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Tuesday, February 14, 2012
22 Years (The Wedding, Part Two)
(You can read part one HERE.)
There are vast differences between the way a man's mind works and the way a woman's mind works. Generally speaking, men do one thing at a time. They concentrate on the task at hand to the exclusion of whatever else is happening. Women, on the other hand, tend to multitask.
Guys, this is why when you are making love to your wife and you want to forestall the end a bit, it helps to do something distracting like calculating batting averages. On the other hand, it's why your wife can honestly say that, yes, it was good for her, too, but while she was moaning, she made out the grocery list in her head, noticed a spot on the ceiling that needed painting, and oh, by the way, you have to remember to pay the gas bill by Friday or the heat will be shut off.
This is why - being a guy - I had no idea that there was so much crap that had to be done before a wedding. I figured you told people about the wedding, they came, and the wedding happened. MY (future) WIFE - being not a guy - knew better. We were not unlike that scene in The Odd Couple when Oscar comes home late from work and Felix stands accusingly before him with a dry overcooked roast. Oscar says, "Well, just put some gravy on it" and Felix says, "Put some gravy on it? Where in the hell am I going to get gravy?" and Oscar says, "I thought it just comes when you make the meat."
The thing of it is, I'm such of a guy's guy I'll probably still forget half the stuff that needed to be done, even in the retelling. As the details were piled on while it was actually happening, I was completely flabbergasted.
Invitations had to be made and sent, flowers had to be ordered and placed, a hall had to be rented, the church had to be reserved, food had to be taken care of, the music, the priest, reply cards, blood tests, licenses, place cards, video, programs, photographs, a cake, transportation, rings, best man, maid of honor, ushers, bridesmaids, shoes, dresses, a tux, hair, readings, seating, vows, travel plans for the honeymoon, hotel reservations, vacation time from work, decorations for the hall, the rehearsal, the rehearsal dinner, at least fourteen other things I've blessedly forgotten and, God Almighty, none of it comes when you make the meat.
Was it too late to live in sin? How bad could Hell be? I'll be set on fire and poked with a pitchfork for all eternity? Lemme think about it.
The one thing that made all of this bearable was the fact that we were both over thirty.
No, I'm not saying that age had given us some sort of insight allowing us the ability to stand back and be free from stress. What age had done was grant us some freedom from conformity. Since we were both over thirty, we would do everything in exactly the way we wanted it done. It was our wedding and nobody else's. While younger couples sometimes follow the tradition of having the bride's family pay for much of what happens - and concomitantly have to make concessions to those footing the bill - we were old enough to forgo that nonsense. We both worked, so we'd pay for it ourselves. And since we would be paying for it completely on our own, we could include anything we damn well pleased and leave out anything we damn well pleased, too.
Now, we weren't (and aren't) rich. We weren't (aren't) even in the same area code as rich. We were (are) in the same hemisphere as three-paychecks-removed-from-debtors-prison-and-maybe-by-the-time-we're-seventy-dog-food-won't-look-too-unpalatable. As a result, we also decided that there was a lot of stuff we could do ourselves, as opposed to paying to have it done for us.
First off, being not so rich made us sensitive to the fact that many of our friends were in a similar situation. So, the first thing we decided was to not saddle them with extra expenses. Therefore, we did not make the bridesmaids or maid of honor buy dresses that they would never in a million years wear again, nor did we have ushers or my best man rent (or buy) tuxes. These people could dress in whatever way they wanted. We trusted that they would dress nicely. And they did.
We hand-made the invitations, the reply cards, the programs, and the place cards, 150 or so of each. You must understand that this was without the aid of any sort of computer or computer program. It was the dark ages - 1991 and 1992. When I say hand-made, I literally mean hand-made. The most sophisticated tools we had at our disposal were a typewriter and a copier. Here's one of our invitations:
And the inside.
I had barely begun my career in voice-overs and commercial production, so I was working a full-time job as a security guard. I painstakingly did the calligraphy myself during the midnight-to-8 shift. I had never done calligraphy before, but I figured I could fake it well enough to be serviceable. I did it with a felt-tip marker, not a calligraphy pen.
Once I felt I had a good sample (which was about 80 sheets of paper into the effort, what with getting it centered correctly onto a sheet that would then be folded down into a four-sided invitation) I handed it over to MY (future) WIFE for her to do the artwork. Thankfully, she got it right on the first attempt, otherwise I probably would have had to use another 80 sheets to re-do it. Then, I inserted that sheet into a typewriter and prayed to God that I could correctly line up what I needed to type. If not, back to the beginning.
Only after all of this did we feed that one precious sheet into a copier to make the 150 or so copies we needed. We then hand-colored the leaves on every copy - no color copier available to make that an unnecessary task. Finally, we made the heart. You'll see that it is made up of two thumbprints - one from each of us. We had to ink up our thumbs and make every heart from scratch, so each invitation was unique.
Similar work went into the reply cards, place cards and programs.
I recorded four one-hour cassette tapes containing all of the music to be played at the reception. I did this piece-by-piece, transferring the music from vinyl records to the cassette tapes. No digital downloads. No CDs. All vinyl and all one song at a time, and if I got the sound of the needle being lifted, or a skip or any other glitch, rewind the cassette to the exact point I had previously started at and begin again.
I had to plan each side so that it would be as close to thirty minutes as possible. I juggled my song lists for timing while keeping in mind the least jarring transitions. I did all of this on a commercial stereo set-up - no cross-fading, no ramping up the records to speed, no input volume meters to reference, nothing. After each song was recorded, I had to rewind to where it began in order to make sure that the volume levels matched and that I had the song beginning immediately after the preceding song and had not cut off anything.
One other thing: The recording cassette deck had a broken door. I had to physically hold it shut during the entire process. This means that during any time I was recording a song, playing back a song, rewinding, or whatever involved any movement of the tape, I had to keep my finger firmly pressed against the door of the deck. The recording process took some ten hours total. My finger was sore for two days afterwards.
I hauled my entire system (including my big-ass-for-those-days 75-watts-a-side speakers) to the hall, in my car, and set it up myself on the morning of the wedding. In addition, once the reception began I had to remember the playlist so that I could be ready to change the cassettes the seven times they would need to be changed.
MY (future) WIFE contracted the musicians for the wedding itself. They were all from the church group of which she had been a part. The lone exception was my best man and former band mate from World's End, Sean Flaherty, who played on one song at my behest. We picked out all of the religious music to be played at the ceremony. In addition, I wrote a song on which Sean would play lead guitar.
When I say, "I wrote", I mean I literally wrote out the song for the musicians; actual sheet music, which was something I had never done before. I had previously played in groups that used nothing but "head arrangements", i.e., arrangements worked out in rehearsals, and never existing on paper, but only in the musician's heads. I can read music, but only laboriously. The writing process was very slow.
The wedding musicians, who could sight-read, were unfailingly kind to me when working in rehearsal with my sometimes slightly off-time scratchings and they took my verbal corrections patiently. The only part not written out was Sean's solo following the third verse, but I coached him on the basic form I wanted him to follow - some octave-fingering a la Wes Montgomery - and let him take it from there.
No "Here Comes The Bride", either. We would both march down the aisle together as equal partners. This wasn't some extension of a tribal rite where I'd traded three goats for my woman, so MY (future) WIFE was not "given away" by anyone, nor did I pay attention to any of that silly shit about not seeing the bride before the wedding. I'd already seen every inch of her (and liked what I saw, too.)
We would both wear our nicest clothes, but not a tuxedo or a gown. We wanted the emphasis on the religious aspects of the ceremony, not the trappings. There would be a tuxedo and gown, but... well, you'll see later.
We planned out - and either bought, borrowed, made, or otherwise finagled - all of the decorations ourselves.
We had decided to use a different theme for every guest table at the reception. There was one overall theme - what we loved about Boston. However, each table would represent one place or thing in Boston that we particularly liked. For instance, there would be a Fenway Park table; a Museum of Fine Arts table; a Boston Public Library table; etc., and each table would have it's own distinctive decorations, place cards, centerpieces and whatnot.
In order to do this as inexpensively as possible, we sent letters to every organization representing these places or institutions, explaining what we were up to and asking them to mail us back whatever they were willing to give us as being representative of them. Most were marvelously receptive of the idea and responded with all sorts of interesting little bits of booty.
We'd await the mail each day with some excitement, wondering what it would bring. The Boston Celtics, for instance, sent us schedules and magnets. From the Museum of Fine Arts we received postcards of artwork and other doo-dads. We took these items, added them to what we had around the house already, and planned out each table as its own distinctive work of art.
I'll show you more later, when we get to the reception, but let me give you an idea of what our tables looked like. As a matter of fact, see if you can guess which table this is:
Yes, it's The HEAD Table.
MY (future) WIFE pored through catalogs of party favors and ordered lots of fun things to have at each table - little spinning toy tops; streamers; those things you blow into and a piece of fabric unwinds and makes a noise, like you see in pictures of New Years Eve (what are those things called?); confetti; candies.
Most of these items came from a marvelous company called Oriental Trading. We highly recommend them.
Of course, on top of these somewhat insane Herculean solo efforts, we also made all of the arrangements with the caterer, contracted the hall, worked with the church to stake out a time that wouldn't interfere with their regular Saturday masses, did the mailings and worked on seating arrangements, rented or bought all of our new clothing, made arrangements with the florist, booked a room for our rehearsal dinner, asked certain friends and family members to be part of the wedding party and do readings and such, and all of the other mundane pre-nuptial tasks.
