Summer Travels - 2017: Finland

While teaching in Jyväskylä, I posted a few Facebook notes that I’d like to keep [slightly revised] here…

Just got back from Finnish Summer Eve at Varjola, a lovely forested place by a lake where we enjoyed sausages, chatted for hours, and savored the Finnish tradition of broiling in a smoke-scented sauna before leaping into the ice-cold lake - repeating back and forth, back and forth.

Many thanks to Risto Korkia-Aho for bringing me a huge sprig of birch branches for exfoliation and adding a charming scent to the moist furnace of the sauna. Special thanks also to Chuck Stevens for sharing a memorable cigar and conversation with me! Coming back, an extra treat: being serenaded by our Argentine students’ seemingly endless (but undoubtedly charming) repertoire of chants and songs.

First Weekend

After reviewing the great recommendations offered by my pals here in Finland, I decided to rent a car and head east toward Punkaharju and Savonlinna: lots of winding birch tree-lined roads, red farmhouses, and tranquil lakes.

At night I stayed at a former primary school turned into an apartment complex. It seems that the village didn't have enough kids to support the school. But the apartments are quite lovely. It's especially nice that I had an entire wing to myself - and a sauna they let me use for free. How nice to feel the cool evening air coming through an open window.

The next day was easily one of the nicest driving days I can recall. I savored lovely roads bisecting clean blue lakes, fields of yellow flowers, and plenty of time to reflect on how lucky I feel to enjoy this beautiful country. A special treat was the chance to rediscover my love of stick-shift driving, particularly around those winding roads.

Later on, I visited Kuopio market square and enjoyed cruising the curvy roads past red cabins and butter flowers and sparkling lakes. 

Second Weekend

There was something about the light last night, a sharpness and clarity that lasted just a few minutes, a brevity that summoned rare contemplation. The shadows stretched long and the sky seemed to pulsate. The lakes dappled with silver when clouds passed overhead. Pink streaks glowed across the horizon. As I drove toward the midnight sunset, a truck filled with cow manure raced by, dripping hot splotches onto the road; a kid hopped with delight in the passenger seat. Constellations of mosquitos danced in patches while fellows worked their combines in the fields. I went to bed in the gloaming that lasted another hour. Today I am drawn southwest and the tiny towns that dot the coast. I have no idea where I’ll sleep tonight.

One Last Trip

Woke up to the happy sound of Finnish kids playing in the rain. Proctored final exams, said goodbye to my classes, and celebrated JAMK summer school graduation. Then hit the road for a few hours of solo driving, After racing north with Midnight Oil as my copilot, I'm home for the night! The rain broke hours ago, and the sun is slowly setting amid a wash of silver and purple clouds. I'm sleepy but delighted. Tomorrow I'm heading for Tornio to photograph an orthodox church that's remarkable for its tiny size. Then it's further north to Rovaniemi, a city that - for the life of me - I still can't seem to pronounce properly. On the lookout for moose, reindeer, and Santa.

After visiting Rovaniemi: So, I've got the whole house to myself, but not the whole country. Turns out the nearest sauna is part of the house but accessible only through an external door. So I tossed on my "action pants" (don't ask) and a t-shirt and made my way to wood-paneled steamy oblivion, pouring water onto rocks to send paroxysms of steam into my lungs. About a half-hour later, wrapping up with a chilly shower, I said to myself, "Hey, I'm alone in Finland, surrounded by dandelion-covered fields and verdant forests. I don't need clothes to walk back!" So I started to open the door when my better judgment reminded me, "Wear a towel. Just in case." I'm glad I did because no more than ten steps later, I heard Pekka's cheery voice: "Was sauna good?" Well, let's put it this way. The sauna was almost a little too good, actually! Tomorrow begins the next leg of the journey, joining Jenny in Tel Aviv. I'll reflect more on this experience later but, suffice to say, I love this Finland and will be thrilled to return one day!

