I was 7 years old when Elvis Presley, the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll, died. I still remember hearing it on the news. Elvis’ music hadn’t had much of a direct impact on me, but I knew who he was. Everyone knew who Elvis was. And his death was an utter shock, a moment of frozen time and disbelief. As time has gone by, I haven’t really ever been an Elvis fan, but I still have to acknowledge the cultural impact of his life and death.
Michael Jackson, the King of Pop, died yesterday. He was older than Elvis when Elvis died, but not by much. I was never a huge Michael Jackson fan. I never owned Thriller or any of his other albums. Like most people, I made jokes about Jackson’s strange life and behavior. But as someone who grew up in the ’80s, I’d be lying if I said Michael Jackson had no impact on me, and I really did like a number of his songs. Like Elvis, Michael Jackson impacted everyone. And his death is an utter shock. I can barely believe he’s gone.
These two kings, Elvis and Michael, lived strange lives that just got stranger. They were twisted, tortured, abused and abusive, living in baroque bubbles of unreality. Is this what it takes to be a king in pop culture? Maybe. Despite the accusations of terrible, abusive, possibly criminal behavior, I feel sorry for these two men. They led sad, carnival-mirror lives that took them from this world at an early age. At the same time, they touched–and continue to touch–millions of people all over the world in brilliant ways.
Young Frankenstein is one of my all-time favorite movies. On Saturday night, we decided it was time for Morgan to see it. (She’s already seen Blazing Saddles and loved it, even if she didn’t get all of the jokes.) So, we got some tasty burgers from Five Guys and settled in to watch Young Frankenstein.
Morgan liked it, of course. But while we watched the movie, thoughts started drifting through my head…Dr. Frederick Frankenstein, the brilliant, eccentric scientist…Inga, his young, pretty, blonde assistant and lover…Igor, the sarcastic trickster…the Creature, big, strong and impulsive…
And because I’m a colossal geek, I spent about an hour putting this picture together (using Heromachine and The Gimp):
It kind of makes sense, don’t you think? Or is that just geeky ol’ me?
As I said in my previous post, I went to a school in Kansas City called Loretto for 5th-8th grades. Loretto was a private school that promoted self-paced education, cooperative learning, broad educational study and free thinking. It wasn’t quite “anything goes,” but it was much looser and more open than almost any other school I’ve gone to, not too dissimilar from the Montessori method. I really enjoyed my time at Loretto, and I was very upset when it closed during the summer of 1984, but it didn’t really hit me until this past weekend, reuniting with old friends and teachers from the school, just how much Loretto helped shape who I am and what I do today.
The Library Society of the World, begun on a whim and a dare, is completely a Loretto thing. It’s nonhierarchical, loosely-structured, open, free, collaborative, sarcastic and often lazy about getting things done…just like my classmates and I were at Loretto. Library Camp Kansas and my fondness for unconferences in general, that’s also Loretto-inspired. My dislike of formal presentations, standing at a podium and lecturing to an audience, and my preference for free-flowing conversations and the equal exhange of ideas also comes from my time at Loretto.
If I can continue to bring the Loretto philosophy and style into my professional and personal life, I’ll consider myself very successful indeed. The world needs fewer squares and more circles.
Happy 35th Birthday, Sonya Walger and Danny Strong! Oh, and my beautiful wife, Julie. Happy Birthday, sweetheart!
We’ve been celebrating Julie’s birthday off and on this past week, because tonight she’s accompanying me to the Loretto reunion. Loretto was a private school here in Kansas City with a very liberal, openminded, flexible K-12 school that I went to for 5th-8th grades. While I had as much pre-teen/teen angst as anyone, going to Loretto was overall a fantastic experience. It closed in the summer of 1984, while I was off on summer vacation. I never got to really say good bye to the school or my friends. Reuniting with them recently and renewing our friendships has made me positively giddy.
Julie’s birthday + Loretto reunion = SUPER MEGA AWESOME WEEKEND!
