Robert Sherman, creator of such tunes as “It’s A Small World” and “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang”, has died in London at age 86. He was half of a sibling partnership that specialised in creating scores for many of the most poular musical films we love today.
With his brother Richard Sherman, the pair created some of the best known songs that were incorporated into movies and animations such as Mary Poppins, The Jungle Book, The Aristocats, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and the The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. Perhaps one of the best known, and in my opinion, the most annoying was the theme park song of “It’s a Small World.”
Sherman’s agent, Stella Richards, said that Sherman died peacefully in London on Monday.
Son Jeffrey Sherman paid tribute to his father on Facebook, saying he “wanted to bring happiness to the world and, unquestionably, he succeeded. His love and his prayers, his philosophy and his poetry will live on forever. Forever his songs and his genius will bring hope, joy and love to this small, small world.”
The Sherman Brothers’ career was long and prolific. It was also one full of awards as they won two Academy Awards for Walt Disney’s 1964 smash “Mary Poppins” — best score and best song, “Chim Chim Cher-ee.” They also picked up a Grammy for best movie or TV score.
Their hundreds of credits as joint lyricist and composer also include ”The Slipper and the Rose,” ”Snoopy Come Home,” ”Charlotte’s Web” and “The Magic of Lassie.” Their Broadway musicals included 1974′s “Over Here!” and stagings of “Mary Poppins” and “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” in the mid-2000s.
“Something good happens when we sit down together and work,” Richard Sherman said in a 2005 interview. “We’ve been doing it all our lives. Practically since college we’ve been working together.”
The brothers’ awards included 23 gold and platinum albums and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. They became the only Americans ever to win First Prize at the Moscow Film Festival for “Tom Sawyer” in 1973 and were inducted into the Songwriters’ Hall of Fame in 2005.
President George W. Bush awarded them the National Medal of Arts in 2008, commended for music that “has helped bring joy to millions.”
Robert Bernard Sherman was born in New York on Dec. 19, 1925, and raised there and in Beverly Hills, California.
The brothers credited their father, composer Al Sherman, with challenging them to write songs and for their love of lyrics. His legacy of songs includes “You Gotta Be a Football Hero,” ”(What Do We Do On a) Dew-Dew-Dewy Day” and “On the Beach at Bali-Bali.”
Robert Sherman’s affection for Britain was nurtured during his service with the U.S. Army in World War II. Wounded in Germany in 1945, he recovered in hospitals in England, developing a fondness and familiarity with the country that stuck with him. He wrote for British characters in “Mary Poppins” and “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang,” and spent the last years of his life in London.
After the war, the brothers started writing songs together. They began a decade-long partnership with Disney during the 1960s after having written hit pop songs like “Tall Paul” for ex-Mouseketeer Annette Funicello and “You’re Sixteen,” later recorded by Ringo Starr.
They wrote over 150 songs at Disney, including the soundtracks for such films as “The Sword and the Stone,” ”The Parent Trap,” ”Bedknobs and Broomsticks,” ”The Jungle Book,” ”The Aristocrats” and “The Tigger Movie.”
Quite a life….and yes, I’ll forgive him for “It’s A Small World” even though I once got trapped on the damn ride for 45 minutes.
In the wake of the 2012 Mecum Kissimmee auction, the list of shattered records continues to grow. The Florida auction kicked off Mecum’s 25th year and a staggering 2,158 vehicles crossed the block, the most in company history. The six-day event, held at Osceola Heritage Park on January 24-29, 2012, achieved a 30% increase in attendance over last year. Hammer price sales for the week-long auction totaled $55,397,462, and factoring in Buyer’s premium, total gross sales are reaching close to $60,000,000 as Bid Goes On sales continue to rise. Mecum sold an amazing 1,548 vehicles with a 73% sell-through rate.
Mecum Auctions president Dana Mecum (pictured above) said, “Kissimmee kicked off the 2012 auction season and Mecum’s 25th year in business, and I can’t think of a better way to begin celebrating our Silver Anniversary than with a record-breaking auction. Company records were smashed in nearly every category including number of vehicles offered, vehicles sold, total sales, attendance, and number of registered bidders.”
