Jason Whong: Renaissance Man-in-Training

I don’t always post photographs that I took at work. Today I’m excited about a shot I took at a Revolutionary War reenactment.

Getting there was a hike; I had the fortune of being able to drive to the state park where the reenactment was held. In 1779, most people would have walked there, with a lucky few on horseback.

Anyway, when I got there, I ended up following some people who were walking on the wrong trail, so it’s a good thing that my assignment was for an hour before the battle began. I eventually made my way to the Colonial encampment, where I met reenactors from various parts of the country, and took a picture of local people interacting with them.

After that I headed toward the Indian village, where a number of British forces and Loyalist units were rallying before their certain defeat. I also found a few local people in that crowd.

Then I found some people in green calling themselves the “Queen’s Rangers.” I walked and talked with them for a bit, until we were smack dab in the middle of the woods. In the distance, people were gathered to watch the reenactment. Nobody seemed to know when to stop walking, so the loyalists ended up walking past the colonialists they were supposed to be ambushing. It might have been easier to coordinate with a radio, but no reenactors seemed to carry them.

Anyway, I was standing next to the loyalists taking pictures of them while they discussed the choreography of the battle, and shots started to ring out from the colonial militia.

“I guess the war’s on,” said the leader.

I hadn’t planned on being next to the reenactors during the battle, but the shooting started while I was still on the field, so I just tried to stay as far away from the spectators as possible.

I had several lenses at my disposal: the Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L, the Canon EF 70-200 f/2.8L, and the Canon EF 17-35 f/2.8L. Maybe the bigger glass might be more useful in today’s war, but I think that if photographers were covering this battle in the forest, they’d have wanted to get in close with the wide-angle lens. It helped me get my best shot of the day:

JASON WHONG/Star-Gazette
Reenactors portraying British soldiers load and fire weapons at Colonial reenactors Saturday during the 228th anniversary commemoration of the Battle of Newtown at Newtown Battlefield Reservation State Park in Elmira.
Image and caption © 2007, Star-Gazette.

You can see more Battle of Newtown photos at Star-Gazette.com. And like most of the Star-Gazette’s photos, this one is for sale.

Technorati Tags: revolutionary war, reenactor

After chaperoning Kingdom Bound, I worked five days straight (Wednesday to Sunday, three days of which were spent covering a NASCAR race) and was generally busy and tired, so I did not post anything.

I’ll post something this week, I promise.

In the meantime, have a look at some photos I took recently:

St. Baldrick’s Day

Yaeger wins Twin Tiers Idol 2007

There are also some NASCAR photos at the Photo Gallery page. Quite a few, actually.

I have no idea why I call things “The somethingorother post”… other than that I think them to be obligatory.

I was a chaperone for 10 kids at Kingdom Bound, a Christian music festival at Darien Lake amusement park up near Buffalo. It’s a four-day festival, from Sunday to Wednesday. It’s really commercial and not very religious. But it has its religious moments.

Basically, it’s a chance for a youth group to have the run of an amusement park for four days. (Or, in our group’s case, 3 days.) On various stages in the park, there are musical acts and preachers, and if you go to other areas, you can pray. For some, it can be a worshipful experience. The problem is, I would estimate that at any given time (except when the headliner is playing), only about 10 percent of the people attending Kingdom Bound are actually listening to the music and preachers. But maybe that’s part of the appeal: Eventually, people will get bored with rides, and they’ll stop and listen to some music.

“Buy some CDs” was a common refrain I heard when I stood near the stages. It’s because Christian music is an industry like any other, and rather than trying to make money like it used to in the 1980s (by traveling from church to church and performing for a “love gift,” people would rather travel from amusement park to amusement park to try and sell a lot of CDs so you’ll share them with your friends, and your friends will pick up their own copies at the nearest Christian bookstore, or something.

I saw some people make life-changing decisions… and I saw some of my kids connecting with each other spiritually. But most of all, I saw kids being kids in an amusement park. And there’s nothing wrong with that, really. If you recognize that Kingdom Bound is a commercial Christian festival, and maybe balance it out with some other less commercial ministry opportunities (like community service), then it’s a fun time with good music. If it’s your church’s only youth group trip or special program, then I feel sorry for your church…

Unfortunately for me, the highlight of the weekend happened after I left. (I could only stay Sunday, Monday and Tuesday nights, so I was not at the park Wednesday.) I really wish I could have been there after hearing how it went, because it is awesome.
During Kingdom Bound, it’s still business as usual for all the park workers, including all the people whose job it is to sing to old people. I say that’s their job because they have an open-air theatre that seats about 30 or so, with a stage and some music, and they put on 70s and 80s revues where they cover the songs of yesteryear. Most of these singers look like they are in their teens or twenties. Old people don’t have the energy to follow their kids around the park everywhere, so they’ll sit through such an act while their kids go have fun.

