Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Ignite: Five minutes, 20 slides. What would you say?

This is my friend Garrett's fault. I'm sitting back at my computer, two Teruah posts done, and am fiddling with Facebook. And Garrett posts "just submitted a proposal for a talk at #ignitea2". I could have ignored it. I could have pretended I didn't see it, but no. I had to bite. "What's #ignitea2" Oh..it's Ignite Ann Arbor. Five minutes, 20 slides. What would you say? Five minutes, and no more, to talk about something I'm passionate about. And the deadline for proposing is tonight.

So, yeah. I bit. I submitted a proposal.
The Silver Age of American Jewish Music is Happening Now! And Why We're Missing It.

Jewish music is exploding. Bands and labels and venues are multiplying. Rock. Hip Hop. Reggae. Punk. Klezmer. Sephardic. Choral. Chamber Music. Jazz. Chassidic-Pop. Breslov Techno. Niggunim. Pop-liturgical. Bible-gum. Beat Box. Boy Choirs. House. Yiddish Gothic. Indie. Weird hybrids. Avant-Garde experiments. Earnest devotion. But we're not immigrants clustered in tenements, in range of a local Yiddish radio station anymore. A revolution is happening but we're scattered across a big nation with no common media to connect us....except the net. Will it be enough?
I'll find out next week if I've been accepted. If so, I'll have two weeks to prep my slides and one additional week to practice. The Ignite event is on Nov 2. Yikes. Not much time to get a first rate dog & pony show together. I'll let you know how it goes. If I get to present, I'll post a video. Promise.

3 comments:

Hard Rock said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Dug said...

It was a great talk! Thank you so much for doing it!

Jack said...

Hi Dug..I'm glad you enjoyed it. I had a great time.