Top Ten sellers at the auction covered a wide swath in enthusiasts dream sheets. With nearly 300 Corvettes offered during the Kissimmee auction, quite a few were in the Top Ten, but sitting on top of the list was a 1963 Shelby Cobra Dragon Snake (Lot S220 -pictured at top of this post), which sold for $850,000.
The remaining nine vehicles were (all sales reflect hammer prices):
2. 1969 Chevrolet Corvette L88 Convertible (Lot F199) at $610,000
3. 1969 Chevrolet Corvette L88 Coupe (Lot S103) at $270,000
4. 1963 Chevrolet Corvette RestoMod (Lot S226) at $255,000
5. 1967 Chevrolet Corvette Convertible (Lot T188) at $227,500
6. 1930 Packard 745 Waterhouse (Lot S83) at $225,000
7. 1941 Packard Darrin 180 Convertible Victoria (Lot S122) at $220,000
8. 1970 Plymouth Superbird (Lot K56) at $200,000
9. 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air Convertible (Lot S163) at $200,000
10. 1957 Ford Thunderbird F-Bird (Lot S129) at $200,000
Dana Mecum observed, “We have a heavyweight title bout going on within our own organization for the title of World’s Largest Collector Car Auction. With the great success from this auction, Kissimmee 2012 has captured the crown from Indy 2011 as the World’s Largest. Stay tuned for ‘Indy in May’ as it works to regain the crown as the World’s Largest.”
Overall, the event was very successful and I think NASCAR Champion, Ken Schrader, (pictured above with me) who visited the auction on Saturday to sign autographs, summed it up best when he remarked that he had no idea how you actually selected a vehicle to buy because there were so many of them on the auction block!
Complete auction results are available to Mecum InfoNet members, which is free to join at www.Mecum.com.
Air Force One touched down at Orlando International Airport at 11:36 a.m., four minutes early, and the president was greeted by a crowd of about 75 supporters. Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, who had been in Washington at the National Conference of Mayors, and Commerce Secretary Jon Bryson flew with Obama before they then set off for the “Happiest Place on Earth”, Walt Disney World.
Ruben Perez, a Cuban-American restaurateur who operates the Zsa Zsa Café at Orlando International Airport and Yayas in Orlando opened proceedings at Magic Kingdom before introducing the President and he said: “Anything that increases travel to Orlando is good for all our businesses.”
The President took the stage at 12.40pm and by 12.53pm it was all over as he amplified an executive order that he had issued earlier in the day. Available here… 2012visitor.eo.rel
The order was really as much an appeal to Brazilians and their dollars as it was to Florida voters and their jobs. With Cinderella’s Castle rising in the background, the president’s speech touched on procedures to speed up the issuance of tourist visas to citizens of Brazil and China, who currently wait months to get permission to travel to the United States.
“People want to come here. And China and Brazil are two of the countries with the biggest backlogs,” he said. “So this is what it’s all about – telling the world that America is open for business,” he added.
The executive order mandates a 40 percent increase in personnel to Brazil and China over the next 12 months and requires that that 80 percent of “nonimmigrant visa” applicants be interviewed within three weeks. The plan, as explained by the White House, would dispatch more than 100 additional State Department employees to Brazil and China, and more broadly expand a program that allows “low-risk” international visitors to get through airports more smoothly.
Obama assured the “invitees only” 220 strong crowd that the United States would continue to “protect our borders” even as it fosters a more welcoming environment for tourists.
There was room for some brevity as Obama started his comments by recognizing Mickey Mouse as he quipped: “It’s always nice to meet someone who has bigger ears than me,”
The speech was simulcast at the Hall of Presidents in Liberty visitors for Disney visitors, who were kept away from the speech site, and in backstage areas so that Disney cast members could watch.
Central Florida’s unemployment rate, just less than 10 percent, still is worse than the national average. So a bigger flow of tourists and their money from Brazil, which has a relatively strong economy, means support for the region’s still dominant industry.
Obama is the fourth sitting president to visit a Walt Disney World park, the first since George H.W. Bush in 1991 and he was the first to visit the Magic Kingdom since Jimmy Carter in 1978. He left with a message ringing in the ears of the travel industry “I want the United States to be the top tourist destination in the world.”
So what do we make of it all?
