With the cold hard winter fast becoming an after thought, I decided to take Bennie on a new trail last weekend. We loaded up and headed two exits down the interstate, to historic Newburyport, MA, home of the recently finished Clipper City Rail Trail and Harborwalk.

The recreational path is an easily walkable 1.1 miles, stretching from the Newburyport MBTA station to the Merrimack River. Walkers can continue another half mile once they arrive at the river’s edge, with the Harborwalk extension ending at Cashman Field. In that relatively short space, trail walkers will ramble through industrial areas, developed neighborhoods, and and have access to popular areas of the historic downtown area. Along the way, walkers enjoy public and interactive art, historical markers and signage showing past incarnations. Detours into neighborhoods and restaurants, and shopping areas are also available.

Completed in 2010 after nearly a decade of planning and construction, the Clipper City Rail Trail is part of the Coastal Trails Network, a regional system of trails connecting Newburyport, Salisbury, Amesbury, and Newbury. Planners are now trying to find a way to connect the trail across the Merrimack River to Salisbury’s Old Eastern Marsh Trail. Other trails in the Coalition include the Amesbury Riverwalk, and the Salisbury Ghost Trail.

Organizer John Hermann greets guests at the New Hampshire Media Makers meet-up. Photo by Roger Goun.

Somewhere in America today, a group of creative types gathered at a bookstore/coffee shop to discuss their projects, ask for help and advice on new endeavors, and share recent successes.

Among the group was a fiction horror writer recently published in a genre anthology, another fiction writer nominated for a Hugo Award, an actress and playwright recently moved from New York City, several other playwrights and screenwriters with projects in various stages of production, a teenage metal musician excited to share (and sell) his newly minted EP disc, a published parenting and education expert who will soon be interviewed as part of documentary produced by LucasFilms, a photographer wanting to source the crowd for some before and after pictures for his latest instructional book, and a video producer who shared his latest You Tube sensation. Also in attendance were two illustrators, a few Internet start-ups, and local managers of community art and technology spaces.

So where did this awesome gathering of talent take place? Not New York, nor Los Angeles, not even Nashville.

This gathering took place in Newmarket, New Hampshire, home of the monthly meeting of the New Hampshire Media Makers.

While most participants use computers to produce their work, many also use social media to collaborate, create, and share, mainly through Facebook, and Twitter. Media Maker meet-ups similar to this take place throughout the country, usually on a recurring weekend day. Networking is a regular meme, and it is not uncommon for collaborations to seed during one of these meetings.

This particular gathering marked the third anniversary of the group’s founding, and ranks among its largest gatherings to date.

For more information about New Hampshire Media Makers, visit http://nhmediamakers.wordpress.com/

A phenomenon that has paralleled the rise of Twitter is the backchannel, a line of communication powered by Twitter hashtags, at lectures, speeches and conferences.  If you are unfamiliar with the concept, you can read a previous post I wrote about the topic by clicking on this post – Back channel Unleashed.

Now, it appears that enterprising and activist  communicators have taken the backchannel to a whole new level. Members of the animal cruelty prevention group PETA recently staged a hashtag takeover, by tweeting objections to NASA’s planned use of monkeys in long term radiation tests.

NASA spokeswoman Stephanie Schierholz was speaking at an event in New York using the #TWTRCON hashtag. During her presentation, tweets (from PETA supporters) objecting to the use of the monkeys began flooding the phones and computers of conference participants. The tweets included a shortened bit.ly link to a web page urging conference participants to confront Schierholz about the planned experiment.

Was the hashtag takeover successful? TWTRCON organizer Tonia Ries (@tonia_ries) talks about the incident and its ramifications, pro and con, in this post from her blog, The Realtime Report.

Is this a new trend? Perhaps a well timed and organized hashtag takeover during next year’s political conventions will sway the electorate one way or another. Or maybe virtual activism of this type will bring to light a humanitarian disaster during next year’s Super Bowl. What other ways could the Twitter hashtag be used to market, promote, or raise awareness?

Let’s hear your thoughts in the comments.

I participated in my first Twitter chat on Sunday night. It was actually quite simple. I logged on to Hootsuite, my Twitter client of choice, and added a stream tile for the topic hashtag, #blogchat. Once the chat session began, the tweets started streaming, and I simply refreshed about every minute or so taking time to read several tweets and and even venture a few times on to shared web pages.

The general topic, blogging, is something near and dear to my heart, and something I’ve been doing across several platforms for a few years. The specific topic for this chat was the differences between blogging platforms, and how to migrate from one to the other, if desired.

At first I was just going to lurk, as the concept of a Twitter chat session seemed a bit odd to me. (more…)

Jane Monheit performs with her trio at Scullers Jazz Club

Trying to find the correct adjective to describe Jane Monheit’s vocal talent is like trying to finds words to describe the most perfect moment you’ve ever had in your life. Smooth, silky, luscious, powerful, dramatic, soul-stirring, haunting, the list goes on and on.

And trying to avoid all the cliches that articulate female jazz singers is an exercise in futility. Chanteuse? Most definitely. Sophisticated? Check. Bawdy? Most assuredly, but not in a distasteful way. Worldly? She’s recorded and toured for a decade, and played every form of venue from intimate jazz club concert hall. She’s performed with any combination of instrumentalists, from solo piano and jazz trio, to brassy big bands and full orchestras, and she’s recorded with a variety of singers and instrumentalists from Michael Buble to violinist/fiddler Mark O’Connor.

The Long Island native also claims her own Wikipedia entry, bunches of You Tube pings, and enough Google image tags to rival Sarah Brightman or Shakira. (more…)

It may sound odd to the average person, a singer of east European descent gaining worldwide acclaim singing Brazilian sambas and boss novas, but sing them she does, and possibly in ways that no one else can.

The singer is Basia, and truth be told, everything she sings can be considered a masterpiece.

Known mostly for her original songs written in Brazilian style, the Polish-born singer songwriter posses a remarkable set of pipes, and a masterful knack for vocal arrangements that make her recordings and live performances practically orgasmic. And on November 7, fans in Boston trekked their way to Sculler’s Jazz Club for a powerhouse Sunday afternoon two-hour set, which included time-honored Basia favorites including Time and Tide, Cruising for a Bruising,and Baby, Your Mine.

Music enthusiasts who find the time to study Basia’s recordings will not only find a plethora of contemporary styles among her discography, (she’s just as comfortable singing against swing, rock, or funk beats) but also be astounded by the musicianship displayed by the vocal interplay between Basia and her background singers. With other artists, this part of the tapestry is usually the first casualty of budget-conscious record company execs once tour time rolls around. With Basia however, background singers are a necessary part of the touring roster, and they stand at the front of the stage with her. The happy result? A live performance that practically duplicates recorded sessions, note for note.

For this performance, Basia was backed by a four-piece band including long-time collaborator Danny White on keyboards. The ensemble equalled its leader in essence of style, setting the table masterfully for whatever genre Basia was performing. She pointed out that each player was a composer and recording artist themselves, and graciously gave each of them more than a few moments to shine.

In the end, you could argue that this performance lived up to the tired cliche that the whole was greater than the sum of its (pretty damn good) parts, but instead, I’ll opine that putting these particular parts together gives you a whole that was simply masterful.