First rehearsal with the orchestra for Aida, which opens this Friday night ( get tix from phoenixopera.org ). Also my first time on the stage of an Orpheum Theatre. My grandmother, Audrey Arent performed here as Linda Preston in the late days of vaudeville. Who knows? I may be standing in her “footprints” right now!
Author: Daniel Greene
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What is Septopus?
Septopus came into my awareness as a weird word a coworker would use whenever he got bored at work. If a call came in and he was saying, “one moment while I connect you to…” and the caller hung up, he would say, “Septopus.” The more bored I got at work, the more I began to imagine who this Septopus was. Another coworker and I started making up things about Septopus with the coworker who started talking about him. With my love for advertising, I started creating mock ad campaign spots such as, “When you’ve got your hands full, an eighth tentacle is just one more thing to worry about. Simplify your life– with Septopus!” My friends and I would laugh hysterically, which is just what we needed to lift our spirits.
It was at this same time that I joined the social short messaging website Twitter. So I figured, “Why just send silly Septopus IMs to my friends at work when I could intrigue Earthlings everywhere?” So I started putting my IMs to coworkers into my Twitter “tweets” as well.
Little did I know until I Googled it that there actually was an episode of Home Movies called “The Septopus!” When I pointed this out to my coworker who had started the whole thing, he confessed that he loved that episode and hasn’t been able to stop thinking about Septopus since he first watched it.
So, if you see me tweeting about Septopus (with the hashtag #Septopus), you’ll know what I’m doing– just having fun, breaking up monotony, and honing my copywriting skills. If you like Septopus, feel free to tweet about him with the hashtag #Septopus. Who knows? Maybe a worldwide chorus will sing his praises!
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Ecstatic as President Obama takes oath of office
This is me and my husband Andy reacting to the final moment of President Barak Hussein Obama’s oath of office to become president of the United States of America. We were not able to watch it together until we both came home from work. Thank goodness for DVR! We were both ecstatic to see our nation’s first Democratic president in eight years — as well as our nation’s first black president — finally take office after such a long wait. I’d like to thank each person who made this possible, and God only knows who you all are. Thank you!!
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My greyhound photo licensed by Blur
I’m happy to say I got a call from London last month from an ad agency called Stylo Rouge that wanted to license my greyhound photo that hit Explore a couple of years ago. It seems that a band called Blur is coming out of retirement and the agency found my photo to be a good stock "metaphor" for retirement (and a foil for coming out thereof).
This is not the first time I’ve published photos on Flickr and licensed them Creative Commons and been approached online by interested buyers. I’m not deluded enough to imagine that none of my work is being used improperly, but I can say that I’ve never seen nor heard of it. Yet I can say, happily, that I’ve been paid by honest people, and that I’ve also been apprised by other equally honest people who have thanked me for the creative license and told me how they were using my photos for noncommercial purposes. Either way, I’m flattered and I’m happy that my photos are meaningful to people.
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Our Aloe’s First Blooms
The aloe plant in our front yard has quardrupled in size this past year, and has just sprouted its first flower buds. I look forward to documenting its progress as it unfolds.
Daniel Greene 