[Hi and Lois, March 16, 2013.]
Somewhere in that “‘Job Jar’” is a slip of paper that reads Draw collar. Or Prooflook.
Related reading
All Hi and Lois posts (Pinboard)
Saturday, March 16, 2013
Hi and Lois watch
By Michael Leddy at 10:07 AM comments: 0
“Art by cell phone”
At the Picasso exhibition: Oscar’s Day No. 208.
By Michael Leddy at 9:42 AM comments: 0
Friday, March 15, 2013
On joining a museum
Elaine and I had never considered a membership in the Art Institute of Chicago. We live at a great distance, and we visit just a few times a year. But as a helpful fellow at the ticket counter pointed out yesterday, just two visits a year would recoup the cost. A membership for one gets us admission for two, along with a magazine, a 10% discount on purchases, safe passage to the Member Lounge (with free coffee and tea), and, yes, a totebag. We have promised not to fight over the totebag.
There are some great things at the AIC now. Among them: an enormous Picasso exhibition, an exhibition of Chicago immigrant and migrant experience in art (with a woodcut by Elaine’s great-uncle Aaron Bohrod), Irving Penn’s chewing-gum-on-pavement photographs, and work inspired by or made in collaboration with poets (Frank O’Hara and Larry Rivers FTW). And the Greek, Roman, and Byzantine art is back.
[Kylix (Wine Cup). Greek, Athens. Attributed to the Workshop of Nikosthenes. 530/520 B.C. Terracotta, decorated in the black-figure technique. Anonymous loan.]
[Pablo Picasso, White Owl on Red Ground. Vallauris, March 25, 1957. Red earthenware clay, decoration in engobes, knife engraved. Private collection.]
An unexpected benefit of membership: running into a old friend and colleague—in the Member Lounge.
Perhaps you too should join a museum.
A related post
Word of the day: apotropaic
[Descriptions verbatim from the AIC information cards.]
By Michael Leddy at 10:54 AM comments: 6
Overheard
“I think you could laser-focus it a little more.”
Related reading
All “overheard” posts (Pinboard)
By Michael Leddy at 9:56 AM comments: 0
A very short film about paper
Le papier a un grand avenir [Paper has a great future].
By Michael Leddy at 9:54 AM comments: 0
Thursday, March 14, 2013
Teenagers with moose, also plural
[“Des Moines, Iowa High School Teen Agers.” Photograph by George Skadding. November 1947. From the Life Photo Archive.]
By Michael Leddy at 6:24 AM comments: 1
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Hummingbird Nest Cam
My daughter Rachel gave me the link. I tuned in today by chance, around 4:45 p.m. (PDT), and saw Phoebe feeding her babies. So cute. Add as many o’s to so as you like.
Which will it be: instant calm, or unexpected excitement? There’s only one way to find out: Hummingbird Nest Cam. Either way, the hummingbirds are sooooooo cute.
Thank you, Rachel.
By Michael Leddy at 7:55 PM comments: 2
Goodbye, Google Reader
I just went to check my RSS feeds and learned that Google Reader will soon be shutting down:
We have just announced on the Official Google Blog that we will soon retire Google Reader (the actual date is July 1, 2013). We know Reader has a devoted following who will be very sad to see it go. We’re sad too.Now what? Feedly?
7:27 p.m.: Yes, I think it’ll be Feedly.
10:02 p.m.: 12,000+ Orange Crate Art subscribers use Google Reader. What’s next for you?
[Where did I go when I “went” to check my RSS feeds?]
By Michael Leddy at 7:21 PM comments: 3
Domestic comedy
Staring down the sink:
“Habemus dishes.”
Related reading
All domestic comedy posts (Pinboard)
By Michael Leddy at 6:46 PM comments: 1
Adjunct teaching and health insurance
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act has prompted the Internal Revenue Service to think about the hours of work that go into adjunct teaching. The IRS estimate: three hours for every credit-hour. Thus a three-credit class would count as nine hours of work per week. Four courses would put an instructor over the thirty-hour week that qualifies for health insurance:
Although the rules are still in the making, Maria Maisto, president of the New Faculty Majority, a national advocacy group for adjuncts, said what the IRS had proposed so far seems promising.What these schools and others are doing reminds me of the corporate strategy of giving employees thirty-nine hours a week to keep the work “part-time” (without health insurance). I’ll say it again: the exploitation of adjunct labor is the shame and scandal of American higher education.
“I think the IRS is on the right track in recognizing that adjunct faculty constitute a unique category of worker in terms of how their work is currently recognized and compensated,” Ms. Maisto wrote in an e-mail. “It is helpful that the IRS is recognizing that there is a lack of uniformity in the way that adjunct work hours are currently calculated and how adjuncts are treated. This seems to be a huge step forward in the government's education about the true nature of contingent academic work.”
But even as the IRS is working to provide colleges with the guidelines they have sought from the agency, a few institutions have made pre-emptive moves by cutting back the number of hours adjuncts are allowed to work—among them, Youngstown State University, Stark State College, and the Community College of Allegheny County, where at least 200 adjuncts face a newly instituted cap on the number of courses they can teach.
IRS Says Colleges Must Be “Reasonable” When Calculating Adjuncts’ Work Hours (Chronicle of Higher Education)
*
April 23, 2012: The Chronicle of Higher Education continues to follow the story: Colleges Are Slashing Adjuncts’ Hours to Skirt New Rules on Health-Insurance Eligibility.
A related post
The Adjunct Project
By Michael Leddy at 10:48 AM comments: 0