\TEK-ee-FEEL-ee\ – enjoying both sides of the brain.
I guess I am at that age where many of the famous people who were influential on my growing-up are starting to die. I noticed that several of my recent posts have been about recent deaths. Yesterday, we lost Mary Travers (the Mary of Peter, Paul and Mary). While Michael Jackson certainly was a huge part of my adolescence, the trio of PPM were also very much in the mix as I listened to a lot of their music when I was young and then continued the love affair with many hours sitting around a campfire singing their songs with other campers, then as a counselor and finally now, continuing the tradition each year with my annual campout with friends from those summer camp days.
All of this death has me thinking about how we pay tribute to these celebrities who are so influential for whatever reason: crushes, aspirations of similar stardom, talents that create art that speaks so deeply to us and so on. It is interesting to note how those tributes have changed over the years and with the technologies available to those who feel need to “tributize” someone.
After Michael Jackson died, it was almost immediately that the tributes started pouring in via blogs, YouTube, twitter, Facebook, MySpace and more. There were mashups, postings of clips from interviews, artwork and more.
Patrick Swayze’s death probably prompted the same reaction. I was not as affected by his death as others around me were but that is probably another blog post on another blog.
I did a quick search on Mary Travers this morning on blogs, YouTube and Twitter. While there were a few podcasts and audio tributes last night, I didn’t find as much as I would have thought. And that makes sense. Mary’s audience is older and her work is not so much in the digital realm. I have one CD and the rest of her music I have on LP album and cassette. That adds a hurdle to making an online tribute so it cannot happen so “immediately” as Michael Jackson or even John Hughes, as I posted earlier.
I only wonder how the technology will change how we memorialize people, both famous and not, in the future. I think the feely part of the equation will always be there…we have a human need to eulogize, share grief and express admiration for someone’s life and how it touched ours. But, how we do it is certainly changing. It is easier, faster and much more public.
Thinking about my own tribute rituals, I recalled when John Lennon was shot. I was a freshman at Virginia Tech. My roommate and I got all of our albums together and played them all night while other girls on our hall came by. Slowly, a little shrine developed with his photo, candles, a flower or two and just a bunch of folks sitting in the yellow candlelight listening to Lennon sing us to sleep. Last night, I played two Peter, Paul and Mary albums on my turntable and then put their jackets in my LP album frames as my tribute. I guess that will her shrine for now. For Michael Jackson, I blogged about his influence and found plenty of videos to embed. That also makes sense, because part of MJ’s art was so visual that you need the video to appreciate it, share it and pay tribute to this talents. I dont’ think you need video with Mary Travers as much.
But, just because I think this song is beautiful (a tribute to John Denver as he wrote it), here is one Mary Travers song to share.
I just liked this one yesterday.
Just returned from a quick work trip down (way down) to Albany, GA. I was excited to learn in my pre-trip research that I had totally forgotten this was the birthplace of one of my absolute favorites: the incomaparable Ray Charles.
So, I had to bring my entire cohort of travelers to the downtown area to pay an homage visit to the Ray Charles Plaza. It was a lovely spot with benches that looked like piano keys. Curving pathways in black and white, wooden swings, nice landscaping and a central fountain with a life size sculpture of Ray seated at a piano performing, microphone and all.
The only disappointment was the lack of Ray’s music. There were speakers everywhere and the woman at the hotel said that music was playing. But, not on the days I was there.
I had to go back the next morning to grab some photos from the sunrise across the Flint River that then bathed the sculpture with the nice first light of the day. The slideshow is below.
The other thing that I noticed were the two bridges. There was the “new” bridge that we crossed to enter the downtown area. Modern looking, with a some neat metal arches on the end. That road when through downtown and passed a new Hilton Garden Inn, a new looking jail and other government buildings.
The other “old” bridge was mason work with arches, etc. It was blocked off, even to pedestrian traffic. The road that led from that bridge to the downtown contained an entirely different world. The road was lined with shops, local restaurants, and plenty of empty buildings as well.
I was glad we went down both roads but I was sad to see that the more interesting road to welcome someone to Albany for the first time was the one from the old and unused bridge. This struck me and is something i want to think about some more in context to how we approach anything new: there are usually two bridges to it (sometimes more) I wonder which bridge is more useful: the old bridge that might be less modern but takes you to some pretty interesting sites or the new, modern bridge that might be safer and take you to slick, new stuff but you might miss some cool stuff along the way. I want to try to make sure I use both bridges and see all the paths.
Enjoy the show:
Feel like I have been saying goodbye to a good part of my childhood/young adulthood lately.
RIP – John Hughes.
In some ways it seems like a much longer time has passed since I blogged for the first time here at my own little corner o’ the Intarwebs! And, in other ways, I still feel like I am just figuring stuff out. I certainly am on other parts of the web. But, I clearly recall installing WordPress and then staring at it going: “Now what?”. Now, I have a version of the multiuser platform running at my college and I feel much more comfortable diving into the database tables and taking a peek.
