A Thing or Two

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40 years on

This weekend I attended my 40th Blackford High School reunion. It was a blast, but in that "you hadda be there" kind of way. 

If you haven't gone to one of your high school reunions, I'm sure you have your reasons. But if those reasons include any notion that the popular kids will still snub you—or that you are still embarrassed about being one of the popular kids who snubbed the others, please reconsider. Time heals all wounds.

Every one of us in adolescence is looking for a place to fit in. Some fit into athletics, some into academic (or theatre arts!) stardom, some quietly into the back row. But 40 years on, or even 20 years on, no one cares about that anymore. Every single one of your classmates lucky enough to still be living has experienced the ups and downs of life. All they care about is reconnecting with that group of people who were shipmates on the turbulent seas of teenagery. There is a primal connection, for some reason. A shared understanding of the time, for sure: the (now old) fashions, songs, trends, escapades. But more than that, it's like reconnecting with extended family, in a way. These are people who saw you at your gawkiest, your pimpliest, your most insecure times. And you know what? They want to see you now, as much as you want to see them. 

One girlfriend whom I haven't seen for 37 years got in the car with me and we drove over to look at our old neighborhood in San Jose. We took pictures of the houses we grew up in. We drove by the old middle school, and the campus where our high school stood. We thought about revving up the engine and squealing out in the parking lot, but not seriously. Wave after wave of memories came, but we weren't living in the past. Instead, we were reviewing and sifting those stories through the prism of our accumulated experiences. We have the perspective now to file those times where they fit. We can always haul them out again should the mood strike.

So, next time one of your reunions rolls around, go. Have fun. Hug those old friends and frenemies, and laugh until you cry. You won't regret it.

I sure had fun, and I have the laryngitis to prove it.

RIP Teddy Kennedy

Poor Teddy. May he rest in peace.

But his death is not in vain.

Like the events surrounding the death of Michael Jackson, his memorials will be an economic stimulus for all branches of media.

The Subject Line of the Day comes from the email I received from "The Kennedy Family":

Watch online: Tonight's private memorial service

Private?

How is The Onion supposed to compete?

National Book Awards for Fiction open to public voting for the first time

To celebrate the 60th year of the National Book Awards, the National Book Foundation will present a book-a-day blog on the Fiction winners from 1950 to 2008.

Each day, from July 7th to September 21st, the blog will discuss one award-winning book, starting with Nelson Algren’s The Man With the Golden Arm and ending with Peter Matthiessen’s Shadow Country. On September 21st, you can select your choice of The Best of the National Book Awards Fiction and win two tickets to the 2009 National Book Awards, the first time in its history the Awards will open to a public vote.

And, if you are interested in the entire list of all winners in all categories from 1950 to 2008, go here. Sometimes it's fun to see how many of these you've read.

40 gorgeous photos from Apollo 11: 40 years ago on the moon

The Boston Globe is featuring 40 big, beautiful photographs called "Remembering Apollo 11" in their online gallery called The Big Picture.

This is but a mere thumbnail snapshot of the first image.

WarHorse: Puppets like you've never seen

The West End in London is buzzing about the sell-out production from the National Theatre: WarHorse. In a dramatic departure from traditional theater, the horses in the play are giant puppets—each controlled by three puppeteers. The footage reveals the stunning creativity of the puppets' construction and operation, all designed to make the audiences forget about the fact that the horses on stage are not actual, living creatures.

This BBC Channel 4 report provides a glimpse of the horses in action, in addition to comments about the bump in theater receipts due to the success of the show. YouTube has some other videos, if you want to go look.

Hallelujah! TJ's is coming to Corvallis!

I don't have to tell you the many, many reasons we are looking forward to having Trader Joe's open a store in Corvallis. Cheers went up around the area when the news broke yesterday morning.

Lots of local comments on that article, many complaining about high prices at First Alternative Co-op. Always buying local really tests our principles; even among the most die-hard "Buy Local" friends I have, most of them are as excited about this news as if they'd just landed free tickets to a reunion Beatles concert.

Cosmic Variance: the numbers line up

Shortly after noon on July 8, comes the moment that can be called 12:34:56 7/8/9.  In another 80 years or so, we'll have 12:34:56 7/8/90, but that's another story.

Seriously? Nothing since May?

I don't always play on the Interwebs. Sometimes I do other things.

For example, in May I read 9 novels. That's a lot, even for me. So, not a lot of blogging. You can't have it both ways.

I Can Haz Writin Skillz?

In an admittedly serpent's tail-ish reference, I'm posting a link to an ironic syllabus and course overview for the Internet age, by Robert Lanham, courtesy of McSweeney's. The course is designed for students wishing to prepare for a career in writing for non-pulp fiber, short form posts, for the future "post-print era," in which there would be no more newspapers, magazines, or books.

The prerequisites.

Students must have completed at least two of the following.

ENG: 232WR—Advanced Tweeting: The Elements of Droll
LIT: 223—Early-21st-Century Literature: 140 Characters or Less
ENG: 102—Staring Blankly at Handheld Devices While Others Are Talking
ENG: 301—Advanced Blog and Book Skimming
ENG: 231WR—Facebook Wall Alliteration and Assonance
LIT: 202—The Literary Merits of Lolcats
LIT: 209—Internet-Age Surrealistic Narcissism and Self-Absorption

Workshops include sessions that help students to "perfect their tweeting, blogging, and short-form writing skills."

