January 18-21: blogging from the bus

A few days ago, on the 7th, a friend in Cincinnati proposed sending out a blogger call for a road trip in conjunction with the inauguration. The response was pretty positive. Today, we have the resources lined up and the plan partially fleshed out. Tomorrow, we start pounding the phones for money.

To this point, we have a bus reserved for 4 days. It carries 55 and has two drivers. It will start in Cleveland late on the 18th, stop in Akron, and hit Columbus at midnight. From there, it will proceed to Cincinnati, where there is an event at 3 PM, after which it will go on to DC, where it will arrive sometime early in the morning of the 20th and disgorge its load at the end of a T1 line, where the load will proceed to live blog and tweet and stuff for the entire day. We have made arrangements for clearance papers--I guess it involves the metropolitan police and the Secret Service. Then, on the 21st, it's back home. Coming and going, there will be photo ops and other media events.

We have lodging arranged for the only night when a bed will be possible, between the 20th and the 21st. A few other people and I are getting the money together for the bus, for food and lodging, and for a modest amount of walking-around money for each participant. Gloria and I can't go due to her recent retrofit, but we can certainly get vicarious. The bus will populate itself, we think, with three generations--it's a great opportunity for recording oral histories and the varied perspectives of the past 50 years.

Tomorrow, in addition to sponsorship, we'll be trying to get in-kind participation, as in air cards and wireless services. If we could blog and tweet all the way from Cleveland to Akron to Columbus to Cincinnati to DC and back, wouldn't that be a marvelous advertisement for a new wired America? The bus trip is a story in itself, and there are lots of other stories within that story.

a surprising collection of Maxfield Parrish illustrations

Golden Age Comic Book Stories -- Somehow, this "Golden Age" illustrator, Maxfield Parrish, turned up in my Google Alerts this morning. He's always been one of my favorites; we have Parrish calendars, Parrish books, and a nicely preserved, larger "Daybreak" (1922) on the wall in the front room, situated away from the light. The latter comes from the dining room of my Uncle Jack and Aunt Francie's (Tante's) place over in Cleveland Heights, where it hung until the early '80s.

At the link is a collection that is largely new to me, of Parrish and a few of his contemporaries. Enjoy.

attitudinal bias: who says a "golden age" requires a reversion?

Menzies Campbell: Obama's search for the golden age - Commentators, Opinion - The Independent: Ah, now here comes talk of a "golden" age in a cultural and a political context, but the commentator also thinks of this as being a "reversion to some golden age." It's time for an attitudinal shift.

There are no reversions, ever, at least not given our current functionalities with time and space. We have the present: Look around. Isn't this sort of a marvelous era in which to be alive? Could it be the golden age is right here, right now, and all we have to do is to keep moving?

Could it be that the emergence and blossoming of a golden age has very little to do with the November elections?