Ugh, I went to an organ recital recently
and the organist, though technically proficient, was devoid of energy,
interpretation, originality or excitement. No wonder today's youth are
not taking up the organ as an instrument because they have to listen to
people like that in their churches every Sunday. What a turn off. In
many of our churches on Sunday, the organ is like a sports car, backed
out of the garage for one hour each week and only to the end of the
driveway then back into the garage.
When I work with singers
either in the church, workshop or theater venue, I often share one of
several simple videos with them. We first watch the video with the
sound off. Then we watch it a second time but this time I tell a story
based upon the facial expressions and movement of the singer. Then the
singers each take a turn doing the same. I then tell them the story of
the song and we watch it one final time with the sound still off.
Finally, we watch it with the sound on. Listeners often hear the notes
and not the words because singers, like organists, put more effort into
the notes rather than communicating.
This exercise not only
makes the singers aware of their expressions, movement and inflection,
but it also makes them cognizant of the importance of words and story
telling. All too often singers are mired down with technique, notes and
style rather than simple communication. This applies not only to
theater performers but church musicians often fall down into that hole,
too. I'm not saying they need to employ theatrics into their delivery
of the Psalms and holy scripture, just become better communicators of it
through basic facial expression, making eye contact and most
importantly - BEING PREPARED. If you have to look at the page more
than 20% of the time, you're not prepared to interpret.
I'll say
no more on the topic. You can use any video you like but one of my
favorites to start with is Betty Buckley's interpretation of the song
"Meadowlark." The first video with commentary but, without sound can be
found here:
https://youtu.be/NaLch5-ItPg
Here is the original video with sound:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqI6-Lrvi68
So, all you singers, story tellers, poets and organists, "SING . . . " for me.
Monday, January 18, 2016
Monday, January 11, 2016
Three Uses For Your Cell Phone That You May Not Have Thought Of
If
you have a forward facing camera on your smartphone, you can use it as a
magnifying glass. If you are shopping and left your cheater glasses at
home, just aim your phone's camera at the tiny print label on the item
you are interested in purchasing and you should be able to see it on
your screen. If you still can't make out the tiny print, use two
fingers to zoom in on the image. Take a picture if you have to then
zoom from there.
I volunteer for a cable access TV show each week and at least every other week someone asks me if we have a mirror so they can check their hair or makeup. I ask them if their phone has a backward facing camera for selfies, then tell them to just turn it on and look into it and you'll see a "reflection" of yourself.
You can also use your phone as a police radar trap detector. There is a great little GPS mapping program called WAZE. The people who use it are called "Wazers." The success and value of this program is based upon how many people use it and report events to it. It uses your camera as a means of communicating with the program or app. You just wave your hand in front of the phone and Waze will ask "How can I help you?" If you see a police car sitting on the side of the road waiting to catch speeders, you wave your hand and say "Report police radar trap." That's it. Waze will mark the map at the point of the wave with a little police icon. When other Wazers come after you, they will be notified about half a mile in advance that there is a radar trap up ahead. You can see other Wazers on the map, too. So, if you see Wazers in front of you, hopefully they are reporting road hazards and you will be better prepared for them.
Now some people will think that this is an immoral or illegal use of technology but it isn't. The police set up radar traps to catch people speeding so they can punish them with a ticket so they won't speed because - speeding causes accidents and can kill. If Waze and former Wazers notify you that there is a speed trap half a mile up the road, you will slow down, thus, preventing accidents and killing people. So, what is bad about that? Oh, police use tickets to "tax" people to fill the town coffers. Send a donation to your town if you feel guilty.
Waze can also be used to warn people of disabled vehicles, pot holes, construction, red light cameras, driving hazards, dead animals on the road, debris, detours, heavy traffic, black ice, etcetera. Try it, I assure you you will get hooked. Just purchase some kind of mount for you phone so you can glance at your screen without taking your eyes off the road. Again, the software is voice activated so there is no reason to take you hands and eyes off the road other than an initial wave at the phone to get Waze's attention. You can also set it up so that you just tap the screen to activate it.
Waze is also an excellent GPS and mapping program and you can use it to find gas, directions, lodging, food or whatever your heart desires. Try it, it's free but does come with minor ads once in a while. When I stop for stop lights, an ad for a local establishment might pop up but will disappear when I begin moving again. If you live in a community where there are not many Wazers then the protection this software can offer won't be of much value to you. Try it though and get all your neighbors to try it. That way you will be protecting your community.
