10-25-11

Occupy ... Blacksburg. It wasn't a large protest, but big enough for the normally quiet college town, and as orderly and reasoned as one might expect.



The director of Opera Roanoke reviews his music backstage at the Jefferson Center in between live interview segments for the morning show. He would actually at moments start to gesture as if conducting the orchestra right there.


Also backstage, in a way, this is the floor of the Roanoke Civic Center as they set up the ring for the Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey Circus. We did a morning show segment after filming one of the "Do My Job, Bob" stories. In the foreground, the hard hat they handed Bob when we did some of the early, heavy lifting parts. He didn't need it so much when he had to shovel elephant poop.


The circus is actually a great live segment, and their PR realizes the value of local TV in promotion. They -- as personified by Jillian Collett, seen here -- couldn't have made things easier. Behind, we see the competition, Channel 13, also set up for their morning show.


When clowns get bored...


I-Hsiung Ju, master brush painter and my art professor in college. As with many things in college, I didn't properly exploit the opportunity he presented. For one thing, I never took a course in traditional Chinese brush painting from him, something I have tried to rectify in adulthood as time and money have permitted.

He sits here in the Staniar Art Gallery at Washington and Lee University, behind him a monumental series of scrolls.


Following the show, we gathered at the home of one of his other former -- and in many ways still current, though himself a master brush painter -- students.

Mr. Ju or Professor Ju, as he is fixed in my mind despite retiring years ago, is a truly Great Man, a witness to, participant in and (sometimes just barely) survivor of history. He studied traditional Chinese art from childhood -- his was a family of artists -- was drawn into the war with Japan, was wounded, then escaped to the Philippines as the Communist Revolution drew to a close. His stories are always a delight, though his still thick accent slowly sinks into my mind along with them, until I find myself speaking in broken English by the end of the evening.