We made a gigantic list of everything that we needed to accomplish and, as each thing was taken care of, we checked it off. Then we added two more things that we had forgotten about.
Here is what we looked like two days before the wedding:
Finally, came the morning of the wedding.
David Ortiz is too spectacular to put into words. He's the best clutch hitter of my lifetime. I saw Yastrzemski in 1967, and he was amazing, but Ortiz? He's established a new standard. On top of it all, he's a nice guy; humble and a great teammate.
Why would I interrupt this continuing saga to talk baseball - aside from the obvious fact that David Ortiz is magnificent? Well, it's the type of thing that guys will talk about at the reception. Women might discuss the beauty of the bride's gown or make fun of the hideous bridesmaid's outfits or perhaps they'll say how pretty the floral arrangements were - I can only speculate concerning these things since I don't own a vagina. Men, however, will not utter a single word concerning the groom's manner of dress - unless he got married in a kilt, in which case he becomes fair game. No, men will talk sports.
Also, you women need to understand that, if you decide to schedule your wedding on a day containing a major sporting event, there are only two possibilities.
1 - If you schedule the ceremony at the same time as the major sporting event, every guy in the church will be pissed. This includes your father, your brother, and the groom himself.
2 - If you schedule the ceremony to happen before or after the major sporting event, that's better. However, if you schedule it before, every guy at the reception - once again including your father, brother, and groom - will try to find a TV to watch the sporting event. If you schedule it after, they will spend the reception talking about the sporting event. As a matter of fact, they may still gather around the nearest TV, beers in hand, and watch the replays.
The only guys the above does not apply to are your gay friends and those guys in the wedding party who are trying to hit on your bridesmaids. And if you're not hitting on bridesmaids or talking sports, it will be assumed you are gay.
Two stories that prove this:
1 - MY WIFE, prior to meeting me, volunteered to write and send out wedding invitations for a friend of hers. On the invitations, it was supposed to say "So-and-so & guest". Well, when she sent them out, it did say that on the female invitations, but not on those going to men. Her Machiavellian idea was that this would bring many single dateless men to the reception. Then she and her friends could troll the waters for a catch.
It was a fine idea, except for one thing. The wedding happened during the World Series. Every man at the reception, dateless or not, gathered around the TV at the bar and watched the game. MY WIFE and all of her friends didn't go home with a damned thing except experience.
2 - MY WIFE and I attended a wedding reception in 2004. Nice couple, now residing in Brooklyn. The wedding reception was in October. The wedding reception was held in a suburb of Boston.
Boston. October. 2004.
The groom spent nearly the entire evening in conversation with various buddies rhapsodizing about how sweet it was that the Red Sox had come from 0 - 3 down to beat the Yankees. Luckily, his bride was also a Sox fan, so she wasn't pissed. Wouldn't have mattered if she was, though. Some things are just in the genes and if you schedule a wedding or reception at certain times, the genes will out.
My best advice, ladies? Schedule your wedding during a time when there are no playoffs happening in any of the four major North American sports. Also, no Olympics, World Cup, major golf tournaments or NASCAR championships. For instance, February 29th.
So the morning of February 29th arrived (arrove?) and we were ready. Every detail was taken care of and all of the stuff we had to bring to the hall and church - for decorating, etc. - was packed up in boxes and bags and ready to be loaded into the car for transport. A couple of very close friends and relatives had agreed to help us that morning with the actual decorating.
I loaded the stuff into my car and drove over to the Knights of Columbus hall we had rented for the reception. I would drop off the stuff with our very good friends and oversee the set-up. I took this task onto myself as a solo venture voluntarily. MY (future) WIFE was on the edge of clinical exhaustion and remained at home taking care of last minute clothing details and popping tranquilizers. I say that not unkindly. She was subject to amazingly hideous migraines and had copped a scrip to make a preemptive strike against that possibility. I was all for her avoiding migraines, of course.
I parked the car, got out, and went into the hall. I then stood there in drop-jawed amazement, not believing what my eyes were seeing.
The entire floor of the hall was covered with trash and I literally mean every inch of it. The hall had been used for a bingo game the night before and it was strewn with discarded bingo cards, scratch tickets, markers, paper plates and drink cups, cigarette butts, and every other bit of detritus that could possibly be associated with a night of gambling.
After the bingo game, whoever was in charge had just swept everything on the tables onto the floor, folded everything up and gone home. Our friends and I had to actually clean the place and set up the tables and chairs before they could even begin doing the decorating.
Before that happened, though, I had to go home. MY (future) WIFE expected me to take perhaps fifteen or twenty minutes at the most to drop stuff off and go over a few details with our friends. There was no way in hell I was going to tell her about what was transpiring. So, I went home, made some sort of lame excuse about having to head back to the hall, and then did so - pissed and ready to start busting my balls cleaning.
Thankfully, MY (future) WIFE had a serious case of Bride Brain, so I didn't have to be too effective in my lying.
I went back to the hall and joined in scooping up trash - by hand. I had a change of clothes at home, of course, but the other folks were already in their beautiful wedding duds. They hadn't expected to be working shin-deep in filth that morning. But they did, God bless them, they did.
After helping to dispose of the greater part of the mess, I had to head back home to continue with our pre-wedding prep. I left everything in the capable hands of Peggy Lavoie and she, along with my future brother-in-law and sister-in-law... well, she absolutely guaranteed herself a spot in heaven, if there's any justice in this universe. She took all of the boxes of stuff, along with my hurried instructions concerning set-up details, and she did as magnificent a job with that hall as we could have done given three days to accomplish it. She set up every table with the specific decorations for that table's theme and did so with her marvelous eye for artistry. I won't show you the details yet - that will come later, at the reception - but you need to know that, without her efforts, our day would have been fairly much ruined.
Back home, we packed up the programs we had made and readied to bring them to St. Gregory's, the church we were being married in. Our greeters (photo above) would hand one to each of the guests as they entered the church. Since we had many friends who were not Catholic, we included fairly much every word of the liturgy within the programs so that they could follow it easily and participate without hesitation or embarrassment.
After dropping off the programs, we had to go to the florist and pick up the floral arrangements, bring them to the church, and set them up on the altar. MY (future) WIFE also had to get her hair done. We both had to dress in what we were wearing for the ceremony. And I had to write a speech, too.
You see, it was our idea that we would both address our guests at the ceremony. I would give a welcome and MY (future) WIFE would say a couple of words after we were married, including pointing out that directions to the reception were in the program.
Remember how this whole story began with an improvisation on my part? I hadn't learned my lesson from that. After all, horrible improvisation though it may have been, she had agreed to marry me. So I figured I could wait until the last minute to come up with something to say as an introduction to our guests.
You know what? I was right this time.
After picking up the flowers, and while MY (future) WIFE was having her hair done, I was at home reading the funny pages of the Boston Globe. I had it in the back of my head that I had to come up with something to say, but I wasn't too worried about it. I could wing it, if need be. I came from a long line of successful b.s. artists and panic is not a trait you inherit from folks like that. As I was reading Andy Capp, Bringing Up Father, Blondie, and other fine literature sure to instill confidence in a soon-to-be-married man, I glanced down the page and miraculously found the text upon which to base my pre-game talk.
A regular feature on the comics page was the Quote Of The Day. In this case, it was from someone named Festus. The only Festus I knew was the deputy from Gunsmoke, but I assumed it wasn't him and, miracle of miracles, I was now right twice in the same day. As I later found out, he was a Roman philosopher. At that moment, however, he was a gift from God that I gratefully accepted. I clipped the quote out of the page and put it into my pocket.
Her hair now done, MY (future) WIFE was ready for the wedding. We got into our car and drove over to the church. I'd say we had at least twelve or thirteen minutes to spare before the ceremony.
At the time, I was driving a 10-year-old monkey-shit brown Oldsmobile that was not without its charms, but had acquired 10 years worth of dents, dings and other personalizations. We pulled up in front of the church and were immediately accosted by a helpful church official.
"Hey! You can't park there! There's a wedding today and that space is reserved for the limousine!"
"We are the limousine", MY (future) WIFE said, as she moved the orange traffic cones out of the way.
We waited in the sacristy, peeking outside every now and then to count the house - not unlike performers on opening night. I fingered the quote from Festus in my pocket, figuring out my opening lines.
The third person "on stage" with us that day would be Fr. Vincent McKiernan, CSP. We knew him as Vinny. When we decided to get married, he was MY (future) WIFE's immediate choice as celebrant and I agreed wholeheartedly.
Vinny was currently in residence at Ohio State University, but he had previously been a resident at the Paulist Center in downtown Boston. This is where we knew him from. He had been a great help to MY (future) WIFE during a time of great distress (prior to this time of great distress) and a friendship beyond the usual priest-parishioner relationship had developed. I didn't know Vinny as intimately, but I did know him as a kind and gentle man with a wonderful sense of humor, especially adept at punning.
(Since Vinny was from out of town, we had to get special papers to allow him to perform a wedding in Massachusetts. Conservatives want more people to get married and stay married? They want to cut down the divorce rate? Have the government get the hell out of the marriage business. If you left marriage to the religious institutions and dropped all of the hideous paperwork and blood tests and licensing and permissions and fees and other crap, more people might find it easier and might do it. In addition, most churches consider a marriage final. They don't grant divorces; the state does. Mini-rant over. Sorry!)
Vinny was ready. MY (future) WIFE was ready. The musicians were ready. The gathered guests were ready. I pulled Festus out of my pocket and walked out to the lectern on the altar. I began...