I volunteer for a cable access TV show each week and at least every other week someone asks me if we have a mirror so they can check their hair or makeup. I ask them if their phone has a backward facing camera for selfies, then tell them to just turn it on and look into it and you'll see a "reflection" of yourself.
You can also use your phone as a police radar trap detector. There is a great little GPS mapping program called WAZE. The people who use it are called "Wazers." The success and value of this program is based upon how many people use it and report events to it. It uses your camera as a means of communicating with the program or app. You just wave your hand in front of the phone and Waze will ask "How can I help you?" If you see a police car sitting on the side of the road waiting to catch speeders, you wave your hand and say "Report police radar trap." That's it. Waze will mark the map at the point of the wave with a little police icon. When other Wazers come after you, they will be notified about half a mile in advance that there is a radar trap up ahead. You can see other Wazers on the map, too. So, if you see Wazers in front of you, hopefully they are reporting road hazards and you will be better prepared for them.
Now some people will think that this is an immoral or illegal use of technology but it isn't. The police set up radar traps to catch people speeding so they can punish them with a ticket so they won't speed because - speeding causes accidents and can kill. If Waze and former Wazers notify you that there is a speed trap half a mile up the road, you will slow down, thus, preventing accidents and killing people. So, what is bad about that? Oh, police use tickets to "tax" people to fill the town coffers. Send a donation to your town if you feel guilty.
Waze can also be used to warn people of disabled vehicles, pot holes, construction, red light cameras, driving hazards, dead animals on the road, debris, detours, heavy traffic, black ice, etcetera. Try it, I assure you you will get hooked. Just purchase some kind of mount for you phone so you can glance at your screen without taking your eyes off the road. Again, the software is voice activated so there is no reason to take you hands and eyes off the road other than an initial wave at the phone to get Waze's attention. You can also set it up so that you just tap the screen to activate it.
Waze is also an excellent GPS and mapping program and you can use it to find gas, directions, lodging, food or whatever your heart desires. Try it, it's free but does come with minor ads once in a while. When I stop for stop lights, an ad for a local establishment might pop up but will disappear when I begin moving again. If you live in a community where there are not many Wazers then the protection this software can offer won't be of much value to you. Try it though and get all your neighbors to try it. That way you will be protecting your community.
Thursday, January 7, 2016
Getting Ready For A Gig
She is more to be pitied than censured
https://youtu.be/a3oPYB241Sw
Twice Shy
https://youtu.be/5r2nCfKWDno
The Gobbledegook Song
https://youtu.be/CrEZdLwZN3M
https://youtu.be/a3oPYB241Sw
Twice Shy
https://youtu.be/5r2nCfKWDno
The Gobbledegook Song
https://youtu.be/CrEZdLwZN3M
Friday, January 1, 2016
Social Media Won't Last Forever
A local priest was recently arrested for using his cell phone to
take pictures of a woman changing in a Salvation Army thrift shop. I
guess he didn't know that porn was rampant on the internet and free for
the taking. His court appearance was adjourned until January 20th so we
won't know what sex offender crime he will be charged with until then.
Immediately after posting bail though, he closed all his online
accounts such as Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin. He didn't
have to do that since there was nothing immoral about what he had on
those sites (and, they can still be seen in the Google Cache). What is
sad though is that he had pictures of his church, parishioners, his
family, cars and everything good about himself and others posted
therein. All that is good about him is gone forever and what remains
are the dark sided news articles detailing his deviant behavior. One
"oops" erased a lifetime of "attaboys" but, such is our holier than
thou, unforgiving and vengeful society. The Facebook comments about him
from "good" people only wish for him to be shot, rot or burn.
It got me thinking though about our zeal to digitize photographs, posting them online and expecting that they are going to last forever; That might turn out to be wrong. If there are photos we wish to keep "forever," we should consider creating a physical instance of them and print them out, then store them in "ye old fashioned" photo album. I still have my grandmother's album, my mother's and my own childhood albums stashed away in the attic for future generations to view. A friend of mine has a 20 year old son and they don't have a single hard copy photo of him. They have thousands of digital photos stored here and there, though. Today's online, high tech and cloud data storage system will most likely become tomorrow's floppy disc. We are currently living in the digital dark ages and printing our photos is probably more secure over time than merely posting them.
