Author: Steve Hill

Now available: Portage County Gazette online!

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Click here for a brief musical slide show with photos from our Sunday in the park. The sshow is a basic example for my multimedia journalism students.

Click here for a brief musical slide show from our Sunday in the park. The show was a very basic example for my multimedia journalism students.

The Portage County Gazette’s new web site is now up and running.  For at least the time being, it’s available free, including my weekly column.  Here’s the latest one, which is about a trip to Willow River State Park that my son and I recently took. It appeared in the Oct. 29 Gazette.

I had one minor error in the column.  In mentioning the book The Best In Tent Camping: Wisconsin, by Kevin Revolinski and Johnny Molloy, I misstated the name of the publisher, which is actually Menasha Ridge Press, not Menasha Press.  A third edition of this book was released by  in 2013.

My apologies for the error.

Musical interlude: Derek Trucks Band’s “This Sky”

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Former Allman Brothers guitarist Derek Trucks, ranked 16th in the 2011 Rolling Stones list of greatest guitarists, released Songlines in 2006, an album whose unifying concept is one my Australia winterim class will be considering during its trip this year.

Currently collaborating with wife and well-known blues/soul singer Susan Tedeschi in the Tedeschi Trucks Band, Trucks is a guy I’d heard a bit about. He never really caught my attention until the song “This Sky” captivated me during a workout a couple of years ago. It took me until September of this year to purchase the album that held it. Continue reading →

A walk around Schmeeckle

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This is my  Oct. 22 column for the Portage County Gazette.  The paper’s web site is not quite there yet, but it’s coming soon.  I’ve been a bit distracted lately by my day job, including chairing a faculty search committee.

A swing at the pond on Schmeeckle's Trail of Reflections.

A swing at the pond on Schmeeckle’s Trail of Reflections.

Bad circulation, bad sleeping.  Bad bones, bad muscles, bad mood.  Mental decline.  Shorter life.

Bad week?  More like a bad month.  Or maybe it’s been a month and a half. I don’t remember.

The good thing, though, is a short walk with an old friend reminded me of something I can do to fix those things.  Thanks, Schmeeckle.

I write, of course, about Schmeeckle Reserve, one of the most spectacular offerings of any kind that we have in Stevens Point.  The 280-acre conservancy just north of UW-Stevens Point drew me back for a walk recently, and like any good friend reminded me of the things I already knew but was neglecting.

Among those are the extraordinary benefits that come so freely to us if we just make the effort to get off our tushes and onto the trails – or sidewalks or back streets, for that matter.  Regardless of the route we choose, walking blesses us with the opposite of my list above: better circulation, better sleep, stronger bones and muscles, a longer life, and a hedge against mental decline.

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Seriously … how bad is it when Wikipedia doesn’t want it?

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Apparently not noteworthy. Source: Wikipedia

While grading my multimedia class podcasts this evening and  trying to determine why some of my students can’t figure out SoundCloud, the cloud-based music- and MP3-hosting service, I ran across the essay linked at the end of this post.

It’s hilarious.

It is, however, written for a serious purpose.  It makes for musicians a point I constantly reinforce for my journalism students: they can’t build credibility without experience, expertise, or at least widespread fame (deserved or not).  Or, failing all of that, at least talking to and citing those with expertise, experience or celebrity.

There are a great number of subjects about which no one cares on Wikipedia. With new bands this is especially important to keep in mind, given that nearly 25% of new pages are about a “garage band” (so-called because of their tendency to only ever play in their parents’ garage) or “Yet Another Myspace (or Facebook or YouTube) Band”, “YAMB” for short. — Wikipedia on Wikipedia

The essay has great lessons, really, for people in any field. It includes a detailed list of indicators marking an article about a band with no street cred.

Source: Wikipedia (I’m not one of those professors).  Because Wikipedia is NOT fond of garage bands.

capture2

Original “selfie stick” provides view of a bigger picture

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This is my second weekly column for the Portage County Gazette, whose new web site is almost ready. — Steve

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loren & yami overlooking boquillas

The best pictures of nature show less of the people and more of the scenery, like these native grinding holes in a bluff overlooking the Rio Grande and Mexico (Big Bend National Park, 2000) .

Selfie sticks are getting whacked a lot lately.

For those still living in the world of talking to others, selfie sticks are the devices that allow one to avoid all human contact while holding a camera at more than arm’s length and blessing everyone with yet another shot of one’s beaming mug.

Banned from some Disney World rides because of the danger they can cause, they also are forbidden at many concerts and festivals because they block people’s views. Coachella’s web site called them “narsisstics.”

For obvious reasons, the secret service didn’t want them near the Pope on his U.S. visit. Reuters News Service  and Mashable recently told us that more people have died taking selfies in 2015 than have been killed in shark attacks.  Search “selfies” in the New York Times and you’ll get all sorts of cogent, thoughtful, and recriminating pieces about the meaning of selfies in our culture.

This is the story of my selfie stick.

Continue reading →