fieldandfloor

citizen journalism

While weblogs and bloggers were last year's hottest media, it might just be citizen journalism that is the ultimate outgrowth of the medium. Taking it to one more potential level, citizen journalism as it is practiced in pageantry, might finally bring a level of professionalism to what is otherwise mere publicity.

The piece from which the movement is outlined, called citizen journalism: "an effort to reconnect with the real concerns that viewers and readers have about the things in their lives they care most about -- not in a way that panders to them, but in a way that treats them as citizens with the responsibilities of self-government, rather than as consumers to whom goods and services are sold. It takes the traditional five w's of journalism -- who, what, when, where, why -- and expands them -- to ask why is this story important to me and to the community in which I live?"

It could be applicable no where more than in our worlds of pageantry. Certainly there are myriad audiences and needs that are wantful in pageantry; who better than members of those same audiences to articulate the who, what, when, where, and why of their ensuing needs?

The one hurdle that will be hardest to leap: trust.

2004 Color Guard Awards: The Top 32

On my final connecting flight into San Diego I overheard this conversation -- between two people it seemed – both heading into the Southern California city for the week.

Passenger 1: So, what are you in town for?
Passenger 2: Golf. You?
P1: (Unsure) Well, uh, a competition.
P2: Yeah? What kind?
P1: (Stumbling) Well … you know football halftime shows … and classical ballet … and those dance teams on ESPN?
P2: Sure!
P1: It’s kinda like all of those things, done together.
P2: (Genuine interest) Great!
P1: (Look of relief)

Color guard, an evolved “sport of the arts,” does combine all of “those things,” but as we all saw last week that evolution has garnered a high species of art. The competitive sport of the week simply mapped out this year’s leaders in that never-ending evolution.

“Where to from here” just might have been our parting remark, as we bid farewell to our guard families for another year.

Unites converged from across the globe, each at its own personal best level of evolution, seeking that final vote of approval, an acknowledgement of achievement, no matter where they started.

Congratulations all. Savor the experience, your own personal moments and evolution, and of the week just past. As we all stumble back into life, enjoy – if you will – another week of acknowledgements.

Now in its eighth year – and untold evolutions – here are Field&Floor’s Top 32 color guards of 2004. Taking into consideration: Performance + Effect + Show + Honoring the Idiom, the list will be pared down all week like this:

2004 Color Guard Awards: The Sweet 16

What was HOT? | What was NOT?… on the floor this season just past.

Uniform uniforms | Character Costumes
Tagged-on Endings | Finales
Floors as “sets” | Celotex
Soundtracks with dialogue | Dialogue soundtracks
Hair a/effects | What hair?
Floors that framed the performance | Floors as decoration
Rifles, rifles, rifles | Sabers
Uplifting | Hostile
Taste and Class | Crass and Trash
Mini donuts | Dipping donuts (back next year!)
Ease of parking | California traffic (whew!)
Cox Arena | Expo Area
DVD extras on the jumbotron | Posted scores on sheets of paper
San Diego | The coooooooool temperatures
The lighted judges tables | Their overload voice-overs ;-)
That swell volunteer who sells raffle tickets | That more money was not raised
Cox Arena Event Staff | Parking Lot Staff
The new WGI commercials | That I can’t download them from wgi.org
Retro show themes | recycled show themes
Dance shoes | Bare feet
Folks smiling at each other | Designers’ game faces
VIP Area | $15 backside tickets
Marchingarts.com score posting speed | Next day coverage on wgi.org
Guards helping each other | Uber guards

Were you hot, or not?
Now: Field&Floor’s 2004 Sweet 16 Color Guards

get a blog of your own

The answer to "Greg's"* questions are easy:

Personal blog, personal opinion.

*Greg, is pulling a trick reminiscent of Field&Floor of the past: he doesn't exist. Tried to e-mail you, bub, only to find there is no royalmail.us; but there are loads of terrific posts, all of which pose terrific questions for pageantry, with this name attached!

Onto something a bit more meaningful, and pertinent, I suppose, to this venture: Blogs and Ethics.

While this blog is entirely a personal venture that gives me the chance to write (writing is a large part of my profession, and this blog simply gives me the latitude to, in pageantry terms, rehearse it over and over) about the pageantry industry I so love, this article did make me sit up and take notice.

