Not that cranky.
Thursday, June 18th, 2020
My brother and I had an…errand to do, let’s leave it at that, that involved speeding up to Northeast Ohio (where my Father grew up) and back again. I noticed that it would be less than 8 miles out of our way if we stopped by Salem, Ohio, a lovely small town with an interesting history not far from the (once?) very industrial Youngstown, Ohio.
Created by Jamie Berger, crankypressman.com
[I just noticed that when you grow up in Columbus, Ohio (as I did) you tend to stick the ‘Ohio’ onto every mention of a town. There are other Salems. There are other Columbii. There are even other Youngstowns!]
I wanted to zip into Salem because I follow a handful of typographers, designers, and letterpress experts on the Instagram and a few days ago I came across a fine representation (shown at right) of an important sentiment in these troubled times. Wood type. Printed on an old press. The hashtag character hand-carved out of wood. An assertion of equality, protest, and change in three words, and somehow all the more powerful pulled off a press by hand from the last century.
It was beautiful. And I thought maybe I could persuade them to sell me one.
So I called up the Cranky Pressman people and asked if we could stop by. Quick visit! They cheerfully agreed.
And by ‘they’ I mean two brothers, collaborators in a letterpress business. Brother Keith Berger is a purveyor of fine commercial printing in letterpress, along with all the similar technologies that printshops made possible and precisely practical over the past century or so: die-cutting, stamping, foil, and of course all that odd cutting, stitching and binding that turns a sheet of press paper into a viable thing.
We talked to Keith on the phone, but we met Jamie (and the shop cat) at their shop late in the day, in a quick, masked, appropriately socially-distanced visit. What a cool place.
Keith’s brother Jamie Berger is more of a fine-arts designer, a designer and creator of what he calls “frivolous artistic printing”. We call it beautiful presswork. He showed us around cases of wood and metal type, presses, inks, fine-carved cuts, rollers, brayers, quoins, and can you tell I really don’t know what I’m talking about here?
We saw the results of his creative projects on the wall, and they hit all the buttons for me—great type, use of color, subtle humor, and celebration of the medium itself.
We talked about the challenges of doing the work you want to do while keeping the lights on and all the parts of a very complex process going. I found myself thinking that the television design stuff I do or did has gone from very analog, equipment-intensive, and finicky to something the iMac in their corner office can render out—in the right hands.
We talked about the pleasure (and the challenges!) of doing personal work that has rewards beyond a paycheck.
Their collective persona of a “cranky old guy” is, of course, an affectation. We found both to be personable and passionate about the work. And Jamie, at least, is younger than I am, so that either tells you something about them or me.
Spotted on their layout table, an important exhortation for the months ahead.
Contains metadata.
Wednesday, June 17th, 2020
One of the things I like about the Google photos infrastructure is that it does a decent job of holding on to important information—we call it metadata—about when and where a photo was made.
But even more interestingly, when you upload photos with readable text on the screen, the images are read and that text is something you can search for! If I type in the word “contains”, what comes up is a big stack of pictures that have only one thing in common: you can make out the word “contains” on the screen. It’s there on a wine bottle label! A tiny fake creamer label! A modern museum exhibit! An ancient museum exhibit! A software update on an iPhone screen!
This is remarkably useful and in the tests I’ve done so far, it really doesn’t matter what typeface the words appear in or how tilted the surface is…the word appears. It’s valuable searchable metadata.
Uncertain.
Tuesday, June 16th, 2020
I think that one of the things that is unsettling for a relatively precise person like myself is that from day to day, place to place, the efforts to “flatten the curve” are…well, scattershot doesn’t even say it. If you go out to do anything, earnestly masked and maintaining a safe distance, you will find, perhaps, a store where most people are, like you, doing the safe thing. Or some are, some aren’t. Or some are obstinately playing as if the pandemic isn’t happening at all. Cram into that bar! Block that grocery store aisle!
