Good afternoon!
Welcome to another Friday edition of "Inside MENC!" See how I added the exclamation point there at the end for emphasis? That's because I'm excited. That's what it means.
I love coffee.
Elaine: "And one more thing, you really think we need the exclamation point? Because, it's not "Top of the Muffin TO YOU!!!""
Mr. Lippman: "No. No. It is."
Let's start off today with a couple of important recent MENC related news items:
1. MENC's brand spankin' new music education advocacy brochure series "The Power of Music ... Changing Lives" (inspiring? yes!) is now available as a free PDF download on MENC's Music Education Advocacy Central Web site! WOOHOO!!
We in the Government Relations & Outreach Department are especially proud of these little babies--they were handcrafted with much love and affection and it will be very difficult to see them go.
Err, be downloaded.
Wait, no it won't.
Downloading is great!
It's the wave of the future!
Do it!
Do it now!
Download the brochures!
Wow. Well, it's official. The world has actually become so darn digital that it's impossible to even make jokes about separation anxiety with inanimate objects anymore. Sigh.
In any event, the brochures are targeted specifically for use by principals, school boards and parents, and provide a detailed look at the "the why and the how" of supporting school music education. Very soon the brochures will also be available for purchase in hard copy form, so keep your eyes peeled for updates on the availability of "The Power of Music ... Changing Lives" in the near future!
2. Another terrific new resource (more new stuff you say?? oh yes. more new stuff.), "Music for All Students: Planning Music Education Advocacy," MENC's hot off the presses (digital presses, that is), information-filled, vibrant, educational reference guide for the music education advocate, provides step by step analysis and breakdowns of everything one needs in order to become an effective music education advocate. PLUS, the book's design is super pretty, and it too, is also available as a freeeeeee PDF download! Yaaaaaaay!
Now.
On to something else.
Something more disturbing.
On to the strange recent behavior of certain other members of the Government Relations & Outreach Department.
Ok.
So I'm just going to cut right to the chase here.
SKJ and HLS have been acting very odd this week.
There is no question about it.
Let me give you a little bit of background so that you will hopefully understand more fully:
Without drawing out an actual floor plan of MENC's Reston office headquarters, you'll have to take my word for it when I say that over the course of a regular work day, I often times pass SKJ's office on my way down the hall from my own to get to the copy room, to visit with another colleague, or to head downstairs for one reason or another. Now usually, when I peer into her office, what I most often see is SKJ hard at work on an assignment at her computer, deeply engaged in an important phone conversation (passionately assisting an MENC Member with a music education related question, no doubt!), or discussing a new/upcoming outreach project with HLS.
Not this week.
Oh no.
This week, has been different.
This week has been odd.
This week has been... boxes.
Lots of boxes.
Boxes stacked so high that you'd think SKJ worked for the same box making company that John Locke on "L O S T" did, prior to the start of his most excellent and amazing supernatural island adventure, of course!! ("L O S T" returns in February with all new episodes--be sure not to miss it ya'll!!!)
But I digress.
For a day or two I let the boxes thing go.
I'd walk by SKJ's office, and she and HLS would appear to be playing happily with their boxes. Sometimes it looked as if they were building forts. "That's nice," I'd think to myself. "They're being creative." Music education inspires creativity, you see, so I really wasn't all that surprised at what I appeared to be witnessing. I figured that perhaps the two of them were constructing make believe concert halls, taking turns offering renditions of Tina Turner's "What's Love Got To Do With It" while the other made fake crowd noises and chanted phrases like, "We love you, Tina!", and, "Your hair style is totally practical!--You go girlfriend!"
It wasn't my place to judge.
I figured that SKJ and HLS were probably just going through some hard times personally (it happens to the best of us), and that maybe this was their own weird kind way of expressing how they were feeling, and dealing with it.
Then the MusicFriends brochures started.
Thousands of MusicFriends brochures.
MusicFriends brochures by the bushel.
I'd walk by SKJ's office and she'd be swimming in MusicFriends brochures.
One time, I got up to go the bathroom, and I happened to briefly glance in, only to witness SKJ and HLS lying on the floor completely immersed in the brochures, "wallowing" in them, one might say, while cackling loudly and exclaiming over and over again, "They're mine! They're mine! They're aaaaaaaaaaall mine! AHAHAHAHAHA!"
Another time, I caught HLS fashioning some sort of crude, rudimentary poncho out of the brochures. She seemed lost. Emotionally.
Enough was enough.
I had to help.
And that is when I finally learned what was really going on.
In order to explain the rest, I ask that you indulge me, if you will, in an excerpt from the latest edition of the MusicFriends Newsletter.
Ahem:
"Get your FREE MusicFriends Brochures - Is your Back to School night approaching? Would you like to hand out free MusicFriends brochures? Contact Stephanie Jones with your name, address, and how many brochures you need, (limited quantities are available). MusicFriends brochures are a great resource for growing local music advocacy efforts and engaging parents!"
That's right ladies and gentlemen.
FREE MusicFriends brochures.
And talk about a hot item!!
SKJ and HLS were going CRAZY all week trying to keep up with the demand for these awesome brochures! They had been boxing and boxing and boxing brochures until their little hands bled!!
I couldn't believe it.
TRUE. MUSIC. EDUCATION. HEROES.
In any event, I was eventually forgiven for misjudging them both as having gone completely insane, and immediately gained new respect for their tremendous efforts on behalf of both MENC and its amazing Members.
The End.
Oh, but in other news, HLS still wears that awful "brochure poncho" when it rains.
It doesn't look good.
And now... here are the Friday...
"Government Relations & Outreach Department Album Picks of the Week!!!"
SKJ: Kelly Clarkson - My December (last week's pick)/Various Artists - Spring Awakening (2006 Original Broadway Cast)
HLS: Ari Hest - The Break-In (last week's pick)/Matt Nathanson - Some Mad Hope
CBLW: Neal Casal - No Wish To Reminisce
*99% of the SKJ/HLS box and brochure story was fabricated or grossly and obscenely exaggerated for humor-inducing purposes. In real life, it was still pretty funny, though. You just had to be there.