Of note, in case you don't want to read the whole thing: "Just as we tend to take some print and broadcast journalism with a large grain of salt, we'll have to learn to parse what we read online — to develop a hierarchy of trust."

Plus this: "But there is nothing wrong with informed speculation in a blog, as long as your readers know that's what it is. Ultimately the readers will be the judges of whether you are credible or not. If they don't like your track record they will go elsewhere."

And finally: "So let's approach this new communications frontier with hands neither tied solely to our past, nor naively open to anything that seems fresh. Instead, we should remember that we will be judged by the kind of character we display in the work we do. The more transparent we are about who we are and what we do, the easier we make it for our news consumers to make up their own minds about the value we offer."

(For anyone who knows the roots of Field&Floor, that final call will be the hardest one to ever earn.)

who reads blogs?

According to this, the most discerning readers and audiences.

Yikes, here are the highlights: "Writers (of blogs) must remember that the readers of a blog represent a much different audience than those for a mainstream publication. It is appropriate to assume that they are a knowledgeable audience with a large amount of background, interest, and experience in the topic area." (i.e. Everyone in pageantry has a strong, and well-formed opinion.)

And this: "If journalism is the first draft of history," he said, "then the blog is the note pad that leads to it."

From blogger Steve Outing: "One of the things I like about reading blogs is that you get to know the writers personally (well, as much as you can from reading their thoughts). Personality is obviously much on display with independent blogs ..."

Finally, for now: Only media outlet everyone follows is called Did You See

All is well, safely rest ...

... God was nigh.

The bruised bugle, looking like hammered brass from its age and use, still managed to gleam in the full light of the autumn afternoon; reflecting, as much as anything else, the life my uncle, Marshall Richard Lynch, had led. At 88, his time had drawn nigh, after years in the throes of Alzheimer's disease, and but two days with double pneumonia.

Some twenty relatives had traveled to the century-old Presbyterian Cemetery in Soddy Daisy, Tennessee, to the Lynch family plot, where he would join his parents and siblings. The early November air had turned bitingly seasonal, and a brisk wind whirred leaves about.

Two Marines were on hand: one watched over his casket; it was draped with an American flag. The other stood 20 feet away, at staunch attention, in the opening of a aging rough-hewn fence that circled the cemetery. He held the dimpled bugle in his right hand. Crows cawed nearby.

The graveside service was brief; the minister only knew of the family, he had not met my uncle. But he was observant; astute: he began by recognizing the love shown amidst the tears and the laughter of family reunion. When he finished the send-off prayer, he stepped aside.

Using only his right hand, the Marine standing attentively by the fence raised the bugle to his lips. He began "Taps." Tentatively at first -- his lips were surely cold -- and then with resolve, the mournful melody brought an even deeper hush. Even the crows' lament briefly abated.

Thanks and praise, for our days,
'Neath the sun, 'neath the stars, neath the sky;
As we go, this we know, God is nigh.

Throats and eyes filled; the slight frack mid-song seemed to underscore the fragility of life, and emotions. When he finished, he elegantly placed the bugle on top of the fence's gatepost. He joined his comrade to ceremoniously fold and present the American flag to my aunt.

And then they were gone. Unhurried, but purposeful in their swift exit.

Day is done, gone the sun,
From the lake, from the hills, from the sky;
All is well, safely rest, God is nigh.

But for a sniffle, a low cry, a sigh ... the hush suspended for another moment.
__________________
From whence these activities of field and floor began: all hail!

The sum of it

The competitive year has ended for my 2010 ventures on field and floor: winners, bests-of, medalists, favorites, Top 32, can't-get-you-out-of-my-heads, Sweet 16, runners-up, and all the rest. But I don't remember a single thing about any of it   :-|

“There is a difference,” child development psychologist Maryanne Wolf said, “between immediate recall of facts and an ability to recall a gestalt of knowledge. We can’t retrieve the specifics, but to adapt a phrase of William James’s, there is a wraith of memory. The information you get from a book is stored in networks. We have an extraordinary capacity for storage, and much more is there than you realize. It is in some way working on you even though you aren’t thinking about it.”

Does this mean that it hadn’t been a waste of time to (to watch all of this field and floor), even if I seemingly couldn’t remember what was in them?

“It’s there,” Wolf said. “You are the sum of it all.”