Robert M. Pirsig

I went to bed feeling sad. I had my reasons. I awoke randomly and set in my living room chair to learn that Robert M. Pirsig had died a few hours earlier. His 1974 book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance influenced me more than any other book I’ve read. 

A few folks are lucky to produce one thing that may be termed a ‘masterpiece’; the rest of us are fortunate instead to read them. One hears of ZAMM’s inclusion in all manner of college syllabi: philosophy courses, naturally, but also classes in comparative literature and cultural studies, computer programming, and biochemistry. Really. Look it up. Seminars have been offered; dissertations have been written. Countless people (well, a few hundred, I guess) have sought to reproduce the motorcycle journey of the unnamed protagonist and his son – and Phaedrus, the shade of the author’s madness – documenting the beautiful and banal places that Pirsig visited. All to celebrate his Chautauqua on values, the ascent of inquiry. And his descent into madness, too.

A few years ago I taught a grad seminar where I invited students to chase an idea down a rabbit hole, following a chain of authors that stretched at least twenty years from citation to citation. Within the broad array of topics we covered in the course, they were challenged to choose their own adventure, so long as they descended into some degree of depth below the constellation of ideas they’d begun to master. It’s one thing, I explained, to draw water from the surface of a familiar well. It’s another thing entirely to dive deep in search of connections and conversations and conflicts that stretch back generations. One discovers a chain of argument, maybe, but one is just as likely to create links that the interlocutors might never have imagined. Some students loved the assignment; others endured it. But all were, in this manner, introduced to the experience of reading ZAMM.

For me, Pirsig’s book was that rabbit hole that dug beneath the surface of things, from contemporary technocracy to Enlightenment optimism, to Aristotelian structure, to Pre-Socratic origins. To the cosmologists and the mystics who investigated things that now left to poets and artists. ZAMM was also my introduction to rhetoric, the field of inquiry that helped me find my livelihood and my voice. Yet the book also mirrored my youthful confidence and subsequent doubts in its evocation of an intellectual expedition that both descended into madness and rose from idea to idea, connection to connection, to produce an ineffable sense of vision and perspective, a feeling that, having completed the journey, I might have actually seen a glimpse, a sliver, of how things fit together. Such is the double-sided coin of insight and insanity, that rabid, unkempt exuberance that "I alone understand how it all works."

ZAMM’s protagonist (like its author) dropped out of grad school after digging too deeply down his personal rabbit hole. Even now I can see him sitting in a small seminar room, warring with his professor about the relationship between rhetoric and dialectic: 

“The sessions on Aristotle were round an enormous wooden round table in a dreary room across the street from a hospital, where the late-afternoon sun from over the hospital roof hardly penetrated the window dirt and polluted city air beyond. Wan and pale and depressing. During the middle of the hour he noticed that this enormous table had a huge crack that ran right across it near the middle. It looked as though it had been there for years, but that no one had thought to repair it.” 

The crack is a metaphor for the modern divides, those artful contrivances that the author sought to transcend, at the risk of offending the academic gods and losing his sanity. Later on, Pirsig writes, he returned to Aristotle, to the site of his Chicago struggles, the scene of the crime, and wondered what the fuss was all about.

More than a few readers have felt the same way about ZAMM. Indeed there are plenty of puritans who dismiss Pirsig as a hippy huckster who merely wrapped a loose version of his autobiography around a muddle of ideas better explained by experts. Then there are those more-dog-eared-than-thou folks who dive so deeply into the book that they resemble those who have hiked too far into the Yosemite wilderness and return blinking away visions only they can grasp - shaking their heads at the fools who wander the parking lot, snapping pictures of nearby trees. For me, ZAMM was a book I’d sometimes cite and sometimes recommend. It towered above me but was still comfortingly familiar, accessible. I had made my own journey through its pages and imagined that its author was smiling somewhere at the enormity of his creation.

