No Nostalgia for DSL

Posted on by

Lately it’s been just like the bad old days of DSL around here. I wrote about it more often than I remembered: here, here and finally here, among other times. Does anyone use DSL any more? I hope not.

Last week, after a fairly long period of solid performance, the house wifi because testy. Then temperamental. Then unstable and often unusable. Calls were made, robots were spoken to, and then a human being in the Philippines. Earlier today, a technician came to the house and did things to the system, which fixed it fine for about four hours.

Another call was made. This time I think I was speaking to a domestic call center. “Dan” he said, and it didn’t sound like a nom de call center (Raji calling himself Bob, or Nadia calling herself Mary). Another tech is coming tomorrow. We shall see.

I knew I was talking to the Philippines the first time because I asked. I couldn’t quite place her dialect, a mostly intelligible voice with an element of sing-song, and curiosity got the better of me. After all, the last thing she asked me was, “Is there anything else I can help you with or tell you?” There was.

San Antonio Missions National Historical Park, Before It Was a World Heritage Site

Posted on by

In late March 2013, the girls and I went to San Antonio. I’m always glad to show a bit of the town to them, and the visit included some of the missions, which are collectively San Antonio Missions National Historical Park. A couple of years later, they became a World Heritage Site, the first in Texas.

At Mission Concepción.

In full, Mission Nuestra Señora de la Purísima Concepción de Acuña, founded by Franciscans, with work on the current structures started in 1731.
A little more than a century later, it was the site of the little-known Battle of Concepción in the Texas Revolution.
Mission San Jose.

In full, Mission San José y San Miguel de Aguayo, with construction starting in the 1760s, and restored by the WPA in the 1930s.

I forget where Lilly got the small piñata. I think eventually the dog destroyed it.
It’s still an active church.
Mission San Juan Capistrano.
The church building had just been renovated the year before, which accounts for its newish, rather than long-weathered look.

Much of the grounds is open, with a few other ruins.
We didn’t make it to Mission Espada, and I haven’t been back that way since. Maybe one of these days.

Recommendation Thursday

Posted on by

Recommended: Terro Liquid Ant Baits. About two weeks ago, itty-bitty black ants started appearing around the kitchen sink. Maybe that’s a sign of spring.

At first, just a few. But as these things always go, a few more and a few more. Pretty soon anything left unwashed in the sink, or any stray bit of food, especially something sweet, would draw a crowd of the little bastards, eager to serve their queen and do their bit for world domination.

I bought some Raid Max Double Control Ant Baits. Double Control. How could you go wrong with a name like that? I set the traps — that is, I took them out of the package and set them on the counter, near the sink — and waited for them to do their extermination work.

The first time I encountered ant bait was in the early days of my time in Japan. One day, large black ants showed up and wanted to share my apartment with me. Larger than the more recent infestation, anyway. So I learned the Japanese for “kill ants” and visited a couple of retailers who might be able to help me.

If I’d been of a more poetic bent, I might have learned “the invader ants must die!” but in any case no language skills were necessary, since the box had a cartoon illustration of what it promised to do. I wish I’d kept it, since it was a gem of commercial manga. Ants see bait. Ants enter bait. Ants find poisoned goodies in bait. Ants take goodies back to nest. Ants feast on goodies. Ants die. Including the queen.

Sure enough, that’s what happened. The day after I put the bait down, I was surprised to see lines of ants entering and leaving the bait, which was a green bit of rectangular plastic with small holes on the side, carrying brown particles away with them. The next day, no ants were to be seen. Over the coming weeks, I’d see a straggler ant or two. Maybe they’d been out on long-range recon and returned only to find a dead colony. Soon even they were gone, and no ants infested my apartment again during the four years I was there.

With that happy experience in mind, I waited for Double Control to do its job. And waited. And waited. But the sink-ants didn’t seem interested. They were probably taunting me and farting in my general direction, inaudibly.

So I looked around for alternatives and found Terro Liquid Ant Baits, also easily available at your neighborhood hardware store. A product of Senoret Chemical Co. of Lititz, Pa., who seem to specialize in pest control.

I put a few baits down, next to the useless Double Control units, and the very next day, the little ants were inside the Terro baits. The Terro baits have a clear top, so you can see it working. This was on Sunday. On Monday, no ants were to be seen around the sink. I’ve seen one or two in the days since; must be that ants are keen on long-range recon.

It’s safe to assume that Terro worked while Double Control did not. What’s up with that, SC Johnson? You used to be so good at killing cartoon insects. Raid kills bugs dead. Not this time.

“Nuclear Energy”

Posted on by

If you visit the Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago, you can also easily visit “Nuclear Energy,” which is on a small plaza only about a half a block to the south, on Ellis Ave. (but not part of the museum’s collection). I’d seen it before — I couldn’t say exactly when — but Yuriko and Ann hadn’t. So we took a look.

“Nuclear Energy” is a Henry Moore bronze on the site of the first manmade self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction, the 75th anniversary of which just passed last December 2.