It’s an adventure. Not a fun adventure, but the uncertainty does give you a moment of discovery, and when you add together the data points over time do you get a sense of how it’s really going? No, no you don’t.
Good news from the sarcasm desk.
Monday, June 15th, 2020
Well, that’s how local television news seems to want to frame any venture that has decided to open up and this is one of those times I wish I had a special sarcasm font to bring home how nuts I think this is.
Six Flags! They’re opening! They have these temperature camera scanner thingies! Everything’s fine!
Disney! All those Florida attractions! It’s all fine! C’mon down! C’mon and dine in!
College voluntary sports practices! C’mon in and sign this waiver saying we can’t be sued if you become infected! But the practice is voluntary!
Summer camps! Who’s to say, really! But some parents really, really need to park their kids, and they say…they say that the coronavirus really doesn’t transmit from child to child. That’s right, isn’t it? Isn’t it?
Trump rally! Come on down! We’ll be not wearing masks…no wait, we will be handing out masks! And taking temperatures! And hiring actors to give the rally a more diverse feel!
It’s all…fine.
This is how, they’ll tell you, the economy restarts. This is how, I’ll tell you, the second wave becomes inevitable.
One apology, millions to go.
Sunday, June 14th, 2020
From the video (uploaded by @jaimetoons on Twitter) of the event, because of course there’s video.
This is one of those follow-ups where I said back at the screen “oh yeah, of course she is.” Maybe several times.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The CEO of a cosmetics company issued an apology Sunday after a video was widely shared online showing her and her husband confronting a man and threatening to call police because he stenciled “Black Lives Matter” in chalk on his San Francisco property.
“There are not enough words to describe how truly sorry I am for being disrespectful to him last Tuesday when I made the decision to question him about what he was doing in front of his home,” Alexander said in a statement. “I should have minded my own business.”
Also, apparently at least one cosmetics distributor has cut ties with her company over the furor. That might hurt a bit. There are days when I think this uncomfortable nearly one-on-one ceremony of shaming and exposure has to happen over and over and over again in neightborhoods as fancy as SF’s Pacific Heights or as blue collar as suburban Pittsburgh…or Atlanta. Daily. Hourly. Every time it happens.
This means that maybe we’ll have a better and more just society in…80 years or so? That realization of “I should have minded my own business” I would hasten to edit toward “I should have offered this person the respect he deserved as a human being.”
It sure seems like we have to embark on major, systemic change to get this done more entirely in our lifetimes.
We’ve been here before.
Saturday, June 13th, 2020
“They’re smashing the windows at the Wendy’s right now.” —WXIA’s Jeff Hullinger reading a tweet from an AJC reporter.
At 10:33 pm Friday, there was an officer-involved shooting, where 27-year-old Rayshard Brooks was shot when police were called by a Wendy’s just south of downtown asking for help clearing their drive-thru lane of Mr. Brooks.
There was tasering. Mr. Brooks threw a punch. The officers killed him. Some of this was caught on video. I’ll assume you can go find some real reporting.
And now, roughly 24 hours later, protestors have shut down Interstate 75/85, a few hundred feet from the Wendy’s, and at this moment, the police have not responded with more force, yet the television anchors commenting seem to consider that inevitable. Isn’t that part of the problem?
This section of I-75/85 is fourteen lanes across at that exit. It’s a protest point that will get some sort of attention.
Atlanta’s police chief Erika Shields has resigned over this incident. The mayor has said that the shooter should be fired.
Oh, man. So much work to do.
The actual day.
Friday, June 12th, 2020
My family had what was an unannounced but seemingly cast-into-stone tradition that when you had a party or any commemoration of a person’s birthday, it had to happen on the actual day, or it was somehow diminished or of less repute. You could blow out the candle and eat that cake on the next day, or the day after, but it wouldn’t have the magic.
I think that now my father, the chief enforcer (?) of those traditions is no longer around to make arbitrary pronouncements like that, we’ve come to be a bit more flexible, realistic. The next generation, advanced on matters of birthdays!
