Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

Today was draft day

Well this was a beautiful, warm September day. I managed to do everything mostly on time and, in the day’s best victory, I did not stain a suit coat or pair of slacks, as I did on Tuesday. A bit on the left sleeve at the wrist. A bit on the lower side of the left lapel. A big nasty splotch on the leg of the trousers. It was the sort of food-based accident that kept revealing more and more staining, the more I looked.

So I stopped looking.

Note to self, find a miracle-working dry cleaner.

This was the view on the drive in to campus.

Just a lovely day.

In my criticism class I wrapped up the lecture on the purpose and a bit of the how about media criticism. Comparing notes later with my recollection I realized I left out a few things. Some of them I meant to include! But I can work them all back into the conversation later this semester. We’ll start doing some actual critiquing on Tuesday.

One of the elements of the class is that I’ll have the students find some of the material we’ll study. One group found a piece which looks like it should be a lot of fun to unpack next Tuesday. I added one to the list, as well. I figure that, in a week or two, we’ll start bringing a bit more structure into the efforts. If they’ll go along with me, this could be a lot of fun.

I hope they’ll go along with me.

In org comm, we had a fantasy football draft today. The down side to organizational communication is that it isn’t the most fun class for everyone, though it is helpful and useful and the subject matter will be important to people later on. This is a class my lovely bride has been developing for a while now, and so I’m following her lead and turning the lessons and lectures into something that they can fold into and around their fantasy team. So on Tuesday they had to develop their teams, the colors, the mascots, the location, their target demographics. And today they had to pick their teams.

I wanted to take a high angle shot of the room, just like you see on draft day. But I have to tell you, there’s a good solid handful of people in the class that know each other already, and they were having a great time talking smack to one another today. There are six groups, so six student teams in the league, and I think the NFL could do something very interesting by bringing a few franchises into the same space on draft day, just to let us see what the interactions would look like.

I also drafted a team, a team designed to be beat. So most of my players are named Smith, but eventually you run out of Smiths — the one place you can run out of Smiths is the NFL it seems — and so I had to start picking some other people. But then a weird thing happened. This was a 16-round draft, and each team had two minutes to pick, so there was some time to think and, around round nine or so, I thought: I want to actually draft a team that is good.

But, no, the purpose of my team is to give everyone an automatic W when they face me. The purpose of their teams is to let them put into a classroom exercise the things that we talk about. The purpose of the league is to give a group or two the chance to have some bragging rights at the end of the semester. I don’t think that part will be a problem.

Last night at Radio City Music Hall I saw this mural, which is installed near the men’s restroom. It is titled “Men Without Women,” and all of this was oddly placed considering that women were joining the queue for the men’s room.

Anyway, the art was done by Stuart Davis (1892-1964) and we’re just going to have to again wrap our heads around the idea that 19th century people were forming the works that drove much of the 20th century. (People will look at Gen X and Millennials that way one day, too.) This is an oil-on-canvas, painted in 1932, and it is on loan from the Museum of Modern Art.

The little plaque next to it says:

Davis, a prominent 20th Century American artist and a pioneer of the Modern Movement, was commissioned by the architects of Radio City This abstract montage was named by the Rockefeller Center Art Committee after the story by Ernest Hemingway. The mural was planned to be executed in linoleum; however, the NYC Fire Department prohibited the use of this medium. Among the masculine imagery in the piece are smoking paraphernalia, barber poles, playing cards, a sailboat and a roadster convertible. The mural was removed from the lounge in 1975 and given to the Museum of Modern Art. It was returned to the Music Hall as a part of the 1999 restoration.

So it was in this place for 43 years, and it has been back for 26 years.

Davis was one of the first artists to apply for the Federal Art Project during the Great Depression. He loved jazz, and it shows. The same year he painted this, he lost his wife. Wikipedia tells me he liked neither where this work was installed or the name the committee gave it.

It was a bad year. Maybe he had happier ones after that.

