Wide to Close

I was asked by an accomplished still photographer recently, how I approach a story on video. Without much hesitation I answered.

"I start wide, asking questions with my eyes the way a child might ask with their innocents, and then I move in closer, and closer, trying to answer each question the image begged to have answered."

It came out of my mouth like I knew the answer all along. In fact, I find myself rediscovering that answer everyday. It just happened again.

I was sitting in Perks, a coffee shop on the busy corner of Court and Union, when I noticed an older gentleman shuffling from newspaper box to newspaper box outside the shop's large windows. He was probing the coin returns as he scanned the ground for loose change. He was a large, heavy man, with shoulder length fringe of rust to white hair. His beard, also long and wild, made the mask of his face a full 10-inches wider on either side. At an age when most men are retiring he is busy looking for change left behind or caught between the bricks. My inner child asked, "Mental patient? Traveler?" as he shuffled out of view. I dubbed him Red Fred.

Red Fred appeared before me again, a day later. He was a passenger in a wealthy man's pickup truck. The truck cornered the intersection I was waiting to cross and in the brief slow motion moment when the brain tries to amend its definition of a person, I saw on his face a smile as he rocked his head to strains of classical music that escaped the wide-liner cabin. He was no longer the penniless man of questionable reality. He had people. In a day, a closer look had changed the possibilities. My inner child asked, "village idiot? incorrigible brother or uncle?"

I saw him again this morning at breakfast. It turns out that 8am Sunday morning is too early for most Athenians of the hill. I wandered around from diner to coffee shop in search of breakfast and was forced to hike into the valley where there is a 24-hour place called the Union. I spotted him as I walked in. He was sitting alone at a table talking to a younger man at the the next table, a biker who indicated that he was just passing through. I crossed to the far side of the room and sat with my back to their conversation, not wanting to get dragged in, or left out of their conversation without some choice. My blindness was illuminating.

Red Fred spoke with a smoky eloquence of a wise old gentleman. He was conversant on fishing, wilderness, engineering, and literature. He talked about his travels around the country, life in Canada and Mexico, culture, politics and religion. My inner child asked, "eccentric? stately?" and when I turned to get a closer look at him holding court with the wait staff and strangers he caught my eye and winked in a way that was indeed - stately.

In three brief encounters I experienced the discover of a man. What my eye revealed as an unfortunate existence that most would distancing themselves from, my ears unfolded into an auspicious life many would deem worth knowing personally. Distance and closeness hold many surprises like this and before breakfast was over I was to discover one more. He was a man with a real name and occupation. "My name is Cliff Craft." he said as he offered his hand, "I'm a student here."

At an age when most men are retiring, Cliff is searching for rare coins and knowledge and he succeeds by not being satisfied by the superficial view from a distance.

De ja Vouz all over again

9:50am and I have the Donkey study room to myself. The sound track for my quiet morning in the Grateful Dead and the chitty-chat of the hippie chicks out front working the counter in their homemade clothing. They remind me of pigeons in a way. They have a dance that they do behind register. One dancer's hand wipes the counter while the other hand smashes the espresso steamer against the bin. The second dancer caps the coffee cup with her left as her right taps in the price and collects the charge. Then they step left and take the other's position. Before coffee it seems like the random, panic of clerk work. After a large iced refill it looks like art.

Vidiots

I attended a symposium last night called "How YouTube has already changed your life." The speaker was Virginia Heffernan, TV critic for the New York Times. Ms. Heffernan, an admitted video addict presented some clips and discussed their relevance in the landscape of the future, our future, "attention share." A couple things resonated for me.

The first notion: The web goes everywhere. We all know this - that's why it is called the world wide web. But, what makes this plain is the fact that videos on YouTube that are independent of language get watched and propagated by a much larger audience.

Secondly: You don't have to change what you are interested in, to find it online. When we watch TV we change channels until we find what we are interested in or (if the remote is missing) we are forced to change what we are interested in. On YouTube it's all there, in one portal.

Thirdly: News, which is provided by companies traded on the stock exchange, is not trust worthy. If a message threatens any investor, or regulator, it will be softened or spun so that the consumer feels no need to react. This defeats the entire purpose of a free press and has the same benefits as campaign financing. You've been warned.

Finally: Television is becoming a billboard for web portals. MTV is changing its programing to drive its viewers to their website. Why would they do this? Because once you are there they can feed you what it is you want to watch, when you want to watch it. In addition, their advertisers don't want to support a system that relies on repetition for response when they can benefit and track real-time reaction, which can lead to real-time purchasing.

My hope is that this trend actually refines our intellect. For years, television has had to serve to the lowest common denominator to track a mass audience. If we actually consume (devote our shares of attention to) what we are truly interested in we might not be such vidiots anymore.

A compliment...now I must die.

I blame my Catholic upbringing. I haven't been - what my mother would consider - Catholic in many years, but for some reason I still can't trust a compliment for anything. I feel compelled to respond negatively: fight or flight, or a Jackie Chan version of both.