Well, while any message that is pro tourism is to be welcomed, it really felt a very staged managed affair with only select dignitaries invited to hear a very well rehearsed message. OK, so we’re going to make it easier for people in certain parts of the world to enter the United States but if you ask any British visitor who has to meet the ESTA requirements, they’ll say it is still too cumbersome an affair and essentially this will be the program that will be rolled out on a wider scale.
Further, there are still many issues at immigration that need to be resolved as visitors often have long lines to encounter after a long and tiring journey. Do the people who currently visit really feel welcomed the moment they touch down on US soil? Not from what I hear.
And then, here’s another question… how does any of this help domestic tourism? No mention of how he and his administration are actually helping everyday people to be able to afford vacations and to keep the money flowing around.
At the end of the day, I can’t help but think it was a rather pointless exercise. Was it really necessary to take a trip to Orlando just to spend 13 minutes on stage talking about tourism? Surely that could have been done without leaving his desk in Washington?
Further, I pour scorn on any stage managed event of this nature anyway. Apart from one restaurant owner, how many other people who actually own and run tourism businesses were actually invited? It’s all very well inviting chosen dignitaries who claim to represent the industry but ultimately they’re not the people on the shop floor interacting with the visitors and guests.
Au revoir Mr. President. Can’t wait for your next visit.
We’ll be bringing you updates throughout the day on President Obama’s visit to Magic Kingdom today but we have secured a copy of what he is going to say ahead of time from the Press Secretary as below.
Office of the Press Secretary
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 19, 2012
This morning, President Obama will sign an Executive Order and announce new initiatives to significantly increase travel and tourism in the United States. The U.S. tourism and travel industry is a substantial component of U.S. GDP and employment, representing 2.7% of GDP and 7.5 million jobs in 2010 – with international travel to the United States supporting 1.2 million jobs alone. The travel and tourism industry projects that more than 1 million American jobs could be created over the next decade if the U.S. increased its share of the international travel market. Today’s announcement offers important steps to bolster job creation through a range of steps to better promote the United States as a tourism destination and improve secure visa processing. This is the most recent of a series of executive actions the President has announced to put Americans back to work and strengthen the U.S. economy.
“Every year, tens of millions of tourists from all over the world come and visit America. And the more folks who visit America, the more Americans we get back to work. We need to help businesses all across the country grow and create jobs; compete and win. That’s how we’re going to rebuild an economy where hard work pays off, where responsibility is rewarded, and where anyone can make it if they try,” said President Obama.
According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, international travel resulted in $134 billion in U.S. exports in 2010 and is the nation’s largest service export industry, with 7% of total exports and 24% of service exports. The Bureau of Economic Analysis estimates that every additional 65 international visitors to the United States can generate enough exports to support an additional travel and tourism-related job. According to the travel industry and Bureau of Economic Analysis, international travel is particularly important as overseas or “long-haul” travelers spend on average $4,000 on each visit.
Today’s announcement calls for a national strategy to make the United States the world’s top travel and tourism destination, as part of a comprehensive effort to spur job creation. The number of travelers from emerging economies with growing middle classes – such as China, Brazil, and India – is projected to grow by 135%, 274%, and 50% respectively by 2016 when compared to 2010. Nationals from these three countries contributed approximately $15 billion dollars and thousands of jobs to the U.S. economy in 2010. In addition, Chinese and Brazilian tourists currently spend more than $6,000 and $5,000 respectively each, per trip, according to the Department of Commerce. The Department of State has made tremendous progress in processing non-immigrant visas from these key markets, allowing them to issue more than 7.5 million visas in the last fiscal year, a 17% increase from the previous fiscal year. In the 2011 fiscal year, consular officers adjudicated more than a million visa applications in China and more than 800,000 in Brazil, representing 34 % growth in China and 42% growth in Brazil. Improving visa processing capacity for China and Brazil is particularly important because of this growth.