That said, given the stresses of the past few months, I’m glad that my brother had a celebration of his birthday on the actual day, with his nuclear family, and I’m glad that we’ll have a safe, socially distant but in person commemoration with him and them on the next day, and no magic cake (as far as I know) will be involved.
Because, you know, the magic. Happy birthday, JPB.
Astro gazing.
Thursday, June 11th, 2020
The optimism that surrounded the first part of the space program, marching toward President Kennedy’s challenge goal through the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs was truly something to behold.
Space was new, cool, and everyone wanted to be a part of it, and the stoic white (at first) test pilots who became America’s first astronauts defined a new frontier of celebrity—guys who would sit on a huge, very combustible cylinder with fins, and take a multi-G ride into orbit, and to the moon.
Ohioans knew well that the first guy to walk on the moon, Neil Armstrong, was born in the small town of Wapakoneta, Ohio, about midway between Toledo and Cincinnati (now) on Interstate 75. We pass it every time we go to Michigan, and just as we pay our respects to the Butter Jesus II and the prominent Mosque at the south end of Toledo (your signal to exit if you want to head toward Ann Arbor or Lansing), we traditionally nod at one particular ‘Wapok’ landmark.
If you ignore the white dome of the Armstrong Air and Space Museum, the other notable I-75 roadside attraction is one of those “being a part of it” businesses: Astro Lanes, an out-of-this-world bowling alley with a fancy neon sign that manages to merge bowling pins with a starburst because, hey, why not. It has apparently gone through several owners but seems still in business, with current postings of the State of Ohio Covid-19 distancing instructions in the lobby entrance. (We dropped by at 9 am, so, a bit early for dining, lounging, or bowling.)
Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the…7-10 split?
Familiar drone.
Wednesday, June 10th, 2020
During the coverage of the protests, during the coverage of George Floyd’s funeral, during the coverage of the Georgia primary elections yesterday, one visual component you can begin to expect is lovely low altitude sweeping aerial footage captured by drones. It’s hard to argue that hovering just overhead isn’t a compelling angle, but after a while, I think we’re inured to it.
I thought of that watching flying cameras swoop over the Park Tavern, which, normally, is a place to eat and drink on the edge of Piedmont Park, but yesterday, it was a multi-precinct polling place (for reasons still a bit obscure to me.) But hey, the hot and thirsty people in line look quite picturesque from this angle, right?
AP’s drone aloft over Atlanta’s Park tavern, June 9, 2020.
The FAA tells amateur pilots that they absolutely cannot fly over people or crowds, and yet, well, this is journalism, right? Is there a better visual way to show you how long the line was or how many people marched? I’m torn, because I have one of these things and I am very wary of dropping it on someone’s head (I’m equally wary of flying it into a tree, which in Atlanta, is a frequent challenge.)
There are also all kinds of restrictions (basically “no fly zones”) near airports, sporting events, political rallies, and concerts (a lot of events that aren’t happening in the days of The Virus), and, well, much of the online collection of rules, regulations, and anecdotal advice does not cover mass protests or police action.
There’s also the annoyance factor. Although yes, drones are quieter than, say, helicopters, they have a rather distinctive noise that tends to make passers-by look up in alarm or perturbation: they sound like a swarm of angry bees.
So there’s that to work on.
I voted.
Tuesday, June 9th, 2020
March 17, 2015. Ah, those were the days.
Sammy and I have made a tradition over many years of walking to our polling place, up until recently the Ponce de Leon branch of the Atlanta Fulton Public Library. But the past couple (three? four?) elections the library has been closed for renovation and we instead had to drive a couple of miles (three?) to the Butler Street Baptist Church to cast our ballot. The election stuff was crammed in there somewhat awkwardly amidst the pews and the altar itself, giving the voting ritual a slightly odd overlay of beat-up golden chalices and tattered hymnals.
But this year! Big election year! Even the primary has some important races to weigh in on, and then a batch of odd party-preference questions (carrying absolutely no legal weight) and unopposed judges (who are probably very important in any consideration of judicial reform and yet, what do you do? Affirm them? Ignore them?)
