The Outsiders: Listen for Jimmy!

Posted on November 29, 2024 by Reverend

I guess it’s getting pretty serious between MBS and I, because we went ahead and did another episode of the Family Pictures Podcast. In this episode we discuss Francis Ford Coppola’s adaptation of S.E. Hinton‘s classic YA novel The Outsiders (1983). If you’re roughly my age and grew up in the US chances are you read this novel in school, or found a copy cause you heard it was banned for violence, drinking, smoking, and dysfunctional families. It was definitely a relatable novel for 14 year old me whose parents were going through a divorce. What’s more, I lived in a bit of a free-for-all household similar to the one Ponyboy Curtis experiences in the book/film—the only difference (albeit a very big one) is my parents weren’t killed tragically in a horrific train crash (jeez, that shot!).

Closest reproduction of the train crash I could find from the Time-Travel Tulsa Facebook page, The Outsiders is a veritable cottage industry for that city 🙂

I talk about this a bit in the podcast, but one of the things I deeply related to was how brutal older boys could be to the younger kids. In fact, I tell a story from my childhood of playing war in my backyard, which consisted of a group of us being locked in a re-purposed chain link dog kennel by my older brother and his friend. They assumed the roles of Viet Cong guards who would whip the POWs with cut off branches from sticker bushes. Yeah, the idea of playing where I grew up was very high stakes, and quite informed by the politics of the moment.

Shot from Deer Hunter in submerged Viet Cong Prison, not that far from free play in Baldwin, Long Island

So when Dally bullies those young kids in the empty lot or Jonny gets brutally beaten by the Socs or rumbles with blades and chains are nonchalantly discussed in the film I can’t help but think, despite everything, we had it easier than those kids in Tulsa, Oklahoma back in 1965.

Image of S. E. Hinton's cameo in The Outsiders

S. E. Hinton’s cameo as a nurse to Dally in The Outsiders

Yet while I focus on the violence in The Outsiders, MBS notes how it’s overshadowed by a deeper sense of intimacy amongst these young misfits from the North Side that choose their own family. It’s a rich film that provides so many lines of discussions its hard to keep up with all of them, every time MBS said one thing I wanted to follow a whole new train of thought, the podcast equivalent to “Squirrel!” But it’s pretty impressive that this book/movie can continue to deliver as well as it did back in the early 80s. This book was effectively my introduction to the world of literary terms, themes, and general analysis. In fact, returning to this kind of discussion around a theme is what I love about doing this podcast with MBS, I enjoy exercising some of those muscles with a smart, cool, funny partner. I’m not sure our intimacy will ever get to the level of Sodapop and Ponyboy, but it’s pretty freaking cool to talk movies with a friend. Next up is another family gem from 1983, this time Michael Keaton’s break-out role as Mr. Mom. “I wasn’t in aisle 9, Irv!”

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The Shining Diorama

Posted on November 29, 2024 by Reverend

Now that the BAV-O-RAMA is up and running cleanly, with signage and everything, it’s high time I start thinking about the next diorama. I knew from early on that my second installation would be from The Shining, in particular the fourth encounter between the Grady twins and Danny when he’s on his big wheel in the hallway. Keep in mind the video of that scene below does contain some graphic images.

I will not be focusing on those graphic images, but rather on the angelic image of the twins at the end of the hallway hand-in-hand.

A scrrenshot taken from a scene of the Shining featuring the Grady Twins in the hallway

The scene of the Shining featuring the Grady Twins in the hallway

I have been re-watching this scene numerous times, and one of the things I noticed is the carpet is not the iconic orange hexagon designed by David Hicks.

