Kitty TV

Cassie enjoys the fruits of the labor of a predecessor. (Photo by Don Dale, 2011)

It took the late Atticus about two years to create the perfect slot for viewing the world outside.

By constantly, relentlessly, and deliberately pawing at one slat of the venetian blinds, he finally succeeded. One slat, at the perfect kitty viewing level, eventually broke under his steady assault.

Disregarding the fact of his mischief, I had to admire his dogged determination. For the next 18 years of his life with me, he enjoyed the fruits of his labor.

Atticus was not the brightest bulb in the chandelier, but he was a beautiful cat. Solid white with green eyes, he was sweet-natured and loving. He was one of two cats I had at the time. The other was Boo, who was solid black and as sharp as a tack. Boo let Atticus do all the work of creating the viewing hole in the blinds, but he enjoyed the result as much as Atticus did.

Atticus was not always solid white. When I adopted him (and Boo) from the SPCA, Atticus had a gray streak on his forehead and another, much smaller gray spot, on his scrotum.

Which reminds me of a story.

Atticus was about six months old when I took him to the vet for a checkup. I had to wait for a few minutes, so I took him out of his carrier -- he always raised hell about being confined -- and let him sit in my lap, where he was far more content. An elderly woman with her Chihuahua in a carrier sat down two seats away from me. "What a beautiful cat," she exclaimed. "I really like that gray streak on his forehead. Is that the only gray spot he has?"

I considered the possible answers carefully and answered: "Yes, ma'am, it is."

After Atticus was neutered a few months later, the gray streak on his forehead was indeed the only non-white fur to be found on him.

Over the years, the gray streak faded away and Atticus was all white, all over.

Calico Cassie, my present cat, spends more time surveying the world through that slot in the venetian blinds than even Atticus and Boo did. Of course she doesn't realize what a lasting gift Atticus left behind for his successors. But she appreciates it.

Lately, I have been considering replacing the blinds. They've hung at the door for 25 years, and the hardware is beginning to fail.

If and when I do, I'll have to figure out a way for Cassie to survey the front porch. She is much too much of a lady to do on her own what Atticus did. (Or perhaps she isn't; I don't really know.)

I suppose I could deliberately remove a slat at kitty eye-level in the replacement blinds. Or maybe there's something I could do with a couple of paper clips.

I do know that doing nothing would be just too selfish -- not to mention disrespectful of Atticus's hard work so many years ago.

Hola, Pablo

(Don Dale photo, 2011)

The big Pablo Picasso exhibition opens to the public today at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. And -- just in time -- the museum has erected a sign in its front yard that identifies what the building is.

That'll certainly be helpful to the thousands of out-of-town visitors who are excepted to come to Richmond to see the exhibition, which will be shown nowhere else east of the Rocky Mountains.

Because of silly neighborhood association objections, the sign is only about half as tall as the museum's original plan called for, but it gets most of the job done: "Here we are," it says to those passing by on the Boulevard. (VMFA says it expects 200,000 visitors to the Picasso exhibition before it closes May 15.)

Critics might say that eliminating the changing video screen that was planned for the top of the sign makes it look ... well ... stubby. But the important fact is that it identifies the museum.

You can read more about the controversy that accompanied the public announcement of the original proposal by clicking here.

Regular readers of this blog will no doubt be delighted that I won't be writing about the [expletive deleted] VMFA sign for a while, at least. Next time, I'll probably write something about Cassie's progress.

Cats are inherently more interesting than signs. To me, anyway.

The baby and the bathwater

Because I was a writer, I was the second person at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts to have a PC on his desk. (The first was the museum's budget officer.) There was no Windows system yet, so when I booted up my PC each morning, what I got was a black screen with a C-prompt. The PC had a 20-meg hard drive, which seemed to me at the time to be immense.

Thus began a continuing love affair with PCs. Everything about them fascinated me. And still does.

While I was working at the museum full-time, I was also free-lancing for Style Weekly, writing a weekly column of television criticism. (Stick with me; I will connect these two themes.) My mailman must have hated me. Each week, the networks would send huge packages of press releases, photographs and VHS preview tapes. The volume of mail was extraordinary.

As the World Wide Web took shape and the use of it expanded exponentially, the TV networks established what they called "virtual media centers." Instead of sending out massive amounts of snail mail each week, each network set up a password-protected site for reporters where we could download news releases and high-resolution images and request preview tapes.

It occurred to me that such a site could save the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts a ton of money. We, too, had been sending press releases and transparencies to hundreds of reporters at great cost. In addition to the mailing, there was the added expense of duplicating hundreds of color transparencies for distribution.

So I suggested that VMFA set up its own "Media Room" on the Web. The suggestion was received with much skepticism. No other museum in the world had made such use of the Web at that point. I was told to do a cost-benefit analysis. Once that was submitted, VMFA enthusiastically embraced the idea. It was a clear money-saver.

I arranged a meeting with state government information-technology experts, and the design process began. I outlined what I wanted to do and what the site should look like (I shamelessly "borrowed" ideas from the TV network sites) and the VMFA Media Room was born. The savings in the public relations budget were enormous.

Some reporters and editors were slow to adapt to the system, but soon hundreds had registered for a password and were enthusiastically using this new 24/7 electronic resource.

Within months, we were invited by other museums to demonstrate and talk about our creation. My supervisor and I presented workshops and papers for other Virginia museums and, ultimately, at the annual meeting of the American Association of Museums. Art institutions in the United States and abroad followed our lead and created their own media resources on the Web.

Designing and implementing the VMFA Media Room on the Web was the most interesting thing I ever did at VMFA. I ran the site until I retired in 2004, and the museum then hired me as a contact worker to continue to manage the Media Room until I fully retired a year ago.

Alas, when I retired, the museum decided to revamp and combine its Web sites using off-the-shelf site-management software. Instead of maintaining a stand-alone site for the media, the "expert" consultants merged it with the museum's public site -- much to the detriment of the Media Room. Gone now is much of the flexibility and ease-of-use for reporters and editors.

It's been a year now since the baby was thrown out with the bathwater. Change happens so fast in information technology that we can assume improvements will be made.

But it's sad to see that VMFA has moved backward in its attempt to move forward.

Without a password, you won't be able to use much of what functionality is left on what the museum now calls its "Press Room" (the name itself is another step backward), but you can visit it by clicking here.

Signgate

(Photo from taberandrew's photostream)

Likening it to a "panzer division," columnist Jack Lauterback comes down hard on the Fan District Association in this week's edition of Richmond's Style Weekly magazine.

Lauterback takes on Charlie Diradour -- whom he calls a "Fan District bigwig, Democratic politico and crusader for all that is right" -- on two fronts: for leading the charge against a Robinson Street restaurant and for his "busybody crusading" against the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts' original proposal for a sign on the Boulevard.

I have written about the sign in this space on two occasions (three, if you count this occasion), my main point being that having a world-class museum at your doorstep and then making out-of-town visitors hunt for it is just so very Richmond.

Lauterback's take on what he calls Signgate is penetrating, if a bit irreverent. You can read what he had to say by clicking here. You won't be disappointed, and you'll probably be as amused as I was.