I’ll never know. I never sought an opportunity to meet Pirsig. I left it to acolytes and experts to catalog his words and parse his meanings. Even so, when I awoke after a miserable night’s sleep to read the news, I felt an obligation to reflect on his contributions to my life, my teaching, and my efforts to make sense of my own obsessions, values, and limitations. Pirsig was a writer, an all-too-human one. His literary output was sparse when measured in a certain way. Yet Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is a milestone that marked my life. I am grateful to have traveled even a short distance with the man who rode up ahead.

Image credit: William Morrow/HarperCollins

A few questions for Andy

Recently SJSU's College of Social Sciences asked me to answer a few questions about my teaching and research. I'd dreaded this assignment for the past few weeks. Having completed it, though, I found it a useful opportunity to reflect on where I am these days. So I figured I'd archive those thoughts here...

1. What research questions currently preoccupy you?

While my research has generally focused on communication and the built environment, studying structural and perceptual flows whose apparently distinct places convey inhabitants to a singular space, I have begun to examine disruptions in those flows. Initially I explored, somewhat optimistically, the production of “locale” in roadside architecture, arresting places whose evocations of home and community provide a nostalgic and therapeutic response to the stresses of contemporary life. More recently, though, I have concentrated on the somewhat more ambivalent rhetoric and performance of seemingly (but almost never actually) abandoned places. Currently I am interested in the uses, aesthetics, and ethics of “ruin-tourism” practiced in places like Detroit, Post-Katrina New Orleans, and the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.

2. What personal factors contributed to your study of communication and the built environment?  

I recall a conversation with a senior colleague, now retired, in which I outlined some plans for research into the history and design of postwar motels, now often used as long-term apartments, halfway houses, and shooting galleries. Summarizing my plans, I noted how my interest in roadside architecture began during the years when my spouse and I drove between Ohio and Florida to see our families. I was quite surprised when my friend asked, “but didn’t you tell me that you lived in motels for awhile?” I was amazed that I had somehow forgotten that dimension to my personal interest in the built environment. Fleeing an abusive relationship, moved by my mother to the relative safety of a Mom and Pop motel, I grew to appreciate the freedom evoked by roadside architecture – and the fear too. Coming to grips with that continuum of feelings is a personal factor shaping my research that long precedes the academic purposes of my work.

3. What has been most challenging in your research and teaching?

While I bring a scholarly interest in theories and frameworks to the classroom, as well as a humanist belief that study and contemplation are valuable skills whose outcomes may not be “measured” or “assessed” in some contemporary meanings of the words, I recognize that many SJSU students (and some administrators) bring what they perceive to be more practical concerns to our interactions. Many folks struggle with the notion that we should cultivate a keen interest in the world beyond our material ambitions, to read, to travel, and to explore a wide range of topics for the pleasure of doing so, for the opportunities to join the human conversation of values, interpretations, and possibilities, without being forced to account for the energies expended in these endeavors as one would complete a spreadsheet. Of course, addressing this struggle is a challenge worth undertaking.

4. How has your position in SJSU contributed to your research and teaching? 

As an SJSU faculty member, I have sought out opportunities to fund my travels, chances to experience the flows and disruptions of places that have contributed directly to my publications and lectures. Along with traditional college grants and departmental matching funds, I have sometimes needed to negotiate some non-traditional opportunities. For example, when asked to teach a second peer training course during my service as director of the university peer mentor program, I agreed with the proviso that my additional work be compensated with a one-time travel allotment. With those funds I completed a cross-country road trip in 2008 whose outcome included one of my most favorite scholarly articles, “Two roads diverge: Route 66, ‘Route 66,’ and the mediation of American ruin.” Though my research has required some similar appeals over the years, I have found that my university is willing to support my road-tripping and globe-trotting ambitions as long as I advance a productive array of scholarly output.