David Hicks Hexagon carpet from The SHining

The carpet in this hallway scene with the twins is a drab blue carpet with 12″ grey borders (must be the help’s wing of the hotel), which should be far easier to reproduce for the floor of the diorama. I also researched the tricycle Danny was riding around the Overlook Hotel on, and it’s not a Marx Big Wheel but rather a Hedstrom Trail Cycle:

Advertisement for Hedstrom Tricycle from Shinging

Hedstrom Tricycle from Shining

I searched to see if I can find an original and there were none to be found. I could substitute it with the more common Marx Big Wheel of which you can get a knock-off for roughly $100, but we’ll see. The ceiling can be off-white, and I might see if I can find a hanging light similar to those in the scene to have the light directly in the diorama—which would be sick. After that, the last prop is just a Danny doll with a red hoody, bowl cut, and jeans.

Screenshot from video of Danny on tricycle facing the Grady Twins

Danny on tricycle facing the Grady Twins

I think this diorama might be a bit easier than Creepshow, but I just jinxed myself. The real trick of this diorama, in my opinion, is using the three walls of the diorama to capture the depth and perspective of the hallway. The above shot could work well, but I’m hoping the Grady Twins will be more prominent on the back wall, while at the same time the prints on the side walls capture the depth of the hallway and its various details such as the wall paper, doors, and closets. Given Danny’s back will be up against the window, the prints that go on the side walls will have to account for his perspective, as well as the cut of the carpet. I think I have to talk with Michael Branson Smith and get his take on sizing the Danny figure and the big wheel in order to ensure the prints can both highlight the twins while providing a sense of the hallway’s depth.

As I have mentioned before on this blog, I experienced a similar moment with the Grady twins at a random Z Pizza in Springfield, Virginia when the family stopped in for a slice. Turning the corner on the way to the bathroom I came across a life-sized print of the Grady twins on the wall—it was beautifully jarring. I took the above video of Miles and Tess to make a fun memory and have wanted to re-create the scene ever since. The genius at Z Pizza used the close-up of the twins from that scene, but for my purposes the close-up would throw off anything resembling realistic dimensions for the diorama:

Scene in the Shining featuring a close-up of the Grady Twins in the hallway

Anyway, long post short: I need to lock-in dimensions and scale and this thing should be in the bag.

Posted in bav-o-rama, bavastudio | Tagged , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

BAV-O-RAMA and RGB Signage

Posted on November 29, 2024 by Reverend

Bav-o-rama Window display with signage

Antonella said the bav-o-rama with signage looks like a painting, and that is why I love her so!

This week I’ve been working on getting the DIY placards installed at the bava.studio and upping my LED light game. I worked with a friend of Miles’s, Ricci, to get the design of the RGB VHS tape and the BAV-O-RAMA label locked-in. Ricci has a great contact for printing the art as large stickers that we can then adhere to pre-cut laminated particle board—it’s a pretty slick solution for some down and dirty signage.

Bav-o-rama Window display with signage

A look at the signage head-on in the day

I liked Dr. Garcia’s idea of keeping the store truly punk and leaving it signless, but my horror vacui is far too great to tolerate that for long. Once we got the signs installed, it was apparent that the RGB headliner needed light, so I got a 3 meter strip of warm white LED lights, and attached them to the windows frame, which provides a low-key Hollywood-like marquee outline. I also got a 5 meter strip of warm white LEDs and installed them on the inside of the window perimeter for the actual diorama to throw some more light on the Creepshow scene.

Inside view of bav-o-rama with extra Lighting

Inside view of bav-o-rama with extra lighting

The marquee lights bend into the diorama before they are totally hidden, which is not totally clean. I used some electrical tape to try and black them out, but if you are looking close it is a bit of an eyesore:

Bava.studio Window Lighting and Latches

RGB sign marquee lighting covered with black electrical tape to make it look “cleaner”

The other side of the marquee lighting is a bit cleaner, but still not perfect. Given how much I obsessed over these two transitions I decided to leave it alone and remind myself it’s supposed to be DIY, so by definition less than perfect. The only real requirement is that it’s made with love 🙂

Bava.studio Window Lighting and Latches

LED lights from marquee transitioning behind the sign

The last piece of the diorama was to install latches on the movable walls given they were not closing cleanly. Alberto happened to have perfect latches and now the diorama window is pretty damn finished, with signage and all!

