Double Dutch

Overnight, the world turned white…..
I always like to go outside before snow plows and shovels ruin a perfect picture. There’s something very magical about the light reflected by billions and billions of unique crystals. Fallen from heaven, those tiny flakes perform a timeless, selfless act. Down to earth, they reflect the light of the moon and stars, giving back what they receive, before melting away, only to be reincarnated.

A Buddhist might say that the beauty of snowflakes lies in their transient nature. One moment they’re here. The next, they’re gone. But leave it to less-philosophical people to attempt to defeat the inevitable passing of time and stop the clock from ticking. We’ve become quite good at it, actually. I’m not referring to the treatments available in certain celebrity spas. Mankind has developed even more sophisticated time capsules that do not involve the use of Clostridium botulinum.

FACE IT
Instead of smoothing away the ripples of the past, I wish to preserve them as best as I can. Why? Because those wrinkles are the storylines of our life. It’s where our ‘biology reflects our biography’, as Caroline Myss would put it. So, how do I go about my acts of self-preservation? It’s quite simple.

For this purpose, I use a clever device that is capable of capturing the moment, right before its echo is about to disappear into nothingness. It’s called a microphone. The very moment my sound meets the silence, I catch it; I record it and I store it in a safe place.

A PIONEER
It wasn’t as easy for Wilson Bentley. Born in 1865, he grew up on a farm in Jericho, Vermont. As a teenager he became fascinated by snowflakes. When he was fifteen, his mother gave him a microscope, and soon Wilson was on a mission to capture what he affectionately called “ice flowers”. Trying to draw them was impossible, because the flakes would vanish before he was able to finish the picture. His breath would take them away.

After years of experimentation, the 19-year old Bentley became the first person ever to photograph a single snow crystal, using a bellows camera to which he adapted a Dutch invention, the compound microscope. And it was Bentley, who discovered that no two snowflakes are alike.

During his lifetime, he captured more than five thousand snowflakes. He also published articles for magazines and journals including National Geographic and Scientific American, and filled nine notebooks with 47 years worth of his observations and analysis. In 1925 he wrote:

“Under the microscope, I found that snowflakes were miracles of beauty; and it seemed a shame that this beauty should not be seen and appreciated by others. Every crystal was a masterpiece of design and no one design was ever repeated. When a snowflake melted, that design was forever lost. Just that much beauty was gone, without leaving any record behind.”

Earlier this year, on a trip to meet the talented team of “Suchavoice” in Vermont, I visited the Snowflake Bentley Museum at the Old Red Mill in Jericho. There I learned that this pioneer of science and photography, who had dedicated his life to studying snow crystals, eventually died of pneumonia after walking home through a blizzard. But, as that blockbuster movie trailer voice-over guy would say: “His legacy lives on.”

COMING HOME
While the world around me was covered up in white, I found myself reminiscing about a year that had nearly come to an end. Most moments had melted away, almost without a trace. But then I had to think of memories that had actually crystallized into something concrete. There’s this small collection of blog posts that can still be read, and of course my voice can be heard on countless projects that, hopefully, will be around for a while.

No matter what we do in life, at some point in our journey, all of us have to ask ourselves the big questions:

“Does what I do really matter? What’s the purpose? Do I make a difference? What do I leave behind when it’s my time to go home?”

I’m no expert in the afterlife, but who knows… long after I’m gone, my grandchildren might even pick up one of the audio books I recorded this year. And as they listen to my voice, painstakingly preserved for posterity, the sounds that were frozen in time become fluid. In a  flurry of words, past and present embrace each other in the now of the moment, and nothing, nothing will ever be the same again.

Call me a flake, but I think that’s just very cool!

Paul Strikwerda © 2009

www.nethervoice.com

PS This article is dedicated to the memory of Steve Christen, a gentle man, a wonderful Mensch and a heck of a horn player.

PPS 2009 has been a tough year for voice-over talents. That’s why I am starting a mini-series about ways to turn your business around. First up: how dreams can turn into nightmares.

When his BMW Roadster pulls up at the back of the church, the parking lot is already jam-packed. Folks dressed up like Eskimos have braved the biting cold to see the man some call “the super conductor”.

This Jersey Christmas ritual started 22 years ago, when a charismatic priest and former student at The Manhattan School of Music, founded the Orchestra of St. Peter by the Sea. His name: Rev. Alphonse J. Stephenson. But most most people simply know him as “Father Alphonse”.

