Courtney Pulitzer'sCourtney Pulitzer's Cyber Scene® ~ March 29, 2002
This Week
Publisher's Note
A Sweet and Spicy Enticement
Cocktails and a Cellist
The Cyber Scene in Washington, DC ~ by Evelyn Tauben
The Cyber Scene in Los Angeles ~ by Tamar Alexia Fleishman
Regular Features:
Shakers & Stirrers
Bits & Bytes
* Upcoming Events
* Courtney's Calendar of Events
Our calendar of select industry events is a must-have companion to the weekly newsletter that covers them after the fact. Subscribe or Unsubscribe
======================================================
*Publisher's Note:
1) Please pray for those suffering in violence in other parts of our fragile world.
2) This week we have a basket full of goodies for you. Ranging from Indian and English networking to cellists and cocktails, people were out and about. We also are treated to a new columnist, Evelyn Tauben’s write-up of the National Museum of American History exhibit on the July 1942 magazine covers depicting the American Flag and the “United We Stand” motto. Perhaps in sixty years there will be a retrospective on the magazine covers for our most recent “United We Stand” campaign? And once again Tamar Fleishman graces the Scene with an interview of director Matt Wilder.
3) It's official! I'm now the official owner of The Cyber Scene ®. The United States of America department of Patents and Trademarks has granted me registration of this as my official trademark. So if you use (or see someone using) this mark without my express permission, please be aware that I will be protecting this.
4) Many thanks again to Matt Peyton of Silverbox Photography for the photos of the Chamber Dance Project party on March 18th. www.silverboxphoto.com/remote
5) Happy Passover! Happy Easter!
6) Amusement surfing for those with sugar-on-the-brain: http://www.marshmallowpeeps.com
======================================================ADV
Avondale Search International, Inc: The executive search and consulting firm that works with those that drive the Knowledge Economy including e-Learning, Knowledge Solutions, Knowledge Infrastructure, Corporate Learning, K-12 Education, Government Learning, Publishing
- - - - - - - -
Avondale Search International, Inc.and Avondale Consulting Services
http://www.avondalesearch.com
======================================================ADV
*A Sweet and Spicy Enticement
Not left to just airports these days, security x-ray machines and people-scanners are popping up in many places. For instance my trip to Quantum Venture Partners’ and British Consul-General Sir Thomas Harris’ cocktail reception on Friday, March 22nd began with a scan through security before the elevator quietly took me up to the British Consulate on the 9th floor. I was greeted warmly by Quantum Ventures’ Liliana Galeano and immediately ran into one of Silicon Alley’s great business women, Accents by Allison’s Tery Spataro (http://www.accentsbyallison.com/). The spacious carpeted room was filled with a strong contingent of Indian men and women who would throughout the evening make their way unabashedly to the Indian-food feast that was prepared by Parlin, NJ-based Chingari, a fine Indian cuisine company. The first chap we ran into on our way over to investigate the mouth-watering foods was the bubbly Narayana Raorampilla. Venture capitalist, attorney and actor, Mr. Raorampilla told us about his recent TV commercial work with actor Kevin Bacon, which apparently aired during the Superbowl.
Laurus’ J. Christopher Botero, Bounty Venture Group’s MD Kevin Pollack and I had extensive chats about projects they’re working on. Quantum Venture Partners’ Raj Pamnani brought me up to speed on a number of his firm’s investments and their alliance with the British Consulate. Because of their connections with many major firms in the UK, like British Telecom, they can help their network of CEOs set up business in England.
Sir Thomas Harris and the consulate also made sure people were aware of just how much they want to help you. There were “Invest UK” brochures touting investment opportunities in chemical, e-business, nanotechnology and other leading edge industries to provide background and contact information.
Pace University professor of Finance and Associate Director for the Center for Applied Research of the Lubin School of Business Surendra Kaushik is also helping out people interested in business. But his interest is in educating women in India for careers. He explained to me how in 1999 he founded the Mrs. Helena Kaushik Women’s College in Rajasthan, India. Named after his wife the school is to help for young women in India to achieve excellence in all their endeavors and be visionary and effective leaders in their chosen fields. Currently degrees in the liberal arts are available and they will be offering a masters program and courses of study in chemistry, math and biology this coming year. The first class will be graduating this spring! For more information on this very worthwhile endeavor, you can check out http://webpage.pace.edu/skaushik/Kaushik_college.htm and the non-profit organization associated with it: http://www.reginc.org/
Y|Interact’s Ahmed Yearwood was enthusiastic as we chatted about his business and J.P. Morgan Securities analysts Brian Field and Timothy Milton were giving Ms. Spataro and me their take on the evening. Some things are better left unsaid, but suffice it to say it was a lively discussion and Tery educated the two chaps on the importance of quality website integration and design. Speaking of great web design, Nu-Net.com’s CEO Dietmar Petutschnig called me over and we had a chance to catch up as well. He’s been busy with lots of fashion-week related work and things are going so well (47% growth) that they’re going to be hiring a project manager.
