I would describe myself as a hybrid: a literary stylist and a formally trained broadcast and print journalist inhabiting the same body. Not all of the entries in the Life as Art blog are 3,000 word essays and commentary. Some days, the visitor may see an image that conveys 1,000 words, or a 4-word mantra/haiku, such as: “Inhabit a stolen moment.”
For five years, I have been distributing my writing through a private channel, my email account. There were literally hundreds of entries from which to choose to populate the blog. I winnowed the offerings to 27 entries for the inaugural run to feature a representative sampling of my work and my world, the Strange Tango cosmology. I have grouped the entries into two categories, “A.” and “dream”. “Dream” consists of all 27 entries—ranging from narrative nonfiction, to political analysis, to Neo-Zen style, to food recipes.
“A.” is my first initial and, alphabetically, leads the tag list. “A.” chronicles Strange Tango's yearlong journey—from its conception as an innovative personal website that would take content, art, and literature to a multilayered level never seen before in cyberspace—to its live launch on 8.12.09 during the Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA) convention in Boston just last week.
As we neared the completion date for the website, I felt that social media would be the best way to simultaneously pre-launch StrangeTango.com and to get in touch with all the high school friends who wondered what had become of me all these years. I signed up for Facebook on June 19, and in six weeks I had 72 Facebook friends and a potential 50,000 connections. I opened a Twitter account not long after. I’ll send out my first tweet this week.
In the space of less than two months, my writings had migrated from email…to Facebook…to the personal website/global platform. Facebook forced me to be very economical with words; it was also highly addicting, and I must have accumulated about 100 posts and comments during that time. Since 75% of my family and friends are not on Facebook, I would copy the posts, minus the photo and video links, and send them out as an email blast. Eventually, I may post the Facebook entries on the blog.
Visitors have commented on the iconic image of the website, the New Age Mona Lisa. Fittingly, the concept is a contemporary take on Renaissance master Leonardo da Vinci’s legendary muse since the personal website exists as a paean to beauty, art, passion, and inspiration. Cosmically, the difference between the Renaissance and the new Millennium is this—Leonardo the artist was male and his muse was a younger woman; however, in Strange Tango the epistolary novella (that became the inspiration for the personal website), the reverse is true: the artist is a young woman and her muse is an older male.
The process by which we created the oeuvre was collaborative to a very high degree. I was responsible for the art direction of the website; the writings are the products of my intellect; and all the images seen on the web pages are my photographic work—I created the special effects in-camera. Truly, I was extremely fortunate to have discovered stellar, relatively unknown talents from all around the country whose work I could showcase. The buy-in was that our combined skills and passions could create something special to share with the world.
Chris Barros and Roger Fussa, who later became the Associate Director of Alumni Relations at Boston University, were my two best friends when I worked at the Harvard Business School. Chris is a beloved figure and tech guru at HBS who thought it would be fun to work with me on the website. He was the first collaborator I added, and our partnership was responsible for all the pre-production work on the website.
Brian Saffold, who produced the film treatment iteration of Strange Tango, had generously produced, gratis, our audition tape when his sister Nicole and I applied for The Amazing Race 10. I was so impressed with the cleverness, subtlety, and professionalism of Brian’s work that I began to look for an opportunity to give him a larger stage for his talent.
For the music used in the Strange Tango video, Dan Brunelle had very kindly given Brian permission to use his composition, "Lover's in Reverse," when they were students at Columbia College Chicago, the innovative school for media, arts, and performance.
Raphael Seligmann has been a dear friend and alter ego since our undergraduate days at Cornell University. No one but Raphael could have written the eloquent words on the Prelude and the double-sided information sheet and press release.
Raphael referred Marlee O'Neal, who came on board only two months before the launch to weave all the elements and contributions into one seamless whole. After I described the project and art direction, Marlee spent some time by her favorite destination at the beach and ocean and quickly came back to me with pdf files of her pitch perfect interpretation. Marlee also suggested a music player on the website, so we all listened to some royalty free music. I decided then that since Dan’s composition on the Strange Tango video was so sublime, that perhaps he would consider writing iconic music for the website.
Dan is a busy musician in the Chicago area and is much in demand by Grammy Award-winning artists and filmmakers, so when Brian and I finally got a hold of him we were thrilled when he said yes. It took until the 11th hour and four different music sketches, but Dan told me I wouldn’t be disappointed. I had much faith in his musical gifts and was overjoyed at the final result. Dan's original composition for the Strange Tango website, "Tango for Diving Birds," is a favorite of his.
We try to keep the website content fresh. I post regularly, and since this is a fluid site, enhancements to original postings are made as needed. The Millennium Muse chapter is also the space for experimental work, which we may add on a seasonal basis, more or less.
I want to acknowledge the contributions of Sangita Chandra, Dolores Kong, and Alan Hoffman. Since they are not listed as collaborators, I am giving our chief advisors a category of his or her own on the Life as Art blog. Sangita, Dolores, and Alan brought exquisitely meticulous sensibilities to help us critique and fine-tune the personal website.
Sangita is an Emmy Award-winning arts and culture producer/reporter at WCVB, the Hearst-Argyle flagship television station in Boston; her expertise in visuals and content was invaluable. Dolores is a Pulitzer Prize finalist in public interest reporting from her days at The Boston Globe. She is now a Senior Vice President at Winslow, Evans & Crocker, Inc., a Boston financial services firm. Dolores is responsible for the idea of having my own website, so I could have a worldwide audience for my musings.
Alan is another friend for life from our college years at Cornell. He is the founder of the Mission Group in San Diego, from its website, "an innovative planning firm developing cutting-edge strategies for improving the functioning of cities." Alan was one of two people, the other being Raphael, with whom I shared my earliest drafts of Strange Tango the epistolary novella.
life: strange tango
Alan suggested Strange Tango as the name for the personal website, telling me, “You are Strange Tango.”
In addition to Sangita, Dolores, and Alan, our expanded advisory board gave immediate feedback and suggestions on the smallest details: Nicole and Bill Maskiell, Mari and James Rubio, Khushi Bhatia, Byron Lee, Conway Kennedy, Bill Jennings, Steve Granada, Mai Huynh, Jackie Old Coyote, Amy Besaw, David Murphy, and Susie Barros.
So, this is our backstory. The mission: create a website that is edgy and ethereal.