Stephenson formed his very first group of musicians in New York’s Theater District, back in the eighties, while serving as assistant pastor at St. Malachy’s, the Actor’s Chapel. When his parochial duties were over for the night, you could find him moonlighting as a pianist at a Broadway hangout. He recalls that the confessions he would hear while playing were often more truthful and candid, than the ones he would hear in church.

FIVE, SIX, SEVEN, EIGHT…
Torn between Pit and Pulpit, as People Magazine once put it, Stephenson joined a touring company to conduct more than 2,000 performances of  “A Chorus Line”. In ’84, choreographer Michael Bennett tapped him to conduct the musical at the Shubert Theatre.

But tonight, there’s no “Tits and Ass” on the program, although the symphony orchestra effortlessly transitions from Beethoven to Broadway at the touch of a baton. Tonight, Corpus Christi Church in Chatham NJ, has opened its doors to hear the familiar sounds of the season.

Only a few days ago, the orchestra and its conductor were featured on an ABC Christmas special: “A New York Holiday” alongside Cirque du Soleil and the Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular.

To be honest, the Catholic Community of Chatham deserves some holiday cheer. On October 23rd, Rev. Ed Hinds, a beloved local priest, was found brutally murdered in his clerical robes, in the kitchen of the rectory in St. Patrick’s Church. His death left this Northern Jersey town in shock. Authorities were quick to arrest the church janitor. “He’s the last person I would have suspected,” a parishioner commented. Now, all the faithful of Chatham have come together for an evening of heartwarming music and… humor.

FORCED TO BE HERE
After opening with “Adeste Fidelis”, Father Alphonse turns to the audience and thanks them profusely for coming. Then he asks: “How many of you have heard us before?” Almost the entire church raises their hand. In this part of New Jersey, Christmas without Father Alphonse is like Thanksgiving without turkey. “How many of you are new to the orchestra?” he wants to know. A few hands go up in the air. But he isn’t done yet. “Now, who was forced to be here tonight?” he asks. One brave man in his late fifties pleads guilty, only to hear the conductor follow-up with: “May I ask who forced you to be here?” Predictably, the man points a trembling finger at his wife.

That was the cue Father Alphonse had been waiting for. “I am working on my next book,” he says with a grin on his face. “It’s called ‘The Joys of Celibacy. You see, I don’t have to go anywhere I don’t want to go.” The audience roars.

THE CANDY LADY
An evening with St. Peter by the Sea is no ordinary evening. But of course, Father Alphonse is no ordinary conductor, or priest for that matter. He once stopped his 45 musicians in the middle of a performance, because a woman in the front row was struggling with a very loud candy wrapper. He turned around; asked her to come up to the stage with the sweets, and then he yanked the candy right out of her hands. Thankfully, she had a great sense of humor and the audience had a good laugh. Till this day, the ‘candy lady’ always shows up to the same concert and has a front row seat. And at some point during the program, she hands the conductor a bag of sweets and he gives her home-made cookies.

In a way, he reminds me of Danny Kaye, who often conducted orchestras as charity fund-raisers. It was always a mix of stand-up comedy and musical magic. Stephenson founded the Cecelia Foundation, a nonprofit group, giving professional quality musical instruments to deserving children who, in his words, “promise not to break them.” Proceeds of the sale of the orchestra’s CD’s go to the foundation, but last year, their conductor surprised everyone with a new fundraiser. He published “Le Canzoni Della Cucina, Songs of the Kitchen”, a cookbook (+ CD) filled with Neapolitan and Sicilian family recipes he wrote with his cousin Antoinette Scillieri.

DAY JOB
Though he was ordained in 1975 and always wears his clerical collar when conducting, he has never had his own parish, nor has he ever wanted one. Throughout the week, Stephenson wears a very different uniform. He is in fact a Colonel and the Command Chaplain of the New Jersey Army and Air National Guard, Headquartered in Fort Dix. (this is about to change. See the News Update at the end of this article)

Just because he works with those who keep our nation out of harm’s way, doesn’t mean that you’d be safe at a Christmas concert. Let’s go back to the action in the church. Right before the intermission, Father Alphonse turns to the man who was forced to be there; he hands him the baton and has him conduct Leroy Anderson’s “Sleigh Ride”. After the man-turned-fan gets a well-deserved ovation, Stephenson is ready to talk about serious matters.

A SPECIAL MISSION
“This year”, he tells the audience “has been a special year for me. As you may know, I was asked to come to Arlington. I can’t exactly tell you where I work; that’s a state secret. I can only reveal that the building has five sides.”