"Thank you for coming here today to join us in our celebration of marriage. I'd like to read you a quote that we've pretty much based our entire life together on."
(I had never seen the quote until about an hour ago.)
"The quote is from Festus."
(I here explained that it was not the same Festus as the character from Gunsmoke. I still had no earthly idea what Festus he might have been.)
"We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths; In feelings, not in figures on a dial."
"We have tried to live our life together thus far by following these words."
(This was pretty much true, but we had never actually seen the words before.)
"Each one of you holds a special place in our lives and it is our fervent hope that you'll find the deeds, thoughts and feelings, expressed today, filled with love."
(Whatever the hell that means. I know it sounded good because everybody was smiling.)
Having now baffled everybody with bullshit, it was time to begin the actual ceremony. I stepped off of the altar and joined hands with MY (future) WIFE, who was giving me a "Who in heck is Festus and we do what with who now?" smile. We made our way to the back of the church via a side aisle and then followed the rest of the wedding party up the middle aisle towards the altar.
Why, here we are now!
I have to condense slightly here, otherwise I'll have to rent out space on another blog to finish. If you know the Roman Catholic liturgy, you more or less know our wedding.
Dearly beloved...
Husband and WIFE...
(A few minutes before this shot, when Father Vinny actually said "...husband and wife", we had exchanged a high five.)
And then we went home, while everyone else...
... headed to the reception. Why did we go home? You'll find out at the reception.
(See you there soon!)
25 comments:
- Julie said...
interesting read ... thanks
- 8:27 AM, February 14, 2012
- Daryl said...
noise makers .. they're called noise makers .. is that not the most clever name for a thing you blow into that unrolls and makes a noise? You're welcome. ♥♥
- 9:01 AM, February 14, 2012
- Michelle H. said...
Love the wedding photos! I also liked your wedding invitations, even though I'm not going to bring up the obvious because I actually missed it during all the other times I read this post. You are a clever man.
- 10:06 AM, February 14, 2012
- Craig said...
Oh, my head is just spinning with all the possible ways you could've gone with the 'HEAD' table. . . Probably wise to keep it sorta safe. . .
I'm gratified that somebody else declined to hold their wedding party hostage for clothing that they'd never wear again. I wore a tux (but my own shoes), which was probably the biggest clothing-related outlay for any of us. Jen wore her mom's dress, which required a few alterations, so I'm not sure what those cost.
And the thumb-print hearts are just too cute!
(Someday, if we ever have occasion to sit down over a pint of Boston's finest, I'd love to discuss with you the whole question of marriage/government, etc. . .)
- 10:14 AM, February 14, 2012
Now that's commitment! When you have to clean the hall before the wedding and you just hunker down and do it? That's when you know you got a keeper. It's about working together!
You, my friend, definitely started off on the right foot (or the left foot if that's your better foot *grin*)!!!
- 10:31 AM, February 14, 2012
- (not necessarily your) Uncle Skip, said...
Another thing about February weddings is that if you invite MLB players, they can actually attend.
- 11:11 AM, February 14, 2012
- lime said...
the knee-deep in trash reception hall....god bless you for sparing YOUR WIFE knowledge of that (i guarantee it would have induced a migraine) and bless your wedding party for cleaning it so graciously and efficiently. what a nightmare! and the one little detail on the invitation that makes me smile (aside from the thumbprint sweetness) is the time of the ceremony. fantastic.
- 11:32 AM, February 14, 2012
- Suldog said...
Craig - Yeah, all the same possibilities concerning "head table" spun through my noggin, as you might imagine. MY (future) WIFE, however, was blissfully unaware of such connotations and connections being made by we easily-led-to-filthy-thoughts men, so it was OK.
- 11:36 AM, February 14, 2012
- Christine Macdonald said...
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. You are a class acct. Both of you are lucky to have one another.
Enjoy your Valentine's Day and thank you for sharing such a special story!
- 11:52 AM, February 14, 2012
- Buck said...
Stress. That's what came back to me as I (re)read this. I recall asking The Second Mrs. Pennington (to be) at some point in the wedding work-up if we couldn't just elope. Please?
Not a chance. Continued stress.
Your way, while not entirely stress-free, is certainly better.
- 1:29 PM, February 14, 2012
- messymimi said...
Sounds like you got through the day the way i got through college -- if you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bull manure.
- 1:30 PM, February 14, 2012
- Chris said...
I stopped reading as soon as I saw "2004."
Not really, but do you HAVE to throw that reference in so often?
Well, I guess when you've won 2 championships 100 years, you probably do.
Sorry to have bothered you.
- 2:04 PM, February 14, 2012
- Carolina said...
What a cliffhanger!
Love the wedding invitations. I've never seen such original designs. And the heart shaped from/of/by your thumbs... cute.
- 2:09 PM, February 14, 2012
- IT (aka Ivan Toblog) said...
I'm fairly certain none of the songs in this video were played
- 3:14 PM, February 14, 2012
- Jackie said...
My internet connection has been on the blink and I haven't been able to comment until now...but I was able to read this on my smartphone (why DO they call them that??) this morning. I couldn't wait to read it, and I was not disappointed. You and your wife did a great job planning the wedding; I love the thumbprints on the invitation. (Your prints are now on the WWW...no problem with that? :))) )
You have the BEST friends, and I hope that they read this blog, too. I am so happy that you both were and are surrounded by true friends. (Only a TF would scoop/shovel trash in their wedding duds. Keep those people close to you, forrrrrever.!)
This is a wonderful story and a great read. I love to read your posts, Jim. Happy Valentine's Day to you and your wife.
- 3:48 PM, February 14, 2012
- Jenn Flynn-Shon said...
So good...can't wait to "party the night away at the reception" in the next installment!
It sure sounds like the day was perfectly made for the both of you. And there's nothing quite as fantastic as starting out a marriage like that :-)
- 3:56 PM, February 14, 2012
- silly rabbit said...
I think you both are terribly clever and creative. Weddings are way more stressful than they should be. But good for you for doing it your way. Sounds like it turned out fantastic!
- 6:37 PM, February 14, 2012
- Karen said...
- This comment has been removed by the author.
- 11:04 AM, February 15, 2012
- Karen said...
- This comment has been removed by the author.
- 11:05 AM, February 15, 2012
- Karen said...
I enjoyed reading this so much and can't wait for the reception (you do have a place at a table for me, right?). First time I married (1982) I made my own invites the same way you did - I did the calligraphy, too! I wore a $12 dress, a friend made our cake, another friend did the flowers. It was perfect. 2nd marriage (2008) we eloped to Tombstone, AZ, wore white shirts and jeans and stayed in a B&B that used to be a brothel. It was perfect. Off to the reception...
- 11:06 AM, February 15, 2012
I am exhausted just reading this! You two certainly were busy preparing.
Great idea for the tables!
My sister wrote out our invitations. Love them, and her!
- 6:44 PM, February 15, 2012
- Shrinky said...
Actually, I read "Festus" as "Fester" and immediately thought of the uncle in The Addams Family..
I loved those wedding invites, so personal and unique, and definitely worth their weight in gold. YOUR WIFE and you make such a handsome couple, it's sounds to have been quite a day!
- 10:57 AM, February 16, 2012
I am amazed at all the work you put into the wedding! We were in the same boat as far as paying for our own, etc. but I took the easy way out and ordered invitations. And I have no idea how the tables were decorated. Love your idea and how cool that so many organizations contributed!
- 1:29 PM, February 16, 2012
- Mich said...
After all that build up, you only post FOUR wedding photos?? SHAME.
- 1:57 PM, February 16, 2012
- Hilary said...
I think your wedding took even more effort and preparation than most. Your unique invites, table settings and music collection are just amazing.
- 10:00 AM, February 24, 2012


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PER: Potchefstroomse Elektroniese Regsblad
versión On-line ISSN 1727-3781
PER vol.15 no.2 Potchefstroom ago. 2012
Law and Language in a Multilingual Society
LTC Harms
Paper is based on a paper read at the 12th International Conference of the International Academy of Linguistic Law, 1 November 2010, Bloemfontein. LTC Harms, Former Deputy President, Supreme Court of Appeal Professor: Adams & Adams Chair in Intellectual Property Law, University of Pretoria 29 May 2012 firstname.lastname@example.com
Terence McKenna, in Wild Ducks Flying Backwards,said that he did not believe that the world is made of quarks or electro-magnetic waves, or stars, or planets, or of any such things. 'I believe' he said, 'the world is made of language.' It would have been more correct to have said that the world is made of languages, many of them.
The subject, Law and Language in a Multilingual Society, raises critical issues not only for us in this country but also for others because language is part - the greater part - of one's culture. A people without a culture is said to be like a zebra without stripes. Culture, and not race, nationality, religion or border (natural or political), determines one's identity. As one of the founding fathers of the Afrikaans language, Rev SJ du Toit, wrote in 1891: language is a portrait of the soul and life of a nation; and it mirrors the character and intellectual development of a people (my translation).
Unfortunately language tends to divide, more particularly, a multilingual society. Law is supposed to close the divide but more often than not widens it and is used to deepen divisions. This is because the ruler determines the law and, consequently, the language of the law, in the belief that the use of language can be enforced from above. Law and language, like oil and water, do not mix although the former is dependent on the latter.