Well now, with people like Raj and the British Consulate helping companies expand and with some Silicon Alley companies hiring, I’d say things are starting to look up a little bit, no?
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*Cocktails and a Cellist
Playing off a play-on-words, this month’s “Cocktails with Courtney” soiree featured the talented cellist, Kate Dillingham, at Flute. While named for the glasswear they serve the champagne in at this champagne bar, our musically inspired night brought out a hearty number of interested guests on the drizzly Tuesday, March 25th evening.
Among those who looked as fresh as a daisy, despite the rainy night, I got to chat with fellow sage Silicon Alley-ers like David Blumstein, Debbie Newman, Dara Tyson, EventMe!’s Volker Detering, UJA.org’s FedWeb project manager Joli Halper and attorneys Havona Madama and Steve Filler. Julio Cassels came by to check out who else might be out and about; as did t/bex’s Alexia Henke, Nicole Kikoski and Amy Weinrich (that’s sixdegrees.com founder Andrew Weinrich’s sister). Larry Kooper had an exciting update: he’s now the director of Strategic Partnerships at the The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Danielle Cyr, Steven Haines, and the Julie and Beth Flanagan duo were other guests that enjoyed a Bombay cocktail this evening as well.
And there were quite a few fine new folks that streamed in to listen to the strings like Skilo Brand’s Jennifer Maclure, Datamonitor’s SVP Debra Albert, Tiffany & Co.’s Pilar Bretos and Deutsch Banc Alex. Brown VP Miroslav Visic. Merrill Lynch VP Scott Hague invited his pal JEGI Capital associate Ashraf Shaaban. Morrin Bass and Ping Yu told me about their asset management program. Executive Color Systems’s Andrew Campagnuolo and Pantone’s Victoria Herbert were the color experts for the evening and as we prepared for the brief concert, I chatted with Nancy Jaffe and Chris McCarthy, who both just moved back to New York from San Francisco!
Kate’s performance was, as usual, moving, emotional, modern, edgy and classic. Her teaser was just enough to get guests clamoring for raffle tickets for a chance to see her concert at an even better price than already offered. For more information on getting tickets to Kate’s April 16th concert, please contact: http://kdlgm.home.mindspring.com/debut.htm or Merkin Hall: 212-501-3330 After she performed the enthusiasm and energy from the guests was significant. Les Concierges Christopher Hammett, American Airlines pilot Orit Katzir and Cisco Systems’ Nimesh Ganhdhi were among those who rallied. VantagePoint Venture Partners’ Jim Marver and Ken Kharbanda also stopped by for some Sapphire martinis and musically-inclined conversation and comraderie.
If you missed this Cocktails, never fear, we’ll be doing another preview for Kate a week before the concert so check your “Cocktails with Courtney” emails and http://www.pulitzer.com/calendar/index.shtml for all the skinny! (ps. The pics are up!
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* The Cyber Scene in Washington, DC ~ by Evelyn Tauben
Bringing the Collection to the Museum and the Museum to the Web
In the summer of 1942, more than 500 magazines as diverse as The New Yorker, Vogue, Popular Mechanics, and Master Comics featured the American flag on their covers along with the words “United We Stand.” Following an initiative of the National Publishers Association (now the Magazine Publishers of America), the magazines cooperated in a campaign to support the war effort. Partnering as well with the Treasury Department to encourage the sale of war bonds, magazine covers put forth an image of national unity on the first Fourth of July after the horrific attacks on Pearl Harbor.
A special exhibition, July 1942: United We Stand has just opened at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History (NMAH) in Washington D.C. For the first time more than 100 of the magazines featuring the American flag on their covers are being exhibited together to mark the 60th anniversary of their publication in July of 1942, seven months after the United States entered World War II.
The exhibition at the NMAH brings the magazine collection of Peter Kreitler together with new scholarship on this little known World War II home front effort. Kreitler, an Episcopalian minister and environmentalist from Southern California, was born in July 1942. After receiving one of these magazine covers as a birthday gift his curiosity about its origin grew into a private collection of over 300 magazine covers.
With a selection of 100 covers and historic artifacts from the museum’s collection, July 1942: United We Stand is a treat for lovers of design and history alike. The covers, specially designed by artists, illustrators, and photographers for the campaign, reveal the preoccupations and past-times of Americans during the war. Featuring images ranging from families flying the flag to patriotic fashion photos to U.S. war planes taking to the skies, the covers all share the common motto “United We Stand” and a variation on the Stars and Stripes.
A comprehensive online exhibition is also being launched in conjunction with this project. The virtual version of July 1942: United We Stand can be reached at http://americanhistory.si.edu/1942. Created by Baltimore-based, Evins Design the web site is another in a long series of collaborations between NMAH and outside design firms that contribute their technological innovation and creative vision to the museum’s vast collections and scholarship.