Woody Allen once said that Catholism's moto should be, "Die now, pay later." He saw that the status quo of the Roman church was to maintain a thin veneer of hope over a rock of ages fatalism. Small wonder when our mascot is an emaciated guy nailed to the woodwork. Good news? Happiness? That's just the start of something terrible.

Maybe someday I will take a compliment like a man - then I can die.

Mordant

I learned a new word today.

The word was presented, then repeated, for my benefit - the way a high school language lab insinuates a new word into your vocabulary. The word is mordant. Mor-Dant.

I admit, my first thought was, "This is a word about food." I was riffing off of the "dant" sound of it. Words like al dente and dental have that sound. "More-Food?" I thought. Then I saw the "e" was in fact an "a" and my attention was suddenly drawn to the other possible root, "mor," as in: morbid, mortal, morgue. "Dead-Food?" was my next thought, as I still hadn't given up on the food idea yet. Then I leap in a new direction. Dant as in Dante, writer of Divine Comedy, a tour through hell, which opened the door to the idea that, "reading your work is like a tour through hell." This could indeed be what was implied, after all, the word mordant, was presented to me by my writing mentor, about my writing.

As it turns out mordant is a little bit of all of those things. It is derived from the Middle French word, mordre, which literally means to bite - well to have bite, really. You might find this word used in place of expressions like: acerbic, scathing, caustic, and sarcastic. Apparently, I have a knack for using the hard edge of humor in the service of intelligence. Just punchlines in a divine comedy of sorts, a morsel of deadly food after a fashion.

Thank you Alex. I love my new word.

Restarted

Good News! The Ohio River Valley Authority was able to reset the Vernal breaker, thus restarting Spring. Blossoms, buds, and bees are free to continue with their business, while tulips and other flowering bulbs are encouraged to give it another try. As for the co-eds of OU - walk, don't run - to the nearest patch of open land and commence your UV therapy. That is all.

Tragedy is a word of mouth thing

I step over newspapers wrapped in their dewy plastic sleeves. There are three right in a row on College Street. It's 9 am and everyone hurries by the silent rolls, looking the other way, anywhere but at them. I look down at one and make out the word,Virginia.

When I get to the diner I am surprised to discover that the house copy of the Dispatch is stored in a holder by the door, and not scattered around the counter. No one is reading a paper today. It's just too sad. They are talking though. It goes like this. "It's a shame. So many dead." There is a long reverent pause before the tone changes, "It's a good thing he killed himself." The tone is angry, threatening, and I remember a story I once heard about a reporter who got pinned down in a firefight in Iraq. He didn't worry about dying. He wasn't concerned about pain or being captured. His overwhelming feeling was that of humiliation. For some reason, if you can't run, your body wants to fight - and if you can't fight, your body wants to crawl under a rock and die. Strange and primative.

It is four hours to Virginia Tech from Athens and some of my student here know students there. They certainly feel a kinship and the community as a whole seem to be feeling that humiliation. Maybe we aren't as evolved as we think.

Culture on the Hocking II: Saturday Night

It rained. It rained so much that the bricks were floating and shifting around like icebergs. Well, maybe not that much, but it was wet.

I met my friend Frederick for dinner, at a place called Salaam, in an alley, off Court Street. I walked through a door surrounded by purple twinkle lights, and step into another world. A world carved out of a dark sub-room of brick, cushions and carpets; a world with scents from Morocco and music from Arabia; a world where the slight Germanic woman who served me breakfast at the organic bakery led me past the belly dancer, through the salons, to my own corner table in the back.

If you hadn't guessed. Salaam serves middle-eastern food, really good middle-eastern food - here in Appalachia. And yes, there is a belly dancer, a really good belly dancer, directly from Appalachia. Frederick and I started with the Mezze Platter as we talked about politics and curriculum. Meanwhile, the tables around us cleared, filled, and cleared again. Frederick ordered the special: a bed of rice and cuscus covered in ripe olives and braised chicken thighs. He didn't offer me one bite.

I had the spanakopita. A giant nine-inch triangle of spinach, feta, and who cares what else, wrapped in a flaky phyllo dough that might have changed my mind about all phyllo doughs forever. It was every man for himself.

While we were grazing through a pile of pita bread at the end of the meal, a group of young French speaking students walked out of the rain and filled a large table near by. The belly dancer came over to entertain them and before we knew it the entire table had joined in, spinning and gyrating like dervishes. As it turned out, one of the young women at their table had studied belly dancing and treated everyone to a "call and answer" style dance-off with the house dancer. Fingers were snapping, feet were stomping, and hip bells were ringing. I believe the gentleman at their table had a close brush with nirvana.

Frederick and I clapped along respectfully while we waited for our check, and then parted company in the alley as the rain got just a tad heavier. Well, enough that the catfish were heading up hill.

Culture on the Hocking

A Friday night in Athens. Somehow I missed it the last time I was here. I think it is because my apartment was so far away from the town, and the rain was so continuous that it was difficult to motivate myself to go out after I got warm and dry. This time I'm less than a 100 yard dash to all the action, although action isn't really the right word for it.

