Photo Journal Part 4: A Walk at Dawn

 Ive wanted to take pictures of this barn for years now. I finally got my chance when I got up early for some dawn pictures.

I hope you have enjoyed seeing my progress. Drop a comment to give suggestions for my next excursion.

Double Feature: Thank You Mr. Lucas

I remember seeing the trailer for Guardians of the Galaxy while “Hooked on a Feeling” by Blue Swede played in the background or when Peter Quill dances to "Come and Get Your Love" during the opening credits to the movie. Let’s face it, that movie is full of musical classics.  I listened through the soundtrack and I was reminded of a debt of gratitude to George Lucas for the Guardians of the Galaxy. No, I'm not talking about that other galaxy far far away.

On August 1st 1973, American Graffiti hit theaters and would be George Lucas' first major success, changing how we think of music in the movies.

I don’t hear a lot of American Graffiti references today but it was and is an important film. The sheer volume of licensed songs that George Lucas wanted for American Graffiti is staggering. He wanted between 85 and 90 songs.  Due to budget constraints he cut that to 45 songs played throughout the film; costing a whopping $90,000 out of a budget of $770,000.

Producer Gary Kurtz, knew Dennis Wilson, of the Beach Boys, from a previous film (Two Lane Blacktop).  Kurtz managed to get the singer/songwriter to license two Beach Boy songs, at the discounted rate of $2000 a piece (Baxter 135). Attorney Tom Pollock followed the Beach Boy deal up by negotiating with the rest of the music publishers on Lucas’ list.  The deal stated that no composer could receive “a higher license fee than any other” (Pollock 108).

Lucas had always described the idea for American Graffiti as a musical. The music was an important part of the film. Even at 45 songs the studio wanted only five or six songs, because of the cost (Pollock 108). Lucas said no.  In the end, Universal had producer Francis Ford Coppola, underwrite the $90,000 for the music.

American Graffiti has endured as a film classic sitting at 77^th on the AFIs Top 100 movies and the 62^nd on the 10^th anniversary list. It was an Oscar nominee for best picture and best director in 1974. As a relative financial success it made George Lucas wealthy and famous. That all being said, American Graffiti was one of the first films to have an almost exclusive soundtrack made up of popular songs.

 

Think about how movies use popular songs today, would Guardians of the Galaxy be the same movie without all those popular tunes? probably not. It all started in the late 60s and 70s with filmmakers like George Lucas, Coppola and Kurtz to push that connection between modern popular music and modern film. Thank you Mr. Lucas for guarding the galaxy.

 

 

Baxter, John. Mythmaker: The Life and Work of George Lucas. New York: Avon Books, Inc, 1999.

 

Pollock, Dale. Skywalking: The Life and Films of George Lucas. New York: Da Capo Press, 1999.

 

Photo Journal Part 3: A Literal Walk Around the Block

 I literally walked around the block. 

Comment on what pictures you liked the best and give suggestions for what I should look for on my next walk. 

Photo Journal Part 2

    Leah and I went to Shanandoah for our Valentine's Day date. It was pretty cold but we saw geese! I'm hoping tp improve my photography skills and Leah was kind enough to go down by the river even in the cold so I hope you enjoy. Did I mention it was cold?

Goose!

 

A Photo Journal Part I: I Took A Walk

 Another New Year resolution for the year was to improve my photography skills. I have been able to get out and walk around town this past wednesday. Here are a few of the sites I saw. I hope you enjoy.

My adopted home

AI'll Be Back!

My routine is pretty simple, I wake up, read my Bible reading plan, and spend the next 20 minutes scrolling my Google article feed. If I have more time before I have to get ready to run off to work, I scroll my FB or X feeds. Eat breakfast and I am out the door.  On my lunch hour, I will text my wife while auto-correct messes up my jokes. I come home, eat dinner, put the kids to bed and then my wife and I discuss what to watch on the streaming services.  We frequently look at the suggestions based on previous watches before deciding to watch a movie we have already watched at some point during our marriage. I wake up and do it all over again. Algorithms are such a basic part of our lives we don't stop to think how often we depend on computers, to curate our news intake, finish our messages, or even to show us new options for entertainment.

To my limited understanding of the World of technology, AI is already in place in our lives.  So what is the fear about? I have heard everything from it is taking jobs, making people stupid, stealing our art, and will eventually send Arnold Schwarzenegger to kill Sarah Connor (auto correct also basically spelled Arnold Schwarzenegger for me). 

So what does any of this have to do with the world of history? What if AI could be used to sift through journals, document collections and books then produce a report with a list of sources that fit the criteria for the research question the historian was asking.  Then the historian could analyze and evaluate these sources, narrow in on answers and then do it again. You may ask, would this not put graduate assistants out of a job.  Depriving them of much needed research experience? Well, yes but what if this AI actually freed GAs to do something else, like work on their own research. Now there are two researchers sifting through reports and sources. I don't generally take the argument that AI will put us out of work too seriously. Humans are very adaptable. 

What about AI doing all the research for us and will make us all stupid. At this point from my understanding AI doesn't analyze information. It can evaluate under parameters that Humans set for it. But what about all the cheating that AI causes if a student is going to cheat with AI then maybe they were going to cheat without it. Point being, cheaters are going to cheat no matter the tools available. If AI is going to be used for cheating then AI could be used to catch cheating. An AI program could be outfitted with AI markers that can be spotted using AI grading tools. Teachers will figure it out. Again I am personally not worried about society degenerating because there is another tool to cheat on academic testing.  

