Travelling this week to talk with some historian colleagues at another small liberal-arts college.
First off, how’d the schwarma go? Pretty good!
I would take it out of the oven on the lower side of the cooking time given by Sam Sifton—it dried out a bit at the upper range. That could also be solved by slathering it in a bit of something like a tzatziki sauce or at least having that available as a dip.
I’m not a huge fan of the “I am here at this famous place” selfie, either for myself or watching people take them, especially when it involves a big line of would-be influencers trying to get the same damn shot everybody else has taken of their face in front of a field of tulips or the Grand Canyon. Though it’s even worse when the same crowds are determined to get the shot nobody has that’s even more spectacular so they go off-trail, stamp through the flowers, or ease up to a bison herd. (The last, at least, tends to deal out some consequences.)
But I do sometimes take shots of myself while travelling by myself at ordinary places—train stations, bars, hotels. Those feel more like the scenes that mark the travel, that put me in that place at that moment. So:
It’s a bit of a challenge to get ok light and more importantly to actually pose a bit. Sort of the same problem as with Zoom—to train yourself about what it looks like if your eyes are looking over there or the camera is under your head height. And of course there’s the problem of embarrassment when you’re doing it in public. Influencers seem to handle that with the aplomb of people who are sure they’re the main characters, but I can’t quite pull that off. Plus if you’re not careful, people think you’re taking shots of them rather than yourself. (I was tempted at the bar where I stopped for a beer; the bartender was a character and so were the other two 5pm drinkers.)
Anyway, maybe a posting tomorrow, maybe not. The news will unravel as it does regardless.