Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

Tomato soup in a bread bowl

On this date last year, we stumbled upon a video that The Daily Show had recirculated from, I believe, 2013 or 2014. It’s a classic bit of satirical comedy now, and so much of what TDS and it’s descendants do is on display here. Plus, there’s Jon Stewart’s pronounced cheesy New York accent. It kills me.

I know this was a year ago because, for some one-off joke about ordering a pizza, I made a gif about how he wants a real pizza, with the gestures and the over-enunciation. It still cracks me up.

I mention it here because there’s not much to the day. Ten years ago today I was still trying to catch up from a trip. Five years ago today, in 2020, was just another typical day … we had about five more weeks of those before everything got atypical, of course. Too much time in the television studio. I miss the people involved, the students, but not the rest of everything else that came with those long days and longer nights.

So it’s Jon Stewart thundering away about “an above ground marinara swimming pool for rats.”

Seriously, it’s a tight 10 minutes. Give it a look.

On campus today we talked about media and culture, and that’s the last day we’ll discuss that. It’s interesting, but it doesn’t hold the students all that much, I don’t think. Probably my fault. Next week we’ll start talking about different forms of media. Which, once we get beyond print, I’m sure they’ll start to think to is much more compelling.

Today, though, we talked about how we view other places through what we learn about them in our media exposure. And I mentioned the Super Bowl so I could bring this back up again Monday, when I’ll ask, “What does the world take see in us when they watch one of our largest spectacles?”

Today I asked them, “Does the globalization of media undermine national cultures?”

After that we had an afternoon-long meeting discussing the pressing issues of the day. Some of them about curriculum and university stuff. Some on national matters. Rather than the whole faculty and a formal meeting, it’s just whoever is around. And putting in the face time is good, so I make sure to be around for these more casual sit downs. Plus someone brings snacks. And I got to talk about the difference between administrative and judicial warrants. That’s not something I would have predicted last year, when watching that pizza video.

Here’s the A-block of last night’s episode. Desi Lydic is on the desk this week, and she’s been great there since they started this rotating panel process in 2023. I’d like them to go back to skewering media, since the strength of the show was always being media satire, but since no one else is covering the news, they’re doing more and more of that. It’s better in small doses. But there’s a lot of news these days, and, again, someone has to do it.

Lydic’s first turn at the desk was one of those magical weeks where the content gods smiled upon the show. She had four fantastic episodes, and she made it seem obvious: after 27 years and three hosts, our most prominent satirical news show, finally, at long last, a strong female voice, particularly post-Dobbs. I’m so glad she’s still doing this. If they ever lock in a host she should get an opportunity.

She’s apparently from Louisville. I wonder what her feelings on deep dish pizza are.

Rowan / Tuesday / video — No comments
04
Feb 25

The goosen and the geesen

On the way to campus today, we saw Canada geese. They were all sitting in one field, rose up for a bit of video and then settled back down again in the next field. I suppose they’ve got good worms over there.

The people that will plant that field in the coming weeks will benefit from their visit, I’m sure. It’s the circle of life, take the worms, leave something behind. But all that honking.

Probably, this is the flock that flies over our house. It’s charming, but only because they are passing through. If they were in your backyard, just honking away for hours or days on end …

I went to campus with my lovely bride today. She was teaching. I sat in the office. And then she came from a class and we sat there doing office stuff — I pecked away at email and some notes and so on — until it was time for her next class. For my part, I visited with a video production class.

The professor asked me to be a client. He brings in people every term and his students do some video work for them. My colleague knew I am working with a cycling safety group. So I spent the afternoon telling them about some of the relevant laws, what this safety group is trying to do, and discussing how these sorts of messages can be successful. Now they’re going to make some PSA-style or docu-style awareness videos for the group.

Next week I’ll find out what they’re thinking. Today, they asked a lot of good questions. They seem thoughtful and careful, trying to grasp this new concept that was put before them. Maybe that’s why the professor invited me to take part. For people who don’t ride bikes there’s a whole new series of things to learn in this sort of project. That’s always different than building messaging about something with which you’re intimately familiar. And the end product, which we’re aiming at motorists, in general, can benefit from their work too.

I’m fairly confident about that part. We’re definitely at the awareness stage of this still-new state law, and they were all interested in carrying this on. So all of the important elements are there. So this is exciting: I am looking forward to continuing to watch them learn and grow through their creative process, it is important, it compliments some volunteerism, I don’t have to grade things. That’s win-win-win-win.

Worth going to campus for. But, now, I must get back to my own class prep and grading, so let me do that.

Monday / photo — Comments Off
03
Feb 25

No, I won’t complain about it for the next month

At the first of the month, I do the boring computer stuff. I clean the desktop and the downloads folder. I empty the trash. I update my boilerplate file and a spreadsheet where I chart web stats. It’s boring. It takes just a few minutes. And, on a grim and gray weekend such as this, it didn’t take long enough. But that’s done.

I stayed inside, at least until last night, when I carried the garbage can down to the end of the drive. It was 25 degrees but it somehow felt much, much colder. The pains of winter in the vain hopes of an early spring.

