Accept no substitutes

Month: September 2007 (Page 2 of 2)

Monday: “In Praise of Reading” Dr. Vartan Gregorian

SILS’ 75th Anniversary Grand Finale set for Sept. 17

Vartan GregorianSept. 6, 2007 – The grand finale of the School of Information and Library Science’s (SILS) 75th anniversary is set to take place on Sept. 17, 2007, which coincides with the date the school first began teaching classes in 1931. The finale will begin at 3 p.m. in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Memorial Hall.

Our distinguished keynote presenter will be Dr. Vartan Gregorian, president of the Carnegie Corporation of New York. He will present, "In Praise of Reading." Dr. Gregorian is the 12th president of the corporation, a post he assumed in 1997. Prior to this position, he was president of Brown University for nine years. For eight years prior to his work at Brown University, he was president of the New York Public Library. Dr. Gregorian is the recipient of the National Humanities Medal and the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.

The Carnegie Corporation provided SILS with its first grant of $100,000 to enable the school to operate for three years and to make permanent its conditional accreditation from the American Library Association.

Dr. Gregorian will be joined at the finale by James Moeser, chancellor of UNC- at Chapel Hill, and James B. Hunt, Jr., former governor of North Carolina.

Please plan to join us at Memorial Hall on Sept. 17. It is sure to be a grand finale!

Beginning and ending in Moonshine

Tom Wolfe in The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby called him The Last American Hero. Not just called him that. He wrote it as if he were shouting it out to Gawd and his own deaf family like this:

Finally, one night they had Junior trapped on the road up toward the bridge at Millersville, there’s no way out of there, they had the barricades up and they could hear this souped-up car roaring around the bend, and here it comes–but suddenly they can hear a siren and see a red light flashing in the grille, so they think it’s another agent, and boy, they run out like ants and pull those barrels and boards and sawhorses out of the way, and then–Ggghhzzzzzzzhhhhhgggggzzzzzzzeeeeeong!–gawdam! there he goes again, it was him, Junior Johnson! with a gawdam agent’s si-reen and a red light in his grille!

Now in age Junior has settled down to commerce, to what he knows best other than driving and conniving — that is dealing in moonshine.

William Keesler reports in The Dispatch that Johnson is selling “autographed bottles of Junior Johnson’s Midnight Moon liquor” up there in Lexington, NC where they could be eating BBQ instead.

PT Saga – in the Clutches

Tuesday last week, I drove into work and stopped at the gate. The gate opened but my PT, a straight drive, wouldn’t go into first from neutral. I tried jiggling etc and finally turned off the car. Pow! It went into gear with ease. I parked and all was fine if a little stiff in the one gear change I needed to get into the deck and into a parking place.

Driving home was a little stiff in the shifting but everything worked. Things seems back to normal for a couple of days. Til Friday in fact. An odd syncro-mesh moment I thought.

I came to the turn into the parking lot, stopped for the light and once again I couldn’t get in gear. Yes the clutch was on the floor. I turned off the car. I could shift into first, restart the car and drive again. One more restart at the gate and I was parked.

Leaving that evening, I started the car and couldn’t get it in reverse. Stopped. In gear. Backout. Try first. No way. Turn off. In gear. Drive out. Next few shifts were stiff but those shifts worked without grinding even. But at the first light. I had to TurnOff-Shift-Restart again.

I made it home.

Tomorrow off to Chrysler. At about 73K miles, am I in for a slave cylinder? A clutch? A sensor (Chrysler says no to this)? Or what?

Flashback posters

Old Music and Jack Tales get the 60s treatment in event posters from the Southern Historical Collection here at UNC – Chapel Hill. Storyteller Orville Hicks (today at 10 am in Wilson Library when I have an Indy Study meeting) and RockMusic critic Greil Marcus and the Handsome Family (next Friday Sept 14 at 5 for a reception and talk/event 6 – 9) are represented by the posters below:

Greil MarcusOrville Hicks

Foodblogging comes to the Triangle

Anton alerts us to the coming Foodblogging events with Michael Ruhlman (complete list and details here).

9/23 at 4:30pm: Reading and book signing — The Regulator Bookshop in Durham will host chef-author-blogger Michael Ruhlman for a reading from his celebrated books about the lives of American chefs.

9/24 at 7:30pm: A taste of food blogging at Piedmont Restaurant — BlogTogether will partner with Piedmont Restaurant chefs Drew Brown and Andy Magowan to host a five-course prix-fixe dinner based on local ingredients (featuring head-to-tail pig, perhaps). At dinner, chef-author-blogger Michael Ruhlman will share his insights about how to write about food.

When: Monday, September 24th at 7:30pm

Where: Piedmont Restaurant, 401 Foster St., Durham, NC

What: A ticketed five-course prix fixe dinner featuring local ingredients prepared by chef Brown and his kitchen.

How much: $65 prepaid (this will cover dinner, wine, & tip).

Who: Anyone who wants to enjoy a fabulous meal and learn about food blogging, a talented writer and a local chef. All dinner guests will be encouraged to write and talk about the meal and what they learn this night. SEATS ARE LIMITED

Get your seat at the table: If you want to attend this dinner, send a message to zuiker@gmail.com.

9/25 at 9am: Coffee with the Chefs — Chapel Hill’s 3CUPS coffee shop will host a morning coffee klatch for Michael Ruhlman to meet local chefs. Others are invited to stop by at 10:15am to chat with Michael, the chefs and 3CUPS proprietor Lex Alexander.