As for AI taking over the world and sending a terminating robot to destroy the only hope of the future? Well only time will tell about that.

A New Year Resolution Part II: A 40 Book Challenge

 My second New Year’s resolution is to read 40 books. I have had a reading challenge every year for the last eight years. It is a bit like a game I play every year. I evaluate what I read the previous year, look at what my upcoming year looks like with work, vacations and so on and make my estimate of how many books I can finish in a year. This activity, or resolution, or goal however you would like to phrase it, has been very helpful to me. It has taught me how to plan for my year, it helps me see how short a year really is, and of course it helps me learn and keep up with topics that are important to me. I believe that reading is an excellent goal for anyone so here is my resolution plan and some advice for your own reading plan for the year. 

I count how many books I read throughout the year. It gives me a sense of accomplishment; It's essentially bragging how smart I am. I only count books that I have started after the new year has started and finished before the current year has ended. This includes hard copy books, eBooks, audiobooks and graphic novels. Whatever published work I read between January 1^st and December 31^st.  On average I read about 34 books a year. If I didn’t count audiobooks my count would be about 17 books.  

I try reading four books at any one time during the year. I call it my “rule of four.” I read a History/biography, a fiction, a Devotional/developmental book, and an audiobook. I have found myself falling behind when I try to focus on four books at once so I will switch gears and focus on one book at a time. The exception to my rule is December.  During December I finish whatever books I need, to accomplish my goal for the year.  If I have already achieved my goal, I will take a break until the New Year. This is in part because I’m a slow reader and don’t believe I will be able to finish certain books in a month. So instead of stressing myself out over Christmas, it can be stressful enough, I use December as a jumping off point for the New Year. I’ll read graphic novels, I’ll plan for the next year’s challenge and I’ll pick my reading plan.

My reading plan is deciding on which historical subjects read “broadly” and which to read “deeply“.  To read broadly means that I’m interested in a subject but don’t want to write a book or paper on it. To read deeply is two steps below researching for a book.  The past eight years of reading challenges and goals has taught me that I’m not going to remember everything I read.  Which means I must read strategically therefore my “broadly” and “deeply” classifiers. An example of a “deeply” goal is, I want to know why people study history.  If I were to write a book that would be the book I would want to write. To answer my question I focus on reading historiography and history methodology.  An example of a “broadly” goal is that I want to get a big picture of history.  I read global, world, and regional histories.  Last year I listened to Christendom by Peter Heather, a regional history that dealt with Christianity in Europe during the middle ages, and Empire of the Steppes by Kenneth Harl, a world history of the Eurasian Steppes from the classical period through the late middle ages.  I can't remember everything in these books but I can make connections through global history, how one civilization flows into the next.  

This year my “deeply” history subjects include American Pop culture (my buddy and I are planning to relaunch the Popstorian podcast this year).  I plan to read deeply into Japanese history, I’m reading a couple of books by John W. Dower. In the “broadly” side of things I want to learn about India, so I plan to read John Keay’s book India: A History.  One book on Indian history will not make me an expert but hopefully give me a “broad” understanding of the subject. The same could be said for Britain which is the other region that I have a book picked out for. Having two categories for history books allows me to have some fun throughout the year and it not be research all the time. These reading plans help to answer my questions. I also read fiction mostly to break up the study of history.  I read whatever I think would enjoy from murder mysteries to Westerns to fantasy to rom coms. 

 My strategy for fiction this year is simply a stress reliever. I have my first book picked out, Abominable by Dan Simmons. It has been on my to-read list for a LONG time. My philosophy for fiction books is that they should be fun reads. I’m not planning to read a lot of classic lit this year.

I also plan to be more active in reading developmental books. I call this category devotional/developmental for books to help me learn other aspects of my life. Such as understanding the Bible or theology, or learning a practical skill. My first will be Blogging for Dummies by Amy Lupold Bair. It is one of my New Year Resolutions to improve my blog so it makes sense to read a book to achieve that goal. 

My audiobooks are a catch all category, some fiction, some nonfiction.  I listen to whatever I find at my public library or on the app, Libby. Different libraries have different services such as Hoopla but whatever the app they are great resources to find audiobooks. My only strategy for audiobooks is to find a book that I’m interested in. Fiction or nonfiction, I listen on my work commute, running errands or while performing chores around the house.  It helps with my above stated goals to “broadly read of world history and destress throughout the year. It also serves as a nice treat while accomplishing some of the less than pleasant necessities of life, like doing the dishes.    

I enjoy reading, perhaps I enjoy planning to read more.  Having a plan in place doesn’t mean that I actually will read 40 books or have a broad understanding of Indian history, but having a plan in place has definitely helped me in the last eight years. This New Year resolution has helped me to plan for the year, kept me focused on history and it reminds me to take advantage of the time we have. A year goes by very fast, I try to accomplish what I can during that time, it will be December 31^st again soon.

Here are some books that I mentioned above that plan to read in the coming year.

Historiography:

Cohen, Richard. Making History: The Storytellers Who Shaped the Past. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2022.

Regional histories:

Dower, John W. Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II. New York: Norton the New Press, 1999.

Fraser, Rebecca. The Story of Britain: From the Romans to the Present: A Narrative History. New York: WW Norton & Company, Inc., 2003.

Keay, John. India: A History. New York: Grove Press, 2000.

Fiction:

Simmons, Dan. The Abominable. New York: Little Brown and Company, 2013.

Development:

Bair, Amy Lupold. Blogging for Dummies 6^th Edition. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2016.

Here is the link for more information about the Libby App.

help.libbyapp.com