Talk to me baby. Staff takes the Lip Sync Challenge to support AutismUp

Posted by [email protected] | Jun 29, 2016 | Cultural Life | 0 |

6/25/16 at the Jazz Festival

Does ever improving technology make our lives better?

Not if it means for eternity the world can see my 2015 and 2016 Lip Sync “performances” at the Xerox InfoCenter tent at the Jazz Festival.

For the good cause of AutismUp, people are asked to “challenge family and friends by sharing your post using #Jazz4AutismUp.”

And the Talker staff has responded in full force — sort of.

Xerox’s Kevin McPherson, General Manager in Communication and Marketing Services 6/25/16

Shadi claims she has to move by July 1st. Dean — himself a Xerox employee! — is sheepishly laying low after leaving me for dead at Rico’s Cave. Our foreign correspondent Bruce is abroad. Nighan is playing the curmudgeon. Anna is stuck in Buffalo covering the story of why the name of Buffalo’s baseball team, the Bisons, is ungrammatical. George is excused as his newborn son is only a week old.

Allison, Julia and Heather working the Lip Sync Challenge for AutismUp 6/25/16

So dear readers redeem the staff and contribute to the magazine your own Lip Sync for AutismUp. I deliberately botched my performance to set the bar low for you to shine.

At the D & C kiosk, you experience virtual reality. Spinning around in the chair, I went to Havana. Lots of vintage cars and maybe spotted Fidel on the boulevard. [Photo: D & C intern Jeremy Caulkins from Quinippiac University]

As explained by Xerox’s Kevin McPherson, General Manager in Communication and Marketing Services, this is the second year Xerox (and the Democrat and Chronicle) has showcased its latest technology at the Festival. The offerings — 3D stuff, cool high resolution posters, the Lip Sync Challenge — are a mixture of cutting edge technology, social media, and good old fashioned vaudevillian entertainment. Kevin says Xerox is happy to promote and raise donations for AutismUp.

Last year, you could get a Sweet Shot 3D motion panorama, “A Star is Born,” of yourself on stage cheered on by an adoring crowd. My 3D file is happily lost, but I did get a Rockyesque poster.

6/25/16

(l-r) Bachand, Quinn and Brzishen 6/25/16

A just slightly better performance 6/25/16

This year dress up posters were again all the rage.

As for those, ahem, Lip Sync performances. Last year, Dean in his review of “I Got One Less Problem Without You” charitably wrote: You get an A for getting up there 6/21/15. Another friend said: Yikes. Burn thT evidence. 6/22/15

2015 at the Jazz Festival (below)

2016 at the Jazz Festival. Too late to burn the evidence.

Sheila Rayam (left) with Gypsy Jazz 6/25/16

But at least I saw my good friend Sheila Rayam of the D & C interview Duane Andrews and his Toronto-base group Gypsy Jazz.

from On match.com and niche dating sites

And last year I got this neat picture from the D & C performing in front of the whole festival. The picture once used in my match.com profile, even eliciting this response: I noticed your Jazz Festival photo ! One of my yearly pleasures is the marathon of that festival. What’s the story of your stage appearance!? But now that the world can see my Lip Syncs, I will never again have to consider match.com.

About The Author

[email protected]

Welcome to Talker of the Town! My name is David Kramer. I have a Ph.D in English and teach at Keuka College. I am a former and still active Fellow at the Nazareth College Center for Public History and a Storyteller in Residence at the SmallMatters Institute. Over the years, I have taught at Monroe Community College, the Rochester Institute of Technology and St. John Fisher College. I have published numerous Guest Essays, Letters, Book Reviews and Opinion pieces in The New York Times, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, the Buffalo News, the Rochester Patriot, the Providence Journal, the Providence Business News, the Brown Alumni Magazine, the New London Day, the Boston Herald, the Messenger Post Newspapers, the Wedge, the Empty Closet, the CITY, Lake Affect Magazine and Brighton Connections. My poetry appears in The Criterion: An International Journal in English and Rundenalia and my academic writing in War, Literature and the Arts and Twentieth Century Literary Criticism. Starting in February 2013, I wrote for three Democratic and Chronicle blogs, "Make City Schools Better," "Unite Rochester," and the "Editorial Board." When my tenure at the D & C ended, I wanted to continue conversations first begun there. And start new ones. So we created this new space, Talker of the Town, where all are invited to join. I don’t like to say these posts are “mine.” Very few of them are the sole product of my sometimes overheated imagination. Instead, I call them partnerships and collaborations. Or as they say in education, “peer group work.” Talker of the Town might better be Talkers of the Town. The blog won’t thrive without your leads, text, pictures, ideas, facebook shares, tweets, comments and criticisms.