Latches on back of diorama walls

Latch to secure the walls of the diorama

Bava.studio Window Lighting and Latches

Wider shot of both latches installed on the back of the diorama walls

One of the things that is still floating around is the weird naming I got going on. Is it bava.studio or RGB? Also, what the hell is BAV-O-RAMA? These are all fair questions, and right now I kind of like the confusion, but in my mind the entire space as my office is bava.studio; RGB is the space as a VHS store/arcade; and BAV-O-RAMA is the window display. So, they’re all distinct pieces of the same thing, a kind of holy trinity that contains all three elements simultaneously—they’re all just a different faces of the same entity.

What’s more, they’re all working towards a common goal for me: re-imagining my vision for this blog in physical space. I could just as well refer to the studio as the bava, in fact I kind of do: bava.studio. This squares quite nicely with with a quote I came across from Olia Lialina recently, which is taken from a recently published history Digital Art: 1960s to Now:

NFTs suddenly became the biggest topic in digital art and especially in net art. In general, the crypto market has started to take over. Because I don’t want to take part in that market, it has made my life as a net artist quite difficult. At the moment I am looking for ways to be a net artist outside the crypto mining and minting. There are moments, I think, when its healthier for the net artist to go offline.

This idea of online artists finding inspiration away from the maddening market of crypto or AI seems healthy for a variety of reasons. It’s part of what I’m enjoying about the bava.studio, it allows me to take my blog offline. And when I do come online to share it’s often far more generative than chasing gold. I’ve been reminded these days why I started doing this thing: to have a creative way to reflect, draw connections, and share. I don’t need AI for that, and most likely you don’t either. Viva la bava both off and online!

Posted in bav-o-rama, bavastudio, Flickr | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

bavacade Update 11-24-2024

Posted on November 24, 2024 by Reverend

I once again have a 100% working arcade, huzzah! Most of the work these days is shoring up the rest of the cabinets to get rid of any structural issues and put them on wheels. There are only two cabinets left to put on wheels: Cheyenne and Pole Position.* So those are up next, until then here’s the current tale of the arcade tape.

Stargate Cabinet Refurbish

Stargate getting some much needed surgery on the lower area that was showing rot

The Stargate cabinet got some much needed refurbishing to deal with rot in the wood at the bottom. Re-painted it, the red was not exactly perfect—but close enough after a few coats.

Stargate First Coat

Stargate with first coat of paint after work

When putting Stargate back together there were issues with the game resetting. It looked to be a power issue, so swapped inline power supply with switching power supply but was getting garbage. The garbage seemed strange given the board loaded cleanly with inline power supply, it was simply having re-set issues.

Multi-Williams FPGA Board

Multi-Williams FPGA Board

To further trouble shoot, I swapped in the FPGA board and connected it to the switching power supply, and that worked fine. Strange, so the FPGA board works well and does not reset. Back to the drawing board, I tested the voltage on the switching power supply and the 12V was low, close to 10V and the +5V was also low at 4.8. I swapped in a new switching power supply and plugged the board in and it loaded fine, no garbage. Nice! So one issue was definitely the switching power supply, the voltages were definitely off and while it worked with the FPGA (which seems to require less from the 12V and 5V) there wasn’t enough juice to power the original game boards.

switching power supply

Example of a switching power supply (this one from Pac-man, not Stargate)

While Stargate is working with the switching power supply, it does suggest there’s an issue with either the inline power supply or the Williams power board. So that might be another bit of troubleshooting down the line. I must say, Stargate has been a long-running project. It was the one game keeping me from a perfect arcade last fall. That said, with the new switching power supply and the original game boards working (not to mention the FPGA) it’s in a solid place now.

K4600 outside the Challenger

K4600 outside the Challenger as I prepare to swap it into Phoenix

The other project was to take the monitor and chassis from Challenger and put it into Phoenix. Once I started messing with the K4600 chassis on Challenger it stopped working, which led me to do a cap kit on that K4600, but the main board still didn’t work.

