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Tag Archives: relationships

Starting Over

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Today, the second day of the semester, I was not in the classroom.  I held office hours.  It was a spectacularly beautiful late summer day.   Judy and Josh were at Fenway watching the Sox come from behind in a 5-4 walk-off win against the Orioles while I sat in my airless office 400 hundred yards away, listening to game audio over the Internet.  I had few walk-ins and was able to read some articles, write a post, handle some administrative chores, and work on the AFC Legal Resources site.  About 2:30  I was logy and went to the SMG Starbucks on the second floor.  Only a half-dozen tables were occupied and I did not recognize anyone.  That’s the September Story.  Hundreds of the familiar faces I would have seen last April have graduated and gone, new seniors are working, looking for jobs, or otherwise occupied off campus, dozens of juniors are abroad, and it’s too soon to know many of my first-time students.  It hits me each September that we have to start again to build relationships, get beyond facades, forge the personal links that make teaching an emotionally satisfying pursuit.  Soon when I enter Starbucks and walk the halls this feeling of re-generation will have passed but, this week, it defines my relationship to the school.

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Hopper at the MFA

Saturday, May 12, 2007

A few nights ago we went to the Edward Hopper exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts. We loved it. His images are both visually and emotionally arresting. As the exhibit’s program states, he captures enigmatic moments in a story whose narrative is unknown to the viewer. You supply your own meaning. What relationships exist among the characters in Nighthawks? Does the painting portray individual loneliness or a place of refuge in a lonely city? What thoughts preoccupy the usherette in New York Movie? It’s an exhibit I could visit many times. I lingered over the composition of New York Restaurant (the linked image does not provide a viewing experience comparable to what I experienced). A hulking figure in a dark coat exits right, on the left a waitress with a bright white apron bends over a white-tableclothed table, and at the table in the center a woman, her back to the viewer, half obscures her dining companion who is bent over his meal. The V composition of light and dark elements centered on the diners is powerful, and evidence of Hopper’s technical skill. The show runs until August. I’m sure I’ll go again.

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“cRANKy”??

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

I followed a story today to cRANKy, “the first age-relevant search engine.” How does an age-relevant search engine differ from an age-irrelevant search engine? According to a press release dated today, cRANKy is “designed to deliver the most targeted search results by applying a 50-plus lens to every query . . .” The site is part of Eons, “a 50-plus media company” founded by Monster.com creator Jeff Taylor. In cRANKy’s world those who are 50+ want their data pre-chewed and still cannot process more than four pieces at a time.

I started my exploration with the “Top cRANKy Searches 2006.” Example: Top Search Number 3 is Body Mass Index. A cRANKy sidebar links to a list of its most popular search terms for 2006, which overlaps yet is different from the Top cRANKy Searches 2006: Alternative Health, Entertainment, Finances, Health/Disease, Hearth & Home, Hobbies / Fitness, Ones to Watch, Relationships, Travel Spots, Web 101. Selecting Ones to Watch in 2007 I found ten subtopics: Brain Builders, Stephen King, Blogs, Work From Home, Elderhostel, Make New Friends, Jobs After Retirement, Arthritis, Online Dating, and RVs. Putting aside the obvious that (save for Stephen King) these are not “ones to watch” but Trends, perhaps, an image began to form of the cRANKy demographic. I pictured a graying couple hopping from elder hostel to elder hostel in their RV, reading Cujo, completing Sodoku puzzles with their new friends, posting blog entries (”Five Fun Facts About Phoenix”), and making pin money by selling macramé plant hangers at craft sales. I followed the first BrainBuilder link to a results page with abundant white space. Two sponsored links appear at the top of page. Below are only four organic results, followed by another four sponsored links in smaller type. Finding additional organic search results required clicking to page 2 for results 5-8, to page 3 for results 9-12, and so on. The four-results page is a cRANKy selling point, its response to the sheer overwhelming mass of a typical Google search. (When was the last time you navigated beyond page two or three of Google results?)

How is cRANKy for general search? (As I do with other trademarks like iPod I’m trying to be fair and enter the mark as it is written, but its inelegance is off-putting). If, say, a cRANKy user wants to understand this “Facebook” her college-aged daughter is talking about, can she get her answer cRANKily? I entered “facebook” in the search field and received a query back–Did you mean factbook?–followed by the standard four results: number one to a Business Week article, number two to a Technorati page of blog posts tagged “facebook,” number three to the Wikipedia Facebook entry, and number four to facebook.com. Somehow I don’t think the cRANKy demographic will want to make sense out of the technorati page, but to be fair the site is new. It intends to rank results based on user feedback (how very Web 2.0-ish!) and in six months, perhaps, the results will better reflect the cRANKy spirit.

Would I recommend this search engine tricycle with training wheels to my 85-year old father-in-law or the residents of the continuing care retirement center on whose board I sit? Not yet.

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