For the Star Spangled Banner Web site, NMAH teamed up with Hello Design in California to bring the story of the flag and the progress of its conservation to the public through such online features as roll-over activities and fun knowledge-testing quizzes. One section of the Web site allows visitors to play the role of curator by examining unique primary documents to piece together clues to the story of the famous flag.
Currently, Pyramid Studios in Richmond, Virginia is developing interactive audio-visual components, such as touch-screen kiosks, for an upcoming exhibition on the history of the United States Military Academy at West Point.
The latest project, the online exhibition for July 1942: United We Stand, demonstrates the unlimited potential of the internet to literally extend the walls of the museum. The online interface cannot match the visceral experience of viewing original artifacts first-hand, which gives museums their raison-d’être. However, the online exhibition serves as an excellent companion piece to the museum exhibition; allowing curators to explore themes and present objects in ways physical space constraints would not allow.
The virtual visitor can learn more about the artists behind the cover designs in a section appropriately titled “Behind the Designs” where the works of 1940s illustrators are explored. “The Flag and World War II” section demonstrates the ubiquity of the flag symbol while displaying other historical objects from the museums’ collection.
Beyond simply expanding the content, the online exhibition extends the public’s access to information. There is of course the obvious global reach of the web. The collection of magazines once stored beneath Peter Kreitler’s bed in the Pacific Palisades is not only on view at the nation’s museum of American history but is now available to the world. As well, the July 1942 web site allows visitors to view over 300 magazine covers through a searchable database. One of the exhibition’s curators, Marilyn Zoidis, described the database as “an incredible resource that we will leave behind long after the exhibition ends.”
Julia Evins and Barney Kirby, the designers of the online exhibition, describe the aspect of participation as an essential component of the web version that sets it a part from the gallery space. Not only can web surfers uncover details about the magazines and connections between them through the searchable database, they are also encouraged to vote for their favorite covers in a section that describes the original contest for best cover design run by the United States Flag Association.
Kirby does not believe in the standard cynicism that online exhibitions further remove the public from actual museum objects and discourage them from visiting the museum. Instead he feels that the images on the web, clearly reproductions, spawn greater curiosity and the need for closer inspection. Such is the case with July 1942: United We Stand.
The online exhibition is a cleverly crafted design combining a modern medium with a 1940s period feel to showcase these magnificent magazine covers and tell their story. However, a visit to the National Museum of American History is certainly worthwhile to view the vibrant designs with their reds, whites, and blues still bold after sixty years. Ultimately the teaming up of NMAH and Evins design to create two exhibitions at once signals an important step forward for museums. As NMAH’s Acting-Director, Marc Pachter stated at the press preview, “we [the museum] are everywhere in many formats… and that represents a museum in the twenty-first century.”
Evelyn Tauben works at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and at the National Museum of American History where she was part of the exhibition team for July 1942: United We Stand.
For more, visit these web sites: americanhistory.si.edu/1942 americanhistory.si.edu/ssb www.evinsdesign.com www.hellodesign.com www.pyramidstudios.com
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* The Cyber Scene in Los Angeles ~ by Tamar Alexia Fleishman
Celebrity interview of Matt Wilder
Matt Wilder is one of America's young genius directors of theater, television and movies. He first showed flashes of brilliance in the media at the age of 13, when his letter to The New Yorker was published. After directing a production of "Mozart and Salieri" while still in his teens, he earned his B.A. cum laude in literature from Yale, and his M.F.A. from the University of California.
His theater credits include Naomi Iizuka's SKIN and Samuel Beckett's KRAPP'S LAST TAPE at Dallas Theatre Center; Eugene O'Neill's THE HAIRY APE at La Jolla Playhouse; Ariel Dorfman's DEATH AND THE MAIDEN at Actors Theatre of Louisville; THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE LOWER EAST SIDE at En Garde Arts in New York; Karl Gajdusek's MALIBU and Michael McClung's NATURAL CHILD at Soho Rep in New York; the world premiere of Charles L. Mee, Jr.'s THE WAR TO END WAR at Sledgehammer Theatre; Jon Robin Baitz's THE END OF THE DAY at the Magic Theatre in San Francisco; and Mee's THE TROJAN WOMEN: A LOVE STORY at Cal Arts. He has received the Princess Grace/Theatreworks USA Award for Emerging Theatre Artists, and two DramaLogue Awards for Best Director. He is an associate artist of Dallas Theatre Center. He has also written insightful reviews for Green magazine, The City Pages and many other papers.
Critics have been fanatical about his work: Backstage West "...a macabre, weird, and wonderful evening..."; San Diego Reader "Would someone right now, please, give Matthew Wilder a local building, where he can fulfill his artistic destiny?"; OC Weekly "Did my brain hurt? Did I think, contemplate self, try to organize my belief system, question it, and ultimately weep a bit for humanity? Oh, yes."; Clive Barker "History of the Devil as a movie is being worked on right now. A brilliant screenplay from the play has just been turned in by a man by the name of Matt Wilder."