5. Do you have a hidden teaching talent? 

I have developed a small repertoire of songs that I’ll sometimes share with my students to advance one point or another. For example I love to sing “There’s a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow” in COMM 149 (Rhetoric and Public Life) when we’re discussing Disney’s corporate vision of American domestic spaces, an ideal future of consumer technology. I also sing “[Get your kicks on] Route 66” in any class that includes a discussion of travel and tourism. My singing is not technically a talent, because I can hardly boast a gifted voice. But my willingness to express myself in song contributes to a memorable learning environment – for good or for ill.

6. What is one book that changed your life (or teaching/research) and why: 

John R. Stilgoe’s Outside Lies Magic is a nearly perfect collection of essays that build to a coherent argument for the need to sharpen our acuity about the human-made world around us. I return to his book often to borrow illustrations about how the built environment consists of layer after layer of patina that can be scraped away through physical or mental means, revealing more than mere history as an intellectual exercise but rather the means to encounter bygone modes of life that shimmer like William Gibson’s semiotic ghosts. Outside Lies Magic encourages readers to become explorers of the “why” of everyday life. One example: Stilgoe says that if you peer into the cabinet under the kitchen sink of an early twentieth century house, you stand a good chance of finding apple green wallpaper – the same color found in that era’s police stations and asylums. Read the book and find out why.

7. What is one website/journal/newspaper (in your field) you follow without fail? 

While I scan the international, national, and regional journals that host the scholarly conversations of my field, I must confess that I almost never read an issue cover to cover. Speaking as a former journalist whose work was measured by its relevance and accessibility, I find far too much of our academic writing is laden with foggy, derivative, and frankly soul-sucking prose. Accordingly I don’t follow publications as much as I read a few authors whose works, which typically appear within and beyond one particular field, demonstrate a balance of intellectual sophistication, practical utility, and aesthetic quality that inspires me to improve my own writing.

8. What is some advice you’d give to newer faculty or students?

I encourage newcomers to balance enthusiasm and dedication with a healthy degree of stoicism. Far too many folks approach their duties with a kind of zealotry that blinds them to the subtleties of why people and things work as they do. People who approach each challenge and each obstacle as a matter of success or failure (or worse, as good or evil) end up being frustrated – and frustrating as co-participants in SJSU life. Successful faculty and students bring zeal to their tasks, yes, but they never lose sight of the fact that the world is far more complex than their desires, and that they are merely one part of a much more complex universe whose workings often defy easy understanding. A little stoicism – not dour acceptance but a deeper reservoir of patience and humility – goes a long way in this life we have chosen.

Solo ’16

For Spring Break I enjoyed the chance to cruise 2,676 miles of the the great northwest. Highlights include a quick stop at the Shasta (CA) ghost town, flying my quadcopter over an ersatz Maryhill (OR) Stonehenge, shooting neon signs in Yakima (WA), searching for the Wallace (ID) “Center of the Universe” sewer access cover, photographing the Anaconda (MT) Club Moderne (a classic of streamlined architecture), visiting the Rigby (ID) Birthplace of Television museum, driving down rutted roads to survey the Ely (NV) Ward Charcoal Ovens State Park, and staying a night at the infamous Tonopah (NV) Clown Motel and Miner's cemetery - all while grooving on old Dragnet radio shows, complete with Jack Webb taking a Fatima "smoke break" at least once per episode.

Holiday Motel, Bend (OR)

Club Moderne, Anaconda (MT)

Clown Motel, Tonopah (NV)

Portland Neon Redux

During a 2008 trip to Portland, I edited a video-celebration of the city's gorgeous assemblage of neon signs. The piece turned out OK, but I regretted not bringing a higher resolution camera to grab the footage. Ever since that trip, I'd awaited the opportunity to return to the Rose City and revisit those old haunts.

At last we made the return trip!

Some highlights - the Republic Cafe, Tip Top Cleaners, Holiday Motel, Billy Rays Dive Tavern, and Mt. Tabor Theater - no longer glow (at least not when we visited them during our four-day journey), but Jenny and I found some new places that give renewed hope that Portland loves its neon landscape.

Back in the U.S.A.

