For the first time in years I was interviewed about matters that had nothing to do with payphones. And it happened twice in one week! Who’d’a thunk it. I would not have objected had the subject come up but it did not.
First up came Peter Mastrosimone’s welcome and nicely done appreciation of my “Where Was ‘The Godfather’ Buried at Calvary Cemetery?” project from some years ago. The pursuit of that specific location was good fun, notwithstanding the fictional nature of the burial in question. My favorite part of this project was how it raised a certain Daly family from obscurity in a way unimaginable to them or anyone else in the late 19th century, whence they were interred. The Daly gravesite guided me directly to the fictional burial site of Don Corleone.
It still surprises me, all these years later, that no one else appeared to have ever pinpointed the exact location of the burial scene from that film. “The Godfather” is among the most analyzed, scrutinized, and dissected films ever made. Its filming locations in particular are legion among “Godfather” fanatics who pay cash money for guided tours of said places.
Unlike other filming locations the burial site of Vito Corleone somehow escaped a level of scrutiny which would have pinpointed it.
Where was Vito Corleone buried in “The Godfather”?
Don Corleone is fictional but the Daly family was not. In a strange way this opened my mind to the fact that Calvary’s grounds (like any cemetery) must be teeming with real stories of real people, stories (the tips of them, at least) far more accessible to us in this 21st century than ever before.
Calvary’s typically cited “notables” (oh, how I hate that word, for all lives are notable) include a smattering of mobsters, politicians, and relatively minor celebrities. It is not bejeweled with famousness as the all-star Woodlawn cemetery in the Bronx or Kensico in Valhalla. I’ve always found the fetish for celebrity burial sites to be somewhat distasteful, though I admit that a certain wave of goosebumps overtook me at Leonard Bernstein’s site high atop Green-Wood in Brooklyn.
Despite my general lack of interest in mobsters or celebrities I can, nevertheless, understand the appeal. Still, I patrolled the aisles of Calvary grabbing photos of one marker after another, gobbling up unfamiliar names and researching them via the New York public Library and several public and paid online resources. Suffice it to say there are considerably more interesting (and even “notable”) individuals at Calvary than typical sources would have you think.
In that interest I outlined a set of stories revealing what other legacies (besides mobsters and politicians) can be discovered at Calvary. It’s been on my radar for a while now, and it may be time to flesh it out once and for all.
Next up was an hours-long interview and video recording session regarding the Lenovo Horizon 2 device I bought last year. Evidently I am among a small handful of people who actually bought that thing. The company that produces it reached out to this smattering of early adopters to see how, exactly, we use the thing. From what I gathered they interviewed a couple of hundred people via Skype and chose to actually travel to the homes of 5 or 6 whose use of the device they found particularly interesting or unusual. As I described in this story last year I have used the Lenovo almost exclusively as a piano sheet music reader, bringing the virtually infinite supply of public domain classical piano music at my fingertips. I still find it amazing
I assume the material they recorded here will be used in a promotional infomercial type of segment for use on Lenovo’s web site.
The newest version of the Horizon 2 has been renamed, though I am unsure if I’m supposed to mention its new moniker. The new name does not appear to have been published on the Internet yet, as far as I can tell.
Being used as a spokesperson for a product that I genuinely appreciate was fun, but exhausting. I’ve had camera crews over here before and it never fails to leave me feeling a little shell shocked. Whatever becomes of that video I have made use of the Horizon for its intended purpose here virtually every single day.
Lenovo Horizon 2: Infinite Music Library
Afterward I went with my girlfriend and her friend to an opera event at Socrates Sculpture Park. Intermingling with the sounds of the opera singers’ voices was the relentless aural scrawl of screaming babies, helicopters lingering overhead, and siren sounds from passing fire trucks and emergency vehicles. I took these photos there before noticing in the printed program that photos of the event are prohibited. So many other people were taking pictures and shooting video that it was hard to feel guilty about it, but I shall choose not to document the performers (in focus, at least), as I assume their ability to control the use of their image is what the prohibition is about. On that count I won’t even identify them or the opera company for which they sing. What.