Lately, Wilder has been doing a lot of thinking about his work in the media, issues of privacy, modernism and consequences. He is currently doing a production of Don DeLillo's VALPARAISO that uses both live and recorded video. DeLillo's play, prescient as is his custom, concerns a man who gets on a plane thinking he's going to Valparaiso, Indiana, and winds up in Valparaiso, Chile instead. For this mistake, he becomes the world's most famous person for a day. VALPARAISO explores the topics of airports, commercial-airline procedure, home life, and the penetration of all our intimacies by TV. The fame for a day ends up destroying this guy's life. Wilder is fascinated by the juxtaposition of every intimate moment being in the media, while all real life intimate experiences cease, hitting us all where we live after 9-11. He notes that DeLillo was writing about Monica and JonBenet as early as 1999.
Wilder is anxious over what he terms "the internetization of TV news, with its ADD-inducing streams of printed information over screaming heads and inside reenactments."
He laments people suffering with Information Overload Stress Disorder and "the sense that nothing. . . is or should be private. The connection between the nullification of public space in cities to the absolutism of commercial media's invasion of all of us, via inter linked 'synergistic' tie-ins. The notion that someone or something out there is reading how many times you visited www.rubberducky.com today, and is planning a marketing blitz on you accordingly. And the perhaps not unrelated Rumsfeldian notion of erecting thousands of tiny cameras on city street corners."
Wilder notes that the only thing that seems to shock us still in the media age are shame and embarrassment: "watching some old lady misread the cue cards for an awards show still makes us squirm, while pedophilia doesn't. We somehow have this feeling of entitlement."
While Wilder is not exactly sure where the Internet may be headed, he points out that what is novel is "that we're over deluged. After 9-11, we've been image and word saturated. In the 80's and early 90's, it was all about the pictures, MTV. Now, there's an insane proliferation of words. On TV, there's so much punditry. The guy who wrote Black Hawk Down was appalled when he was asked to appear on MSNBC, next to the Joint Chief of Staff. He was like, 'Hey, I'm just a guy who wrote a book,'". Wilder feels that the O.J. Simpson trials really started the 'talking head' phenomenon, with Grodin and Geraldo. He admits that he is fascinated with the rantings of Ann Coulter: "She's the slutty sorority chick. She has to defend the most right-wing position, even those that have been discredited. I found myself oddly nodding in agreement with her. We have a need to talk about things all the time, having a Siskel and Ebert for things like history. We also have staged, Springer-style combat."
When contemplating Michael Saylor's (CEO of Microstrategies) ideas of implanting an organizer microchip with advertising capabilities, Wilder laments the total encroachment of commerce into our lives. He compares the almost complete lack of open public space in L.A., as found in New York. "But, is there a difference between a billboard outside your window in the morning and in your head? We have commercials in the 1st grade classroom now, in exchange for PCs." Would he ever agree to have a micro chip implanted? "NO! God, no!" He's even disturbed by the tracking that's done online, with purchases.
A typical day for Wilder: " I get up, I write. I'm putting together a showcase for Cal Arts. I try to balance movie stuff and writing. I try to get paid writing gigs. I direct classic theater, too. I see a lot of writers consumed by making 50 phone calls a day."
Wilder has had a good piece of luck from posting on the 'net. He posted a review of "American Pastoral" by Philip Roth. Someone saw it and passed along a script to a famous young blonde actress. When asked about his opinions of a professional writer posting things for free, he says, "I feel you have to shake 9 apple trees and then, 3 oranges fall on your head. It seems to work that way." While he claims not to be "gadget o'centric", as he puts it, he does admit to being addicted to his Palm Pilot, as well as his laptop with DVD player. "I like to watch 2001 in an airport, to have movies as accessible as a paperback, that's very important." He was watching satellite TV, with 499 channels: "It was a narcotic effect, overload. This feeling of all this good stuff to watch and you can never get to the end. It's opium."
To contact Matt Wilder, email him at jerrylangford@aintitcoolmail.com . For more celebrity interviews, check out http://www.bankrate.com/brm/archive_themoneyshot.asp
* Cyber Scene Social Notes
In an attempt to help facilitate better networking for new media professionals and "Scenesters," here are some points that will be added during the weeks.
** Got a bee in your bonnet? Don’t forget the value of a quick, intense workout or a walk around the block. Clearing your head first before taking action (verbal or physical) you may regret later is golden.
* Shakers & Stirrers ~ Send us your announcements
* Bits And Bytes ~ Send us your announcements
© 2002 Courtney Pulitzer. All rights reserved. The Cyber Scene (R) is a registered trademark. The Cyber Scene(TM) (R), the Cyber Scene Logo, and Cocktails with Courtney(TM) are trademarks and service marks of Courtney Pulitzer. All other trademarks and service marks are the property of their respective owners. The Cyber Scene and Cocktails with Courtney are provided by Courtney J. Pulitzer and are not affiliated with other Pulitzer companies, goods or services.