The reason this paper is in English may have had its origin in an incident at the Pretoria Bar, of which I had been a member. During 1910 the Bar held a dinner for the appointees to the newly formed Appellate Division, including a future Chief Justice, Sir James Rose-Innes. It was attended by Sir Patrick Duncan, a future Governor-General. The speech was made by NJ de Wet, who later also became a Chief Justice and was to act as Governor-General during Sir Patrick's illness. But he spoke Dutch. This annoyed some, particularly Sir Patrick, who felt that it was inappropriate considering that part of the audience was not fully conversant with Dutch. Since then, but not because of this, Afrikaans speakers have been very sensitive about the choice of language and have tended to please those who might not understand their language. Proof of this conciliatory approach is to be found in the fact that General Hertzog, when prime minister, chose Sir Patrick to be Governor-General (not that the latter reciprocated when he refused to follow convention and disband parliament at the request of Hertzog, but that is another matter). Another instance is when counsel in the Supreme Court of Appeal responded in English to a question put to him in Afrikaans on the assumption that because of the judge's race he would understand English better. He rephrased his answer in Afrikaans after the judge had asked him if he had misunderstood the question.
What follows will be the result of a knee-jerk reaction, some experience and a smattering of emotion, and will be personal. Some observations will be historical and legalistic, and the rest anecdotal.
Many South Africans who descend from 'European colonialists' suffer amomg other thngs from cultural schizophrenia and have an identity crisis. In my instance my father tongue and home language was German, my mother tongue English, and Afrikaans is now my home language. It is not possible in those circumstances to be a language chauvinist.
After the Norman conquest of Britain the court language and the language of the law became Norman-French. It was only after the Normans became anglicized and the people homogenized that English (no longer Anglo-Saxon) became the language of the law.
Likewise, after the rise of Afrikaner nationalism Afrikaans became an important legal language. This occurred in spite of the fact that Afrikaans is not a 'White' language or a language of Whites. It is a language that does not and never did belong to a particular racial group. But since the demise of Afrikaner nationalism Afrikaans as a language of law is in retreat.
Namibia provides an interesting case. Afrikaans was generally spoken and understood by all in South-West Africa. English was used by but a small group of persons, primarily as a second or third language. Upon independence Afrikaans, perceived as the language of the vanquished conqueror, was replaced with English as the only official language.
This says something about Africa. It presents a strange phenomenon. Although Africa is usually regarded as uniform it is not because it is divided for international political reasons into Arabic, English, French, Portuguese and Spanish speaking countries. This division is symbolic of Africa: it is a divided Continent and its official languages and legal systems are by and large those of its erstwhile colonial masters and not those of its people.
One would, with the rise of African nationalism and the search for an African Renaissance, have expected that Africa would have sought to give preference to its own languages. But that has not happened, not even in the odd monolingual African country. The colonial language became the language of the elite, and it is used to reserve privileges for the new elite - quite like the position in Britain after the Norman invasion. As Mosibudi Mangena has said (Sunday Times of 15 August 2010):
The language of debate in parliament and of doing state business must be colonial, and the fact that the majority of the people understand neither the language nor the colonial way of conducting business does not matter. . . . The languages of the colonisers . . . are a mark of success, class, civilisation and a vehicle to access resources.
I do not know of any university South of the Sahara that teaches law in a local language. Court language, at least in the higher courts, is invariably European. The result is that African languages have failed to develop a modern scientific legal vocabulary.
The one exception is Afrikaans, one of three major languages that developed during the 20th Century. Afrikaans was able to create a legal language of its own because of its close relationship to Dutch and German in particular and because the common law of the country is by a quirk of history Roman-Dutch and not English.
It might be argued, because we have had eleven official languages since 1994 because of provisions of the interim Constitution, that this picture of the language of the law in Africa is skewed, if not untrue, at least as far as South Africa is concerned.
The constitutional provisions about language are often hailed as something wonderful, but that is only because they have had a good press agent. They are the result of political compromise. Compromises seldom satisfy. Unrealistic compromises fail.
South Africa, as a political entity, is a century old. It was a consequence of the Anglo-Boer War. Another and earlier consequence of the war was the Milner language policy: the language of the country had to be English in spite of the fact that the official language of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State had been Dutch and the unofficial language embryonic Afrikaans. The policy did not succeed. Maybe it is a pity that it did not.
The Union of South Africa was created on 31 May 1910. Its Constitution, locally devised but an Act of the Westminster Parliament, had a language provision in terms of which the official languages of the country were to be English and Dutch, each with an equal standing. Afrikaans, as a language, had not yet been formalized and was not recognised. The African languages, like the rights of the indigenous peoples, did not feature.
Afrikaans grew and during 1925 the Constitution was amended to equate Afrikaans with Dutch. In other words, Afrikaans was introduced as an alternative to Dutch and very soon Afrikaans replaced Dutch in practical terms.
Statutes were always published in both languages. They were signed in either the one or the other although the two texts, both of which had to be approved by Parliament, had equal status. In the event of an irreconcilable conflict the signed text took precedence.
Published judgments of the higher courts and the Appellate Division did not reflect the intention of the 1910 Constitution. There are no reported judgments in Dutch. A few inconsequential Afrikaans judgments were delivered in that court after the 1930s. Except for judgments by the likes of Van den Heever J, who was also a poet, there were prior to 1947 hardly any published higher court judgments in Afrikaans. Judge Neville Holmes was proud of the fact that he had delivered the first high court judgment in Afrikaans in Natal; it was during 1958 (half a century after unification). Even in the randomly selected 1948 (2) SA Law Reports, 3 pages (one judgment) are in Afrikaans and 1293 pages in English.
A case between what was then an Afrikaans university, the University of Pretoria, and the Minister of Education, Mr Jan Hofmeyr, who was Afrikaans, was argued in 1947. Counsel for the University, Oswald Pirow and Frans Rumpff (the former had been a Minister of Justice and the latter became Chief Justice) argued in Afrikaans. Counsel for the Minister, although conversant in Afrikaans, argued in English. The University lost. The judgment by Malan J was in English. He was Afrikaans-speaking. (University of Pretoria v Minister of Education 1948 (1) SA 411, 1948 (4) SA 79) (T).)
Things changed during the late 1950s. Many judges adopted a rule of thumb. Judgments were to be in the language of the parties. If their language differed, the judgment was in the language of the loser on the basis that a winner is satisfied with the result and has less interest in the reasoning. This did not apply to indigenous languages because they had no legal status. If someone spoke in one of them the proceedings were interpreted from and into one of the official languages.
At the time it was statutorily required that someone who applied to be admitted as an advocate had to have completed university courses in Afrikaans, English and Latin.
Matters were different, however, after the 1970s, in the so-called independent homelands. These chose their own language (isiXhosa for Transkei for instance) and English as their official languages. Although they published their laws in their chosen indigenous language in addition to English, no one bothered to have regard to the former and, in particular, all court proceedings were conducted in English.
Then came the 'constitutional' era with its 11 languages. The first victim (some would say 'triumph') of the language clause was the Latin requirement for advocates, which was abolished in 1994. And the abolition of all language requirements for advocates followed in 1995. Universities now have a free hand in determining their degree requirements. Lawyers without language qualifications? I thought, apparently wrongly, that language is the lawyer's tool.
The re-incorporation of the homelands into mainstream South Africa also had its effect. Judicial officers and practitioners from those areas did not know Afrikaans and were unable to conduct cases in that language.
Statutes are now prepared in one language only and pass Parliament in that language. It is the official text. The language is English, often as she is not usually spoken. As a sop to the Constitution, each statute is translated into one of the other ten languages but the translation has no value because it has no official status. The translations are not even published by commercial law publishers, and since nine of the languages do not have their own legal terminology, the task to translate is enormous, wasteful and unnecessary. This course of action, prescribed by the Constitution,could hardly been seen as a rational choice when one takes into account usage, practicality, and expense.
Courts, too, pay lip service to the equality of the eleven official languages. The Black languages retained their status as second-class languages, ie, languages that have to be translated or interpreted into English or (to a limited extent) Afrikaans, save for a small-scale experiment that is being conducted by the Department of Justice. The court languages, accordingly, remained English and Afrikaans, save for the fact that Afrikaans is losing ground rapidly, something compouned by the fact that a substantial number of judges are rabidly against the use of Afrikaans as a court language.
The rules of the Constitutional Court have two language provisions. The first is that if any document is not in an official language 'understood by all the judges' it has to be translated into that language. The only language understood by all is English. The second is that counsel may argue in any official language but if the oral argument is to be in a language other than that of the brief, notice has to be given, presumably in order to find an interpreter. One judge only, long since retired, has on rare occasions written a judgment in Afrikaans. No judgment has been written in any other official language save in English.
Importantly, the judgments are not translated into the language of the parties or into a second official language. Canada's 'bi-juralism' as practised in the Supreme Court ought to have served as example.
There is a knock-on effect. Judges who are conversant with Afrikaans are presented with a dilemma. If they write in Afrikaans the judgment would have no precedential value because not all students, lawyers or judges would be able to read or understand it. The Constitutional Court would have had to judge a translated judgment - a translation that the particular judge would not have seen and would not know whether or not it was correct. The result of all this is that the practice has arisen that judgments are to be in English unless the author is comfortable in Afrikaans, the parties and proceedings are in Afrikaans, and the case has no precedential value.
The question arises immediately how all of this is compatible with the Constitution. The answer is that, although the Constitution declared eleven languages to be official languages, it did not give those equal rights or guarantee them equal protection. All it does is to state that all official languages must enjoy parity of esteem and must be treated equitably. This creates nothing more than something akin to a natural obligation in Roman and civil law where the obligation flows from the conscience of the debtor: 'Le véritable base de l'obligation est toujours dans la conscience des contractants.'