K4600 Work

K4600 Chassis

I got another K4600 chassis on Ebay and that didn’t work either, but I was able to swap in the power board from the original, non-working chassis and it worked. For good measure, I swapped in the video and interface boards and at the time everything worked. So I brought the monitor to the arcade to swap monitors with Phoenix, but because nothing can be easy, once the K4600 was hooked up to Phoenix, the vertical and horizontal sync from the game wouldn’t work—which means I would need to work out what I was doing wrong with the sync wires from the PCB.

K4600 Video Board

K4600 XY Video Board (missing the Vertical Hold Pot which needs to be replaced)

To make matters worse, while I was playing with the chassis I seemed to lose the ability to adjust the screen pot and the black level pots, so the colors were bleeding red and the entire image was bleached out. In frustration I abandoned the monitor swap idea and brought the Challenger monitor back home to test it further.

K4600 Interface Board

K4600 Interface board (model 305?)

Once re-connected I was able to figure out the interface board from the old K4600 was the culprit (which is where the black level is controlled), so now to troubleshoot what’s up there. I also realized the horizontal/vertical video board from the chassis I bought off Ebay needed to be re-capped, which I promptly did. After finishing I realized the vertical hold pot was broken in half, so removed it and ordered a new one.

K4600 Video Board

Vertical Hold pot needs to be replaced

I once again have a working K4600 chassis, given the spare video and interface boards that come with an extra chassis. Now I’d like to get that extra K4600 chassis working. I’ll start by doing the following:

  • Re-cap power board of new chassis from Ebay  (re-capped and working)
  • Tested two K4600  fly backs and both are tested and working
  • Replace vertical hold pot on XY video board mentioned above to see if that fixes the spare video board
  • Re-cap (and probably more) the interface board from original 4600 chassis, start with a 1000 µf 50V capacitor
  • Continue to troubleshoot the main board (which has been entirely re-capped) from the original K4600 which stopped working to begin with

If I can figure out what’s wrong with the interface and video board as listed above, then it’s back to figuring out the issue with the main chassis that already got a fresh cap kit. We’ll see, it’s always better to have a working chassis than one for parts, but the latter is pretty useful as well as I’ve learned during this K4600 saga.

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*There are three all original Sidam cabinets (Condor, Asterock, and Explorer) that will not be going on wheels for the moment given they will be staying in my basement for the foreseeable future.

Posted in bavacade, bavarcade | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

The Hitcher: Never Pick Up a Stranger in Portland

Posted on November 21, 2024 by Reverend

Picking up on my last post about how much PDX rules, let me pile on a bit more. The day after I arrived Zach took me to the Hollywood Theatre to see The Hitcher (1986) in 35mm.

The Hollywood Theatre

Approaching the amazing Hollywood Theatre marquee in Portland, Oregon is half the experience

It’s worth noting that the Hollywood Theatre was effectively saved by a local group in 1997 and restored to its former glory, and has since created a thriving, community-focused  non-profit that has worked tirelessly to preserve the magic of experiencing film. The theatre is sustained through donations and memberships and if the packed crowd at The Hitcher was any indicator, it’s working! I know Zach is happy to contribute given how much this organization gives back on a regular basis, and why wouldn’t you, it’s an absolute treasure. It’s also worth noting that the Hollywood Theatre bought and preserved the iconic video store Movie Madness I mentioned in my previous post. How ridiculously awesome is that!

The Hitcher on the Marquee of the Hollywood Theater

The Hollywood marquee head on tells the night’s offering, and damn are they good.