On Tuesday, I was walking with some kids from one area of the park to another. We were going to cut through the back of the theatre because it was not closed off. On the way, I got to thinking about how repetitive these singers’ jobs were, and how unenergetic the audience was, and how sad the whole situation seemed. So I hatched a plan.

I have always been a fan of a prank I read about at Improv Everywhere, called Best Gig Ever. Basically, trained and organized pranksters picked a no-name band’s gig to show up and pretend that they were the biggest fans. In the end, it was a joke on the band (who took it well…)

Anyway, rather than play a joke on the performers, I thought it would be more interesting to just give them their best gig ever. As we approached the theatre, I told the kids to do what I did. We entered from the rear, and I started clapping my hands over my head in time with the music, and strutting rhythmically, and letting out the occasional “Woo!!!” when a performer had finished singing a line. And maybe pointing at the performer, too, when I said “Woo!!!” We exited from the side of the theatre.

Since my eyes had been on the performers the whole time, I didn’t notice the crowd. One of the kids did, though. Apparently we had stolen the show from the performers, as most of the crowd had turned around to see who was clapping their hands and saying “Woooo!!!!” Ack. Blowback. It’s often OK to draw attention for a few seconds during someone else’s gig, but to do it and then leave is just rude.

So I told the kids that we weren’t supposed to have stolen the show, and that maybe the brevity of our performance was why it got so much attention. If it was constant, it would just blend in, and everyone would have a good time.

At some point I explained to them how Improv Everywhere had pulled off the “Best Gig Ever” at a club in New York, and I suggested ways they could give the performers their best gig ever, by showing up on time and being really enthusiastic, staying in the back, clapping, dancing, singing along, and having fun until the show was over.

The next day I drove back to Elmira to work. At lunch, I sent one of them a text message telling them I hoped they were having fun. The response was awesome:

“We did the best gig ever the entire time and we got to go on the stage.”

I guess by their third day at the park, they’d already done all the rides, so they actually planned to do this.

Wow. Well done, kids. I can only imagine how that went. If the crowds were anything like they were the day before, the performers must have really appreciated you.

(Either that, or it happens every week, and that’s how they deal with it…)

Technorati Tags: Kingdom Bound, Christianity, Youth group, ministry, pranks, Improv Everywhere, improv, Best Gig Ever, humor

I stumbled upon a post by Arthur (aisb23) on livejournal asking whether it was appropriate for CNN to interview Bill Nye about the bridge collapse in Minnesota.

Arthur asks:

Okay, the man is an engineer (albeit mechanical rather than civil) and has made a career of explaining complex scientific concepts in an easy to understand manner. But in the end, is the host of a children’s educational program really the best talking head CNN could have found to explain this tragedy?

Yes. Bill Nye is entirely appropriate and perhaps one of the best choices.

He has demonstrated that he can bring left-brained science concepts to an overwhelmingly right-brained medium. This is crucial. You can have any engineer on TV and make an educational video. That’s not what CNN is about. CNN doesn’t need a left-brained engineer; they need a right-brained explainer who has a strong left-brained engineering background. Bill Nye is one of those guys. (I’m not saying Bill is right-brained or left-brained, just that he is good at using both hemispheres; much better than I.)

Moreover, Bill Nye is recognizable among the younger demographic that marketers salivate over. Younger people flipping channels may be more likely to stay awhile when they see him.

Finally, dwelling on his hosting of a children’s show ignores his other right-brained accomplishments. He was also a comedian and member of a comedy troupe in Seattle that had their own local TV show. (This is where the science guy character was born.) Anyone that can hold their own in a comedy troupe has the right-brained skills necessary for answering questions from an anchor.

Technorati Tags: current events, bridge collapse, minneapolis bridge, minneapolis, bill nye, science

The article about the bridge collapse at the Washington Post can give you a glimpse into how editors work. If you look closely, you can see that an editor’s changes are evident because the words they replaced are not removed. It will probably be that way until someone notices in the morning.

Here’s the first paragraph:

MINNEAPOLIS, Aug. 1 — An eight-lane highway bridge clogged with rush-hour traffic buckled and collapsed into the Mississippi River in central Minneapolis yesterday evening, pitching throwing numerous vehicles into the roiling water below. At least sevensix people were killed and dozens were injured, authorities the city’s mayor said.

OK. Let’s analyze. Pitching instead of throwing. Um, word choice. Does pitch sound more crisp? Maybe. It’s subtle, but I like it.

Sevensix is really seven. I guess the count went up after the story was filed. But then they had to change the attribution to “authorities” because the mayor didn’t say seven.

Read it. See what other changes you notice. Some of them are grammatical changes, like “everything” instead of “every thing”; others are stylistic preferences like “central time” instead of “CDT”.