Friday Fun Post: Happy Halloween!

Getting ready for this weekend's Halloween festivities...

Today and tomorrow are dedicated to final preparations for our ambitious Alien Autopsy II "porch show" [I hope to have pix and video up early next week]. In the meantime, here's a link to a perfectly named website that features bizarre, creepy, and just plain wrong Halloween attire: WTF Costumes.

You've been warned...

Can you rewind…?

Yesterday I was introducing Marshall McLuhan to students of my COMM 101 class. I started with that famous scene from Annie Hall when Woody Allen pricks a media studies professor's pompously incorrect diatribe about McLuhan's notion of hot and cool media by pulling the famed theorist from behind a conveniently placed stand.

McLuhan proceeds to berate the prof: "You know nothing of my work. You mean my whole fallacy is wrong." It's a wonderful moment that humanizes theory, complicates common sense, and sets up the larger postmodern context that my students are beginning to enter (if only in the classroom).

Thereafter I started working through McLuhan's media theory of history, comparing oral and textual eras of society. Folks were asking questions, making notes, and struggling to see the bigger point. For many, I suppose, it seemed like we were plowing through some dead history without relevance or utility. What does Marshall McLuhan tell us about human communication today? Then this moment:

McLuhan's endlessly frustrating, endlessly fascinating aphorism, "The medium is the message" is hanging in the air when one of my students raises his hand. "Hold up," he says, looking through his notes with an earnest expression. "Can you rewind and say that again?" He's a smart guy, this student, but he doesn't yet see the what just happened. I ask for him to repeat his question, and for his colleagues to listen closely to the words: "Can you rewind…?" The student smiles and a few of his peers laugh good-naturedly. They get it.

If McLuhan could somehow enter my classroom, he might find my own media cluelessness just as incredulous as he found that fellow in Annie Hall. But I have no doubt that he would have loved the moment.

Doonesbury at 40

Doonesbury © G.B. Trudeau and Universal Press Syndicate

Can you believe that Doonesbury is celebrating its 40th anniversary today? 40 years! I started reading Doonesbury when I was in middle school after picking a paperback collection of Watergate-era strips from a pile of mildewed books at a yard sale. Most of the jokes were too esoteric for me to understand, but I loved the detail and precision of those drawings. As I read other Doonesbury books, checking them out from the school library, I started to understand the characters and their relationships to the world outside the comic frame. I was hooked.

Turns out, Doonsbury creator G.B. Trudeau didn't set out for a life in comics (or, in some papers, the editorial pages); he wanted to be an illustrator. At first he didn't show much promise for even that line of work. Trudeau's early strips were wiry, confusing, almost unintelligible. And the world they inhabited, fictional Walden College and a nearby commune, could hardly spark the imaginations of children; Walden was too small, too localized, too adult. You'd hardly imagine that Trudeau had a future in the fickle world of the funny pages.

But Trudeau expanded his reach, and Doonesbury's world grew. The comic started tackling tough and timely topics that other comics wouldn't touch [I have no idea why I'm drawn to alliteration today. Sorry]. Some of Trudeau's characters retained some degree of childlike innocence - you could tell by the wide shape of their eyes - but most were firmly caught in the adult world. For many Americans, especially those reactionary buffoons so deserving of cartoon comeuppance, Trudeau created a hard world to love.

Still, Doonesbury ultimately revealed the humanity of even the most complicated or controversial characters. As a result many Americans found that they could relate to Vietcong insurgents when they met Phred the Terrorist, identity with "women's libbers" when they cheered Joanie Caucus, commiserate with AIDS sufferers when they wept at the passing of Andy Lippincott, and confront the realities of war when they saw B.D. lose a leg in Iraq. Unlike its timeless cousins, change was practically a character in this comic. Especially after Doonesbury's 1983-84 reboot, characters tried new careers, got married, had kids, and grew old. Some died sadly, some sweetly. Trudeau's world converged with ours.

I hate to admit it but I don't read Doonsbury as regularly as I once did; comics aren't part of my regular routine these days. But I still keep up with my favorite characters by flipping through new books and occasionally dipping into their daily adventures. Occasionally in class I'll flash back to my all-time favorite strip, the January 27, 1985 Teaching is Dead cri du coeur that speaks eloquence to the sadness that can sometimes overcome any educator these days. Stung awake, I can't help but smile.

Reflecting on the impact that G.B. Trudeau's creation(s) had on my imagination, I conclude with the best compliment I ever saw paid to a comic strip. I don't recall the exact line, but someone once said that the dependably honest satire of Doonsbury - never shrinking from its essential struggles against stupidity and pomposity - is like leaving a nice bike unlocked on a busy sidewalk. It's a big risk; it's sure to get lost or stolen. Yet day after day, year after year, Doonsbury is still there. It's an amazing feat.

Timeline: Slate has pulled together a collection of the strip's funniest, strangest, and most memorable moments. Check it out: http://www.slate.com/id/2272080/pagenum/all/#p2

Planning Europe 2011

Update: Nov 19

Jenny and I have begun to clarify our Europe plans. Here's the most recent itinerary - following a rough course of our anticipated travels over about 24 days. Any recommendations for these places? Advice? Warnings?