If it weren't so true it would be funny.

DJ C.Flo places 2nd nationally at WMC's 2009 VJ Challenge

My son Coleman Howard remixes music videos live in West Coast clubs, under the name DJ C.Flo. Mixing videos live is different from what video DJs (VJs) do. Typically, a VJ will create video effects while someone else runs the audio. Live music video remixing is pretty new.

Coleman competed in Miami this March in a VJ challenge at the World Music Conference and placed 2nd, with a completely different set than was expected.

Check out his winning set here:
Video DJ C.FLO in Miami
(Note: video is 8 minutes 41 seconds long)

Kutiman = YouTube mashups + compositional talent

I can't stop going to Thru-You.com and streaming the musical selections created by Kutiman.

This is, basically, an "album" of 7 new and original songs, created fresh by putting bits and pieces of YouTube videos together. One song is soul/funk style, another is reggae, another is a sweeet ballad, and so on.

Brilliant!

Neccos - Mmmmm

I'm thinking about experimenting a little with our candy selection at the Darkside Cinema. It might be fun to offer candy that appeals to our sense of nostalgia. I never see Neccos, Sugar Daddies, or Bit-O-Honeys in movie snack bars anymore, and I'll bet some of our patrons would love to see these again.

In my research I uncovered these fun facts about Neccos.

Q: What are the original eight flavors in a Necco Wafer Roll?

A: The original eight flavors: orange, lemon, lime, clove, chocolate, cinnamon, licorice and wintergreen. The ingredients are simply sugar, corn syrup, gelatin, gum, colorings and flavoring.

Q: What are the six flavors in the Sweethearts Conversation Hearts?

A: The six flavors in the sweethearts Conversation Hearts are cherry, banana, lemon, grape, orange and wintergreen.

Bonus: Necco is a shortened version of "New England Confectionery Company."

Suck on that!

KBVR show features Paul Turner (Darkside Cinema) and Jon Lewis (Oregon State University)

Oregon State University's student-run radio station, KBVR, features a series each Monday at 11:00 a.m. Pacific, called "Talking in the Theater" and hosted by Mervin Kurniawan. In this MP3 recording, Paul and Jon discuss the 2009 Academy Awards. The show is about a half hour long. 

Tower Records sign comes down

Today in Sacramento, the original home of Tower Records, the big yellow and red sign was taken down.

Russ Solomon started the Tower empire in the 1950's, selling records out of his father's pharmacy on Broadway in Sacramento. The Tower Records store at Watt and El Camino was one of his first, opened in 1960. The big yellow and red sign neon appeared a year later.

Tower expanded through the decades, with stores in major U.S. cities and eventually in Europe, Central and South America, and Asia. But all good things must come to an end, and the introduction of MP3 technology hastened the demise of the mainstay part of the business—recorded music. As the CBS TV coverage points out, Russ Solomon is still selling music, now in a newer store called R5, located at 16th and Broadway in Sacramento.

I worked for Tower from 1975 to 1977 as a Jazz LPs (that's vinyl) buyer in Campbell, California. After a brief stint at Columbia Records in San Francisco, I came home again to the Tower family, and worked as a Tower Books manager from 1978 to 1979, both in Mountain View and then later in Berkeley.

I always thought that logo needed updating, but boy, you could see those yellow and red plastic bags from a mile away.

(Thanks for the tip, Uncle Mick.)

College Isn't Free: Rap Video by Nathan Worden

There were lots of great short films shown this weekend at the da Vinci Film Festival. But what seemed to catch my imagination the most were the films created by teenagers. The amount of talent and commitment shown by these young folks was really great.

Here's a rap video by Nathan Worden, a high school senior in Corvallis. It's called "College Isn't Free," and it rocks!

Balloons in the movies: "Helium and Celluloid," by Jerry Rees

In my previous post, I talked about the da Vinci Fast Film Project, where each film used a balloon as a prop. Here's another inspired use of balloons in movies. Jerry Rees has put together archival movie footage from many popular classic films, with an added twist: in each scene, he's digitally inserted a balloon. It works amazingly well!

He calls it, "Cinema's Romance with the Balloon: a retrospective of the most famous scenes."

da Vinci Fast Films

Over the weekend at the da Vinci Film Festival we screened the Fast Film Projects to a sold-out crowd. These films were created in only 48 hours by 9 different teams ranging in age from 12 to 60. Some of the entries looked and felt a lot more polished than you might expect.

Each Fast Film was required to use this year's standard-issue prop (a balloon) and da Vinci quote, "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." In some, these two elements were inserted into a story that had perhaps already been conceived. In others, the entire (short) film was inspired by the balloon and the quote. The winning film, "Fair Share," was chosen by audience response at the screening Sunday evening, March 8. "Fair Share" was written, directed, and edited by Evan Gütt, a high school senior from Corvallis.

Full video: Dick Cavett interviews Cheever and Updike

What a treat! The NY Times is hosting the full video of a 1981 Dick Cavett interview with John Cheever and John Updike. It's 28 and a half minutes long, but not long enough.

Dick Cavett: A Last Look at Updike and Cheever