So I had the pleasure of experiencing Rutger Hauer taunting, haunting, and absolutely owning C. Thomas Howell for 90 minutes, with a young and amazing Jennifer Jason Leigh being stretched to her absolute limits in a full house with a completely locked-in crowd. That’s the movie experience this place has preserved, and even those who lived it in the 70s, 80s, and 90s(?) can start to forget how magical it can be if enough time streams by. Another great touch was the brief introduction to start the film noting it was a box office disappointment and critically panned, yet at the same time it’s probably Rutger Hauer’s best role outside Blade Runner. The critics absolutely hated it,* but when I saw it for the first time on video, it was an instant classic in my teenage mind. Hauer was pure evil, and Howell was running scared from the very beginning. It’s about as taut an action film as there was in the 80s, and a testament to the power of home media to give films like this a second chance to find a new audience. As the docent acutely noted in his brief introduction, it’s surprising director Robert Harmon didn’t go on to do more movies like this. The Hitcher is a good example of the critics being dead wrong. Hauer noted the movie was misunderstood, it’s an allegory and his character was pure evil. Amen.

The Hitcher VHS Tape Front

The front of the hard cover VHS case of the EMI Thorn/HBP Video of The Hitcher

Not but two days after that wonderful movie experience I was at a comic swap in the abandoned Lloyd Center and found a copy of The Hitcher on VHS. The Hollywood Theatre was my first time watching the film on scratched up 35 mm, but I’m no stranger to the Thorn EMI/HBO video tape I bought a copy of at a forsaken H&M. In fact, one of the first videos I played on the VHS in Reclaim Arcade’s living room was The Hitcher. There’s a copy in Reclaim Video which I acquired, but there are certain tapes you just cannot remove from that collection without its continuity truly suffering, it’s right up there with Basketcase† (1982), Strange Brew (1983), C.H.U.D. (1984), Terrorvision (1986), and The Stepfather (1987) to name a few.

The Hitcher VHS Tape Back Cover

Worn back cover of the VHS case of The Hitcher

There was a certain amount of good juju finding this tape given we’d just seen it a couple of days earlier at the Hollywood: a good omen, souvenir, and bounty for bava.studio all wrapped into one. I like the hard shell case of this video, and as you can see from the pictures it’s very well used—but the case is an absolute tank.

The Hitcher VHS Front of Tape

Actual VHS tape of The Hitcher with an Albertsons supermarket sticker to suggest it was a grocery store rental

I was also taken by the Albertsons sticker on the right plexiglass window above the spool. I am guessing it was a rental at a West Coast chain of supermarkets—remember when supermarkets and even mini-marts rented and sold VHS tapes?  They were truly ubiquitous media in the 80s and early 90s.

The Hitcher VHS Back of Tape

The back of the VHS tape with two deep yellow plastic spools that I am sure were once white

I also love how the plastic spools on the back of the tape look as if they were actually yellow (the above picture is pretty accurate). Don’t be fooled, this is the weather worn plastic sun tan of an almost 40 year old VHS tape. What’s more, it has not seen it’s last rodeo now that it’s joined the growing ranks of outdated media at RGB!

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*Both Siskel and Ebert gave it zero stars, come on!

†As it turns out, I saw Basketcase in the Winter of 2023 at the Hollywood Theatre on yet another trip to Portland.

Posted in bavastudio, film, films, movies, Reclaim Video | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Still Unwinding

Posted on November 20, 2024 by Reverend

Album cover of New Plastic IdeasIt’s just over a month since re-living the glory days of 1994 at Portland’s Revolution Hall. The show was billed as Unwound playing their 1994 album New Plastic Ideas. That was reason enough to go to the show, and I was expecting it to just be Unwound as was the case last year during their first tour in over  two decades at the Wiltern Theatre. I was more than pleasantly surprised to discover that this show had a three-band bill: Clikitat Ikatowi, Steel Pole Bath Tub, and then the great Unwound, this could have been a show at LA’s classic post-punk club Jabberjaw back in the day. Learning the other bands were on the bill just a couple of days before the show built up my anticipation that much more—and I was already fired up.