If you’re on stage at Radio City Music Hall, this is your view.

It looks empty there because that was about 15 minutes before the show started and people continued to file in for the next three hours, which was the total run of the show. Apparently the thing to do at this place is just wander back and forth.

Anyway, here’s the Indigo Girls playing “Faye Tucker.” Lyris Hung makes even straightforward little violin pieces turn into something that will soar over a room and linger in the air before settling in your lap. It’s not a delicate thing, but that song is an in-your-face confrontation.

I won’t put up every song. I may put up two more, for the special appearances, but that’s probably it.

adventures / Indigo Girls / memories / music / photo / video / Wednesday — No comments
10
Sep 25

Let the wind blow back your hair

Worked in the home office this morning and early afternoon. Then we drove to the train station, where I saw this sign.

The people putting that sign together, and installing that art on the train platform, must have done all of that during off hours. What doesn’t feel right to me is the woman who watched videos on her phone at full volume for the better part of an hour.

Fortunately her stop was before ours, and we had blissful silence for 17 seconds. At the same stop, a woman got on the train, mid-phone conversation, speakerphone, full blast. It’s a common complaint of modern life: the loss of social graces, and headphones. I’ve nothing new to offer the conversation, and this isn’t playing through a loud speaker, so no one could hear it anyway.

We had dinner at The Alderman, the pre-theater dinner special, a four-course meal and you pick the two in the middle. I had a brightly tart, almost citrus salad with a lot of arugula. And then this half chicken which was drenched in grilled lemon juice.

It was all quite tasty. And now I want it again.

Then we went to the nearby Radio City Music Hall.

This was my first trip there. And it occurs to me that they should probably offer tours. Probably a half-hour walkthrough would be a decent draw. I’d think you could see and learn a few interesting things.

It turns out that they offer daily 60-minute tours! I hope it includes the chance to sing a little song or dance a jig on the stage.

Here’s the iconic sign, as you walk across the intersection. Yes, I will stop traffic in New York City for a photograph of neon. Fortunately, the people there are all very nice and understanding and accommodating.

Playing there tonight, Melissa Etheridge and the Indigo Girls. We saw them late last summer, and they were close enough, so we caught them again. Etheridge opened the show. She’s 64 and less dramatic (her word) but she still commands a stage, still has all of her power and can command absolute control of a venue. I had the first six or seven records on a variety of cassettes and CDs, but moved on somewhere along the way.

When we saw her last year, she did a dynamite cover of Joan Armatrading on the piano. And maybe, she had not been successful, Etheridge would have been the best cover singer you’ve never heard of. She does a killer Billy Joel cover and here, she’s mixing one of her own songs with a bit of her idol, Bruce Springsteen for a “The Letting Go – Thunder Road” medley.

And it hit.

Really fun show, wonderful venue. Took the subway to the train and the train to the car and then the drive home. Late night, long day tomorrow. And I’ll put up something from the Indigo Girls then.

photo / Rowan / Tuesday — No comments
09
Sep 25

No one knows what is at the bottom

I did a thing in class last semester where I opened every lecture with a slide titled Today in AI Fails. I’d leave the screengrab on the screen and just watch the room read them. I’d keep it there until the giggles and titters started. I thought of it as playing the long game of making a point. I figured, last night, that maybe I should do that again theis term, starting today.

And after I saw this story this morning, I realized I’ll probably be doing this for as long as I teach.

Declan would never have found out his therapist was using ChatGPT had it not been for a technical mishap. The connection was patchy during one of their online sessions, so Declan suggested they turn off their video feeds. Instead, his therapist began inadvertently sharing his screen.

“Suddenly, I was watching him use ChatGPT,” says Declan, 31, who lives in Los Angeles. “He was taking what I was saying and putting it into ChatGPT, and then summarizing or cherry-picking answers.”

Declan was so shocked he didn’t say anything, and for the rest of the session he was privy to a real-time stream of ChatGPT analysis rippling across his therapist’s screen. The session became even more surreal when Declan began echoing ChatGPT in his own responses, preempting his therapist.