As for the sculpture, it was dedicated exactly 25 years after Chicago-Pile-1 was built and tested on the site, so its 50th anniversary was on December 2 too. Looks good for being out in the Chicago weather for so long, but I suppose it’s maintained.
Abstract, as Henry Moores tend to be, but of course you think of a mushroom cloud. Moore denied that, offering up (I’ve read) some art-speak about a cathedral, but I’m not persuaded. A mushroom cloud is perfectly fitting.

The Smart Museum of Art

Posted on by

I hear that the Northeast got blasted again by late-winter snow and wind. For our part, we did get some fast thick snow for a few minutes today. It was just beginning when I looked out my back door.
Not much all together, but it reached impressive near-whiteout for a short time. Reminded me of a moment in 1980 — I think it was March — when Nashville experienced about five minutes’ of snowy whiteout. I watched it unfold from my fifth-floor dorm window; it was like a giant feather pillow had been opened in the sky. Made an impression on a lad from South Texas.

On Sunday, I tried to time our visit to Hyde Park to see Patience so that we could see something else as well. Namely, the Smart Museum of Art, which is the fine arts museum of the University of Chicago. I couldn’t remember the last time I was there. Sometime in the 2000s, probably.
In full, it’s the David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art. The Smart brothers were big-time publishers once upon a time, whose publications included Esquire and Coronet. Their foundation ponied up funds to establish the museum long after they were dead, with the building going up in the early 1970s. It’s a smaller work by architect Edward Larrabee Barnes, who’s better known for the Dallas Museum of Art, Walker Art Center, and the IBM Building in Manhattan.

It’s a small museum. That’s one of its virtues. Also, no charge to get in. Most importantly, the museum has an interestingly varied collection, including 20th-century American works, European paintings from earlier centuries, even earlier works from China, and some very new items.

A number of works caught my eye. Such as “Still Life #39” by Tom Wesselmann, 1964.
A “Thinker.” Yuriko wondered just how many Thinkers there are. I couldn’t say.
“Untitled” by Norman Lewis, 1947.
“#9 New York 1940” by Charles (Karl Joseph) Biederman, 1940.
In a room by itself, we found “Infinite Cube” by Sir Antony Gormley, 2014.
Wow. The sign described it as “mirrored glass with internak copper wire matrix of 1,000 hand-soldered omnidirectional LED lights.” Sounds labor-intensive. We spent a while admiring the thing, which was a different experience each time you moved closer or further away.
I even got a self-portrait with it — accidentally. Ann’s on the other side, with only her feet visible.
Nice work, Sir Antony.

Patience

Posted on by

The Gilbert & Sullivan Opera Company’s performance of Patience drew a sizable crowd to Mandell Hall at the University of Chicago on Sunday (including us), as did previous Gilbert & Sullivan productions that we saw, Yeomen of the Guard and Iolanthe.

For good reason. The company, directed by Shane Valenzi, did a fine job of it, their talent augmented by the skillful University of Chicago Chamber Orchestra, a 40-member ensemble.

Remarkable how something funny almost 140 years ago can still be funny. Not only that, spot-on satirical. Then again, while the aesthetic poetry movement might be a thing of the increasingly distant past, fads — and more particularly, the fickle adulation of male sex symbols — are still immediately recognizable.

All of the leads, including Jeffrey Luksik as Bunthorne and Olivia Doig as Patience, brought considerable talent to their parts, but I was especially amused by Brandon Sokol’s take on Grosvenor. As the program notes put it, “Grosvenor is Fabio, a pure sex symbol without anything resembling artistic sensibilities,” and Sokol played it up delightfully.

Also amusing was Grosvenor’s transformation into “appearance and costume absolutely commonplace.” He came out with his golden hair shortened and wearing sports apparel, namely a Cubs cap and a Bears t-shirt. That was part of the costuming of the entire production, overseen by costume designer Rachel Sypniewski. The costumes were decidedly not Victorian, but that design decision worked.

“We’ve attempted to draw that comparison [between Victorian and modern faddishness] more or less overtly,” the program says, “modernizing the dress of the women and the poets to reflect a Poe-ish aesthetic evocative of the vampire-esque gothic movement that evolved from aestheticism and [which] enjoyed a revival during the popularity of the Twilight saga… The men [Dragoons] are Canadian Mounties who, despite their fearsome competence and justifiable pride, and nonetheless often the subject of light ridicule in American popular culture.”

(Such as Dudley Do-Right. Something I didn’t know about the Mounties, per Wiki: “Although the RCMP is a civilian police force, in 1921, following the service of many of its members during the First World War, King George V awarded the force the status of a regiment of dragoons, entitling it to display the battle honours it had been awarded.”)

Three of the Dragoons, usually dressed as Mounties, got the biggest laugh of the night when they tried to be aesthetics, dressed in tights. Actually, the very biggest laugh came when one of their members, the Duke of Dunstable, played by an enormous, hairy actor named Dennis Kulap, came out in pink tights.

One more thing about Patience, which I discovered just today: Oscar Brand and Joni Mitchell singing “Prithee Pretty Maiden.”

