The Click Heard Round the World

Global Kids 2008 Year End Review

I just finished drafting the 2008 Global Kids Year End Review, with a lot of help from my colleagues.  It's remarkable listing all of the cool stuff that we did over the past twelve months with our scrappy little team of geeks and educators.  Some of my personal favs:

• An AIDS orphan in Ugandan exchanges text messages from her cell phone with a dozen teenagers in Teen Second Life
• High school students conceive and produce a web-based game about local heroes during Hurricane Katrina
• Hundreds of young people across four virtual worlds watch Kofi Annan receive a major human rights award;
• Youth in Chicago and New York City collaborate online with paleotologists on a fossil dig in Tanzania

Read all about it here.  It's been a really fun year and I'm looking forward to more cool projects in 2009!

George Gee's "Sleigh Bells Swing" at Edison Ballroom (video)

Here's a clip of lindy hoppers Maggie Moon, Jennifer Jones, Eden Atencio, Mike Jaeger, Dave Graybill and Roddy Caravella performing in the "Sleigh Bells Swing" musical revue. Choreography by Evita Arce.

I had a wonderful night at "Sleigh Bells Swing" with a bunch of friends at the elegant Edison Ballroom in Times Square.  The evening began with a delicious four-course dinner, with great service from our waiter.  At around 8:30, the musical revue began, which included the full George Gee orchestra (including a strings section!), an Andrews Sisters-esque act, John Dokes on vocals plus another very good male vocalist, a hoofer, and the lindy hoppers mentioned above. 

After the revue, there was a short break, followed by another set by the orchestra for general dancing, plus DJed music.  There were several dancers there on the evening that we were there, but I would recommend bringing a partner just to be safe.

If you are game for a very Christmas-y, schmaltzy, 1940s era musical evening, you can't go wrong with "Sleigh Bells Swing."  My parents would have loved it, and my group had a great time.  "Sleigh Bells Swing" runs through January 5 at the Edison Ballroom. Produced by George Gee and Mickey Marchello.

52nd Swifty self-portrait!

My roommate and friend Swifty just posted his 52nd and final self-portrait as part of the "52 Weeks" Flickr group.  Check out all of Swifty's self-portraits here.  Some of my favorites:

• Swifty as a monster for Halloween
• The Epcot Tour
• On the throne
• Fall edition of International Male catalog
• Mermaid Swifty
• Swifty in the rain

It's been a highlight of my Mondays seeing what new creation Swifty comes up with.  I'm going to miss having these appear in my "recent upload" list when I go to Flickr.

"When the Levees Broke": the harrowing, inspiring stories of Katrina's victims

I finally got around to seeing "When the Levees Broke" Spike Lee's epic four-hour documentary about Hurricane Katrina and the incredible stories of ordinary New Orleanians who lived through the flood.  It's perhaps Lee's finest piece of work, because for most of the film he simply turns on the camera, zooms in tight, and let's the victims speak. 

The movie left me angry at the blind stupidity and complicity of the government.  At the federal government that allowed these half-ass levees to be built in the first place, knowing that a Category 3 hurricane would breach them.  At FEMA, that took weeks to get their shit together enough to formulate an inadequate response to the disaster.  At the Bush administration's slow response to the tragedy that displaced a million people to all corners of the United States.

The film also inspired me with the resilience of the human spirit, and the creative ways that people found to survive and to help their neighbors along the way.  The stories of the survivors alternate between raw terror, moral outrage, and surprising humor even in the darkest hours.  And the elegaic music by Katrina survivor and jazz musician Terence Blanchard creates a hauntingly beautiful backdrop to the scenes and interviews.

Lee does an amazing job of portraying the unique character of New Orleans and why it's so important to rebuild this great city, and to restore the homes and neighborhoods of all of its inhabitants -- even in the 9th Ward.

Learning about "nontheist Quakers" this weekend at Powell House

I'm going on a somewhat last minute trip up to the Quaker retreat center Powell House in Old Chatham, NY. I've been wanting to head up to Powell House for the past few months. Danielle from Brooklyn Meeting offered to get a car and drive up, so I jumped at the opportunity.