In any event, the provision is subject to an overriding proviso:
The national government and provincial governments may use any particular official languages for the purposes of government, taking into account usage, practicality, expense, regional circumstances and the balance of the needs and preferences of the population as a whole or in the province concerned; but the national government and each provincial government must use at least two official languages.
The problem with the proviso is that it is open to political abuse. The choice of languages, if limited to two, will inevitably lead to the dominance of English and the rejection of Afrikaans and other relevant languages, irrespective of their prevalence in any geographical area. By the way, it would appear that the Constitution does not regard Afrikaans as 'indigenous', a term reserved for languages that had a diminished status before 1994.
Then there is sub-section 6(4) of the Constitution. It requires of the national and provincial governments to regulate and monitor their use of official languages. As was held by Du Plessis J in Lourens v Die President[2010] ZAGPPHC 19, Government has failed to comply with this constitutional duty. It does not appear from the judgment that Government was able to explain its lackadaisical approach. It probably assumed that if the problem was ignored it would disappear.
A similarly toothless provision in the Bill of Rights relates to education. Everyone has the right to receive education in the official language or languages of their choice in public educational institutions. However, it must be reasonably practicable. And every decision must take into account (a) equity; (b) practicability; and (c) the need to redress the results of past racially discriminatory laws and practices.
The fact that one has the right to use one's language of choice is also meaningless if the court cannot understand that language or if what is said or written therein is ignored. Few Black accused are tried in a language they understand and this now also applies to Afrikaans-speaking accused. Translated evidence remains suspect.
The huge legal academic contribution in Afrikaans has become as inaccessible as Latin texts have become. One sees this in the contributions to law journals. The first and foremost Afrikaans law journal, Tydskrif vir Hedendaagse Romeins-Hollandse Reg, was established in 1938. The contributions were nearly exclusively in Dutch and Afrikaans. Today, in spite of its object of nurturing the Afrikaans legal language, contributions in Afrikaans fell from 39 per cent in 2005 to 12 per cent in 2010. The others are in English. This trend is as strong if not stronger in other disciplines.
In other words, as George Orwell would have said, 'all languages are equal but English is more equal than others.' The simple fact is that languages in a multi-cultural society are not equal.
One may agree with Stephen Jay Gould that English has become the lingua franca, of scientific discourse (The Hedgehog, the Fox and the Magister's Pox). In this regard it occupies the position of Latin until the beginning of the 19th Century. By the way, the Department of Justice, historically and linguistically challenged, refers to Roman script on its website as English script.
What has been said thus far may have sounded as a call for special recognition of Afrikaans. That is not the intention. Afrikaans is simply used by way of illustration. African languages are in a far worse position. They are simply ignored.
The English author, GK Chesterton, wrote a futuristic novel, The Napoleon of Notting Hill, at the beginning of the 20th Century. It was set at the beginning of this century. It includes a story about the President of Nicaragua, whose country had disappeared through the 'brute powers of modernity'. There were only a few mega-countries left, Britain being the foremost. The President, lonely in London, was lamenting the loss of his country. The Englishman to whom he spoke explained that the loss was inevitable. He said:
We do not discourage small nationalities because we wish large nationalities to have all their smallness, all their uniformity of outlook, all their exaggeration of spirit. If I differ with the greatest respect from your Nicaraguan enthusiasm . . . it is because civilization was against you. We moderns believe in a great cosmopolitan civilization . . ..
Chesterton might have been wrong on the future greatness of Britain. But he was right with the last sentence, which identifies the problem: the 'great cosmopolitan civilization'; Disneyland culture; cultural colonialism; the global village; and Google gobbling. Even a recent French entry at the Eurosong competition was sung in English. The world will soon be divided between Mandarin and English.
The role of the law in protecting or promoting language is limited. A love for culture cannot be imposed. Culture comes from the heart, from the gut. If Afrikaans is becoming irrelevant it is not because of the law only - it is because the Afrikaans-speaking population is losing heart or losing its heart. To illustrate: Some years ago a new law library was opened at a former Afrikaans university. All of the speakers, from the Principal to the Dean were Afrikaans. They spoke English. The only speaker who used Afrikaans was Mr Mbeki, then the President. He hardly qualifies as Afrikaans.
The poet NP van Wyk Louw wrote in 1959: 'Dit wat ons taal sal word, of oor wat van hom sal word, kan ons nie praat nie - behalwe met hartstogtelike verlange' (Van Wyk Louw, 'Laat ons nie roem nie,' in Versamelde Prosa II p 181). (We cannot speak about what our language will become; and we cannot speak about what will become of our language - except with a passionate yearning. My translation.)
In this I have stated problems and have not given any answers, simply because I do not have any unless, on a lighter note, we adopt a script similar to Sinograms (or Han characters) for legal purposes. They can be used by a plurality of languages because they represent words and not any particular language or sound.
LTC Harms
Former Deputy President, Supreme Court of Appeal
Professor: Adams & Adams Chair in Intellectual Property Law, University of Pretoria 29 May 2012

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Saturday, March 1, 2014
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...proud to have popuplunch featured as part of the US Pavilion at the 2012 International venice Architecture Biennale. So exciting!
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Love Locks
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Break me off a piece...
While I contemplate this blog's evolution into an urban design-based news aggregator, take a look at this brilliant Kit Kat "ad" that recently launched in NZ:
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Excitement: Metropolis Coverage
Friday, May 7, 2010
The Key to the City
'Key to the City' Kiosk
You no longer have be someone important to get a key to the city, at least not this summer. The New York artist Paul Ramírez Jonas likes engaging the public in his interventions. Together with Creative Time, a nonprofit organization that presents art around the city, and the office of the mayor, he has come up with "Key to the City."
From June 3 to June 27, a kiosk in Times Square will give out 35,000 free keys that recipients can then bestow on friends and family. The keys will unlock a host of mysterious events including small exhibitions or provide access to little-known, otherwise off-limits spaces in New York. It is a scavenger hunt involving 20 sites in all five boroughs, like a boxing gym in Brooklyn, a community garden in Staten Island and the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in Manhattan.
The keys will unlock steel gates and padlocks, security booths and secret doors, and what will be hidden behind them is yet to be revealed. Each participant will receive a map to the sites.
This isn't the first time Mr. Ramírez Jonas has used keys in his work. Five years ago he distributed 1,000 that opened the gates to a tiny park in Cambridge, Mass. He also mailed 5,000 artist-designed keys to Cambridge households, stamped with phrases like "Copy Me," encouraging people to make duplicates to increase access to the park. And in 2008 as part of the São Paulo Biennale, Mr. Ramírez Jonas arranged for members of the public to receive keys to the front door of the exhibition's pavilion. Each recipient was required to leave behind a copy of one of their own keys.
The New York project was like "creating a portrait of the city," Mr. Ramírez Jonas said in a telephone interview. To pick the sites, he explained, he sat down with a map and made a list of different kinds of experiences that make up a city. "It was like being an urban planner," he added.
Nato Thompson, chief curator of Creative Time, said the custom-made keys themselves were little sculptures. "I don't think people will ever get rid of them," he said.
Creative Time has more info on program + how to volunteer!


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Donald Trump as Litigation Bully
Do you need another reason — besides the tariff talk, the eminent domain trail, the inane birtherism, and, well, the hundred other reasons — to hope the presidential campaign of Donald Trump goes nowhere? Well, here's another reason: he's an aggressive, some might say abusive, user of lawsuits and threats of lawsuits against those who apply unwanted scrutiny to his business operations.
Twenty years ago, analyst Marvin Roffman of the Philadelphia investment firm of Janney Montgomery Scott predicted that Trump's then‐new Taj Mahal casino would have difficulty recouping its huge investment, in part because of its troubled Atlantic City location. As financial predictions go, Roffman's was a very shrewd one, borne out by the later restructuring of the casino's finances, which was costly for bondholders. At the time, however, Trump threatened the Janney firm in no uncertain terms: "I am now planning to institute a major lawsuit against your firm unless Mr. Roffman makes a public apology or is dismissed." No profile in courage, the Janney firm proceeded to fire Mr. Roffman.
More recently, Trump pursued New York Times reporter Tim O'Brien and Warner Books through extensive defamation litigation (eventually dismissed) over O'Brien's 2005 book TrumpNation, which placed a much lower valuation on the net worth of Trump's empire than Trump thought proper or accurate.
There are words that come to mind to describe wealthy people who repeatedly use lawsuits or the threat of lawsuits to shut up or extract apologies from people they think have criticized them, and one of those words is "bully." Why one would seek out that sort of character trait in a candidate for higher office is anything but clear.


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Page One
An Anti-nuclear Half-Life Celebration Rocks an East Bay Night
You know you've accomplished something when a birthday rolls around and Barbara Lee, Dennis Kucinich and Daniel Ellsberg all show up for the party. That was the case on February 10, when the Western States Legal Foundation marked its 30th year as a nuclear watchdog. WSLF's spirited "Half Life" gala drew an energized gathering of activists that filled Oakland's First Congregational Church from the pulpit to the furthest pews.
Festivities began with a catered "Taste of Oakland" feast and concluded with two extraordinary presentations. KALW "Your Call" host Rose Aguilar introduced the evening's four speakers: WSLF Executive Director Jackie Cabasso, Representative Barbara Lee, Congressmember Dennis J. Kucinich and Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg.
