The (Your Name Here) Show
When I think of one word to recall Eric Rice, it's "fluid." He moves from thought to thought, from image to image, like a stream babbling down through a glade. Yesterday evening he created a vlog, or video blog, before our eyes, using footage he had shot on the dogsled adventure. He used iMovie, which crashed halfway through, but this simply became another scene in Eric's presentation. He is turning his life into a show, and it's mesmorizing. For one thing, the show never ends. He moves fluidly from a formal presentation at the blogging conference to pitching his crack audioblog product, to holding forth in a low-key, endearing way on a couch later last night at the Props Pub on campus. Something came up about the logo on his site, and Eric explained how he had created it for the purpose of the site, practicing the letters over and over until he got the one he wanted. He's getting ready to be famous, is comfortable with his ego, and can type HTML code faster than anyone I've ever seen. I felt as if I were watching a magician. The result is a big file, but if you've got the bandwidth, check out Eric's video creation here.
Each of us can turn our lives into a show. All it takes is unstoppable curiosity about the star of the show, and the hard work of portraying that character perfectly, flaws and all. I have seen this in the great writers I met during my MFA program at Bennington College. The ones who managed to break out of the pack of wannabes had a fierceness and a fluidity to them, an ability to.... Well, I've run out of fancy ways to say this, and I'm running late for the next session here at Camp Blog, "Managing Your Public Life Online." I was so lit up with new ideas last night I didn't get to sleep until 2:30 so this is going to be a day to walk on eggshells and keep my mouth shut. The star of the Len Show usually muffs his lines the day after he's had four hours of sleep.
Wednesday, December 07, 2005