Back home, leaves will be budding on trees in two weeks. They’re already having temperatures in the 70s. It isn’t the winter I mind so much, it’s knowing that here, at the start of February, we still have two or more months of it.

But I’ll try not to grouse about it.

I also prepared two days of class conversations, and did some ironing. (Look how productive you can be when you don’t have to go outside!) And today I went to class and shared some of those notes and questions I’d prepared over the weekend. We are talking this week about media and culture. I’m not sure if I’ll do that very well. Next week, though, we’ll start talking about different types of media in different places, and hopefully that’ll go better.

In my campus office I sat and did work stuff, the unremarkable but necessary sort of work we all do from time-to-time. I feel like that’s what this whole week will be like.

Before I left, I stood in the window and thought the deep thoughts that one thinks while staring out the window. This is the view.

I’ve had worse views. My last one was of a parking lot, and a building that was being razed. Prior to that, there were three offices with no windows. Before that, it was the gravel lot that held the dumpsters. A few years before that I had studio offices on the top of a small mountain that looked down into the city. That was nice. But each view has its own pleasures, and this one does as well. There’s the corner neighborhood just below, but all of those trees beyond. In the middle ground, that transmitter is about half a mile away. It sits in the local electrical company’s backyard.

My mood about the weather probably isn’t helped that, everywhere I looked on the maps trying to find that transmitter, all of the road views where in June, July, September. Everything was thick, full, verdant. Warm.

Just 13 miles away from that window view, and in that same direction, is our home. When the sun gets that low it is time to head that direction. I got back just before it became truly dark. At least the days are doing their part of getting longer.

Let’s check in on the kitties, who remind me that I’m contractually obligated to point out are the most popular weekly feature on the site. That spreadsheet I mentioned proves it.

Phoebe has been enjoying the midday sun in the dining room. It’s a popular spot just now. Not a bad place to spend your afternoons.

Poseidon usually sits with me in the mornings, but I found myself on the sofa in the early afternoon recently and he took the opportunity to maximize his lap time.

Lap time is very important around here.

Tomorrow, I’ll go back to campus. Two days in a row!

cycling / Friday / music / video — Comments Off
31
Jan 25

Friday the 31st

The weekend is upon us. There is nothing but cold and gray and winter this weekend. All of that and whatever grim things come our way in the news. This is no way to start a Friday, but it is the right way to end January, begin February, and here we are.

I had a nice bike ride this evening, getting in 35 miles before it got too late in the day. I had two Strava PRs over the course of the ride, including the climb at the end of the thing. I messed around with the first mile or so of it, but then got serious and put in 20 seconds on my best time. I’m only four minutes off the fastest time.

The problem is that it was a short climb, just 2.33 miles. You can’t be four minutes behind the fast guy on a climb of that length. You’re almost halfway down the hill!

Hill is the right word. Right now I’d struggle to get over even virtual mountains.

OK, this is the last clip from last week’s concert. This was the finale in the encore, and “Satellite” is just such a cheery song to end a show on. It’s one of those that you can listen to a lot and find it might mean one of several different things. But it’s snappy. And everyone is happy. I have settled on it being a cheery song.

I didn’t notice it at the show, but I see it in the video here, the puppet that represents the Evil Producer is even dancing along in the back of the shot. If you can make an Evil Producer puppet dance, you’re doing something right.

The weekend is upon us. Too bad spring isn’t on the other side of it!

cycling / music / Thursday / video — Comments Off
30
Jan 25

I’m currently out of perfect similes

It has occurred to me that this week, and next, are the last calm weeks of the term for me. The material, of course, scales up, and the grading will too. From mid-February until May will be like a boat ride on choppy waters. You white-knuckle it at times, you wonder why you’ve agreed to this, but it gets you there, and you’re ultimately grateful for the trip, if only this boat would get to a dock, you to a car and, finally, back home.

It’s an imperfect simile, but it gets the point across, maybe. I could spend the rest of this time thinking of a better simile, but instead I’m using the time to try to get just a little bit ahead of things.

Today it was simple stuff. I started composing questions for some research I’m working on. I laid out clothes for next week’s classes. I fired off a message to some students in the online courses. I emailed back and forth with some people. Tomorrow, I’ll read a lot. Next week, I’ll try to stay ahead. After that, liftoff.

Here’s another video from the show last Friday. This is part of the encore. There’s a dumpster behind Guster. Once they were traveling from A to B on tour and got socked in to Western Pennsylvania. As a joke, they put some coordinates online and a few local fans showed up. They played in front of a dumpster. Occasionally they do it again, and now, they’ve incorporated it into their tour.

Here’s part of that original dumpster set. It was 2016.

I wonder if I would have gone out to stand in the cold and snow, just to see what they were going to do.

That was a Saturday. I didn’t write anything in the blog. We were all so much younger then, even though we felt old.

Thirty-one miles on the bike this evening. I’m ready to not be riding in the basement. Maybe in three or four weeks. But, for now, it’s all virtual. I go a long way, I wind up nowhere.

For some reason it looks like you ride over the ocean, but it’s a road in the game. A fictional land, where sometimes you ride fast, but you never go anywhere. It’s like being on the boat, ready for a trip you’ve been looking forward to taking, but the trip gets canceled.

It’s still an imperfect simile.