Thoughts and Interesting Stories---Jeff Clark

Political advertising in my media-feed seems to be increasing in volume. I like everyone else am in a news silo, so YMMV. Much of the advertising has been anti-Biden; a lot of it is making the extraordinary claim that Biden will be taking performance-enhancing drugs going into the Presidential Debate scheduled tonight. My early education both in civics and in science stressed that the more extraordinary the claim, the more evidence you need to back it up. We seem to be long past that in smears this campaign.  I am in my silo and yet I am overwhelmed not by pro-Biden advertising but rather pro-Trump advertising, so there seems to be an awful lot of money being spent on silly accusations about Biden. Nobody seems to discuss it much at least in the circles I travel in but the money is always in preserving the status quo for the rich and the powerful.  It is almost always a progressive stance to just go in the opposite direction of the prevailing advertising and media buys. Insofa...

I've spent so much of my life tied to the academic calendar (first as a student and later as an instructor) that summer has a meaning for me that is very far removed from nature or any agricultural planning. It is and will continue to be for a little while longer a gap between the end of courses and the beginning of new courses.  It is longer than the gap that falls at the end of the calendar year, and it is less structured with holidays. As a child it was an opportunity to spend more time with friends, a chance to go on a family trip to the beach for a week or two. Later it was a chance to catch up on more reading. As an instructor there has always been the tension between more unstructured time and ways to spend that time on class preparation and scholarship. When I was department chair in the 90's and then again in the 2000's it was a time to desperately hunt for adjunct instructors willing to work for some money and few benefits before the inevitable new sections added ...

I lived in Brooklyn and worked in the financial district of Manhattan during the 1987-1988 academic year. (Are there any other kinds of years?)  I went back last week for a musical gig. Here are some random observations. I had missed the energy of Manhattan, how crowded the streets were, how everyone seemed to walk with purpose.  It is still there. I'm always humble about "knowing" NYC since it is so huge and I tend to go to the same parts of it. This visit wasn't very different. I stayed in Newark to save on expenses but otherwise mainly went to parts of the city I had seen before. I am still awed by travel time. NYC is big and it takes time to get from point A to point B.  Travel does not occur in a vacuum; the subways and streets are filled with people. When I took a Lyft the average speed was below 10 mph. Distance is not a meaningful metric; travel time is. The city transportation works, at least for the parts that I go to. (Probably cause and effect mixed up the...

I (along with over 100 ensemble members) will be singing at Carnegie Hall on Saturday. We had our first rehearsal today as a group; we are made of members from other groups who have already rehearsed the piece, Faure's Requiem. While I have sometimes driven to Greensboro to sing in an ensemble, it has been quite a while since I traveled for a gig, staying in a hotel. I believe that only other times were when my university Concert Band toured twice (once through Texas, once through Puerto Rico). I have very good memories of my stand partner (Steve McKenna) and I exploring on our free times, seeing Billy Joel in San Antonio and getting tickets the same day of the concert even though he was at the top of the charts that year. To be cost-effective I am staying across the river in Newark. The NJ Transit train is about 25 minutes, and subway and walking take another 30 minutes (at least today) to get to where we sang.  Being decades older since I last lived in NYC I look around at all th...