I've been back in the U.S. since Tuesday afternoon, reconnecting with my family, dealing with jet lag, and learning that my injured finger is healing pretty well. And now I'm reflecting on the experience. I'm happy to report that despite the complications of near daily medical visits in my last two weeks in Belarus, I kept myself joyfully busy.

This included a chance to enjoy a front-row viewing of Madame Butterfly with Clark​, Will, and Ace; and an invitation to present a new lecture, "Critiquing the American Technological Sublime: Alternate Futures Beyond The Gernsback Continuum," at the American Studies conference hosted by Minsk State Linguistic University as a plenary speaker. Even more importantly, I shared celebratory meals with friends from Epam, Belarus State University, and the Fulbright/English Language Fellow community before departing for home.

A highlight of those last two weeks was the chance to join Katya Sadovskaya and a large group of BSU students and faculty for a bus tour around northern Belarus. We visited towns and villages, stopping at monuments, churches, and ruins, and I got a chance to see northern parts of the country that had so far eluded me.

Along with a delightful ongoing conversation with Katya, I suppose my favorite part of the day was a brief breakdown near a small farming community, which afforded us a chance to walk through fields and small windy roads, photographing colorful village homes and joining some brave students determined to pet a cow.

I remember thinking, "It's just this sort of silliness that nearly cost me a finger on Victory Day," but I felt compelled to offer my healthy hand in hopes that the creature would be friendly. She was wary, of course, wisely so. But she allowed us to gently pet her, and then followed us a while before we boarded the bus. You never know how a new friendship can begin.

With all the final meetings, packing, and logistics, I was amazed at how fast the last days went. And then suddenly it was 4 a.m., and I was awaiting the embassy driver who would offer my final Belarusian handshake. I still feel somewhat guilty that I was so affixed on my phone that morning, sending a few more goodbyes and plucking some other weeds from my email, that I barely noticed our trip through Minsk on the way to the airport. I'd become so familiar with the road out of town, having taken it for so many occasions, that I nearly forgot to focus on the unfolding scene outside my windows. I'm glad I took lots of pictures!

Back in the States, one of my first tasks was to prepare a report of my Fulbright experiences. Here's some of what I wrote: Living in Belarus for four months provided me an opportunity to develop new curricula, travel to dozens of cities and villages throughout the country, and rethink what it is to be both an American and a citizen of the world. I presented courses and lectures for over 1,000 people, and I made many new friends along the way.

This experience boils down to an unofficial motto that guided me these past four months: "Always Say Yes." In other words, when the embassy asked me to develop workshops or prepare talks, I opened my calendar. And when representatives of schools, libraries, and businesses asked me to drop by, I did my best to oblige them. Because with every new conversation, I discovered new opportunities to improve my intercultural competence and learn something new about the world.

Living in Belarus was challenging, exhilarating, and surprising. I saw the limitations of regional and national stereotypes - and I hope to have complicated a few assumptions that Belarusians have about Americans. And now I look forward to a range of burgeoning collaborations. I plan to do some writing with at least one colleague at Belarus State University, and I will certainly keep in touch with my new pals. Best of all, I will return to this country if at all possible. I enjoyed Belarus so much, but left so much yet to see!

Road Trip Belarus: Grodno and Brest

A quick exchange during a Route 66 lecture yielded a four-day road trip this week, featuring a first-time visit to Grodno, a pleasant return to Brest, and a sublime stop in the village of Ružany. It all began when an audience member at the Minsk International Book Fair last February asked an especially interesting question: "What should I pack for a road trip?" I replied, "Your sense of adventure," which seemed to strike a chord. A few days later, that participant, Irene Altukhova, emailed an invitation to present a lecture on American culture at the Belarusian IT company EPAM where she works. You might recall that Irene's the person who baked "Pigs in a Blanket" to provide a special ambiance for that talk. Turns out, she coordinates English training for their employees throughout the country, and she thought it'd be a good idea for us to take this presentation on the road. Thus we met at a bus stop a few days ago, loaded up with drinks and snacks for the road, and headed west.