Jamie on Science Publications; Josef on Health Travel

James Boyle opines on a web without science in the Financial Times. He’s right about the problems but he needs to come to the 2nd North Carolina Science Bloggers Conference in January (registration now open) and check out some of the solutions.

Josef Woodman, author of Patients Beyond Borders: Everybody’s Guide to Affordable, World-Class Medical Tourism, gets a bunch of good quotes and a sidebar from the AARP Bulletin in “Traveling for Treatment: Soaring U.S. health costs are driving more Americans abroad for medical treatment.”

Town of Chapel Hill Wifi Pilot

Chapel Hill Town Wifi mapLink to PDF of the map.

Announced at the end of last week by the Town of Chapel Hill:

08/30/2007 – The Town of Chapel Hill this Friday will activate six Wi-Fi hotspots in the downtown area, giving the public free access to the internet along much of Franklin Street.

The provision of wireless internet service to citizens has ranked as a top priority goal for the Town Council. The launching of wireless hotspots in downtown is considered a pilot project and step forward toward this goal. The hotspots, which show up on wireless devices as “TOWNofCH-WiFi,” are located at the following:

1. U.S. Post Office, 179 E. Franklin St.

2. Old Town Hall (IFC Shelter), 100 W. Rosemary St.

3. Town Parking Lot 5, 108 Church St.

4. Hargraves Center, 216 N. Roberson St.

5. Chapel Hill-Orange County Visitors Bureau, 501 W. Franklin St.

6. 411 West Restaurant, 411 W. Franklin St.

Bob Avery, information technology director, said users within 300 feet of a hotspot should be able to connect, although the ability to connect will depend on the capability of the user’s device and the amount of obstructions between the user and the antenna. For a street level user, trees, buses, trucks and buildings will all reduce the quality of the connection signal.

The Town will soon provide information to the public by website, media and signage to help promote the hotspots and explain how they may be used. More information will be provided at the homepage of www.townofchapelhill.org.

The hotspots have been installed using Clearwire modems. These are attached to standard Wi-Fi access points with high gain antenna to provide the signal for public use.

The Town will not provide direct user support but does hope to be able to respond to and resolve outages or other service problems as they occur. To report comments and problems, please contact the Town at wifi@townofchapelhill.org.

Carrboro Co-Working survey

Brian Russell of Carrboro Co-working asks for your help. It’s simple. Fill out his survey to help design a coworking space in Carrboro.

“Carrboro Creative Coworking is a professional shared working space with a cafe-like atmosphere. It is designed to be a welcoming environment for freelance professionals, home-office workers, entrepreneurs, startup business owners, tech workers, graduate students, writers, and others. Subscribers of the Carrboro Creative Coworking space will receive access to a reliable office space inside a unique modern community.”

I am not involved in the business of Carrboro Coworking, but I do think it’s a good idea.

Geek Dad: Getting into the Canon Rock meme

Just posted this bit over at Geek Dad:

Jerry C‘s recent fame on YouTube sprang from his fiery performance of Pachelbel’s Canon which has inspired a throng of video responses including the well-watched one by Funtwo and one from some local teens.

Part of what makes the teens’ first entry into YouTube-dom interesting is the way they used simple technology for very good effect.

The Pachelbel piece itself, the only audio, was recorded directly into the computer from the guitar amp as Seon played over the backing tracks supplied by JerryC.

The producers, Henry and Tucker, took the new guitar lead and the background into Garageband and mixed them down to provide the track for the music video.

Then a music video story was laid out to match the music and its changes.

When the video portion was shot, they didn’t actually use a video camera but instead the video recording of an small digital camera — an Olympus Stylus Verve which can record about 5 minutes of video before downloading is required.

Several shoots were collected and downloaded into an iBook.

Next for their video editing, they used only iMovie.

The result is a part homage/part ironic take on classic rock videos. See it here.

The Work of Love

My Labor Day sonnet, “The Work of Love,” is published in today’s News and Observer on the Book Page. That’s great and I’m grateful. But they still can’t get the formating right for the online version — yuck.

Should look like this:

The Work of Love

The work of love is not the love of work.
Work will not make you free. Take it from me.
I could drone on for years; did for thirty.
Love should not hide but labor should be shirked.
Does a leashed dog appreciate the jerk
At the other end? Call it family,
A team, and the tyrant boss “our Daddy”
As if his abuse was a petty perk?

But when our own desire controls our hearts
And says: “Work must be done again.” “Begin.”,
We put on worn jeans, caps, and sweat-stiff gloves —
Preparations, ways to delay our start –.
So much before us seems immense — just then
The love of work becomes the work of love.

UPDATE: News and Observer folks fixed the poem layout here.

Fair and Tender Ladies – McGuinn and Clark (1977)

Roger McGuinn writes of his latest addition to the Folk Den:

This version of “Fair and Tender Ladies” was recorded at New York’s Bottom Line in 1977. Gene Clark and I were on an acoustic tour of the United States. Gene was playing his beautiful Martin D-45 and I was finger picking my Rickenbacker 370 12-string – dripping with compression. Our songs spanned the music of The Byrds, our solo careers and included some traditional material – including this arrangement, which could easily have been on a 1965 Byrds record.

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