“I became the best patient ever,” he says, “because ChatGPT would be like, ‘Well, do you consider that your way of thinking might be a little too black and white?’ And I would be like, ‘Huh, you know, I think my way of thinking might be too black and white,’ and [my therapist would] be like, ‘Exactly.’ I’m sure it was his dream session.”

Among the questions racing through Declan’s mind was, “Is this legal?” When Declan raised the incident with his therapist at the next session—”It was super awkward, like a weird breakup”—the therapist cried. He explained he had felt they’d hit a wall and had begun looking for answers elsewhere. “I was still charged for that session,” Declan says, laughing.

The answer to Declan’s question might be, probably not, as an entire secondary market is emerging around the platform’s security.

I may be using that particular story in a few weeks as an AI and human fail. As in, do you want to pay for this? Do you want to pay a professional for this? Then why would you use it yourself? Because that is a thing that is happening, too. And to sometimes horrible outcomes, we should add.

The whole point, as the program told Dr. Josh Pasek last month, is to keep you in the conversation, and nothing more. “My training prioritizes flowing, engaging dialogue …”

If you want to understand why it can’t seem to self correct on how many Bs are in blueberry, and why that is so dangerous:

[image or embed]

— Josh Pasek (@joshpasek.com) August 7, 2025 at 10:47 PM

ChatGPT wants to be the partner that never lets you hang up the phone. At some point, people are going to have to ask why that is.

Today’s AI fail feature included the same question asked of Google’s Gemini, by the same person, four times in rapid succession. Each answer was different. The question was “Has a DIII footbal team ever beaten an FCS football team?” The first answer was, it is rare. The second was it has never happened. The third answer was that it is not possible. The final answer was DIII teams don’t play football.

This came as a surprise, in one of my classes today, where four of the students are DIII football players.

The building (not pictured, above) that is both adjacent to, and adjoins, ours at work is a miracle of modern architecture. From the front, there is no beginning and no end. And the separation is one ground-floor sidewalk, basically a breezeway through the thises and thats that make up the mixed public-private use. Our parking deck, one of the best on campus apparently, is just behind it. And as I arrive in the midday, today I found myself parking on the fourth floor. As I took the steps down, I had several opportunities, then, to see this dumpster in the back of the adjacent, adjoined building.

I have to think there’s a story or two in here. Those giant monitors must be dead — and if they weren’t, they surely are now. Give no thought to recycling them, unless that happens later. But what’s up with that enormous dog crate? And the equally large cabinet or drawer or whatever that box was on the right side.

Coat and tie prohibit me from closer inspection, but I am curious.

I told my criticism class that this was the week I would lecture, and this was the week that they would discover why the class would work better as a seminar. So today I began to prove the point, laying out the basics of what media criticism is, a tiny bit of how we do it, and watching the students eyes for a good 50 minutes, testing their very patience and attention.

I don’t blame them, but socially, or culturally, we’ve got a problem with attention spans. Maybe we should ask ChatGPT to solve the problem for us.

Sorry, what was I saying?

In my org comm class the students did the beginning part of some group work that will pop up intermittently throughout the semester. They’re all creating football franchises, through which some parts of the class will see lectures lessons come to life. Some of them will take this more seriously than others. But they’ll hopefully all have fun, which is a real challenge in an org comm class. It’s not always the most vibrant material. Especially if they’re stuck with me.

I sat down for a chicken finger dinner after that, catching up on the day’s news, because I will always be behind on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I headed for home just in time to enjoy a nice little sunset, catching a few decent shots over the open fields here and there as I went.

And now I must turn to grading the things that were turned in last night, so I don’t have to do them tomorrow. Because, tomorrow, I must get ready for Thursday. And I will also have a great tomorrow.

Hope you do, too!

memories / Monday / photo — No comments
08
Sep 25

Week two, what it do?