Skating Rink from Lloyd Center

The skating rink is hopping at the abandoned Lloyed Center in Portland, Oregon

One of the things that really struck me about Portland is the degree to which this hometown* band seemed to be the center of the universe. On the morning of the Unwound show my good friend and die-hard Portlander, Zach Davis, took me to the Lloyd Center, which was something out of Dawn of the Dead—all the way down to the zombie-filled ice rink. The Lloyd Center is an all but abandoned Mall smack in the center of the city which is currently home to low-rent or transient shops that are very much inline with the alternative magic that makes Portland so wonderful. In fact, we ended up there because Zach was interested in the comic swap happening in a vacated H&M—I got more than a few choice VHS tapes at that same exchange. After that, while walking around this abandoned mall, we came across a pop-up record shop that heavily featured Unwound vinyl, cassette tapes, shirts, and other paraphernalia. It was like walking into an alternative universe, going from a world where no one ever heard of this Pacific North West band I’ve idolized for decades to entering a store in the mall that is dedicated to them, as if they were the post-punk Taylor Swift. It’s hard to fully wrap your head around how Portland can make your marginal, alternative world seen central and that much more exciting as a result.

Movie Madness Van

The Movie Madness Van in Portland, the support vehicle for the Movie Madness Video Store that is out of this world.

This helps provide a bit of context of how the build-up for the show was fueled by the environment. This was a hometown band, and Portland honored that fact in ways that were both surprising and admirable. But the Rose City did not stop there, and if you’ve read this blog for any period of time you know I’ve re-created an old video store in Fredericksburg, Virginia, and more recently migrated that concept to the far-removed frontier of American pop culture in Trento, Italy. So VHS and video stores are near and dear to my heart. As it turns out, the Saturday of the Unwound concert just happened to be International Independent Video Store day and Portland was celebrating—you just can’t make this shit up!

Independent Video Store Day

Saturday October 19th is Independent Video Store Day

To celebrate the day Zach took me to Movie Madness: “Portland’s Landmark Video Store Since 1991.” Now this is a video store, with +90,000 titles with everything from DVDs to Blu-rays to the venerable VHS.

Movie Madness van

Another view of the Movie Madness Van

The store not only has a ton of videos for rent, but it’s also a movie prop museum with everything from Orson Welles’s Rosebud to Ray Harryhausen models to one of the ears from Blue Velvet.

Rosebud at Movie Madness

Orson Welles’s Rosebud from Citizen Kane

Some Ray Harryhausen Love at Movie Madness

Ray Harryhausen models from 20 Million Miles to Earth and Clash of the Titans

Ear from Blue Velvet Movie Madness

The ear from David Lynch’s Blue Velvet

Unlike Reclaim Video, which had just a smattering of VHS offerings and was more a conceptual art piece than operating video store, Movie Madness was alive. The store was full of people, prices were reasonable, and the selection was exquisite. It’s probably preposterous to dream of a world where video stores become the norm again, but that Saturday in Portland at Movie Madness dreams came true.

Rental Prices at Movie Madness

Rental prices at Movie Madness (including late fees)

As the afternoon turned to evening, the main event of the day was closing in in the form of a full blown time warp to 1994.

Unwound at Revolution Hall

Unwound at Revolution Hall (10/19)

The show was amazing, one band better than the next. Clikitat Ikatowi’s drummer was the centerpiece of that band back in the day, and Mario Rubalcaba did not disappoint—he was a total beast on the drums. Up next was Steel Pole Bath Tub, a band I’d seen live decades before at Jabberjaw, and I had a sense this lesser known experimental art quartet would surprise the room—and that’s exactly what happened. They rocked that venue something fierce, which had me wondering for a bit whether they might not end up being the real headliners. Those doubts were soon answered when Unwound came on stage and delivered an hour and change of pure, unadulterated mid-90s, angst-filled noise. Beyond the album New Plastic Ideas, the voyage back to 1994 was epitomized by the single “Broken E Strings” off Jabberjaw’s compilation album Good to the Last Drop:

Portland had shown up for Unwound, and then Unwound demonstrated why. 1994 was a very good year.