Also, you can scroll down a bit to find our original post featuring more detail about what we want to do in some of these locations.

• Northern Scotland - 2 days

• London - 2 days

• Hamburg - 1 day

• Frankfurt - 1 day

• Prague - 2 days

• Budapest - 2 days

• Vienna - 2 days

• Athens - 2 days

• Santorini - 2 days

• Florence - 2 days

• Pisa - 1 day

• Nice - 1 day

• Paris - 3 days

It begins!

Jenny and I have just begun planning our Europe trip for August 2011. We hope to make it from the UK to Turkey, but we may end up sticking with Western Europe if our schedule gets overly packed.

So far our top four priorities are Paris, Northern Scotland, London, and Hamburg (the order of which are, of course, subject to revision).

Now we're fleshing out the details and adding additional stops. Have you any recommendations?

1. Paris for two or three days

Place de Dublin - Intersection of rue de Turin and rue de Moscou near Saint-Lazare train station (to see the location for my favorite painting, Paris Street, Rainy Day - see blog posts here and here). I suppose we'll also want to spend a bit of time in the train station to see where Monet painted Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare.

• Passage des Panoramas and Passage Jouffroy (because of my interest in 19th century shopping/walking arcades)

• Jardin des Tuileries

• Basilique du Sacre-Coeur

• Arc de Triomphe

• Cathedrale Notre-Dame de Paris

• Musée du Louvre (already I'm finding some hints on how to survive this place. Elsewhere I found some notes on seeing Mona Lisa: "Waiting to see the Mona Lisa has all the thrill of standing in an airport check-in queue. The crowd pushes forward, cattle-like and unquestioning, performing a ritual they know they have to go through with in order to complete a pre-ordained tourist experience.")

• Musee d'Orsay (to see its collection of early modern art)

• Musée National d'Art Moderne (to see its collection of 20th Century modern art)

• And, of course, we've got to at least see the Eiffel Tower!

2. Northern Scotland for a day or two (to learn a bit more about my Frazier Family roots)

• Castle Urquhart - near Inverness

• Castle Dunnottar - south of Aberdeen

• Castle Fraser - near Kemnay

3. London for a day or two

• London Eye (a top priority for Jenny)

• Stonehenge

• Speakers' Corner, Hyde Park

• Tower of London

4. Germany

• Hamburg to see Miniatur Wonderuland (a world-renowned "tiny town")

• Frankfurt (Jenny has a friend she wants to see there)

Other priorities in order of importance:

5. Greece - Athens and Greek islands (definitely Santorini)

6. Italy - Florence or Venice

7. Turkey - Istanbul - (Blue Mosque, the Hagia Sophia, the Hippodrome, the Grand Bazaar, etc.)

8. Czech Republic - Prague (Nationale-Nederlanden Building)

9. Austria - Vienna

10. Hungary - Budapest

Europe in three weeks is a bit crazy, but we're going to experience as much as we can. Got any suggestions? Hints? Warnings? Please post a comment.

Friday Fun Post: Chicago Neon

Yes. This is exactly what you think it is.
Image from Time Out Chicago.

A few weeks ago came across this swell collection of Chicagoland neon signs. I've been thinking about doing a midwest roadtrip sometime in the next couple years, shooting architectural relics and old school signage around Illinois and Michigan. Now I definitely know a few places I'll have to see...

Enjoy the show: Chicagoland’s amazing neon signs (Time Out Chicago)

Something feels different this time

"Something feels different this time.": This quote from Fareed Zakaria's Time essay, "How to restore the American Dream," rings true to me. I recommend this piece for its honest and thoughtful assessment of our nation's contemporary fears and potential. A few excerpts:

What's happening today: "The middle class, many Americans have come to believe, is being hollowed out. I think they are right."

Why is the middle class getting hammered? "You can divide the American workforce in many ways, but any way you slice it, you see the same trend. People who get paid a decent wage for skilled but routine work in manufacturing or services are getting squeezed by a pincer movement of technology and globalization."

One part of the solution: Grow our economy by investment, not by goosing consumption: "The only good jobs that will stay in the U.S. are jobs related to knowledge and innovation." And, yes, changes to our tax system must be part of the plan. But the Republican mantra of "cut 'em all" suffers from near criminal cluelessness.

The time to act is now: "America needs radical change, and it has an 18th century system determined to check and balance the absolute power of a monarchy. It is designed for gridlock at a moment when quick and large-scale action is our only hope."

Read the entire article: How to Restore the American Dream

Three Nights in Bangkok

Getting there... I'm working through my notes to post the story of our summer adventures in Asia. Now I can share our three nights in Bangkok. Of course if you haven't yet read the full story - including our time in Shanghai and Hangzhou - you might want to start at the beginning.

Oh, and don't forget to check out our two videos. One's dedicated to the 2010 Shanghai World's Fair; the other video summarizes the entire trip.

Coming next: Chiang Mai and Phuket!