Think about it. If websites such as Megaupload can be taken down, or if a social media website can go out of business such as Zurker, iMee, Posterous, or they can just fade away into obscurity such as Myspace, what could the future hold for other online storage and social sites where we post everything about our lives to? If terrorists wanted to hurt everyone in the world in one fell swoop, they'd take down Facebook. That actually wouldn't be a bad thing . . .
What we know about generations before us we have gleamed from written records and old photographs. If a disaster were to strike our civilization or time simply wanes on and what is popular now becomes banal and trite in the future, how will historians and archaeologist learn about us if our digital footprint dissolves, is deleted, becomes demagnetized or is simply taken offline by our own doing, our failure to log in anymore, care-less relatives or, our favorite social media site where we store our pics simply ceases to exist?
We can still read 5000 year old hieroglyphs carved in stone. We can still decipher three thousand year old ink on papyrus. We still have books written in 1,000 year old ink and paper. Digital copies of our 100 year old celluloid recordings are quickly being duplicated because they are decaying at a rapid rate. The earlier magnetic tape recordings less than fifty years old are almost unintelligible because they too are decaying at a rapid rate. It seems our new technology does not have a relatively long shelf life.
Even if the medium still exists, the technology to read them will soon be obsolete and impossible to find. Consider the following medium for data storage: vinyl audio records, cassette tapes, 8 track tapes, card readers, punch cards, 5 and 1/4 inch floppy disks, 3 and 1/2 inch disks, zip drives, CD's, DVD's and now, the cloud. Heck, I have data which I stored on thumb drives and they are unreadable today after the old age of ten years.
See the pattern? Not only does the digital data decay rapidly but the hardware to read those formats is rapidly disappearing, too. Don't expect the thousands of family photos you have stored on your phone, the cloud, your computer, on Facebook or on a disk will be there in 100, 50, 20 or even 5 years. As the priest in my opening paragraph taught us, your digital footprint can be wiped out overnight, or your cloud company can go out of business or taken down such as Megaupload. Social media websites or your working personal computer can be gone tomorrow taking your whole digital life with them.
There is a solution. Get yourself to one of those struggling scrap booking stores dotted across the country and find out how you can get your precious memories stored in a slightly more secure photo album. And don't use home laser or inkjet printers as they too fade over time. Have your pictures printed from high quality printers using quality paper and ink.
Then, instead of just posting your picture to Facebook for your 800 closest friends to see, invite family and friends over for a meal, sit on the floor around the fireplace with a glass of wine and look through the photos together, sharing stories, making new memories and maybe taking more pictures.
Time weaves ribbons of memories to sweeten life when youth is through. Like memories, our technology and online presence can fade and disappear. How cool will it be for your great grandchildren to be rummaging through the attic and find a photo album of their ancestors - hopefully it won't be a book filled with selfies. As I look through the old black and white photo album of my grandmother, I don't see many pictures of her but, I do see the pictures of the many people whom she loved.
-Malcolm Kogut.
It got me thinking though about our zeal to digitize photographs, posting them online and expecting that they are going to last forever; That might turn out to be wrong. If there are photos we wish to keep "forever," we should consider creating a physical instance of them and print them out, then store them in "ye old fashioned" photo album. I still have my grandmother's album, my mother's and my own childhood albums stashed away in the attic for future generations to view. A friend of mine has a 20 year old son and they don't have a single hard copy photo of him. They have thousands of digital photos stored here and there, though. Today's online, high tech and cloud data storage system will most likely become tomorrow's floppy disc. We are currently living in the digital dark ages and printing our photos is probably more secure over time than merely posting them.
Think about it. If websites such as Megaupload can be taken down, or if a social media website can go out of business such as Zurker, iMee, Posterous, or they can just fade away into obscurity such as Myspace, what could the future hold for other online storage and social sites where we post everything about our lives to? If terrorists wanted to hurt everyone in the world in one fell swoop, they'd take down Facebook. That actually wouldn't be a bad thing . . .
What we know about generations before us we have gleamed from written records and old photographs. If a disaster were to strike our civilization or time simply wanes on and what is popular now becomes banal and trite in the future, how will historians and archaeologist learn about us if our digital footprint dissolves, is deleted, becomes demagnetized or is simply taken offline by our own doing, our failure to log in anymore, care-less relatives or, our favorite social media site where we store our pics simply ceases to exist?