The occasion is a workshop on "Nontheism Among Friends" facilitated by Robin Alpern and Zach Alexander.  The topic is rather intriguing, as described in a flyer:

Friends have become increasingly aware of the theological diversity of our Religious Society. Through experience and statistical studies, we have learned a large proportion of our members and attenders are somewhere on a spectrum that includes postchristians, agnostics, atheists, secularists, humanists. How can we be nontheists and Quakers too? If our Quaker life is not centered on belief in God, what is our center? What are our challenges? How can theists and nontheists enrich each other while holding views that differ? We will explore the faith and practice of Quaker nontheists and the richness of a spiritual life not necessarily dependent on belief in God.

Although I am definitely in the "theist" camp, I'd be curious about how we as Quakers can navigate what appears at its face to be insurmountable differences in worldview.  To find out more, you can check the blog nontheistfriends.org and read an interesting discussion about nontheist friends on QuakerInfo.com. 

{Image by Crime of Poisson.]

Year One at Global Kids Wrap-up

December 19, 2007 started off super-crappy but ended super-awesome.

That morning, I updated my status on the micro-blog Twitter as "jobless." A few minutes later, I got a text message from Barry Joseph : “Sorry to hear the news.  Please call when u can.”

Barry is a guy I had known for about a year from his impressive work directing the Online Leadership Program at the youth development non-profit Global Kids.  Apparently Global Kids was in need of some fairly specific expertise – online community, virtual world, United Nations, and nonprofit coordination. Serendipitously, my peculiar resumé matched the position very neatly.

So a couple of text message exchanges and phone calls later, and I was the new Second Life producer at Global Kids.  My first day on the job was January 3, 2008.

It has been a wonderful ride in my first twelve months at Global Kids, far exceeding my own expectations. I feel that it is important to mark milestones in your own professional development, appreciate your own accomplishments and reflect on where you could have done better. So what follows is a brief summary of my own work in my first year at Global Kids.

Katy Perry video features LA lindy hoppers

I don't know a thing about singer Katy Perry. But her recent video for her song "Thinking of You" features a number of LA-based lindy hoppers, including Minn Vo, Shesha Marvin, Nick Williams, and several others. Gotta love Katy's period costumes and the general vintage look of the video. And that's a real jazz band playing, not actors pretending to play.

Click here to watch the video.

Malagayang Pasko! / Merry Christmas!

I'm in Cali with the family preparing to celebrate Christmas in the usual ways: making lumpia shanghai eggrolls with my sister, taking mom to Christmas Mass at our family church, and wrapping presents for our family's raucous gift exchange tomorrow.

Cori dug up some old Christmas photos, including this one from 1980 of my cousins and me.  That's me in the back left with the bowl cut, surprisingly not wearing that stupid captain's hat that I wore everywhere. 

Brooklyn Museum launches "1stFans": socially networked museum membership

Will Cary, the membership manager at the Brooklyn Museum, announced earlier this month an interesting way for a wider population of people to support the Brooklyn Museum through their new "1stFan" program.  Described as "socially networked museum membership," 1stFan provides a way for potentially hundreds more people to support the museum through an annual $20 membership, while also increasing the internet "buzz" created about the museum and its exhibits. 

I think it's a very smart move for the museum in tough economic times.

"Yes you can... own a piece of history": Barack Obama Commemorative Plate

I can not believe that my boss Barry ordered this super cheesy Barack Obama commemorative plate from http://www.victoryplate.com.  The video on the website just cracks me up, particularly because it has no people of color in it and looks like just some canned footage that they inserted Barack's name in later when it was clear that he won.

The plate arrived in our office today, and now sits proudly above Barry's desk.  It's incredibly shoddy looking, some of the letters already starting to fade.  It comes with a plastic display stand, and is emblazoned with warnings not to eat off of it or you might be poisoned.

Yes, I'm very envious and may have to buy my own.