KEY HIGHLIGHTS:
Today’s Executive Order charges several agencies to take part in efforts to increase travel and tourism in the United States: • The Secretaries of Commerce and the Interior will be charged with: o Co-leading an interagency task force to develop recommendations for a National Travel & Tourism Strategy to promote domestic and international travel opportunities throughout the United States, thereby expanding job creation. This Task Force will coordinate with the Corporation for Travel Promotion (currently doing business as BrandUSA), a non-profit corporation established by Congress through the Travel Promotion Act of 2009 to promote travel to the United States, and the Tourism Policy Council to ensure private sector participation and cross-agency coordination. o A particular focus of the Task Force will be on strategies for increasing tourism and recreation jobs by promoting visits to our national treasures. The Department of the Interior manages iconic destinations in our national parks, wildlife refuges, cultural and historic sites, monuments and other public lands that attract travelers from around the country and the globe. In 2010, more than 400 million visits were made by American and international travelers to these lands, contributing nearly $50 billion in economic activity and 400,000 jobs. Eco-tourism and outdoor recreation also have an outsize impact on rural economies, particularly in Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Nevada, North Carolina, Oregon, Utah and Wyoming. • The Department of State and the Department of Homeland Security will be charged with: o Increasing non-immigrant visa processing capacity in China and Brazil by 40% in 2012. o Ensuring that 80% of non-immigrant visa applicants are interviewed within three weeks of receipt of application. o Increasing efforts to expand the Visa Waiver Program and travel by nationals eligible to participate in the Visa Waiver Program, and expanding reciprocal trusted travel programs for expedited travel (such as the Global Entry program). • The Department of Commerce will be charged with: o Establishing and maintaining a publicly available website with key information and statistics from across the Federal Government to assist industry and travelers in understanding visa processes in key travel and tourism markets, and entry times into the United States.
Additional initiatives announced today include: • New Pilot Program and Rule Change for Visa Processing in China and Brazil: o Today, the Departments of State and Homeland Security announced a pilot program to simplify and speed up the non-immigrant visa process for certain applicants, including the ability to waive interviews for some very low-risk applicants, such as individuals from any country renewing non-immigrant visas, or, in Brazil, younger or older first-time applicants. Link to fact sheet HERE for more information. • Final Rule to Expand and Make the Global Entry Program Permanent: o Global Entry is a program within the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Customs and Border Protection that was created as a pilot in 2008 to facilitate expedited clearance for pre-approved, low-risk travelers upon arrival in the United States. Through a final rule, the Administration will expand and make the Global Entry program permanent. Due in part to innovative public-private partnerships, the Global Entry program now has more than 246,000 members, more than one million trusted travelers have Global Entry benefits, and efforts are underway to expand enrollment even further. There are currently 131 Global Entry kiosks at 20 airports and since launching, members have used Global Entry kiosks over 1.7 million times, saving CBP officers over 36,450 inspection hours—staff hours that CBP has then re-allocated to expedite regular passenger queues. This final rule will allow the program to be expanded to an additional 4 airports in Minneapolis, Charlotte, Denver and Phoenix, making the Global Entry program and expedited clearance available in airports that service approximately 97% of international travelers. • Appoint new members to the U.S. Travel and Tourism Advisory Board: o A new membership of 32 private sector CEOs have been appointed by Commerce Secretary Bryson to serve on the U.S. Travel and Tourism Advisory Board. The Advisory Board will build upon the work undertaken by the past Board addressing travel facilitation, visa policy, improving the international travel entry experience, aviation security, energy security, crisis communications and research and data, among other issues. This Board consists of corporate executives across the nation, representing all aspects of the travel and tourism industry, who are appointed to a two-year term to advise the Secretary of Commerce on policies affecting the travel and tourism industry. See the full list of new members HERE. • Nomination of Taiwan to Visa Waiver Program: o Currently, more than 60% of international tourists do not require a U.S. visa, in most cases because they travel under the Visa Waiver Program. The Secretary of State has formally requested that the Secretary of Homeland Security consider Taiwan for the Visa Waiver Program. Over the past year, Taiwan has undertaken significant efforts to improve its law enforcement and document security standards to meet the strict requirements for Visa Waiver Program eligibility. Under the Visa Waiver Program, participating nationals can travel to the United States for tourism or business for stays of 90 days or less without obtaining a visa. The program was established to promote travel and tourism with our foreign partners, stimulate the tourism industry, and permit the Department of State to focus consular resources in other areas. Since November 2008, the Department of Homeland Security has added nine countries to the Visa Waiver Program, bringing the program total to 36 countries.