Behind the scenes and far away from the podium, Colonel Stephenson is conducting a different operation. He is working hard to invigorate the evolving role of military chaplains in a nation at war. He tells his audience:

“Here in Jersey you might think that being a Colonel is a big deal. But when you work at a place where everybody is a four star General, it means absolutely nothing. After I introduce myself, they usually say to me: ‘Nice meeting you Colonel. Now, get me a cup of coffee! And that’s an order!’”

BEETHOVEN ON THE BEACH
Dynamics usually change during the summer. At that time, Stephenson outranks everybody, because he’s at the helm of the Festival of the Atlantic in Point Pleasant Beach. It’s New Jersey’s largest outdoor music festival, founded by… you guessed it, a certain priest.

Expect thousands of people gathered on the beach, listening to opera, symphonies and show tunes. Some of them bring food, drinks and candles. During intermission, a group of dedicated volunteers collects donations. They’re nicknamed “Father Alphonse’s Angels”.

Meanwhile, at Corpus Christi, the soloists, Edward Perretti, Thad Shirey and rising star Victoria Cannizzo, are singing of different angels. As their music permeates even the darkest corners of the church, something remarkable happens.

Suddenly, the good people of Chatham, still shaken by the evil that was in their midst, start seeing a glimmer of light in a night filled with darkness. The light was always there. But sometimes, we manage to obscure it with our thoughts, with our words and with our actions.

When things are too profound for words; when we are left speechless, music takes over. Music lifts us up. Music brings hope. Music heals….

It’s almost a religious experience.

Especially when the conductor… is a priest!

NEWSFLASH As of June 2010, Father Alphonse will assume full-time duties as the Director of the Joint Chaplaincy Staff at the National Guard Bureau in Arlington, VA. As the highest ranking officer, he will be in command of the Army, Air Force and National Guard Chaplaincy with an office in the Capital building. The Festival of the Atlantic will go -as he put it- “on hiatus.”

Paul Strikwerda © 2009

www.nethervoice.com

PS click here for the Orchestra’s concert schedule, CD’s and cookbook.

PPS Busy, busy, busy… that’s what most of us are. Our in-box is never empty. Do we ever pause to ask the fundamental questions? Or does it take a snowstorm, to stop us in our tracks as we wonder why we work and work and work…? Click here to find out.

How much money would you pay to flip a switch? How about $770! That’s Superior Court Judge Jack Panella’s winning bid to turn on the Easton Peace candle. At 106 feet high (32 meters), Easton’s Peace Candle is the worlds largest non-wax candle.

Easton Pennsylvania is my home town, and if you look at a map, you’ll see that it’s right next to towns like Bethlehem and Nazareth. I always joke that I live in the unholy part of the county. Unholy maybe, but not unimportant. George Taylor, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, had a tavern in Easton where customers like George Washington and Ben Franklin used to enjoy their pint. The building dates back to 1753 and was recently sold for one dollar.

Kids might know Easton because it’s home to the Crayola Factory. And if you’re a boxing fan, you have heard of the “The Easton Assassin”, former heavyweight boxing champion Larry Holmes. On November 27th, Holmes helped his friend Panella to light the Peace Candle. How many men does it take to flip a switch these days?

O TANNENBAUM
Easton has a strong German heritage. Rumor has it that the Germans put up one of the continent’s earliest Christmas trees in Easton in 1816. There’s a plaque suggesting that the very first Christmas tree in America was erected here, but several other towns are making that claim as well. Do we really care? Then why am I telling you this?

Even though the Dutch are celebrating St. Nicholas Eve (known as “Sinterklaas”), I have my eyes and ears set on December 25th. In fact, I just narrated two versions of the Nativity story, one taken from the New King James Bible and the other one from the Good News Testament. These recordings are my thank you gift to those who are willing to sponsor me for taking part in the yearly Walk MS Event in the spring of 2010.

As a voice-over actor I do a lot of talking but not enough walking. Here are two of my reasons to start ‘walking the talk’ for MS:

1. raise awareness
2. raise money

THE BIG UNKNOWN
One of the unfortunate things about Multiple Sclerosis is, that it’s hard to pin down. Like Christmas, MS is a bit of a mystery. We’re still pretty much in the dark about a cause as well as a cure. MS symptoms are unpredictable; they differ from person to person and can vary from day to day. One day, you might see my wife Pam walking with a cane, struggling to get to the car. The next day, you might spot her on a morning walk in the park. That’s something people don’t always understand.

How can someone appear to be doing fine one day, and almost ready for a wheelchair the next? Well, luckily you don’t have to be an expert to be informed. But some people don’t get it, until they get it. Believe me, you don’t want to be that person.