You may freely distribute "The Cyber Scene" material, as long as it bears the following attribution: "Source: 2002 The Cyber Scene TM http://www.TheCyberScene.com"
Publisher's Note
A Sweet and Spicy Enticement
Cocktails and a Cellist
The Cyber Scene in Washington, DC ~ by Evelyn Tauben
The Cyber Scene in Los Angeles ~ by Tamar Alexia Fleishman
Regular Features:
Shakers & Stirrers
Bits & Bytes
* Upcoming Events
* Courtney's Calendar of Events
Our calendar of select industry events is a must-have companion to the weekly newsletter that covers them after the fact. Subscribe or Unsubscribe
======================================================
*Publisher's Note:
1) Please pray for those suffering in violence in other parts of our fragile world.
2) This week we have a basket full of goodies for you. Ranging from Indian and English networking to cellists and cocktails, people were out and about. We also are treated to a new columnist, Evelyn Tauben’s write-up of the National Museum of American History exhibit on the July 1942 magazine covers depicting the American Flag and the “United We Stand” motto. Perhaps in sixty years there will be a retrospective on the magazine covers for our most recent “United We Stand” campaign? And once again Tamar Fleishman graces the Scene with an interview of director Matt Wilder.
3) It's official! I'm now the official owner of The Cyber Scene ®. The United States of America department of Patents and Trademarks has granted me registration of this as my official trademark. So if you use (or see someone using) this mark without my express permission, please be aware that I will be protecting this.
4) Many thanks again to Matt Peyton of Silverbox Photography for the photos of the Chamber Dance Project party on March 18th. www.silverboxphoto.com/remote
5) Happy Passover! Happy Easter!
6) Amusement surfing for those with sugar-on-the-brain: http://www.marshmallowpeeps.com
======================================================ADV
Avondale Search International, Inc: The executive search and consulting firm that works with those that drive the Knowledge Economy including e-Learning, Knowledge Solutions, Knowledge Infrastructure, Corporate Learning, K-12 Education, Government Learning, Publishing
- - - - - - - -
Avondale Search International, Inc.and Avondale Consulting Services
http://www.avondalesearch.com
======================================================ADV
*A Sweet and Spicy Enticement
Not left to just airports these days, security x-ray machines and people-scanners are popping up in many places. For instance my trip to Quantum Venture Partners’ and British Consul-General Sir Thomas Harris’ cocktail reception on Friday, March 22nd began with a scan through security before the elevator quietly took me up to the British Consulate on the 9th floor. I was greeted warmly by Quantum Ventures’ Liliana Galeano and immediately ran into one of Silicon Alley’s great business women, Accents by Allison’s Tery Spataro (http://www.accentsbyallison.com/). The spacious carpeted room was filled with a strong contingent of Indian men and women who would throughout the evening make their way unabashedly to the Indian-food feast that was prepared by Parlin, NJ-based Chingari, a fine Indian cuisine company. The first chap we ran into on our way over to investigate the mouth-watering foods was the bubbly Narayana Raorampilla. Venture capitalist, attorney and actor, Mr. Raorampilla told us about his recent TV commercial work with actor Kevin Bacon, which apparently aired during the Superbowl.
Laurus’ J. Christopher Botero, Bounty Venture Group’s MD Kevin Pollack and I had extensive chats about projects they’re working on. Quantum Venture Partners’ Raj Pamnani brought me up to speed on a number of his firm’s investments and their alliance with the British Consulate. Because of their connections with many major firms in the UK, like British Telecom, they can help their network of CEOs set up business in England.
Sir Thomas Harris and the consulate also made sure people were aware of just how much they want to help you. There were “Invest UK” brochures touting investment opportunities in chemical, e-business, nanotechnology and other leading edge industries to provide background and contact information.
Pace University professor of Finance and Associate Director for the Center for Applied Research of the Lubin School of Business Surendra Kaushik is also helping out people interested in business. But his interest is in educating women in India for careers. He explained to me how in 1999 he founded the Mrs. Helena Kaushik Women’s College in Rajasthan, India. Named after his wife the school is to help for young women in India to achieve excellence in all their endeavors and be visionary and effective leaders in their chosen fields. Currently degrees in the liberal arts are available and they will be offering a masters program and courses of study in chemistry, math and biology this coming year. The first class will be graduating this spring! For more information on this very worthwhile endeavor, you can check out http://webpage.pace.edu/skaushik/Kaushik_college.htm and the non-profit organization associated with it: http://www.reginc.org/
Y|Interact’s Ahmed Yearwood was enthusiastic as we chatted about his business and J.P. Morgan Securities analysts Brian Field and Timothy Milton were giving Ms. Spataro and me their take on the evening. Some things are better left unsaid, but suffice it to say it was a lively discussion and Tery educated the two chaps on the importance of quality website integration and design. Speaking of great web design, Nu-Net.com’s CEO Dietmar Petutschnig called me over and we had a chance to catch up as well. He’s been busy with lots of fashion-week related work and things are going so well (47% growth) that they’re going to be hiring a project manager.
