn’t feel that at all, when I could get over the little hills and get back to it without missing more than an extra breath, when the water tasted cool even at the end of the ride. When I noticed that my ill-fighting bike wasn’t making anything hurt. When I noticed that my shoulder hurt, just like it did constantly between 2012 and 2014, and I spent some miles hoping that wasn’t the secret to this. When I thought I’d do a little sprint near the end, but my glute was protesting, so I decided not to, but almost did it anyway. When all of the colors looked like an oversaturated indy house art film. When I developed no recollection, whatsoever, of the sound of the wind. And when I set no segment PRs, no bests of any sort, but I still felt fast, capable, and ready to ride again.

I’ve not had any of that on the bike in a while, not really. I’d like to.

OK, this is the first night of real grading this semester. I have 108 things to look over. Let’s see how many of them I can get to this evening, before I wander out into the dark, looking for a change of pace. There could be clouds out there to see, after all.

That, I’m telling myself, is how a productive Tuesday will begin.