As much as I inherently cast a suspicious eye towards large companies, I have to say, Google regularly knocks my socks off. I’ve just learned more about their huge new project, Google Wave, and not only are my socks knocked off, my jaw is on the floor and my eyes are popping out of my skull. Google Wave is “email, if it were created today”–but it’s much more than that. It’s a groovy orgy of email, IM, wikis, collaborative documents (like Google Docs) and more. My gut instinct is to agree with Jason Griffey when he says “it’s the biggest revolution in communication online since the invention of email.” I think the implications and possibilities of this technology are astounding. But what makes it even more amazing in potential is that Google is making Wave open source and encouraging developers to create extensions and robots, but also to make of the platform and the protocol what they will. Seriously, this could he huge.
To get a better sense of how Google Wave will work and what the potential is, watch the video of the developer preview from Google I/O 2009. (Warning: the video is over an hour long and not always incredibly exciting. I watched it in chunks over 3 days.)
For a different perspective on Google Wave, check out “Five Reasons to Be Terrified of Google Wave.” Personally, I think the worrying sounds a bit shrill, but it’s good to look at all sides of the matter.
I love fan-made media. My friends and I all did fan-made stories and comics when we were kids, and I absolutely grok the urge to create your own stories using characters and settings that you love passionately.
I particularly love well-done fan-made media. This fan-made mock trailer for an imagined Green Lantern movie, starring Nathan Fillion, is so well-done, I jizzed in my pants. I love Green Lantern, and Nathan Fillion would be perfect as Hal Jordan. Yo, Hollywood! Please make this movie and do it well!
I’m probably going to lose some geek cred by admitting this, but here goes: I’ve missed every chance I’ve ever had to see They Might Be Giants live. So when I found out they were going to be playing in Kansas City in May, I immediately bought tickets. I knew Julie wouldn’t be able to go, due to her current night schedule for work, but since Morgan was graduating from elementary school and the sixth grade, I really wanted to take her to her first real rock concert. Morgan and I were even more excited when we heard the plan for the concert was to all of the songs from their album Flood in the order they appear on the album.
I’m happy to say the band exceeded my expectations. I’d always heard they were a great band to see live, but I was still floored at what great performers they are. John Flansburgh in particular is just amazing, bouncing around the stage and playing to the audience with incredible energy. They opened with a batch of different songs, then launched into Flood, and finished the night with two short but vibrant encores. John Flansburgh closed the show with one of the best last lines ever: “We’d like to keep playing for you all, but my guitar is fucked up. Good night!”
Morgan declared the show “awesome” and said this was “an awesome graduation present.” High praise indeed from an almost-seventh-grader! Me? As awesome as the show was, what made it really special for me was taking my daughter along. The performance alone made this one of the best shows I’ve ever gone to. Having Morgan with me for her first concert kicked it up to number one.
I saw the new Star Trek movie today. What can I say? I loved it! I think it’s fantastic! It’s exciting, dramatic and funny, full of adventure and wonder. It makes just the right number of homages to the original series and movies, while allowing this cast to make the roles their own. (Karl Urban and Zachary Quinto are particularly good.) If this cast and crew make more Star Trek movies, I will happily and enthusiastically see them (even the odd-numbered ones).
One of my best friends in the whole world, the amazingly talented Margaret Meyer, has started a new blog and hung her shingle up on Etsy. If you like dreamy, beautiful art, check her sites out.
After watching the Doctor Who Easter special, “Planet of the Dead,” something buzzing around in the back of my head leaped out and said, “Aha!” I’ve consciously realized one of the things I love about the new Doctor Who show. It’s not just science fantasy that’s rooted in the mundane, it’s science fantasy that celebrates and glorifies the mundane.
The new Doctor Who celebrates and glorifies shopworkers, office temps, waitresses, people who live in council housing, broken families, squabbling families, chops and gravy, chips and Christmas dinners. The Doctor’s companions are invariably hardworking middle or lower class people who make valuable companions and universe-saving heroes because they’re hardworking middle or lower class. (Lady Christina de Souza in “Planet of the Dead” is a notable exception. Captain Jack Harkness is another one.) While the Doctor leads a life of neverending wandering and adventure, he joyfully celebrates the mundane lives of ordinary people (like his bit about people who are “nothing special” in “Father’s Day”). In Doctor Who, people are special because they’re ordinary, not despite it.
While the TARDIS has an ordinary, mundane exterior and a wondrous, fantastic interior, Doctor Who has a wondrous, fantastic exterior wrapped around a common, mundane core. And I love the show for it.
