Before:
As I write I am dreading the prospect of spending Thursday evening at the staff holiday party. (And yes, having a job and an organization that can have a party is a privilege in these times.) The holidays are over. I am done with toasting, drinking, eating, celebrating. I took my department out for holiday [...]
Archive for the ‘Work’ category
The staff holiday party
Model No. ZS-X3CP Personal Audio System
I teach designers how to model their ideas using 3D software and computers, a process I call Creative CAD. This is the time in the semester when we shift focus away from modeling and focus instead on visualization.
Modeling is about the development of form. Visualization is about material, color, texture, and the composition of images.
Both [...]
Why?
In the old days, and also now, mechanics could bamboozle their clients with jargon and technicalities. That’s why the Car Talk guys are so popular. Now, we are all beholden to the tech guy.
The tech guy where I work is sort of a slob. He has no process. He has no system. Requests have to [...]
In the future, everyone will be John Malkovich for fifteen minutes.
One of the best parts of teaching literature is the vicarious thrill of discovery. After a first encounter, you and I will never be able to read “Sunday Morning” or Angels in America or Gatsby for the first time ever again. Instead, going back to those texts will be like revisiting a beloved foreign [...]
Stella investigates: the death of the newspaper and the future of journalism
Stella sat down with a nationally-acclaimed journalist to talk about the decline of the newspaper industry and the future of the craft.
I cancelled my subscription to The Washington Post earlier this year.
That makes me feel disappointed.
What are you reading?
I get the Post. I read less than I used to because I read most of [...]
Skin deep?
In my line of work, it’s ironic to notice someone because of his tattoos. I say “ironic” because most every one of my students has tattoos. But these were different.
My semester — giving supplemental instruction to trade and tech students at a community college – began a couple of weeks ago, and while observing [...]
1994. Paris. 11th Arrondissement. Hotel de Belfort. Part 2.
The next time I would see Mimi was the morning after I got locked in at Pére Lachaise cemetery. I entered just minutes before the guards made their rounds, locking thick chains through the wrought iron gates. I scurried around the cemetery, running up the middle past the tombstones, purposely trying to get lost. I [...]
1994. Paris. 11th Arrondissement. Hotel de Belfort.
I was working at the Hotel de Belfort after leaving San Francisco at the age of twenty-seven to see the world after mine crashed down. My dad had died, and I decided to buy a one-way ticket to Europe. I
sold everything I owned and left with a tiny bag and two thousand dollars.
After bouncing around [...]
And……scene.
You never really see it coming. You have a feeling, but you brush it aside – you’re too comfortable in the current circumstances. Those closed-door meetings, the feeling that your colleague is trying to tell you something as you stay after work and watch the debates together. But you chalk it up [...]