We quickly settled into a comfortable rhythm of conversation and story telling, with her driving and me using Google Maps to supply directions. She'd recommended that I pack some CDs, so I also took great pleasure introducing her to some of my favorite road trip tunes. Her colleagues at the Grodno EPAM office warned of an impending thunderstorm, which inspired plenty of gallows humor about how the lovely blue skies that spread above us were merely a prelude to a vicious downpour threatening to explode at any moment. The Weather Gods were kind, however, allowing us a few hours to tour the city on foot. As usual I made a beeline to the Lenin statue [pretty much every town, and most villages, still have some commemoration of the man in this country]. We also visited the Jesuit Catholic Church, the Pakrouskaya Orthodox Church, and strolled Zhiliber's Park and Sovetskaja pedestrian street.

That evening we made our way to the EPAM office. All day I'd quietly fretted that I'd been having so much fun when perhaps I should be thinking more intently about the presentation. Happily, though, I've thoroughly internalized the talk after more Belarusian lectures than I can easily count by now. The venue was well organized and audience was friendly and engaged. At one point, we were comparing U.S. and Belarusian attitudes toward saunas and I was reflecting on most Americans' comparative reticence to disrobe in public places when one attendee playfully invited me to share a sauna with him the next day. "If only I could!" I replied, "But Irene's got me on such a tight schedule!"

The post-lecture conversation flowed for another hour. Indeed, though I grabbed a cookie after the talk, I never had a chance to eat it; I was so engrossed in chats with participants who had stayed after work to visit with me. Best of all, two Grodno EPAM folks treated us to dinner and an evening of conversation (and lots of пиво). I particularly recall that moment when the four of us were walking the streets toward our restaurant, sharing umbrellas when a slight drizzle began to fall, thinking how wonderful it is to make new friends and feel, if only temporarily, at home here.

The next day was dedicated to more sightseeing and travel. We began with a hike to Grodno's old and new castles, where we took a brief museum tour. Then we departed the city - stopping for Irene to snap a picture next to a sign for her husband Dmitry's hometown - and headed southwest around Belovezhskaya Pushcha National Park. Despite warnings of miserable weather, the clouds parted and revealed a friendly afternoon. Given my growing fascination with Belarusian village homes, especially the ones festooned in combinations of yellow, green, red, blue, and sometimes purple, I was grateful for Irene's invitation that we could stop along the way for some photography.

Irene Altukhova

Larisa Chulkova

That's how we found ourselves in Ružany, walking a road whose delightfully gaudy houses stretched toward rolling green hills. A woman came by and pointed out some tulips nearby, and then she invited us to her home where she grows her own. Irene and I shared a conspiratorial laugh, imagining our spouses back home telling the sad story, "…and they were never heard from again," but we plunged ahead anyway. Later we asked for directions to the ruins of a palace that beamed with orange light. The sight of tiny homes on distant hills through the glowing arches was nothing less than beautiful.

Departing Ružany, where storks build nests atop tall poles, we saw sheep and lambs standing at a bus stop, like they were queuing for the next ride. As the sun set over the bogs and swamps, I switched us to my "nighttime driving" playlist. Before too long - after some fear that we might run out of gas - we made it to Brest. After splitting up to unpack in our rooms, Irene and I grabbed a quick dinner in the hotel. She introduced me to Пельмени, a hot pot filled with mushroom sauce and doughy "ears" of succulent meat, and I found myself thinking, "Why did I wait so long to discover this dish?" We also chatted about ways to improve the presentation. Her advice, as usual, was impeccable.