The EXECUTIVE ORDER – ESTABLISHING VISA AND FOREIGN VISITOR PROCESSING GOALS AND THE TASK FORCE ON TRAVEL AND COMPETITIVENESS is available here. 2012visitor.eo.rel
A nuke-powered rover the size of a family size compact car will start its journey to Mars this morning.
The Curiosity, NASA’s $2.5 billion Mars Science Laboratory, is scheduled to launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida at exactly 10:02 a.m. this morning and it hopes to answer the question: Can the Red Planet sustain life?
The rover will be carried 354 million miles to the planet on an unmanned rocket known as the United Launch Alliance Atlas 5. The perilous trek will take 81/2 months, meaning Curiosity is expected to touch down in August 2012.
“This is the most complicated mission we have attempted on the surface of Mars,” said Peter Theisinger, Mars Science Lab project manager with NASA’s prime contractor, Lockheed Martin.
Curiosity weighs 1 ton and has a 7-foot arm that was retrofitted with a jackhammer and a laser so that it can puncture the Martian rock. Scientists say what makes the rover truly unique is its ability to analyze rocks and soil with never-before-seen accuracy.
Curiosity can’t actually detect the presence of living organisms. Instead, the rover will be on the lookout for organic, carbon-containing compounds. In that way, scientists hope to discover whether the planet has — or has ever had — what it takes to nurture life.
Ten feet long, 9 feet wide and 7 feet tall, Curiosity is about twice the size of previous rovers, Spirit and Opportunity. In a space first, Curiosity will be lowered to Mars using a jet pack and a tether system. Curiosity will be “the largest and most complex piece of equipment ever placed on the surface of another planet,” said Doug McCusition, director of NASA’s Mars exploration program.
The journey to Mars is tricky and often proves to be too much for space explorers to complete. More than three dozen missions have attempted to reach the most Earth-like planet in the solar system, but fewer than half have made it. Only one of those — Opportunity — is still working on the barren planet.
More than 13,000 guests are expected at the launch, which will be complicated by the fact the rover is run by 10.6 pounds of plutonium. The plutonium is encased in protective layers in case of an accident, and radiation detectors are expected to take air samples during the launch.
Today is Small Business Saturday. An American shopping holiday created by American Express that was first celebrated on November 27, 2010 and it is a counterpart to Black Friday and Cyber Monday, which feature big box retailers and e-commerce stores respectfully. The idea being, that by contrast, holiday shoppers are encouraged to patronize brick and mortar businesses that are both small and local.
Small business is an important cog in the economy and Florida Leisure Vacation Homes is proud to be classed as a small business that helps families enjoy great vacations in Orlando.
In the US, small business (less than 500 employees) accounts for around half the GDP and more than half the employment. Regarding small business, the top job provider is those with fewer than 10 employees and those with 10 or more but fewer than 20 employees come in as the second, and those with 20 or more but fewer than 100 employees come in as the third. The most recent data shows firms with less than 20 employees account for slightly more than 18% of the employment and according to “The Family Business Review,” there are approximately 17 million sole-proprietorships in the US. It can be argued that a sole-proprietorship (an unincorporated business owned by a single person) is a type of family business” and “there are 22 million small businesses in the US and approximately 14,000 big businesses.” Also, it has been found that small businesses created the most new jobs in communities.
We’re proud to be classed as a small business as small business is very often able to deliver a better product, service and experience to the customer. Small business is more flexible and can bring new ideas to the table far quicker than it’s cumbersome counterpart, big business… and we only have to look at the role big business has played in the current economy to know that big isn’t better.
To all small businesses around the country, we salute you.
The second annual ride featuring 638 bicycle riders was held in Orlando this morning. The start and end of the ride was at the Ronald McDonald House on the campus of Florida Hospital for Children and it raised over $100,000 for the charity. More than 1500 families use the home as a home away from home while their children are in the hospital.
Riders get to choose from several different rides as there are 30 miles, 62 miles and then 100 mile routes with the aim of raising as much money for Ronald McDonald House as they can. The aim of the charity is to provide a “home away from home” for families with seriously ill or injured children who are being treated at local hospitals and medical facilities. There are two Ronald McDonald Houses in Orlando; one is located on the campus of Walt Disney Pavilion at Florida Hospital for Children and the other is on the campus of Arnold Palmer Medical Center.