Cabasso began by explaining the event's "half-life" the theme. "I'm about to celebrate my 60th birthday," Cabasso admitted with a smile, "and I've spent the last 30 years of my life working on these issues."
It's been an eventful three decades since that day in 1984 when Cabasso was first busted for protesting nuclear weapons at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). In 1995, Jackie became a "founding mother" of the Abolition 2000 Global Network to Eliminate Nuclear Weapons. In 2008, she received the International Peace Bureau's Sean MacBride Peace Award. In addition to working as WSLF's Executive Director, Jackie also serves as the North American Coordinator of Mayors for Peace.
WSLF's exploits and accomplishments are legendary. Formed in 1982 to defend protestors arrested while attempting to block construction of the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant, WSLF soon found itself providing legal support to more than a thousand activists arrested for protesting at the gates of LLNL. WSLF went on to block a food irradiation plant in Dublin, torpedoed plans to base a nuclear-armed battleship (and 16 other warships) in San Francisco Bay, forced state and federal environmental reviews for LLNL, defended Oakland's Nuclear Free Zone from attack by Washington, became one of the first groups to challenge the government's "Stockpile Stewardship" plan to "modernize" the Pentagon's atomic arsenal, and worked to end US, French and Russian nuclear testing. And all of that was in just the first decade.
WSLF has become the preeminent nuclear weapons watchdog and a major grassroots player in national and global campaigns to reduce and eliminate the threat of nuclear weapons. Over the course of the last 20 years, WSLF has published books, written endless reports, helped craft international treaties, addressed the United Nations and worked tirelessly with governments and citizens groups around the world. (A more complete retrospective of WSLF's accomplishments can be found online at: www.wslf.org.)
Representative Barbara Lee followed Cabasso to the microphone where she offered the standard stump fare of political praise and encouragements, drawing cheers and applause from the crowd. But her main duty was to introduce Kucinich, the first of the evening's two Keynote Speakers. As Kucinich began walking down a side aisle to the stage, the audience rose to its feet, mixing loud applause with whoops and shouts.
Kucinich's Address: A Catechism of Poetry, Polemics and Politics
Dennis Kucinich spent 18 years in Washington, DC as one of the most fearlessly outspoken progressive voices in Congress. He has sponsored legislation to provide national health care, to control corporations, to cut military waste, to repeal the USA PATRIOT Act and to radically refocus foreign policy — most significantly, by creating a cabinet-level Department of Peace.
Kucinich began by addressing the diverse throng of graying vets and college-aged activists with a chuckle-provoking salutation: "Welcome," he declared, "to the Reunion of the Graduating Class of Human Liberation." Kucinich extended "best wishes" on behalf of his wife, Elizabeth, who couldn't make the event because of a conflict. "Her film just premiered at the Berlin Film Festival a few hours ago," Kucinich explained. The film is a documentary that takes a critical look at Genetically Modified Organisms. With obvious delight, Kucinich told the crowd the title of the film: "It's GMO-OMG!"
[Note: lacking a tape recorder and working with a borrowed pen, I scribbled furiously in an attempt to keep up with Kucinich's and Ellsberg's comments – in both cases, a stream-of-consciousness flood-tide of thoughts, quotes and observations. While the following quotations may not be verbatim, I hope they fairly capture the essence of the speakers' concerns.]
Kucinich expressed alarm that President Obama's latest National Defense Authorization Act includes $130 billion for new spending on nuclear weapons. He also mentioned (and lamented) the government's announced plan to create a Manhattan Project National Historical Park in New Mexico to commemorate an event that, instead, should be a subject of shame — the once-secret scientific effort to build the world's first atomic bomb.
This prompted Kucinich to ask how many in the pews remembered the Cold War classroom excercise called "duck and cover"? As scores of hands were raised, Kucinich continued: "My nightmare was that the missiles would come during recess!" — when there would be no desks to dive under. But then, Kucinich observed, "duck-and-cover was really nothing more than an exercise in stress reduction."
The Congressman then spun off into a fascinating discussion about the relationship of energy and matter, citing Indian philosophy and drawing attention to "the sanctification of the material world."
"We are the stars and the stars are us," Kucinich argued earnestly. "There is an underlying unity in everything — including humans and the natural world." Kucinich quoted Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Ode to Beauty" and marveled about the "music of the spheres made into a chorus with color and majesty."
Next, he quoted the poet James Russell Lowell's observation that "every clod feels a stir of might." Turning to John Keats, Kucinich concurred with the poet's claim that "beauty is truth" and noted "there is something innate in life that suggests truth" — despite the fact that our Earth is sometimes a place where "ignorant armies clash by night."
Expanding on the theme of universality, Kucinich insisted "There is no 'other.' This is simply a construct designed to alienate us from who we are." The authorship of our Constitution, after all, is ascribed to "We, the people." "The fate of the individual and the group is the same. E pluribus unum means 'out of many, we are one.'"
Kucinich deplored "the schism that's visited on us by dichotomous thinking" and reflected on the historical watershed-moment when humans first "split the atom," thereby bursting a fundamental unity and creating a non-natural element in a natural world that was thereby rendered as "dichotomized" as humankind's intellectual reality.
Kucinich dismissed the debate over the "fiscal cliff" as an artificial argument, pointing out that Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution "says we have the right to create wealth" by issuing government currency. In a move reminiscent of Sixties satirist Mort Sahl, Kucinich reached into a pocket and began waving a copy of the Weekend Edition of the Investors Business Daily — by way of illustrating how fortunes are still being made, even while the defenders of the rich were proclaiming poverty.
"The natural world is being cartelized to create wealth for a few at the expense of the many," Kucinich declared. "We become victims of the way we see the world. This can only lead to anger and hate."
Kucinich next referenced William Butler Yeats' vision of a world "turning and turning in an every-widening gyre" such that "the center cannot hold." The truth is, Kucinich observed, "The center is not holding now."
With uncommon mental dexterity, Kucinich went on to quote UN Chief Dag Hammarskjold, Marshall McLuhan, T. S. Elliott and Alfred North Whitehead. "We must be masters of the world, not to be mastered by it," Kucinich summarized. "We reject this anatomy of human destructiveness. We are conscious procreators of our own existence." Citing physicist Werner Heisenberg, Kucinich reminded the audience that, "our actions affect the world."
Kucinich urged the audience to reject the white noise of political defeatism, the passivity of people who looked at the plague of gun violence only to conclude: "We have no control; there's no way to stop it."
"As if," Kucinich marveled, "we've lost the ability to evolve."
Clearly, Kucinich granted, we are living in "an economy that is devoted to the destruction of nature" — a system that has placed humanity and all living things on "a long, slow slide toward ecocide." And quoting Herbert Wells, Kucinich acknowledged the risk that "We are becoming architects of our own destruction."
What is needed, he argued, is a renaissance of "interconnected thinking" — a new epoch of activism defined by "cohesion, cooperation, coherence. By changing our thinking, we change the outcome."
Kucinich echoed Thomas Berry's call for a "reconciliation with the natural world" and paused to recall a statue that hovers over the entrance of the Capitol Building in Washington, DC — it depicts a woman standing protectively over a small child engrossed in a stack of books. The title of the sculpture is: "The Goddess of Liberty Protecting Genius."
Kucinich concluded his remarks with one last poetic reference, a quote from Alfred Lord Tennyson: "Come, my friends, 'tis not too late to seek a newer world."
Once again, the audience rose to its feet, hands in the air, applauding and shouting enthusiastically as Kucinich left the podium.
I think it is fair to say that, in our lifetimes, we've not seen another politician so versed in the wisdom of poets and philosophers as Dennis J. Kucinich. Rose Aguilar acknowledged as much when she leaned into her microphone and asked coyly: "Are we going to hear some of this poetry on The O'Reilly Factor?"
Kucinich raced back to the microphone with a grin. "Stay tuned!" he said, with an impish wink. (Yes. It sounds unbelievable, but Kucinich, who is retiring from Congress, has been invited to join Fox News as a political analyst.)
Daniel Ellsberg: From Wargamer to Whistleblower to Arch-Activist
Anti-war freedom-of-information-fighter Daniel Ellsberg — the Washington insider who revealed the Pentagon Papers, faced a prison sentence of 130 years, and was reportedly targeted for assassination on the steps of the Capitol by a Nixon "hit-squad" — received another tsunami of applause from the cheering crowd. With a broad grin and a wave to friends in the crowd, Ellsberg rose and rode the wave of appreciation as it carried him all the way to the podium. And he didn't disappoint.
Speaking calmly and softly, Ellsberg brought the huge audience to a state of silent awe as he shared a signal, defining moment from his extraordinary life. It was back in 1961, when he served the Kennedy Administration as a member of the government's nuclear war-planning team. Ellsberg had become concerned with the implications of the Pentagon's prevailing war strategy. It anticipated a US pre-emptive strike against Russian forces using nuclear weapons. Ellsberg had a question that no one else had thought to ask: "How many would die?"
When the answer came back, it was contained on a paper stamped "Top Secret. Classified. For the President's Eyes Only." But because Ellsberg had asked the question, President Kennedy handed him the paper. Standing in the Oval Office, Ellsberg read the paper he held in his hand.
"It concluded that 600 million would be killed."
Compare this to the 60 million deaths in WW II, Ellsberg suggested. It would be the equivalent of ten WW II's — in the course of a single day.