Well now, with people like Raj and the British Consulate helping companies expand and with some Silicon Alley companies hiring, I’d say things are starting to look up a little bit, no?
======================================================
======================================================
*Cocktails and a Cellist
Playing off a play-on-words, this month’s “Cocktails with Courtney” soiree featured the talented cellist, Kate Dillingham, at Flute. While named for the glasswear they serve the champagne in at this champagne bar, our musically inspired night brought out a hearty number of interested guests on the drizzly Tuesday, March 25th evening.
Among those who looked as fresh as a daisy, despite the rainy night, I got to chat with fellow sage Silicon Alley-ers like David Blumstein, Debbie Newman, Dara Tyson, EventMe!’s Volker Detering, UJA.org’s FedWeb project manager Joli Halper and attorneys Havona Madama and Steve Filler. Julio Cassels came by to check out who else might be out and about; as did t/bex’s Alexia Henke, Nicole Kikoski and Amy Weinrich (that’s sixdegrees.com founder Andrew Weinrich’s sister). Larry Kooper had an exciting update: he’s now the director of Strategic Partnerships at the The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Danielle Cyr, Steven Haines, and the Julie and Beth Flanagan duo were other guests that enjoyed a Bombay cocktail this evening as well.
And there were quite a few fine new folks that streamed in to listen to the strings like Skilo Brand’s Jennifer Maclure, Datamonitor’s SVP Debra Albert, Tiffany & Co.’s Pilar Bretos and Deutsch Banc Alex. Brown VP Miroslav Visic. Merrill Lynch VP Scott Hague invited his pal JEGI Capital associate Ashraf Shaaban. Morrin Bass and Ping Yu told me about their asset management program. Executive Color Systems’s Andrew Campagnuolo and Pantone’s Victoria Herbert were the color experts for the evening and as we prepared for the brief concert, I chatted with Nancy Jaffe and Chris McCarthy, who both just moved back to New York from San Francisco!
Kate’s performance was, as usual, moving, emotional, modern, edgy and classic. Her teaser was just enough to get guests clamoring for raffle tickets for a chance to see her concert at an even better price than already offered. For more information on getting tickets to Kate’s April 16th concert, please contact: http://kdlgm.home.mindspring.com/debut.htm or Merkin Hall: 212-501-3330 After she performed the enthusiasm and energy from the guests was significant. Les Concierges Christopher Hammett, American Airlines pilot Orit Katzir and Cisco Systems’ Nimesh Ganhdhi were among those who rallied. VantagePoint Venture Partners’ Jim Marver and Ken Kharbanda also stopped by for some Sapphire martinis and musically-inclined conversation and comraderie.
If you missed this Cocktails, never fear, we’ll be doing another preview for Kate a week before the concert so check your “Cocktails with Courtney” emails and http://www.pulitzer.com/calendar/index.shtml for all the skinny! (ps. The pics are up!
======================================================
======================================================
* The Cyber Scene in Washington, DC ~ by Evelyn Tauben
Bringing the Collection to the Museum and the Museum to the Web
In the summer of 1942, more than 500 magazines as diverse as The New Yorker, Vogue, Popular Mechanics, and Master Comics featured the American flag on their covers along with the words “United We Stand.” Following an initiative of the National Publishers Association (now the Magazine Publishers of America), the magazines cooperated in a campaign to support the war effort. Partnering as well with the Treasury Department to encourage the sale of war bonds, magazine covers put forth an image of national unity on the first Fourth of July after the horrific attacks on Pearl Harbor.
A special exhibition, July 1942: United We Stand has just opened at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History (NMAH) in Washington D.C. For the first time more than 100 of the magazines featuring the American flag on their covers are being exhibited together to mark the 60th anniversary of their publication in July of 1942, seven months after the United States entered World War II.
The exhibition at the NMAH brings the magazine collection of Peter Kreitler together with new scholarship on this little known World War II home front effort. Kreitler, an Episcopalian minister and environmentalist from Southern California, was born in July 1942. After receiving one of these magazine covers as a birthday gift his curiosity about its origin grew into a private collection of over 300 magazine covers.
With a selection of 100 covers and historic artifacts from the museum’s collection, July 1942: United We Stand is a treat for lovers of design and history alike. The covers, specially designed by artists, illustrators, and photographers for the campaign, reveal the preoccupations and past-times of Americans during the war. Featuring images ranging from families flying the flag to patriotic fashion photos to U.S. war planes taking to the skies, the covers all share the common motto “United We Stand” and a variation on the Stars and Stripes.