Then there’s a group that seems to think that MS is “all in the mind”, and that MS patients are “faking it”. Thank goodness it’s a minority, but to address these kind of misconceptions, there are stickers and shirts that say things like:

“My disabling chronic illness is more real than your imaginary medical experience.”

or

“You can have my handicap parking spot, if you take my MS too!”

FAMOUS FACES
Raising money to fight MS is not always easy, in part because MS doesn’t really have a familiar face. President Josiah Bartlet in the West Wing (played by Martin Sheen) had MS; actress Teri Garr and television personality Montel Williams have MS , but other than that, there aren’t too many “celebrity sufferers” to champion the cause. I’m not saying that it’s a must, but it doesn’t hurt to have famous spokespeople with whom the public can identify.

This year, “The Amazing Race” host Phil Keoghan took the MS Movement on a Ride Across America. Keoghan and others biked 3,500 miles from Los Angeles to New York City and raised half a million dollars.

GIVING A VOICE TO MS
My goal is not as ambitious, although I’d love to give Keoghan a run (or a bike ride) for his money! Phil had hundreds, sometimes thousands of people join him at every stage of his Amazing Ride. Corporate sponsors, local businesses and other teams injected his journey with cash. For now, I am just a one-man band, kicking off my “Giving a Voice to MS” campaign. That’s why I am asking you to join me, and please, let your friends, family and colleagues know about it too. The more the merrier, especially around Christmas!

LIVING AND GIVING
Meanwhile, snow has started to fall in Easton. The Peace Candle lights up the historic town square. I wish I could flip a switch and MS (and any other disease) would be gone forever. But it’s going to take a whole lot more than 770 dollars. We do need the wisdom of a Judge and the fighting spirit of a boxing champion to shine the light on Multiple Sclerosis, and find that cure. But in the meantime, there’s a lot that can be done to make the lives of people with MS so much brighter.

Come walk with me; join my campaign and become a sponsor, wherever you are! My Walk Website has all the details, including how you can get the 9-minute mp3 Nativity story read by yours truly.

Christmas-sample, NKJV

Christmas-sample, GNT

Thank you!

Paul Strikwerda © 2009

PS you’ll find more information about MS on the website of the National MS Society.

PPS Christmas 2009 is history, but we’re just warming up for the MS walk in May. On my personal MS-site, you’ll find a new voice-over thank you gift for your donation.

PPPS If you’re an independent contractor like me, you probably wear many hats. Can you afford not to? Either you run your business, or your business runs you. But is it possible to be everything to everyone? My next article is about a unique man of many talents, and his journey from Broadway to the center of America’s military power.

It was one of the most cynical cartoons I’d ever seen. A colleague had just put it up on the wall of the newsroom at Radio Netherlands International. The frenzy of fanatic reporters filing their stories disappeared into the background as I read the headline: “WHAT IS NEWS?”

The question couldn’t be simpler. The answer couldn’t be more complicated. And yet, everything around me was buzzing with deadline-driven activity, as if all of us actually knew what we were doing.

“NEWS” is one of those words that you and I hear many times a day. In fact, we hear it and use it so frequently, that we rarely question what it means. There are many words like that; words such as crisis, support, or health care. These words are so common, it’s pretty obvious what they stand for, isn’t it? Do we really need to define them?

SEMANTICS
Scientist and philosopher Afred Korzybski, the father of general semantics, would strongly disagree. He coined the phrase: “The map is not the territory”. By that he meant that an abstraction derived from something, is not the thing itself. In plain language: you can’t get wet from the word water. The word water (the map) is only a representation of something that’s much more fluid (the territory). But when we use the word water, it is generally assumed that we know what it means. That very human assumption is the basis of many conflicts, big and small. People confuse maps with territories all the time. It’s like eating the menu in a restaurant.

BUMPER TO BUMPER
“Support our troops” it said on the bumper sticker. Most Americans couldn’t agree more. Especially these days, it is important to support our troops, don’t you think? But on a deeper level, what does ‘support’ really mean? Remember: the word ‘support’ is just a map. But of what? How exactly, should we support our troops? By increasing the defense budget? By sending more troops to Afghanistan? Or should we support them by pulling them out of trouble spots and bringing them back home?

As long as we’re talking on the level of abstractions, it’s easy to agree. Who isn’t in favor of world peace? How it should be achieved is a different matter, and that’s usually where the fighting begins.

There’s a vital element through which we consciously (but most of the time unconsciously) determine meaning. Imagine seeing the “Support our troops” bumper sticker on a pickup truck with a veteran license plate. There’s also a “Semper Fi” sign on the F-150, and a third sticker saying: “Anti-War = Pro-Terrorism”. With that information in hand, how do you think the owner feels we can best support our troops?