More than 15,000 have stayed at the two Ronald McDonald House locations in Orlando since opening the first phase of the first House in December 1996. Those families have represented 51 countries, 48 states and 62 Florida counties. It’s a great charity and so nice to see it so well supported.
It was on this day ten years ago that the World changed as we knew it. It’s hard to describe the feelings and emotions everyone in our office was going through as we watched the images on our TV screens from New York and the Washington D.C. area.
Today, we remember the 2,997 people who died in New York City, Arlington and Shanksville. We will never forget that day or the lives that were lost.
Here’s an amazing picture of the Twin Towers taken by Katie Weisberger as a remembrance of that day.
Katie was a freshman in the photography program at New York University and was flying back from her home in Richmond, Virginia. She had a Nikon 35 mm film camera at the ready when the twin towers came into view.
Weisberger has always loved seeing the world through a lens. School reinforced that habit, sharpened her eye. What particularly prompted her to take roll after roll from her window seat was an utterly lovely April day dawning in New York.
“It was very early morning, and I just remember it being really beautiful, watching the sun rise and taking photographs,” Weisberger recalls. “I had no idea I took that photo. It was on the negative.”
That photo — developed at a drugstore or photo lab — was a horizon shot, layers of blue sky streaked with a barely perceptible reddish haze and oceans of roiling clouds that submerged all of New York except for the twin towers. That one heartbreakingly glorious moment stood out, between a picture just of clouds and another of the entire city. Then, she stowed the prints away.
Collapsing images
She would pull them out five months later. Weisberger, who spent the summer waitressing in Boston, was beginning her sophomore year at NYU, in the Department of Photography and Imaging. “I was getting ready for school. It was maybe my second day of class,” she recalls. Her dormitory was located southwest in the Village, close to the World Trade Center. When she and her boyfriend at the time, Ryan, walked outside, they looked up and right through a hole burning in one of the towers.
“We kept walking and didn’t know what to make of it,” she says. They continued on, stopping on Sixth Avenue for orange juice and a bagel. There, they saw the second plane hit. “Crowds of people just stopped in their tracks. And at that moment, I realized that it was terrorists.” Shell-shocked, she and her boyfriend — who was booked on a flight later that day — said goodbye, and she headed to her first day of dance class. For two surreal hours, the teacher taught the fully attended class as if nothing had happened. As if two hijacked Boeing 767s hadn’t crashed into one of New York’s greatest landmarks just blocks away. At the end of class, a woman came in, announcing, “‘The towers have fallen. I don’t know if you know what happened.’”
Weisberger didn’t have her camera equipment on her, not for dance class, but she didn’t take photos that day, nor much at all after 9/11. There were too many others documenting the devastation, capturing bits and pieces of the unfathomable.
Instead, she remembered her photo, in storage under the bed. She knew people would want to see it, and when the storefront exhibit “Here Is New York: A Democracy of Photographs,” sought out contributors, she turned in her print. Hers became No. 1621 in an exhibit that would eventually comprise 5,690 images and travel the world. In the 2008 book “After Photography,” NYU photography teacher and author Fred Ritchin noted:
Interestingly, the best-selling image from the exhibition (the proceeds from the photos, which were selected by interested buyers without at first knowing who made the image, went to charity) was by Katie Day Weisberger, a student who had, a few months before the attacks, photographed the World Trade Center towers emerging from the clouds while seated in a passing airplane.
Hope amongst the clouds
That image of the twin towers, rising above a sea of clouds into blue skies, would also be featured on CNN, in the PBS documentary “Faith and Doubt at Ground Zero,” and in the Hartford Courant’s first 9/11 anniversary edition. The Connecticut paper defied newspaper design principles by wrapping the horizontal image across the front and back pages. Years later, the technique would be used on the cover of Don DeLillo’s 2007 novel, “Falling Man.” The title conjured up a more despairing icon, a man caught plummeting headfirst in a fatal dive from the falling towers, but it was Weisberger’s photograph that made the cover. A New York blogger, in a 2010 series of posts on book-cover design, pondered the image:
In “Falling Man,” postmodern master Don DeLillo takes on the strange disconnect experienced by many Americans following 9/11. The cover photo reflects that with the eerie view from above the clouds, as if from the point of view of a ghost. The vertical drop of the “A Novel” text emphasizes the book’s title, based on the name given to a performance artist that appears from time to time in the book, a mysterious man that reenacts the disturbing image taken of a suicide jumper on the day of the World Trade Center attacks.