A comprehensive online exhibition is also being launched in conjunction with this project. The virtual version of July 1942: United We Stand can be reached at http://americanhistory.si.edu/1942. Created by Baltimore-based, Evins Design the web site is another in a long series of collaborations between NMAH and outside design firms that contribute their technological innovation and creative vision to the museum’s vast collections and scholarship.
For the Star Spangled Banner Web site, NMAH teamed up with Hello Design in California to bring the story of the flag and the progress of its conservation to the public through such online features as roll-over activities and fun knowledge-testing quizzes. One section of the Web site allows visitors to play the role of curator by examining unique primary documents to piece together clues to the story of the famous flag.
Currently, Pyramid Studios in Richmond, Virginia is developing interactive audio-visual components, such as touch-screen kiosks, for an upcoming exhibition on the history of the United States Military Academy at West Point.
The latest project, the online exhibition for July 1942: United We Stand, demonstrates the unlimited potential of the internet to literally extend the walls of the museum. The online interface cannot match the visceral experience of viewing original artifacts first-hand, which gives museums their raison-d’être. However, the online exhibition serves as an excellent companion piece to the museum exhibition; allowing curators to explore themes and present objects in ways physical space constraints would not allow.
The virtual visitor can learn more about the artists behind the cover designs in a section appropriately titled “Behind the Designs” where the works of 1940s illustrators are explored. “The Flag and World War II” section demonstrates the ubiquity of the flag symbol while displaying other historical objects from the museums’ collection.
Beyond simply expanding the content, the online exhibition extends the public’s access to information. There is of course the obvious global reach of the web. The collection of magazines once stored beneath Peter Kreitler’s bed in the Pacific Palisades is not only on view at the nation’s museum of American history but is now available to the world. As well, the July 1942 web site allows visitors to view over 300 magazine covers through a searchable database. One of the exhibition’s curators, Marilyn Zoidis, described the database as “an incredible resource that we will leave behind long after the exhibition ends.”
Julia Evins and Barney Kirby, the designers of the online exhibition, describe the aspect of participation as an essential component of the web version that sets it a part from the gallery space. Not only can web surfers uncover details about the magazines and connections between them through the searchable database, they are also encouraged to vote for their favorite covers in a section that describes the original contest for best cover design run by the United States Flag Association.
Kirby does not believe in the standard cynicism that online exhibitions further remove the public from actual museum objects and discourage them from visiting the museum. Instead he feels that the images on the web, clearly reproductions, spawn greater curiosity and the need for closer inspection. Such is the case with July 1942: United We Stand.
The online exhibition is a cleverly crafted design combining a modern medium with a 1940s period feel to showcase these magnificent magazine covers and tell their story. However, a visit to the National Museum of American History is certainly worthwhile to view the vibrant designs with their reds, whites, and blues still bold after sixty years. Ultimately the teaming up of NMAH and Evins design to create two exhibitions at once signals an important step forward for museums. As NMAH’s Acting-Director, Marc Pachter stated at the press preview, “we [the museum] are everywhere in many formats… and that represents a museum in the twenty-first century.”
Evelyn Tauben works at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and at the National Museum of American History where she was part of the exhibition team for July 1942: United We Stand.
For more, visit these web sites: americanhistory.si.edu/1942 americanhistory.si.edu/ssb www.evinsdesign.com www.hellodesign.com www.pyramidstudios.com
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* The Cyber Scene in Los Angeles ~ by Tamar Alexia Fleishman
Celebrity interview of Matt Wilder
Matt Wilder is one of America's young genius directors of theater, television and movies. He first showed flashes of brilliance in the media at the age of 13, when his letter to The New Yorker was published. After directing a production of "Mozart and Salieri" while still in his teens, he earned his B.A. cum laude in literature from Yale, and his M.F.A. from the University of California.
His theater credits include Naomi Iizuka's SKIN and Samuel Beckett's KRAPP'S LAST TAPE at Dallas Theatre Center; Eugene O'Neill's THE HAIRY APE at La Jolla Playhouse; Ariel Dorfman's DEATH AND THE MAIDEN at Actors Theatre of Louisville; THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE LOWER EAST SIDE at En Garde Arts in New York; Karl Gajdusek's MALIBU and Michael McClung's NATURAL CHILD at Soho Rep in New York; the world premiere of Charles L. Mee, Jr.'s THE WAR TO END WAR at Sledgehammer Theatre; Jon Robin Baitz's THE END OF THE DAY at the Magic Theatre in San Francisco; and Mee's THE TROJAN WOMEN: A LOVE STORY at Cal Arts. He has received the Princess Grace/Theatreworks USA Award for Emerging Theatre Artists, and two DramaLogue Awards for Best Director. He is an associate artist of Dallas Theatre Center. He has also written insightful reviews for Green magazine, The City Pages and many other papers.