We are now starting week two of the term and in another week or so, he said foolishly, everything will settle and click into place.

Also, the first things to grade are filtering in this evening.

The good news is that every day this week is more or less scheduled. Reading today, class tomorrow, grading tomorrow and Wednesday, class on Thursday, meetings on Friday. Maybe the better news is that the work of preparing for the week is all done. So it’s just a matter of seeing it through! Seeing the whole week through.

Here’s a weekend neighborhood sunset. I was coming back from picking up takeout.

We had Indian. I enjoyed the lamb vindaloo. Quite tasty. Not as plentiful as it was, before shrinkflation hit. Previously, this would have been dinner and lunch. Now it’s dinner, and about one extra bite — which means just a little more dinner.

Here’s a road I rode on this evening’s bike ride. The road just goes up and up.

Or just up. But not even that. It’s flat here, and after that curve you pretty quickly get to the overpass and that’s the big geographical feature. I probably couldn’t climb a real hill anymore if I tried. (I did the one climb in Switzerland this summer, the tot de splitsing, a hot, slow, grinding mess. One mile, 500 feet, danger at every pedal stroke. The danger being, Can I stay upright at this low a speed? So maybe I can still do one hill. Not sure I could do two…)

Phoebe doesn’t not have much faith in my climbing abilities, either. She’d rather put her head on the underside of a foot than see me struggle up a proper hill.

And Poseidon, well, he’s a fan of going to higher up places.

There are a few things in my home office that I don’t want him on, which of course demand his immediate and perpetual attention. We have the same disputes three or six times a day. But, this weekend, I had that big bin on the floor, and the basket full of towels and sheets, and I think I’ve found a way to keep him off the bookshelves.

So the cats, you can see, are doing great. But only if they get their required amount of pets this week. We’ll see.

cycling / Friday / photo — Comments Off
05
Sep 25

Saw an aerodrome, was transported

After a day of reading and prepping and typing away at my keyboard, I went for a little early evening bike ride. The wind was up, my legs were down and it was slow, but that’s OK. We got vaccinated last night and so I blame the quality of the ride on the conspiracy theories floating through my system.

There was a new-to-me road I wanted to see so I pedaled my happy little self toward the winery, but turned right before I got there, marveling at how I was easily doing 18 and 19 miles an hour up this hill on Wednesday, but doing considerably less than that today. I turned right and then left, and went down this road.

This looks flat when you’re on it and in this photograph.

But it is actually a little downhill. It bends off to the right at the tree line and then toward a creek bed. But the wind comes from that direction, usually, and it is actually a difficult down hill some days. Some days I have to shift to an easier gear to get down the hill. Some days coming from the other direction, up the hill, is easier than going down the thing.

In fact, today going down it felt unusually strong and I was doing about 17, but with minimal effort. And with no legs and post Covid vaccine (which we got last night) I felt a bit sapped and didn’t want to put any effort in. Later, as I reversed this route exactly, I came up the hill almost twice as fast.

That road alters reality, is what I’m saying.

I enjoyed some nice time under the trees elsewhere along the route.

And then I finally worked my way over to the new-to-me road. There used to be a little airport here. It was originally named after the town, but then it got a new name in 2021, when a private company bought it and dubbed it the Spitfire Aerodrome.

That’s just a great word. A great combination of words. It’s evocative of times far enough away that we mistakenly romanticize them. No one says the aerodrome without thinking of dirigibles or dashing pilots with silk scarves and leather jackets or barrage balloons or search lights piercing the sky and … they closed the joint in 2023, to make way for yet more warehouses no one needs.

I rode there it just to see what was at the end of that road. How often can I see an aerodrome? What’s there is a fence, through which you can still see two or three buildings, which look to be in still-good shape. The runway seems to be intact, as far as small municipal runways go. This is the view on the way back out.

I got back just in time to clean up for dinner, and fill the evening with tales about how the new microchips ow floating in my system have made me even slower.