But, today marks the third anniversary of this here website. It has been joined along the way by several others in my account – mostly for friends and family but I also grabbed my own Vanity URL because I truly believe in the not to distant future, it will be crucial to control and own your personal space on the web. Not necessarily for “brand control” – although for folks who live and die by their online rep, that is not a bad idea but just because it can serve as a central point to pull together all of the places where you are on the web into one spot. Makes the whole out of the parts, so to speak. Still working on that project for me as well.
Anyway, enjoy some virtual cake for Techy-Feely today! Between the Project 365, finding tidbits to share with my three readers and just plain thinking “out loud”, it has been fun – even if only for me!
The Inaugural Post from 2006: Techy-Feely ยป Hello World!
Image: ‘He’s so Pleased!!‘
www.flickr.com/photos/48915783@N00/28051595
I am a space fan, I am the first to admit. I almost have to be, don’t I? Can you claim the word “techy” and not have at least some passing interesting in space and space travel?
Besides the requisite Star Wars and Star Trek fandom, I am also a big fan of NASA program and have been since I was a youngster. All of the excitement and re-enactments of this historic fortieth anniversary (See http://wechoosethemoon.org/) has got me reminiscing back to those days.
Of course, I answered “astronaut” on the forms that asked: What do you want to be when you grow up? (I also rotated between TV cameraman, nurse, teacher, paramedic and cowboy – among others). But, space and traveling through space has always fascinated me. And, it still does. I applied to the Teacher in Space program even though I was still in undergraduate school. I remember talking with other teachers about it later and them asking if I could still want to do it after the Challenger accident that claimed Christa McAuliffe. My answer is always: YES!
I WANT to see the Earth from above.
I WANT to see the moon up close and personal.
I WANT to feel the lack of gravity
I WANT to see so many stars that my mind cannot comprehend what it is seeing
I remember watching the Apollo 11 mission with my family. Mom and Dad got a new television that summer and I have always heard to reasons: one to watch the lunar landing and the other (since it was a color TV) so that Mom could see the red hair on some character on a soap opera she watched. I pretty much believe either one but chose to go with the first reason.
So the names of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were easily thrown around our house like we knew them. I built NASA models like the one above (my favorite but I also build many of the rockets and the lunar rover buggy – that one was hard!). I read books about NASA history. In fact, I totally latched on to the Mercury astronaut Gus Grissom as a favorite. I think I picked him out from a group photo and decided he was my favorite. When I read that he died when I was about 5 (before the space fascination began, I suppose), I remember being pretty sad about that.
So, as we have the web sites with historic photos, NASA releasing digitally enhanced videos and many Twitter historical re-enactments, take a few minutes to think about how awesome this trip of Apollo 11 truly was: we did go where no one had gone before. The technology itself might seem less than sleek and modern but it got the job done and the feeling that crew must have had when they landed back in the capsule splashing down in the ocean must have been something else.
I will enjoy my Twitter feed today as we think back 40 years to the one giant leap we made.
Just back from the downtown event that was part of the Worldwide Photowalk. Over 900 cities hosted their own event where photo-oriented folks gathered together to walk around and take pictures of what they saw. Reminded me of my Project365 days. So, about 25 of so of us tromped around the Old City, downtown, Market Square (home of a very popular and vibrant Famers’ Market) and other places such as that capturing images of what makes our local area unique.
Just knowing folks around the world are doing the same feels really cool. Once again, through the power of social media and networking, we are able to share both in the experience itself and then what we felt about it after it is over.
Thanks to the organizers for creating the event!
Here is the slideshow of my photos:
Looking over the 100 new works that have been added to the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary this week, I found it interesting that about 20 or so are related to some kind of technology.
So, you can now peruse the dictionary and find the official definitions of such words are (with my short definitions after):
Vlog: a video based blog (you could also call it a vodcast, I bet)
Webisode: An episode of a television series (or other video series, I suppose) that is viewed online
And, my favorite for this year: flash mob: when a group of folks organize, usually online via SMS texting or Twitter or something similar, to meet at a common spot at a certain time for some action and then they quickly dissolve away. For an example, check out the “silent rave” flash mob in London back in February 2009.
I am so saddened to lose on of my truly major icons yesterday. I am not sure icon is the right word but hero is not right either. I didn’t want to be Michael Jackson but I did want to marry him at one point. When I was about 12. Then, after reading the biography of the Jackson 5 that I got in the Scholastic Book Club, I did the math on his birthdate and realized that he, being well over 3 years older than me, was WAY too old for me to marry and it would never work out. I recall being a big heartbroken over that fact at the time.
But, I stayed a fan through Jackson 5 and then well into his heyday of the 80s/90s. Thinking over definitive moments, it had to be this one. I still remember watching the Motown Special on live television with my siblings. When he broke out the moonwalk for the first time…on my.
First, we screamed: O no, he didn’t (or something like that)
Second, we all got up and started trying to do it ourselves. Badly. Really, really badly!
His dancing has always intrigued me. He floats in space rather than just dance on a stage. Magical. There are so many strong performances and videos, but I think the dancing in Smooth Criminal has always stuck with me.
As his legal battles went on and his musicality waned, I remained a fan but did wonder what the extremely hard life of being in show business since the age of 3 had done to his mind and body.
Rest in Peace Michael. You are the King of Pop and that will never change.