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*They’re more accurately from Olympia, Washington—or Tumwater if we want to get even more precise.

Posted in LA: The Potent Years, music, Reclaim Video, ReclaimVideo | Tagged , , , , , | 8 Comments

Introducing the Family Pictures Podcast

Posted on November 19, 2024 by Reverend

A few months back Michael Branson Smith (MBS) ran the idea of doing a regular podcast about films dedicated to the idea of the “family picture.” At first I was thinking family-friendly films are “not my bag, baby.” But I had the whole idea wrong, MBS was using that frame for exploring family-specific themes across all kinds of films. For example, the original The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) might be considered a “family picture” about unfortunates down on their luck after a local meat factory closes; they’re just looking for a way to survive in the economic desperation that was the 70s. Get the idea? So films like The Hills Have Eyes (1977), A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) and even Near Dark (1987)* all very much “family pictures” with themes ranging from a troubled brood to the sins of the parents visited upon the children to blood loyalty. It’s not even a stretch!

National Lampoon's NVacation movie poster which is a rip-off of Star Wars 1977 iconic film poster

Star Wars has nothing on National Lampoon’s Vacation when it comes to iconic characters, Luke who? Clark Griswold had far more impact than that pissant from Tatooine

While I’m showing my bias for horror from the 1970s and 80s, you can see how this idea can be easily applied to just about any film genre. So, we decided to go forward with the Family Pictures Podcast, and just yesterday we went live with our first episode about National Lampoon’s Vacation (1983).

I think the sure fire sign of success was how much we laughed throughout the podcast. MBS chose our first film, and it was a brilliant selection. Pairing the idea of the family road trip with our own experiences as kids from the 70s and 80s was a nice personal tie-in. We got to tell our own stories while tracing the plot line of the film along the way. MBS paid particular attention to everyone’s wardrobe, which was quite entertaining. On the other hand, I was taken with the bravura performance of Chevy Chase as the bumbling Clark Griswold. In fact, it lead me to argue for Griswold as one of the most important characters from the last 40 years of film. High stakes, I know, but we are not playing games on the Family Pictures Podcast—this is the real deal, Rusty!

We’ll be doing a new film every two weeks or so, so stay tuned for our next episode which will feature another gem from 1983: Francis Ford Coppola’s The Outsiders. Stay golden, Pony Boy, until we blow your mind with episode 2!

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*Special thanks to Paul Bond for reminding me how apropos Near Dark might be for the podcast.

Posted in Family Pictures Podcast, films, movies | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Convergence 10 Years On

Posted on November 13, 2024 by Reverend

Back in October Meredith Fierro was part of a 10 year anniversary celebration of UMW’s  Hurley Convergence Center (originally the Information Technology Convergence Center). She shared some photos from the event, and it provides me the welcome occasion to reflect on my time at UMW with all those awesome folks and projects.

Image of slide show in ITCC building with 2004 prominenet on slide

2004 to 2014 to 2024: Cartland explaining the life of the mind and the buildings that contain them (poor kid in the front row)

Cartland Berge is narrating part of that history in the image above, noting the 2004 birthdate of the Division of Teaching and Learning Technology, with the core of Andy Rush, Martha Burtis, and Jerry Slezak already being on the ground. I would join that crew, along with Patrick Murray-John, in December of 2005.

Slide of the early DTLT featuring Shannon Hauser, Martha Burtis, Jim Groom, Jerry Slezak, and Andy Rush

Far slide from Cartland’s talk featuring the “dream team” re-united in 2023 at UMW for Reclaim Open

I could speak endlessly about how much I love those folks featured in the image above, but just know it’s the case and we can move along. Along with the above images, Meredith also shared a couple from the celebration that featured highlights from the building’s 10-year history, one of which was the UMW Console Living Room Zach Whalen and I had built in the Spring of 2015.