Weisberger, the mother of a 2-year-old, now lives in Colorado and works as a freelance photographer. She can understand how a photo taken with such a young, hopeful spirit could be viewed as eerie in the light of 9/11. She has always been drawn to skies an artistic theme (“I appreciate the simplicity, openness and the beauty … [their] potentiality”), but Weisberger can’t shake the unease that an idyllic day can cause. “Every time I see a perfectly clear sky,” she admits, “there’s a feeling of ‘the air’s too clean and the weather’s too perfect to believe.’ I think of Sept. 11.”
But the clarity of that lovely April day, the quality of that sunlight, the “childlike quality of, I don’t know, wanting to experience something by way of camera,” still stand out.
“There has obviously been so much violence and politicking as a result of Sept. 11, and pertaining to the events of that day,” Weisberger states. “I think it’s important to be able to take a step back and see that regardless of everything that happened following that day and how one might feel about what has happened, there was a day 10 years ago during which a terrible thing happened that touched all of our hearts very deeply. I hope that my photograph helps people recall the heartbreaking simplicity of that fact, and at the same time the inherent beauty of life.”
Clarity in the haze of memories
Other details have become a hazier in the intervening years. She can’t remember the airline she was on when she took the photo, although surely she wouldn’t have needed to take off her shoes or measure her carry-on liquids in ounces in order to get through security. She thinks she was coming from her home in Richmond, Virginia — she could’ve hugged her parents goodbye at the boarding gate, before security fears did away with prolonging farewells until the last possible moment, before boarding. She can’t remember the flight she took in the days following 9/11, perhaps surrounded by seats left empty by Americans who had lost their faith in the skies.
Yet 10 years later, she also remembers how New Yorkers came together. “The most memorably and meaningful part of Sept. 11 was the obvious and immediate care that every single person in Manhattan –you know throughout the U.S. and the world, but more specifically Manhattan — took of each other,” Weisberger says. She remembers buying breakfast for people forced out of their homes by the blast and living in her dorm. How her boyfriend stood in line for five hours to give blood, only to be turned away because so much had been donated. And how New Yorkers stood together, cheering on the workers who brought up the rubble from the towers. “I’ll remember that in times of crisis, goodness does come out.”
That also is the legacy of Katie Weisberger’s chance shot, No. 1621.
Above is a picture of Ground Zero today… and the place where so many people will meet over the years to remember those that died. Today, though, one of the most moving tributes was from Paul Simon…music very often says more than words can… here’s the video…sorry about the quality:
A plan to redevelop the old Mercado Shopping Center on International Drive cleared its first hurdle when Orange County’s Development Review Committee gave preliminary approval with conditions to plans for a 9 acre amusement park and shopping complex.
The biggest attraction will be a 425-foot Ferris wheel that will be the first of it’s kind in the world. The complex will also include an aquarium and Madam Tussaud’s Wax Museum.
Paul Batt with Unicorp Development said the Ferris wheel is a radical change from bicycle type wheels you know like the London Eye.
“This technology is fairly, radically different in that it does not rotate, the wheel itself does not rotate. There is no central hub. It is basically a roller coaster that travels at 1 mile per hour.”
The next stop for the development will be the Orange County Commission. Most of the concerns from the DRC were over parking issues the company plans to resolve before final approval. They hope to start construction by the end of the year, and the building phase is expected to take 14 months.
On July 4, 1776, the United States of America claimed independence from Britain and democracy was born. Every day thousands leave their homeland to come to the “land of the free and the home of the brave” so they can begin their American Dream.
The United States is truly a diverse nation made up of dynamic people. Each year on this day, Americans celebrate that freedom and independence with barbecues, picnics, and family gatherings.
We invite all nations to celebrate with Americans online this Fourth of July.
Happy Birthday, America!
Please enjoy this video from the American Adventure at Epcot and feel free to share this post by hitting the “Send” button.
