And He Blogs

Have I ever told you how fortunate I am (we are) to have a colleague like Gardner Campbell here at Mary Washington? There are many examples of sparks that have fired from my head after listening to a Gardner talk, or speech, or riff, or even watching him in a jam session. However, the one I witnessed tonight will be, I think, THE most memorable. People attending the Great Lives Lecture Series sponsored by the Department of History and American Studies witnessed a happening on April 8, 2008. At least I did. You would never expect Gardner to give an ordinary talk at a Great Lives event, as his lecture on Elvis in 2005 indicates. This was a unique example of “I went to a lecture and a concert broke out!”

He came with his “A” game tonight, as the “Gardner Campbell Dancers” (my name for them) started things off with a short Beatles Medley. Bill Crawley then introduced Gardner with the pride that we all feel in having him on this campus. Gardner, of course, took the stage and immediately showed us his self-effacing humor. He then began his talk. No, that’s such a meek word. He began his sermon, and I mean that in the most agnostic, and yet old tyme gospel hour way. He mocked the Apocalypse by imagining how the world would end, “Beatles Style.” Would it be “Here Comes the Sun”? The brief horn part before the chorus in “Penny Lane”? How about the ending piano chord from “A Day In the Life”? Or, just “THE chord” from the opening of “A Hard Days Night”? Where did that chord come from anyway?

From then on it was a history of the Beatles driven by pure energy. The years 1962- 1970 passed by at a frenetic pace. I think Gardner took a breath in there somewhere. When it was all over, and it was over waaaayyy too soon, he took questions. He answered them like an excited kid who had all this information bottled up inside. It was apparent that each answer could go on as long as the original talk, but he exercised great restraint. I had no doubt going in that I would learn something new. The birth of the “drop T” Beatles logo was my little nugget. The audience that was in attendance seemed to be quite knowledgeable as well, but they were there as much to re-affirm their vows to this great band, more than 40 years on. After the final question was asked, “Are the Beatles still relevant?”, Gardner and crew gave us our answer. Gardner’s trippy, psychedelic shirt was donned for a rendition of “Hey Jude”, and soon the auditorium was filled to the gold UMW crest on the ceiling with choruses of “Na, na na na na na na, na na na na, Hey Jude!” Still relevant? I would say amen, and Amen!

UPDATE: The video of Gardo’s talk is finally up! The “Hey Jude” song is cut off because of what I believe would be a “sync licensing” issue.

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This is actually pretty funny. I am now presented with yet another chance to have fun at Jon Udell’s expense. First, some background. Many of you know, we were honored to have Jon talk at our Faculty Academy ‘06 edition. We were quadruplely (???) honored when he had very kind words regarding the Teaching and Learning crew here at UMW. We continue to keep Jon in the "minds that inspire us" category. So imagine how tickled I was to see how persistent Jon was in trying to follow me on Twitter, as demonstrated by my Hotmail account (my Twitter email address of record). Sure looks like Jon is spamming me something awful. Well, truth be told, it’s actually Twitter not working right (how’s that possible ).

The other fact is that I recently discovered Jon was on Twitter more regularly. There was even this recent cryptic message from Jon that actually turned out to be a basis for a blog post. Jon being on Twitter is to me a good sign that it is an appropriate tool to be using in my work. I want to know what Jon is working on and Twitter gives me access to his and other great minds, including my colleagues here at UMW.

I direct messaged Jon on Twitter telling him that I would un-follow and then re-follow him to see it that fixed things. We’ll see, but Jon you should know, it’s an honor to be spammed by you!

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