Thank you for reading this year, and see you all in 2021.
Never forget that living well is the best revenge.
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Tag Archives: mt. pleasant
A Postcard Mini-Assignment (GEO 121)
Here, I hold a stack of postcards written by my students in GEO 121 (Intro to Globalization), about to go into the post. As of this writing, they’re on their way all over the country.
I created this mini-assignment in equal parts as a tribute to the US Postal Service as well as a simple lesson on a lost art (or, at least a heavily niched one). So many students told me they had never composed or sent a postcard before. Well, now they have, and their friends and relatives are in for a surprise.
Veit’s Woods Hike 09.25.20
On Friday, I tagged along with Dr. Mark Francek and the Central Michigan University Geography and Environmental Club for a hike through Viet’s Woods, a CMU property to the west of Campus. Here are some pictures. If you’d like to learn more about what the CMU GEO/ENV Club, follow them on Twitter and reach out.
Your Sonic Sunday 04.19.20
Happy Sunday! I’m sorry not to get this posted until the later side, but I’ve been occupied with pet projects and haven’t been spending as much of my time on the internet (unless your understanding of “the internet” includes FaceTime-ing platforms). I’m grateful to report that my friends and family are generally doing well, and as I notified my students this past week, we’re over a month into lock down, and this next month is going to be slightly easier.
I don’t have too many highly relevant, thoughtful links this week, but I will gladly point you to the new Todd in the Shadows video essay on the (now-unfortunately named) Corona’s mid-90’s Italo-Dance jam “Rhythm of the Night.” I’ll also direct you to a profile that Billboard published on Todd Nathanson back in January which I completely missed, somehow.
Even further outside the subject of academia, prior to mid-March, I became involved on the tech side of a local theater production of “James and the Giant Peach.” Of all the things to look forward to on the opposite end of what this pandemic is putting us through, this is at the top of my list. For those of you anywhere near Central Michigan, I’ll keep you posted.
Geography Department Talk TOMORROW: Geography and Popular Culture (DOW 270)
For anybody who is either around the Dow Science Complex on the Central Michigan campus tomorrow (Friday 11/1) or enjoys eating gratis lunch, I’ll be giving a talk at Noon! Join me and my colleagues in DOW 270 to learn about my research, the overlap between Geography and Pop Culture, and see me break down what I mean by Symbolic Gentrification. I look forward to seeing you.
Those details again:
Friday, November 1, 12pm – 1pm
Central Michigan University
Dow Science Complex Room 270
There will be lunch. And cookies, probably.
A New Life in a New Town (Central Michigan University)
or, I could just call this entry ‘Fire Up, Chips!’
I would say I’m surprised I haven’t written anything here about my new position and base of operations in Mt. Pleasant, MI, but that would involve me ignoring how little I’ve posted in general over the past month. I’m still hoping to post some pictures from the IAG meeting in Hobart, I swear.
Right before I left for Australia, I accepted a position as a Lecturer in the department of Geography and Environmental Science at Central Michigan University. I’m teaching four classes this semester: two sections of the world regional course GEO 121 WI (that means writing-intensive), one section of ENV 101 WI (Introduction to Environmental Science…writing-intensive), and one section of GEO 350 (The United States and Canada). So far, I have no complaints. I’m working with a great new faculty who have been overwhelmingly supportive, and from what I can tell now that classes have begun, really cool students as well. I had trouble preparing to teach my class today because so many people were stopping by to ask how I was doing, offer help wherever needed, or invite me to play pickleball (which I’m sure will be a blast, once I look up what that is).
Also, I can’t say enough good things about living in the middle of the Mitten. Mt. Pleasant in particular is a wonderful place, with extreme walk-ability, wonderful cycling culture, a disproportionately high number of good radio stations, a cat-fé, and if you move here on a Thursday toward the end of the summer, Max & Emily’s may enable you to watch Brian Vander Ark and his band play a free show minutes from your house. For the life of me, I cannot remember a more fortuitous “Welcome, Tyler!” moment anywhere else I’ve moved.
Brian also welcomed me to Michigan via Instagram (a proposition that would make less than zero sense to my thirteen-year-old self, enjoying a Verve Pipe video on MTV), telling me to say hello to Mustard Plug when I go see them at the Bell’s Brewery in October. I guess those rumors about the great Grand Rapids ska/alt-rock beef were unfounded after all.
As always, thanks for reading. Back to lesson-planning and life-organizing.
COMING SOON
- Part Three of “Tyler Down Under” (It’s going to happen!)
- Part One of “The Ben Irving Postcards Go to Michigan”
- Updates on CMU Course Work and hopefully some news about Capitals of Punk
DC Will Do That To You (Part 1)
Sunrise over Mt. Pleasant, Thursday March 20.
Prior to last week, I had not been in Washington, D.C. (for more than a layover) since August of 2012. I have always thought hard about what to write on this site about the DMV (DC-Maryland-Virginia, for the outsiders), but the right words have never really come to mind. I’ve gone on record repeatedly in several contexts that I’m a firm believer that “D.C. makes; the world takes.” Take a look at the last three decades of punk and alternative music history.
In the past few days since returning to Knoxville, my conversations about the city with people who’ve clearly spent little time there begs the question of how the Capital City has inspired so many different and divergent public perceptions of it. Many (way too many) people associate it with the Federal Government for obvious reasons. The Reagan-overlorded crack era of the 1980’s and the District’s difficult reputation simply won’t go away. In each of my conversations about it, the other person has admitted having misconceptions about it.
This photo has no real bearing on this post, but I wanted to take the opportunity to plug my favorite bookstore in the world.
Despite having lived there for six pivotal years, my own opinions about DC are equally fueled by public (mis)conceptions and (sub)cultural ideals as they were from my actual days wandering up 18th Street to Smash! and Crooked Beat Records on payday, sitting on my Arlington front porch watching an early summer storm roll across the sky, and squeezing my way through the city’s overcrowded Metro.
I’ve got a few mammoth posts in the pipeline about D.C. I’m sure, but this will have to do for now. It’s been that kind of a week, and the afterglow of being back in such a hyper-inflated city that I gave so much of my life to has left me in such a strange state of introspection. But then again….
“D.C. Will Do That To You”
Sonic Geography 