Here’s a different scenario. You’re on the highway and you spot that same “Support our troops” sticker. But this time it’s stuck to the back of a beat up Volvo station wagon. Next to it is a “Bring them Home” sticker, and another one that reads: “Against the War. Not the Warrior”. Knowing what you know now, what assumptions would you make this time, about the owners views on how to best support our troops?

Even though we’re talking about the same sticker, the meaning of the words is context-dependent. And without knowing the context, we’re all in danger of mistaking the map for our territory. As a result, we carry on entire conversations based on mind reads and interpretations that have very little to do with the reality of the person we’re talking to. That person can be a friend, a foe, a politician or our life partner. Our lips might whisper the words: “I know exactly what you mean,” but truthfully, our perception is greatly based on distorted personal projections. And yes, it works both ways.

THE REAL WOR(L)D
We’re not just talking semantics here. Every soldier knows that the reality on the ground could be very different from the map that was used during the briefing. Confusing the map for the territory could lead to deadly mistakes. It has killed many relationships and numerous attempts to build bridges between people, cultures, faiths and political systems. And because it is so ingrained in human nature, it won’t hit the headlines any day soon. The familiar might be deadly, but it’s also boring.

So, WHAT IS NEWS? The cartoon at Radio Netherlands showed a very simple formula for determining the newsworthiness of an event:

“the number of people killed, divided by how many miles away from home it happened”

I did tell you it was one of the most cynical cartoons I had ever seen, didn’t I? It criticized the “If it doesn’t bleed, it doesn’t lead” type of journalism that is so pervasive these days. A plane crash in some far away land won’t make the six o’clock news, unless Americans are involved (if you live in the States, that is). Had it happened closer to home, it would have made the headlines. It’s the proximity effect. People tend to care more about what happens in their own backyard, especially if it’s grotesque, gruesome and controversial.

HOLE IN ONE
So, let me ask you this: how many cars strike a fire hydrant or a tree every day (even in your own neck of the Woods)? Is that news? Only if the driver happens to be a certain famous golfer. It’s an example of the prominence effect. Whenever a celebrity is involved, the media will jump on it. The proximity effect and the prominence effect are just two of the filters journalists use to determine what news is. To a certain extent, these two filters are based on objective criteria. But is it possible to be utterly impartial, and leave personal values, opinions and history at the door when evaluating the newsworthiness of a story?

In 1996, the U.S. Society of Professional Journalists dropped the word “objectivity” from its code of ethics. Deborah Potter writes in The Handbook of Independent Journalism (a U.S. Department of State publication): “Journalists are human beings, after all. They care about their work and they do have opinions.  Claiming that they are completely objective suggests that they have no values.”

NEW SOURCES
Twitter has now become the world’s fastest growing news source. How objective do you think most of those microblogs are? By definition, blogs usually reflect opinion instead of fact, and most Twitter-users don’t subscribe to a code of fair and balanced news-gathering, based on checking and double-checking sources in an attempt to provide a complete picture. Again: by definition Twitter-chatter is highly subjective. That’s one of the reasons for its popularity.

But let’s bring it a bit closer to home. You’re a reasonable person, aren’t you? When push comes to shove, you can set your own prejudices aside and open your mind to whatever information comes your way, right?

THE MIRROR
Well, let’s see how objective you really are… Remember the pick-up truck with the “Anti-War = Pro-Terrorism” sticker, the veteran license plate and the “Semper Fi” sign? That redneck driver is surely a right-wing republican Fox-news watching marine in favor of killing our way out of any conflict. If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it probably is… a duck.

As you get off the highway to pump some gas, you end up parking your car right next to the F-150. A young guy in a “Life is Good” shirt, steps out of the truck and starts filling it up. A woman at the next pump is clearly upset about the provocative stickers on the bumper, and she says to the young man: “Anti-War is Pro-Terrorism… that’s a terrible message you have on your car. I’m against the war but that doesn’t make me a terrorist, does it? Do you call yourself an American? Shame on you!”

The young man looks at her in shock. His face turns completely red. Then he takes a deep breath and says: “I’m on my way to the hardware store to pick up some stuff. I’m working on a house for Habitat for Humanity. This truck belongs to a friend of a friend. I didn’t even see the stickers, but I couldn’t agree more with you.”

Paul Strikwerda © 2009

www.nethervoice.com

PS My next article is a complete change of focus, but it’s about something that’s just as urgent as the news. This time, it’s personal.  It will take you right to center square of my home town, and I assure you: it’s quite a switch! Click here to read on.