But this figure only dealt with the effect of the initial blasts, Ellsberg noted. The Pentagon had failed to factor in the inevitable firestorms that would magnify the devastation. The revised likely outcome was the near-immediate extinction of 1.2 million human lives, "almost entirely civilians; mostly allies and neutrals."
Ellsberg recalled Dr. Edward Teller (aka "The Father of the H-Bomb") referring to the consequences of a full-out nuclear war. So what, Teller shrugged, it would kill "only one-quarter of the world's population."
"I heard him say it," Ellsberg told the stunned and silent audience.
While "Europe would be gone," he said, "it was assumed that the US would largely be sparred." But this raises certain elemental moral questions. "What if this had been discussed by Nazi Germany?" Ellsberg wondered. Would not the US — and the rest of the world — have recoiled in horror and risen up in indignation?
But the full consequences of the Pentagon's nuclear strategy were even worse. In 1982, scientists revisiting America's war planning considered, for the first time, the effect of the smoke clouds thrown into the irradiated skies from continental firestorms. They warned of a "nuclear winter," where global temperatures would plummet, threatening lives and the world's food harvests.
In response to the understandable public alarm, the government relied on a propaganda strategy known as "Merchants of Doubt." It was the same strategy the tobacco industry used successfully for years to dismiss concerns over cancer; it is the same ploy used today to discredit scientific findings that suggest a human-caused connection to global warming.
More recently, Ellsberg continued, a new crop of scientists — armed with the latest computer modeling technology — have revisited the question and confirmed the earlier warnings. In fact, the latest projections conclude the consequences of nuclear war would be even worse than previously believed. Where earlier estimates feared a nuclear winter that would last a year, the best estimates now foresee the onset of a series of a nuclear winters that would linger for a decade or more. Imagine: no harvests on the majority of the planet for ten years. Imagine the collapse of human society.
Ellsberg expressed alarm over the fact that Pakistan and India (each armed with about 50 Hiroshima-scale nuclear weapons) have the potential to create a nuclear winter that could diminish the amount of sunshine reaching the Earth's surface by 7% — for years. The resulting loss of harvests could mean the starvation deaths of 1 billion of the Earth's 7 billion human residents. "And it would be the poor — the most marginally challenged — who would be the first to go."
"By 1961, the US had built a Doomsday Bomb that would have extinguished most life on Earth," Ellsberg noted. And the Russians had done the same. Those warplans from the Sixties "still remain unchallenged and unchanged." Are we insane? "There should not exist a Doomsday Machine in the world!" Ellsberg said. "Let alone two."
Ellsberg addressed rumors surrounding President Obama's revised Nuclear Posture Review. It could turn out that the US will commit to cutting its nuclear arsenal by as much as one-third by 2017. But while that may sound like progress, Ellsberg cautioned, it would merely mean cutting the number of nuclear missiles from 1,550 to 1,000. And all of these missiles are still operational and sitting on "hair-trigger" alert. (The Pentagon has another 5,000 nuclear weapons in storage, all of which could be easily "operationalized.")
Ellsberg called the "reduction" to 1,000 nuclear missiles "totally meaningless. We will all be gone!"
Ellsberg recalled a meeting with Herb York, the first director of the Lawrence Livermore National Labs. The meeting involved a discussion of arms reduction options. Asked for an estimate of the smallest number of nuclear weapons the US would consider deploying (Less than 100? Fewer than 10?), York referenced a comment by McGeorge Bundy (National Security Advisor to presidents Kennedy and Johnson). Bundy replied pragmatically that, for effective deterrence, "only one nuclear bomb is needed."
Need proof of this argument? Ellsberg simply pointed to recent history. Saddam Hussein didn't have the bomb and Iraq was invaded; North Korea, by contrast, hasn't been touched.
"It's a miracle that we are still here today," Ellsberg mused. Given the risks and the odds of having two Doomsday Machines at the height of the Cold War primed with 30,000 nuclear bombs on hair-trigger alert, Ellsberg is amazed that the planet has managed to escape (either by design or accident) the total annihilation that would result from a nuclear war. "It shows that miracles are possible."
Still, Ellsberg is still not optimistic. The odds, he emphasizes, still suggest that (human behavior being what it is) "we will still destroy ourselves and our planet."
Ellsberg marveled darkly at how the creation of "The Bomb" has been celebrated as an example of the "brilliance" of the human enterprise — a remarkable achievement of intellect and technology. As Ellsberg sees it (from the perspective of a former insider), even had we not built the Bomb, if we have only imagined it, the thought alone "would shame us as a civilization."
"The Doomsday Machines are still here," Ellsberg warned. "We are traveling on the Titanic — traveling very fast, in the dark, surrounded by icebergs." But there is an important lesson in the sinking of the Titanic, he added: one that's seldom mentioned.
"There were other ships sailing in those waters that day," Ellsberg said. But all the other ships survived. Why? Because they stopped sailing east when night fell and turned south. The Titanic continued to plow towards its destruction only because the captain was under orders by the ship's owners who were intent on setting a transatlantic speed record on the ship's historic maiden voyage. They wanted the Titanic to go down in history. (They got their wish.)
"We need Congress to hold hearings on these weapons!" Ellsberg insisted. "It's never been done! We need a Nuclear glasnost." (Glasnost, is the Russian word that describes Mikhail Gorbachev's radical introduction of government transparency in the second half of the 1980s.)
The twentieth standing ovation of the night greeted Ellsberg's concluding comments and brought the event to a close as well-wishers, friends and fellow activists swarmed the stage to exchange handshakes, hugs, insights, strategies, phone numbers, emails, leaflets and handbills.
The energy was high as people filed into the night waving to departing friends and shouting encouragements. Thanks to WSLF and the evening's keynote speakers, we'd all been reminded of the demons we face. And we left primed to confront the Nuclear Dragon with renewed vigor.
For more information: WSLF, 655 13th St., Suite 201, Oakland, CA 94612, (510) 839-5877. www.wslf.org, www.disarmamentactivist.org


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Travel mice: mostly a bit rubbish. If they're not RSI-inducingly small, they track poorly, or have pants battery life. Consider this fellow the very saviour of the sector, then.
Some really intelligent design has gone into the Ci75M; the wireless dongle packs away flush into the underside, turning the unit off at the same time.
And if it the two AAA batteries run out (Duracell included!), you can pop the top off, unspool the hidden mini-USB cable, plug it into the back of the wireless receiver, and use it wired. It's sleek and low, but comfortable due to its large surface area.
In short, it's pretty much perfect all round, and even looks swanky. Hats off.


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Find out the Essential Oils I use for Homeschooling Bad attitudes, frustration, no focus or concentration in your homeschool? I'm excited to share my love for essential oils for homeschooling. Essential oils have come on the scene in a big way over the last few years. We use essential oils for homeschooling and so many other things as well. I… View Post
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Like my new profile avatar?
I brought 5 spare ponchos and gave 4 away, saved one for my camera.
Our group (Forsyth Area Critical Thinkers) had a lot of stuff to share, we had water and about 100 bags of chips to pass around. I'll either blog about my experience or maybe post a thread in the main forum, it was an honor and privilege to attend the rally with the group I went with.
We were a diverse bunch (14, 15 including one of the event VIPs), several ex-military atheists (one of the women, Bronze Star recipient Steven Hewett and 3 others), close to parity gender-wise, from late teens to mid 60s in age, one of us was African American, another was gay, and I was the token foreigner.
<- This is the group I drove down with. All seven of us in a 15 seat van, I was actually able to grab a short nap on the way back
We're Here!
We're Godless!
Get Used To It!
Best chant of the day...
My Blog post is up, lots of pics of the crowd (the other VIPs)
I've added 14 (I think…) videos in two updates so go back often, I'll probably make one more update tomorrow, then …let it go.
Views: 276
This is because we aren't waiting for Jebus to call us up to heaven leaving behind our trash in "this old world". We understand we have to take care of this place. This isn't a rehearsal, but the main event.
Everyone in our group of 14 brought bags, …we filled them all before we left. There was a group in front of us, I won't mention from where…... (*COUGH*Pennsylvania*COUGH*) who were actually a minor pain in the ass all day, they left a mess and left before BR hit the stage… We cleaned it up, no big whoop.
Reason Rally Blog - Update III
Please have a (another) look, this will probably be the last update, barring any new appropriate video content becoming available.
© 2020 Atheist Nexus. All rights reserved. Admin: The Nexus Group. Powered by


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Date(s) - 02/20/2020
6:00 pm - 9:00 pm
Morada Way Art & Culture District
Held on the 3rd Thursday of every month throughout the year, the Morada Way Art Walks offer attendees live music on three stages, performance artists and, of course, world-class original art and hand-crafted jewelry, as well as sculptures and more!
This monthly event has become a focal point of artistic expression and cultural awareness to the Upper Florida Keys.
As the Art District's business partners remain open during these Third Thursday Art Walk evenings, this indoor/outdoor street festival has become the talk of the Keys, drawing multitudes of people from all over South Florida and beyond each month. The crowds stroll through the Art District, which spans a quarter of a mile of the Old Highway between the historical 1935 Hurricane Monument and the iconic Green Turtle Inn and includes the intersecting street now known as Morada Way!
The artists and the gallery owners thrive with the involvement of the Morada Way Arts & Cultural District. And those who do not have studio or gallery space in the Art District use the Morada Way Art Walks to exhibit their works and gain exposure to the public and to their loyal collectors.


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50 Creative and Cool Ways To Reuse Old Denim.
Camera Bag: Make a cool camera bag; here is a set of directions for a denim camera bag.