A label detailing the magic that was the UMW Console exhibit

I love how the title of this write-up highlights how this little DIY, guerilla exhibit featuring a living room from 1984 embodied the vision of the building as a space where media converges, which was absolutely Zach’s vision.* The exhibit was my last project at UMW before heading out for the frontier of self-employment that fall. The console living room was absolutely rad, and Michael Branson Smith’s vision for broadcasting TV in a local, over-the-air network of 1984 shows and commercials was in many ways the piece that brought it all together. This project also created an itch that I’ve been scratching for the subsequent decade. Tim and I re-created that living room almost panel-for-panel in Reclaim Arcade, and it’s awesome! We also re-created a 1980s video store (Reclaim Video) in that same location, once again a huge hit. More recently, I’ve re-created both the video store, the arcade, and a new-fangled diorama in Trento, Italy, so this project has very much followed me. In fact, it has pretty much defined my “work” since 2015.

A mini UMW Console with the great Shannon Hauser, who (along with Zach Whalen) may have been behind the inclusion in the retrospective <3

I’m really proud of that little exhibit, and thrilled it got a mention. I have to admit it has kept on giving me so much to create and explore since.

That said, I think the real vision of that building was the reason why Meredith was there in the first place, to join her fellow tutors at the Digital Knowledge Center and its current director Cartland Berge to celebrate the amazing work that outfit has done for the last decade. One of the things I figured out when I left UMW was that having the vision, as Martha Burtis did, to focus on scaling support and building a culture of digital literacy is fundamental to the success of just about any digital project you want to launch, and arguably that’s never been more important than now.

So while our little exhibit was cute, I think the retrospective provided the occasion to reflect on just how right the DKC model proved to be for UMW, and for those beyond who were smart enough to take that lead.

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*I remember more than a few faculty discussed the exhibit as if it was a challenge to the $40 million dollar building at the time, once again not at all the case, but fun to imagine.

Posted in bav-o-rama, bavacade, bavarcade, dtlt, Reclaim Arcade | Tagged , , , , , | 5 Comments

An Open Conversation with VA Tech on Archiving and Much More

Posted on November 13, 2024 by Reverend

Last Friday Taylor and I got lucky enough to chat with Corinne Guimont and Alex Kinnaman of Virginia Tech’s Libraries to discuss the multi-headed hydra that is archiving in today’s diverse and uneven ecosystems of media. As was a theme with Dr. Amanda Licastro in an earlier episode, the questions around archiving everything from bespoke applications to physical collections to virtual reality and emulation was on the table for discussion.

It was really awesome to have such generous and knowledgable guests, and they were even tolerant—possibly compelled?—of my steering the discussion towards the fate of university technical infrastructures in the age of AWS. Like Kathleen Fitzpatrick and others, I’ve been trying to imagine potential alternatives to the major tech providers and even the most unlikely idea that some of that infrastructure might somehow move back into the hands of universities in some sort of co-located utopia. Part of this means re-investment, and there’s a big question around the austerity plague ever subsiding; it being more likely the only unicorns that’ll ever appear will be billionaire type.

All that said, the video does nothing if not highlight how committed both Alex and Corinne are to a vision of open scholarship and a web premised on sharing and caring—giving me all sorts of much needed inspiration.

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Something to Tide Me Over

Posted on November 10, 2024 by Reverend

I was doing a little checking on the bavablog, and I have three blog posts titled “Something to Tide You Over,” which is probably not very good for delineation and discovery. Then again, bavatuesdays has always been a b blog. The oldest of the three posts dates back to 2009 when I joyfully shared the following clip from the 1982 horror comedy Creepshow. The scene is from the episode “Something to Tide You Over” wherein Richard (Leslie Nielsen) buries Harry (Ted Danson) up to his neck in the sand and then explains his watery fate.

The second post was from 2011 during the heady days of ds106 while I was on my GIF making tear. I tried to capture the moment in that episode when the TV on the beach shorts out as the tide rises and the ocean claims its bounty. Continue reading →

Posted in bav-o-rama, bavastudio | Tagged , , , | 17 Comments