Since I'd been to Brest twice before (most recently within the past few days), I was happy to wander the streets the next day with no special aim while Irene attended to work at her office. The spring weather brought cherry blossoms that drifted through the air and blanketed the sidewalks. Still, I sometimes prefer a city's funkier environs, so I ambled along the railroad tracks for a while. Later when I stopped to grab a soda at a convenience store (where the cashier required that I pay first before she'd unlock the soda stored in a refrigerated container), I met a ruddy-faced dude speaking an impenetrable Russian. He took out a small bottle of vodka and seemed determine that I should share a snort with him. Then he followed me several blocks, inviting conversation sprinkled with liberal repetitions of the words for vodka and beer. Eventually he peeled off and I returned to my room to prepare for the evening presentation.

The Brest EPAM folks were welcoming and fired up to discuss American culture. And one of these folks had followed Irene's lead and prepared Pigs in a Blanket! I launched into my talk, taking a quick detour to a mini-roadside Americana lecture and singing "Get Your Kicks [on Route 66]" for the crowd, savoring the opportunity to bypass the script and respond to impromptu questions and comments that often surprised me with their passion.

Since this might be the last time I present the "American Dreaming" lecture in Belarus (for a while, at least), I was most grateful to receive mementos of my visit, including a souvenir spoon and a t-shirt signifying my status as an official EPAM trainer. Later that evening Irene and I shared a celebratory meal at Times Cafe and agreed that our trip had been a success.

Our final day afforded me a chance to practice my old school mapping skills, when I realized that I'd left my phone's charging cable at the EPAM office. Even without Google Maps, though, we managed to navigate the city and find the M1 highway that leads to Minsk. On the almost four-hour drive back, we shared stories about our spouses, discussed some of the finer nuances of our cultural differences, and anticipated ways for Irene to visit the United States. As usual, my American optimism led me to affirm that, "Of course, you'll come!," even though costs and visa hassles make traveling from Belarus to the U.S. a complicated process. Still, I hope that Irene and Dmitry will make their way to California one day. They'll certainly find friends in Scotts Valley!

Shameless Plug: The Goal is to Live Again

Many thanks to Birmingham ABC affiliate reporter Robert Richardson for sharing a story they produced about Anniston, Alabama's Goal Post neon sign, which features some footage I shot several years back:

ABC 33/40 - Birmingham News, Weather, Sports

Goal Post Overtime!

Would you believe it? Folks were emailing me yesterday about the demolition of the Anniston [Alabama] Goal Post Bar-B-Q sign - and now there's word of a reprieve! Once the mayor heard about the imminent destruction of a local landmark, city workers were dispatched to place the sign in storage. The Anniston Star offers some historical context:

Tod Swormstedt, founder of the American Sign Museum in Cincinnati, told The Star in September that the sign is well known among collectors and historians, and its custom-made, animated neon is a reflection of the happiness and prosperity of post-World War II 1950s.

Now there's time for someone, hopefully in town, to figure out a way to keep the sign lit somewhere nearby. San Jose, California did the same with the Stephens Meat Products sign (although that sign has not fared well in recent years). With a little luck, folks will enjoy another chance to see the Goal Post in action one day.

Read more: Anniston Star - Last minute agreement saves Goal Post sign from demolition

Animated Neon Sign - Gunther's Ice Cream (Sacramento, CA)

Gunther's Ice Cream Shop boasts some super swell neon!

Cinemagraphs [First Drafts]

I'm experimenting with Cinemagraphs, those clever animated gifs that combine elements of still and moving imagery.

Albuquerque, NM

Albuquerque, NM

Denver, CO

Castle Urquhart, Scotland

Castle Urquhart, Scotland (another view)

Salzburg, Austria 

Spanish Pavilion, 2010 Shanghai World's Fair

So far my workflow doesn't allow for precise frame-by-frame control (lengthening some frames, shifting their order, etc.), but I've found some tutorials to help me work those problems. More to come!

[Second Drafts]

Starship Pegasus - Italy, Texas

Always on the hunt for goofy roadside architecture, I had to pull over during my Spring 2013 solo trip to visit Andy Gee's Starship Pegasus, once a cafe and gift shop, now closed.

View Larger Map