The sum of it all, right here on Field&Floor, are the 30 most-read pieces this year.

For the first time in several years, if not over all the years of the blog, the number of stories specific to field and to floor are almost even. Thrity-seven percent of the list are stories specific to FLOOR, while 30% are specific to FIELD. Because the mammoth "Most influential color guards in drum corps" series encompassed both, I pulled those numbers out individually: an astounding 33%.

The year's top words: applied to field and floor

The Global Language Monitor today, released the top words and phrases for 2010. Just for the "whale" of it: here are the words, as applied to field and floor.

1. Spillcam — The BP Spillcam "encapsulates the look inside Indianapolis' "oil can."

2. Vuvuzela — Brightly colored plastic horns used at the South African World Cup "reverberate inside the "oil can." 

3. The Narrative – As in political platform, "falls out of favor, at least in drum corps."

4. Refudiate — Frau Palin "refudiates" the G7 proposal.

5. Guido and Guidette — The Cadets' latest incarnation of "West Side Story."

6. Deficit – A growing and possibly intractable problem for the economies of most of the developed world's "pageantry organizations."

7. Snowmaggedden -- Fantasia and Mission Viejo High School join forces for a total "white-out" show!

8. 3-D – is being used in new ways generally describing ‘robustness’ in products (such as The Blue Devils).

9. Shellacking – Again, The Blue Devils, and what they did to the competition ... all season!

10. Simplexity – The paradox of simplifying complex ideas in order to make them easier to understand, the process of which only adds to their complexity. The Cavaliers.

Stand and deliver

In 1998, actor Edward James Olmos played math teacher Jamie Escalante; a dedicated, and high-minded teacher who inspires his dropout prone students to learn calculus to build up their self-esteem.

"Stand and Deliver" made Olmos a star, and an award-nominee; plus it became a cult favorite, lending cred to math heads.

Mr. Olmos, I think you are needed for the pageantry seasons that lie in wait for 2011.

First up: the color guard season, in February. And the early numbers -- these are early, but indicative of the economies at play -- are lagging. At championships, there are currently 186 units scheduled to compete; the total numbers usually tip 300. Again, there is time.

For me, though, that's not the point. The point is the breakdown of the numbers: independent units and scholastic units. The original of the art form, the independent classes, currently represent only 38 percent of the total registrations; pushing the school units to a whopping (for now) 62 percent of the total. But where does the power lie on the board? The final decisions? The direction? The rules?

Numbers for thought.

And then next summer, the drum corps season is punctuated by eight "Tour of Champions" events, STARRING 2010's top 8 finishers. It's a great idea, except for the summer-long slough of public relations filled with back-biting, secrets revealed, and overall distrust among the original 7 of the rogue money-making ideas.

As I wrote last summer, if this "tour" had been positioned as extending the popularity of the Atlanta-eve event in Murphreesboro, Tennessee with the current top 8, fans likely would have rhapsodized. Instead, this is a morass of the highest order, with a competitive stench that just won't go away.

To whit: comparing the 8 units to my second favorite sport, college football; look at the top 8 this year to last, on week 12. Of this year's top 8, five of them, at this point in the season last year, were ranked at 11 or below. Two of them, in the AP poll, were among "Others Receiving Votes." Conversely, at this point in the season last year, of that top 8, only 3 are on the list this year. THREE! Three of the others are unranked.

The upside: three of this year's top 8 were ranked 11, 16, and 17. So give it up for Blue Knights, Spirit of Atlanta, and Crossmen. Hope springs eternal: for 2012.

All said, though, no matter where those 8 units are standing competitively at each of the events this summer, fans, at least, will demand that each one of them stand and deliver!

Thanksgiving > Christmas > a 2011 of field and floor!

Let's redefine Christmas, and perpetuate our favorite marching pageantry of field and floor.
By putting more Thanksgiving in it.

Give people donations to their favorite charities.
And request that they give donations to your favorite charities.

A lot more money would go to people who need it.
Shopping would be easier and tax-deductible.
And our giving would be more in keeping with the Christmas spirit.

So this year, instead of or in addition to materials gifts, try giving and requesting charitable gifts. They are gifts that keep on giving.

Happy Thanksgiving! Merry Christmas!
To a happy new year on field and floor!

(With thanks to redefinechristmas.org)