After two coronavirus postponements (no, no, the virus is still very much around, but we’re going about our business here with varying degrees of safety and obliviousness), the Georgia Primary was today, and by many reports, it was a mess of considerable proportions. Here are just a couple of places to look for the details:
‘I Refuse Not to Be Heard’: Georgia in Uproar Over Voting Meltdown in the NYTimes
Key Georgia primaries to be decided after ‘unacceptable’ voting problems in Politico
And having watched in annoyance fading to disgust as the state’s Republican Secretary of State supervised purchasing an complete state’s worth of rather dubious voting machines (to “fix” problems), and having watched how our state has been dealing with flattening the coronavirus curve (i.e., not very well), we decided for the first time ever to take up Georgia’s kind offer of a mail-in ballot, essentially an absentee ballot. We filled out our request forms and waited until, well, pretty much the last moment to receive them in the mail.
So, we spent this morning in contemplation, research, and correctly following instructions, and then took our sealed and oathed and signed ballots down to a dropoff box down at the Auburn Avenue library branch. (We were but one in a steady stream dropping by to drop off.)
And then, because we wondered what it would have been like if we just said, heck, let’s go down to the precinct to vote as normal, we drove by our polling place, and things were anything but normal. The lines snaked around the church and up the street, more than once. It was hot. People were hanging in with a fervor.
We have a fair amount of confidence that our votes counted, even without getting a coveted ‘I Voted’ sticker in person (pictured above. I mean, we have a couple of dozen of those things at this point.) We also have a fair amount of anger that many of our neighbors had to stand in line for hours, and some probably still couldn’t do what our country, our state, our county, our city has asserted is one of our highest civic responsibilities.
And so we look ahead to November, and yeesh, what can we do to make it better between now and then?
Post-trip checklist.
Monday, June 8th, 2020
- ✓ House in good shape, or at least the way we left it.
- ✓ Georgia absentee ballots (finally) arrived, ready to be dropped off Tuesday.
- ✓ Doc Chey’s still has good fish tacos.
- ✓ Hot weather arrived while we were gone, unconcerned if there’s a pandemic or not.
- ✓ OS updated on phones and tablets using that fast, fast fiber connection.
- ✓ No mystery bills, summonses, or subpoenas.
- ✓ House air conditioning doing its magic.
- ✓ Still lots of citizen-work to do to make it to November.
Southward.
Sunday, June 7th, 2020
I am always rejuvenated by a road trip with Sammy, and we’re on our last leg tonight. Home soon.
Practicing.
Saturday, June 6th, 2020
There’s no certification or licensing to become a journalist. When I attended the Ohio University School of Journalism (since renamed the E.W. Scripps School) back in the dawn of time, there were courses on Communication Law, News Writing, News Editing, Review and Criticism…it was really interesting stuff, and only the practical material has become well and truly obsolete. The blue pencils and the proportion wheels have gone the way of the Linotype. I have a News Editing textbook where literally everything in it is no longer the way it’s done.
I bring all this up to say I am watching with interest (as they say) as journalism of all flavors navigates its way through a global pandemic and a nation filled with protestors on the streets and police violence in the name of “dominating the battlespace” and, oh yeah, a presidential election.
And they’re doing this in an era where media mergers that suit investors have pared newsrooms down to alarming levels and budgets, beats, and the product itself has been pared to the bone.
It’s a time where people find it convenient to blame something called “the media” when they’re really frustrated with a very specific subset.
It’s a hell of a time to do this for a living.
But I think what you have to do, if you do this for a living, is put your head down and set aside any inflated visions of changing the world through your writing and just do the work. Report what you see. Report what you hear. Report when your access is blocked, and report the parts of a very secretive government you may only see the outlines of. Tell the truth. Tell the truths of the people who are being teargassed and clobbered with “less lethal” projectiles.