Critics have been fanatical about his work: Backstage West "...a macabre, weird, and wonderful evening..."; San Diego Reader "Would someone right now, please, give Matthew Wilder a local building, where he can fulfill his artistic destiny?"; OC Weekly "Did my brain hurt? Did I think, contemplate self, try to organize my belief system, question it, and ultimately weep a bit for humanity? Oh, yes."; Clive Barker "History of the Devil as a movie is being worked on right now. A brilliant screenplay from the play has just been turned in by a man by the name of Matt Wilder."
Lately, Wilder has been doing a lot of thinking about his work in the media, issues of privacy, modernism and consequences. He is currently doing a production of Don DeLillo's VALPARAISO that uses both live and recorded video. DeLillo's play, prescient as is his custom, concerns a man who gets on a plane thinking he's going to Valparaiso, Indiana, and winds up in Valparaiso, Chile instead. For this mistake, he becomes the world's most famous person for a day. VALPARAISO explores the topics of airports, commercial-airline procedure, home life, and the penetration of all our intimacies by TV. The fame for a day ends up destroying this guy's life. Wilder is fascinated by the juxtaposition of every intimate moment being in the media, while all real life intimate experiences cease, hitting us all where we live after 9-11. He notes that DeLillo was writing about Monica and JonBenet as early as 1999.
Wilder is anxious over what he terms "the internetization of TV news, with its ADD-inducing streams of printed information over screaming heads and inside reenactments."
He laments people suffering with Information Overload Stress Disorder and "the sense that nothing. . . is or should be private. The connection between the nullification of public space in cities to the absolutism of commercial media's invasion of all of us, via inter linked 'synergistic' tie-ins. The notion that someone or something out there is reading how many times you visited www.rubberducky.com today, and is planning a marketing blitz on you accordingly. And the perhaps not unrelated Rumsfeldian notion of erecting thousands of tiny cameras on city street corners."
Wilder notes that the only thing that seems to shock us still in the media age are shame and embarrassment: "watching some old lady misread the cue cards for an awards show still makes us squirm, while pedophilia doesn't. We somehow have this feeling of entitlement."
While Wilder is not exactly sure where the Internet may be headed, he points out that what is novel is "that we're over deluged. After 9-11, we've been image and word saturated. In the 80's and early 90's, it was all about the pictures, MTV. Now, there's an insane proliferation of words. On TV, there's so much punditry. The guy who wrote Black Hawk Down was appalled when he was asked to appear on MSNBC, next to the Joint Chief of Staff. He was like, 'Hey, I'm just a guy who wrote a book,'". Wilder feels that the O.J. Simpson trials really started the 'talking head' phenomenon, with Grodin and Geraldo. He admits that he is fascinated with the rantings of Ann Coulter: "She's the slutty sorority chick. She has to defend the most right-wing position, even those that have been discredited. I found myself oddly nodding in agreement with her. We have a need to talk about things all the time, having a Siskel and Ebert for things like history. We also have staged, Springer-style combat."
When contemplating Michael Saylor's (CEO of Microstrategies) ideas of implanting an organizer microchip with advertising capabilities, Wilder laments the total encroachment of commerce into our lives. He compares the almost complete lack of open public space in L.A., as found in New York. "But, is there a difference between a billboard outside your window in the morning and in your head? We have commercials in the 1st grade classroom now, in exchange for PCs." Would he ever agree to have a micro chip implanted? "NO! God, no!" He's even disturbed by the tracking that's done online, with purchases.
A typical day for Wilder: " I get up, I write. I'm putting together a showcase for Cal Arts. I try to balance movie stuff and writing. I try to get paid writing gigs. I direct classic theater, too. I see a lot of writers consumed by making 50 phone calls a day."
Wilder has had a good piece of luck from posting on the 'net. He posted a review of "American Pastoral" by Philip Roth. Someone saw it and passed along a script to a famous young blonde actress. When asked about his opinions of a professional writer posting things for free, he says, "I feel you have to shake 9 apple trees and then, 3 oranges fall on your head. It seems to work that way." While he claims not to be "gadget o'centric", as he puts it, he does admit to being addicted to his Palm Pilot, as well as his laptop with DVD player. "I like to watch 2001 in an airport, to have movies as accessible as a paperback, that's very important." He was watching satellite TV, with 499 channels: "It was a narcotic effect, overload. This feeling of all this good stuff to watch and you can never get to the end. It's opium."
To contact Matt Wilder, email him at jerrylangford@aintitcoolmail.com . For more celebrity interviews, check out http://www.bankrate.com/brm/archive_themoneyshot.asp
* Cyber Scene Social Notes
In an attempt to help facilitate better networking for new media professionals and "Scenesters," here are some points that will be added during the weeks.
** Got a bee in your bonnet? Don’t forget the value of a quick, intense workout or a walk around the block. Clearing your head first before taking action (verbal or physical) you may regret later is golden.
* Shakers & Stirrers ~ Send us your announcements
* Bits And Bytes ~ Send us your announcements
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