For example: I began the night's adventure at the Donkey. There was a duet performing by the name of Ukulele Typewriter, a name that I thought was intended to sound av ante guard. I squeezed into the back room, paid my three bucks, and looked up to the stage to see two young men setting up their instruments. One had a ukulele, and the other had a Brother Selectric Typewriter. As they prepared to start the Ukist(?) placed a piece of sheet music on his stand, and the typist rolled a form into his typewriter. They paused for a brief introduction, and then the typist explained that he would be filling out a 1040a form during this number. He hit the carriage return, and the Ukist launched into tax man by the Beatles. It was magical.

My brother Dwight had one of those typewriters and I used to play with it whenever he could not whack me. The click-snap of the key strikes are indeed musical. The backspace key makes a nice high-hat sound (Phsss-Shht) and the shift key creates a superb bass kick. As a trained percussionist this guy was able to make the ugly little artifact of office equipment rock.

I stayed for three songs, before the room started to close in on me. There seemed to be about 150 people in a room full of chairs and tables and only one exit. Contributing to my wary/paranoia was the fact that my decaf was more like a three-caf. I couldn't sit anymore, and I probably wouldn't sleep very soon so I ventured down court street - the Bourbon Street of Athens.

The natives are either restless or smart. The students move en mass from bar to bar, chasing drink specials, an activity locals call the Court Street Shuffle. One text message can turn a full house into a vacant bar in a matter of minutes. The bars know this, and program multiple events into the early (11pm to 1am) part of their schedules, which keeps the crowd moving.

I'm more comfortable in a place where there are at least a few sober adults so I shuffled to the Cantina. The Cantina is a the oldest co-op, employee owned, establishment in Athens and draws locals, professors, and a few precocious students. They serve mostly vegan and locally grown food, along with beer, wine, and liquor from all over. Unfortunately, I got there just as they started demanding a cover charge. I opted not to fork out anymore money for music and turned around heading for home when I remembered that the Student Union, called the Baker Center, had a midnight movie.

I got there with time to spare and took the time to tour the new five-story building. It's built on a hill which makes it look like a two-story building from the top and the tower of Babel from the bottom. The building's literature is proud to point out that it has the only escalator for seventy miles. It also has a two-acre food court on the bottom floor, along with a high-end restaurant and bar. What's not open space is dedicated to student organizations and entertainment. I made my way to the 500 seat theater for the Midnight Show: Brokeback Mountain.

Twenty international students, a handful of drunk freshmen girls, and two senior citizens joined me for the two-and-a-half show. I'm not sure any of us understood what Heath Ledger was saying, but the shots were beautiful.

When the show was over at 2:30am. I walked across the campus, pass clutches of drunken youths, curbside food trucks, sidewalk musicians, and a few students just on their way out. The night is young to them, but it is clear by their deference for me, that I am not.

What can possible go wrong?

This is why good television requires schooling.

http://www.forcedshaving.com/2005/01/28/worst-weather-report-ever/

Boomerang

Travel is a strange series of unnatural, counterintuitive events. You drive west to go east. You fly south to go north. You sit around with strangers for ten hours so you can sit around with family for two. See what I mean?

When I fly I like to sit by a window so that I can shake the feeling that I am in a aluminum tube that is hurtling through the air, higher than the Himilayas, with way too many people sitting way to close for comfort. I press my face against the smeary plexi and enjoy all the imaginary foot room below the wing. Nowadays, it is one of the most spiritual things I do, making the term mass transit just a little bit more ironic.

On the home front, after the parking lots, shuttles, planes, trains, people movers, and buses I fall into a rythym. Like that plexiglass window, it's nice and comforting to hold the people we love so close to our face. From there you can see your past, your future, and you can ignore the strangers all around. It makes the journey worth every expense.

But like a boomerang, the inertia reaches it apex where you pause for a moment and then watch helplessly as your destination pulls you back into the bus, the tube, Ohio, where you drive east to find yourself farther from home.

Puppet Shows

Cooler weather has brought back a bit of the focus of my students - thankfully. The first few lectures were brutal - hot, sweaty, and interrupted by snores. These past few have been much more active and students have started to engage with me. If I can have another week of 50 degree afternoons, I might actually start to recognize them with their eyes open.

Meanwhile, the labs and exercises continue to be successful. The students jump in with both feet, stumble around a while, and then start to make the leaps the problems were meant to lead them to.

I tried something on Monday that met with mixed success. I brought a camera into the lecture, along with some action figures (Pirates of the Caribbean) and selected students at random to frame the shots I asked for. They liked the challenge, but they seemed to like my interaction with Capt. Jack Sparrow, Elizabeth, and Will Taylor even more. I guess everyone loves a puppet show.

Week Two

The trees are full of blossoms and little baby leaves this first week of April and as you can see by the "flowers" on my lawn, the weather has caused all sorts of new life to spring up on South College Street. One of the most fascinating rites of spring here are the bean-bag tournaments. (Guess they outlawed the Jart here too.) It seems just about any house or building inhabited by more than four OU students will have a couple of these panels posted on the lawn. It is not played all the time but when it is, the matches can go on and on like a cricket tournament. Also there seems to be a rule about men playing shirtless and howling after like coyotes after each toss.