We can still read 5000 year old hieroglyphs carved in stone. We can still decipher three thousand year old ink on papyrus. We still have books written in 1,000 year old ink and paper. Digital copies of our 100 year old celluloid recordings are quickly being duplicated because they are decaying at a rapid rate. The earlier magnetic tape recordings less than fifty years old are almost unintelligible because they too are decaying at a rapid rate. It seems our new technology does not have a relatively long shelf life.
Even if the medium still exists, the technology to read them will soon be obsolete and impossible to find. Consider the following medium for data storage: vinyl audio records, cassette tapes, 8 track tapes, card readers, punch cards, 5 and 1/4 inch floppy disks, 3 and 1/2 inch disks, zip drives, CD's, DVD's and now, the cloud. Heck, I have data which I stored on thumb drives and they are unreadable today after the old age of ten years.
See the pattern? Not only does the digital data decay rapidly but the hardware to read those formats is rapidly disappearing, too. Don't expect the thousands of family photos you have stored on your phone, the cloud, your computer, on Facebook or on a disk will be there in 100, 50, 20 or even 5 years. As the priest in my opening paragraph taught us, your digital footprint can be wiped out overnight, or your cloud company can go out of business or taken down such as Megaupload. Social media websites or your working personal computer can be gone tomorrow taking your whole digital life with them.
There is a solution. Get yourself to one of those struggling scrap booking stores dotted across the country and find out how you can get your precious memories stored in a slightly more secure photo album. And don't use home laser or inkjet printers as they too fade over time. Have your pictures printed from high quality printers using quality paper and ink.
Then, instead of just posting your picture to Facebook for your 800 closest friends to see, invite family and friends over for a meal, sit on the floor around the fireplace with a glass of wine and look through the photos together, sharing stories, making new memories and maybe taking more pictures.
Time weaves ribbons of memories to sweeten life when youth is through. Like memories, our technology and online presence can fade and disappear. How cool will it be for your great grandchildren to be rummaging through the attic and find a photo album of their ancestors - hopefully it won't be a book filled with selfies. As I look through the old black and white photo album of my grandmother, I don't see many pictures of her but, I do see the pictures of the many people whom she loved.
-Malcolm Kogut.
Thursday, December 24, 2015
Healing from Repetitive Stress Injuries Naturally
Healing from Repetitive Stress Injuries Naturally
The original video was an hour long so I made copious cuts to shorten it. Unfortunately, the many cuts caused an audio sync issue. Deal with it. Close your eyes, don't watch my lips.
Tuesday, December 1, 2015
Father Joseph Girzone (1930-2015)
The holiest person I've ever met. Imagine what Jesus must have been like and that was Fr. Joe. He was a man who made millions from his books and movies and gave it all away to the poor. He owned a huge Victorian mansion and while letting a homeless family live there, he stayed in the small office above his garage. Even with bills piling up, he gave away what he had. He wrote me a letter once and it was so beautiful it brought tears to my eyes. If you haven't yet read his book or seen the movie JOSHUA, go out and get it.
Some have said that Joe could be a little "salty" and he didn't hold back his opinion about what he thought of the church, the pope, his diocese and many of his priest peers. It will be ironic that many of the clergy he had little regard for will be con-celebrating at his funeral. The church will probably never canonize him into sainthood but those of us who met him know that he already is, even without the blessing of the institution.
http://www.joshuamountain.org
Some have said that Joe could be a little "salty" and he didn't hold back his opinion about what he thought of the church, the pope, his diocese and many of his priest peers. It will be ironic that many of the clergy he had little regard for will be con-celebrating at his funeral. The church will probably never canonize him into sainthood but those of us who met him know that he already is, even without the blessing of the institution.
http://www.joshuamountain.org
Thursday, November 26, 2015
November 26th.
An army of terrorists strike again. They poured over the
borders. They burned villages. They murdered and raped women and
children. They took the men and boys as slaves. Those who survived escaped to seek refuge in other territories or were forced into designated
areas. Many of the refugees were not welcome in the other territories.
The terrorists took the land and everyone was either exterminated,
eliminated or forced into assimilation. Millions died under the banner of religion.
Act now. Write to the monarchs of England, France and Spain demanding that they turn their ships around. Oh Christopher Columbus, you committed genocide on the Arawak nation then lied to your queen about the amount of gold found on Hispaniola so you could get more ships and then you had a holiday named for you.
http://www.ncai.org/initiatives/native-american-heritage-month
http://nativeamericanheritagemonth.gov
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