These are the first principles of reporting. It may not be that highfalutin’ “analysis” or even what some bend the term journalism to encompass, but truth-telling, in sober detail, the who, what, why, when and how of the situation—that remains a way through.
Don’t try and sell your readers on a point of view, don’t ornament your prose with near-hyperbolic adjectives. Don’t say “countless” when crowds can and should be counted. Don’t tell them it’s “horrific”—tell them the events vividly yet without spin and believe me, they’ll come to the same conclusion you would. Don’t talk about your emotional reaction to it—I mean seriously, just don’t bother. There’s too much important story to tell that does not involve you personally.
You can help change the world with transparency, sobriety, precision, and a willingness to just put your head down and do the work.
Best of luck.
The Days of the Week.
Friday, June 5th, 2020
Darn, can’t even get a decent VW bus-served espresso during a pandemic.
It’s Friday! We had a discussion today at our socially distanced dinner about what day it was, and computing devices had to be pulled from pockets to verify that it was indeed Friday, the 5th of June, 2020. It is, for a few more minutes, anyway.
* * * * *
I delighted in seeing that the Mayor of Washington D.C., her choices constrained to an enormous degree by her district’s lack of statehood and full congressional representation, could, overnight, get a crew of people to paint “Black Lives Matter” on a stretch of road north of the White House and Lafayette Park in huuuuge yellow letters, north of the area the apparently very defensive president has fenced and walled in, creating an “end of the reich” look that is, although appropriate, kinda uncomfortable to see. Also delighted to see that her renaming of that stretch of 16th to ‘Black Lives Matter Plaza’ is already up to date on Google maps.
* * * * *
The title of this post is from an SCTV parody of soap operas from the very early 1980s. Ah, SCTV…we owe the Canadians so much for sharing their vast entertainment resources with us. We are enriched beyond all calculation.
Dismantling.
Thursday, June 4th, 2020
Some notes toward systemic change:
- If you cover up or hide your identification, you are fired and subject to arrest.
- If you are asked by anyone, you must disclose your name, your agency, and who you report to.
- If you are required to wear a body cam, disabling that is a firing offense.
- If you stand by while a colleague is violating policy and do not step in to defuse the situation, you can be charged as severely as the police perpetrator.
- If the suspect or protestor you are interacting with asks you a question, you will answer, clearly and politely.
These would be national laws, if not a component of a constitutional amendment. They would not be subject to executive branch meddling from any future administration.
- Completely dismantle the program that gives police agencies hand-me-down military equipment. Confiscate and junk the equipment they have received.
- Eliminate “warrior” programs that train cops to do battle instead of defuse volatile situations.
- Establish completely transparent review processes with public access to video and other evidence.
- Reward successes and achivements in peaceful interactions with communities of color (and all communities). Have a good idea to make a tough situation better? You’re rewarded.
- Eliminate chokeholds.
- Eliminate no-knock warrants.
- Establish national standards for police salaries and benefits that would make police unions less necessary. If you’re a cop, it’s hard work, we expect a lot, but you have to deliver, or you’re through being a cop.
The next administration and legislature has a lot of work to do.
I got a marketing call today from a tough-sounding guy asking if I would support candidates who promote legislation that protect police “in these difficult times”.
As the kids say, that’s a hard no.
Wednesday fatigue.
Wednesday, June 3rd, 2020
I hear more and more interviews that express how tired people (many of them peacefully protesting the killing of George Floyd) are. I can feel that. I spent a fair chunk of this morning churning through the available online news related to the protests, police violence, and the attempts to set our country on a better course. Man, oh man.
I have to look away for just a moment and let some of it process. Reset, refresh, renew. Just for today, I’ll again shamelessly attempt to echo the Sammy blog style:
Look! It’s a bird. I think it might be some sort of plover, but that’s only because Sammy was plowing through bird books this afternoon.
In conjunction with the National Park Service, I present a digger with my initials on it!
This, my fellow blog readers, is a Superior photographer (in every way.)