Thursday Debris, Online Edition

Posted on by

As part of my work, I spend a fair amount of research time on sites devoted to news in specific cities, and besides the items I’m looking for, I see a lot else besides. It doesn’t take long to realize that murders and traffic accidents and fires still lead, even in the age of digital media. Pop any major city name in Google News and that much is clear.

Sometimes the headlines, or the lead paragraphs, are a little lighter. Even if violence is involved.

Wanted Akron Pimp Shot through the Ear in Cleveland

Painful, I bet, but with time and maybe plastic surgery, the Akron pimp might recover. He’ll also have a story to tell at the pimp conventions.

Then there’s news about things I’m only vaguely aware of. I don’t mind it if they stay that way.

Sharknado 6 is set to be released on July 25, 2018… the film will feature time travel, Nazis, dinosaurs, knights, and Noah’s Ark.

Six? Anyway, the movie will be full of things any 12-year-old boy might want. Left out were cowboys, astronauts, UFOs, and the Bermuda Triangle, though I guess boys aren’t quite as interested in those things as they once were. There’s always Sharknado 7.

News about thrill seekers. Type T people, I’ve heard them called. Nuts, that is.

Your Facebook and Instagram feeds are full of it: People on vacation pushing themselves to extremes by diving off rocks, skiing dizzying backcountry drops, walking rickety paths above death-assuring canyons.

My Facebook feed is full of no such things. But I do remember interviewing a real estate executive well over a decade ago, and the most interesting part was off the record — and not directly related to commercial real estate anyway. It was about him rafting on some river in Mongolia. Off the record because he didn’t want the other investors in his projects to think he was doing anything they’d consider dangerous.

And other oddities.

Saint Louis University is seeking a name for a Midtown district that straddles part of its north and south campuses and includes the Foundry and Armory projects. Voters can choose from Prospect Yards, The GRID, The Circuit, The 1818, or write in their own name.

I don’t much care for any of those, except maybe 1818. I suggest “Bob.”

Still in Old Assenisipia

Posted on by

I was looking in a seldom-looked at file of images the other day and found a scan I’d made of a page from a collection of Thomas Jefferson’s writings. I’d forgotten I’d made ir. Here it is.

Nearly 15 years ago, I wrote: “Some years ago, I read a curious little document by Thomas Jefferson, who in 1784 made a report to Congress — the Congress under the Articles of Confederation — about how to create states from the Northwest Territory and what to call them.

“Jefferson suggested 10 states for the area that now contains six (Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin). It was an exercise in hyper-rationality and hyperliteracy, though if his suggestions had been used, they would be normal and even venerated names — such is the power of custom.

“Hyper-rational because, instead of paying attention to natural features, Jefferson cut the district into rectangles measuring two degrees of latitude north-to-south and roughly four degrees of longitude east-to-west (‘roughly’ because the irregular Mississippi River forms the western boundary of the territory).

“Besides the Mississippi, geographic form did intrude in what we call lower Michigan — even Jefferson wasn’t going to ignore lakes Michigan and Huron in drawing lines — as well as a few other places on his map, but he was doing his best to apply Longitude and Latitude to the new states’ boundaries. It was as if Colorado- and Wyoming-shaped states were to be created in the Midwest.”

Naturally, other sites discuss this odd collection of non-realized states, such as (of course) Strange Maps.

Not Indicted Yet

Posted on by

First things first: Remember the Alamo. Today is a good time to listen to some Dimitri Tiomkin.

Wind and cold yesterday to remind us that winter lingers, that it’s the time of the year when the season is an unwanted guest who gives no indication of packing his bags. Then in the evening, snow. Just a covering, so I figured it would melt today. No. We got more in the morning. Then it melted. Mostly.

Got an oddity in the mail not long ago: an anti-Bruce Rauner campaign booklet called The Governor You Don’t Know, subtitled “The Other Side of Bruce Rauner.” It’s an actual paper publication, and a smallish thing, 4 in. x 6​¾ in., with a four-color cover but all text on its 48 pages (three forms of 16 pages, I bet). And I mean all text — not even any black-and-white illustrations.

The byline names the chairman of the Chicago Republican Party as the author, with a forward by a Republican state representative. Interesting copyright note: “Permission is hereby granted to reproduce any part or all of this book until March 31, 2018.” After that, all rights reserved.

I’m not going to do that, but I will quote from the forward: “In this book, you’ll be taken behind the scenes as the author reviews the salient events that explain why we are taking the extremely rare step of unseating an incumbent governor from our own party.”

The Illinois Republican party, it seems, is a tad peeved at the governor. I can certainly think of some criticisms of him myself, but I will give Rauner this: he’s never been indicted. In some states (Illinois, Louisiana) that’s a pretty high bar for a governor.

On the back of the booklet, we’re informed that the woman looking to unseat the governor in this month’s primary, or rather her campaign, paid for the book. As politicos go, she’s a dime-store demagogue, as noted by the underrated columnist Neil Steinberg.

All very interesting, but I’m still left with a nagging question. Why did I get it? Am I on some kind of dime-store demagogue fan club mailing list? If so, I’d prefer not to be.