Denim Mask: This one really impressed us. Make one for yourself, here are the instructions - link.
Denim Short-Shorts: Here are the set of instructions to make one - link.
Denim Slippers: Here are the set of instructions to make one - link. Here is another cool one with complete set of instructions - link.
3-Pocket Gadget Protector: Make a cool gadget protector with three separate pockets to protect delicate expensive gadgets, from your keys, pens and other stuff in your backpack or purse.
Coffee Cozies: You can add in your style to these. There are few other posts with their own cool design; the first one is quite similar to the above while the second one has a button closure.
Denim Pocket Purse: This cool denim pocket purse is made from the hip pocket of a pair of jeans.
Denim Oven Mitt: Turn your old jeans into an oven mitt.
Coasters: Make these cool coasters by rolling them and gluing with fabric paint.
Purse: Turn old jeans into a cool new purse - link 1 and 2.
Drawstring Bag: Make a cool drawstring bag, here are the detail instructions - link.
Bag: Here are the set of instruction to make one - link. Here you have a 'Denim Tote Bag' - link, 'Clothes Pin Bag' - link, 'Sit-Upon' - link, 'Shoulder Tote Bag and Water Bottle Holder' - link, 'Overalls Bag' - link, and 'Lunch Bag' - link.
Denim Eyelet Tote Bag: Cool to look and simple to make - link.
Potholder: Here is a step-by-step picture tutorial on how to make a denim potholder - link. And here is another one - link.
Shorts: Simple to make and really cool to look.
Planter Covers: Cool way to decorate your planters; here are more - link.
Skirt: How about turning your favorite old pair of jeans into a skirt? Here are some cool ideas - link: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8.
Floor Mats and Area Rugs: Here are really cool ideas to make floor mats and area rugs - link: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.
Journal Cover: This denim portfolio journal cover has two inside pockets and two loops for pen or pencil.
Quilt Style Jacket: Another cool reuse for jeans, just turn them into quilt-style jacket.
Gift Box: Make a personalized gift box, with name on it. Cool!
Jean Table: How about using it for a fun-decorating project for a child's room. Here are the set of directions - link.
Kneepad: Make this smart cushion. Make your own kneepads with used denim.
Beverage cozy:
Cool Quilt: This one offers you lots of options and the outcome totally depends on your coolest idea. Here is a cool collection of denim quilts with detailed comments by the individual quilters - link. Here are some more cool ideas: link 1 and 2.
Denimapron: This one comes from the episode of Decor it Yourself, where Meg shows us how to make one out of an old pair of jeans!
Denim Toilet Seat and Tank Covers: Here are detail set of instruction to make denim toilet seat and tank cover set.
Denim Organizer:
Toddler's Denim Jacket: A cool baby or toddler jacket made from old pair of jeans.
Tree Decorations:
Denim Baby Bib: Here is a picture tutorial showing how to make baby bibs - link.
Memory Box: Cover a box with denim fabric to make a perfect place to store photographs, cards, and other stuff.
Denim Cushion:
Denim Shopping Bag: This can come in handy; detailed set of instructions to make one - link.
Mobile Phone Pocket: A cool way to protect your mobile phone in your purse. Here are instructions to make one - link.
Waistcoat: Turn an old pair of jeans into an up-to-date waistcoat - link.
Don't miss to check out "Creative and Cool Ways To Reuse Old Denim - Part: 1| 2."
More Interesting Posts:
20 Creative and Cool Fork Designs.
A Beautiful Compact House for your Backyard.
16 Creative and Cool Slipper and Sandal Designs.
Hyperrealist Sculptures - Are These Really Sculptures?
20 Creative and Cool Notepad and Sketch Pad Designs.
Aquariums That Are Definitely Worth A Second Glance - Part: 4.


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I attended the annual Health+Fitness Business show last month in Denver, arguably the most important show for vendors and manufacturers of home-based exercise equipment geared to specialty fitness and sporting goods retailers. I was able to spend some time chatting with one of the most influential buyers in the industry, Matthew Losciale, director of merchandising and purchasing for FHI Inc. Our conversations were very helpful, especially one that stuck with me for several days.
No one really needs an iPhone, Losciale told me, and yet Apple had an enormous back log of demand and lines at Apple stores across the country well before its initial July launch date. Nearly everyone truly needs fitness tools in our country, he continued, and yet there has never been the kind of "buzz" for any fitness product the likes of which Apple created this summer. Losciale wondered why, considering the need for improved fitness among millions of Americans.
Before you start firing off letters to the editor, I am aware that an analogy between fitness equipment and Apple consumer products is, at best, a stretch. Business has seldom seen the genius and elegance of Steven Jobs and Apple's products. Our industry is not as large or ubiquitous as consumer electronics, and it's doubtful that consumers will ever be as excited about sweating as they are about watching something on YouTube on their iPhone. We must, however, accelerate the pace with which motivation — which includes entertainment — interacts with quality exercise programming.
I was very encouraged as I walked the show floor to see that several manufacturers are making significant progress in finding the balance between exercise and multimedia. Many vendors bear watching in the coming months. These vendors understand not only what exercisers need but also what will change their behavior over the long term.
These insights include the ability to record and track workouts, and the ability to compete against previous workouts or other exercisers. In many cases, manufacturers are partnering with companies who execute consumer technology in more highly developed categories. Some key factors that will soon make a difference include:
Total integration with consumers' media, from cell phones to MP3 players.
Partnerships with gaming companies to make exercise fun for the younger generations.
Finally finding a balance between too little and too much information to keep individuals educated, stimulated and on track.
Integration between entertainment and meaningful information that can be shared with personal trainers, doctors and others who influence behavior. USB keys and other removable memory that is transferable across different platforms are good examples.
Portability. Fitness must be available where consumers want it. Customers don't just exercise in clubs. They work out in hotels, homes, outside, even at their workplace.
Space-efficient technology. Because space is at a premium at clubs, technology must be truly integrated, not a separate video screen or a bulky kiosk that costs more and requires more space.
Personalization. It's no longer acceptable for several exercisers to share wall-mounted TVs with a choice of two programs. They expect personal entertainment in each machine. They also expect plasma and HDTV technologies.
The gap is closing between technology and the challenge of creating interesting, meaningful workouts for increasingly discerning consumers who have so many media choices. Regarding the health of our customers, this is very good news indeed.
Gregory Florez is CEO of FitAdvisor Health Coaching Services and First Fitness Inc., which was rated as the No. 1 health coaching online training service by The Wall Street Journal. Florez can be contacted at [email protected].


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Designers without borders
Photographer : Philippe Lacombe
Travel and discovery are the essence of Louis Vuitton. The trunk is its purest expression, lending itself to multiple interpretations. The "Objets Nomades" are among these ramifications, expressions of creative freedom generated by the encounter between a historic House and leading contemporary talents.
Today, this exceptional collection comprises some 25 objects, envisioned by an elite group of international designers. These include Fernando and Humberto Campana of Brazil and Patricia Urquiola of Spain, who created two swing chairs. The first, named "Cocoon", is made of the same material as surfboards, then sheathed in leather, while the second, rather more feminine, has a macramé-like weave. The Japanese designer Tokujin Yoshioka created "Blossom Stool", whose four overlapping petals suggest a Louis Vuitton Monogram flower.
The latest nomadic object is an astonishing low table in leather marquetry by India Mahdavi, the French architect and interior designer of Irano-Egyptian heritage. Meanwhile, the designer Marcel Wanders offered two pieces – a screen and a lounge chair – in homage to the savoir-faire of Louis Vuitton. Varied, surprising, delicate, refined, flawlessly finished and originally conceived, all these items – each one a jewel of craftsmanship – are the result of a close collaboration between Maison Louis Vuitton and designers of vastly differing styles.
Each limited-edition object or piece of furniture is born of an encounter, a dialogue, an intuition, a shared passion. Together, they comprise a singular collection whose leitmotif is the elegant and elaborate treatment of material taken to its limits. Trust, respect, humility and mutual understanding are the basis for this collective adventure, which began in 2012 and takes shape in a research laboratory with the look of an integrated start-up.
The result is an array of iconic objects adapted to 21st century travel – objects that are not only about function, but also about fiction, since all tell a story of daring and sharing. The true traveler is always a pioneer.


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What's more exciting than building new products? There's only one thing… and that's hearing customers talk about how they love using it daily! This week, at DocuSign MOMENTUM 2014, our customers, including American Express, Nationwide, Salesforce, Comcast, T-Mobile, and many others, will be sharing their stories of how DocuSign is enabling 100% digital transactions within their mission critical processes. Over 95,000 companies have joined DocuSign on this digital transformation journey, driving 40,000 new unique users daily. To accelerate that journey, we are making DocuSign even more intuitive to use, improving on our best-in-SaaS platform availability, embedding DocuSign within the world's most popular productivity software, and much more. I am thrilled to announce the DocuSign Spring '14 Release, where inspired design meets continuously available performance.
The New DocuSign Experience
For the past 6 months, more than 10,000 beta users have switched to the New DocuSign Experience for sending and managing transactions. We looked at the most common user interactions, painstakingly examined every last pixel, and relentlessly collaborated with beta testers, all with the simple goal of making the experience even easier, faster and more intuitive. And the reaction has been amazing! I want to personally thank all of the customers and DocuSign teams that came together to create the next generation of the DocuSign user interface.
The New DocuSign Experience is now available to all customers. To help make the switch seamless, customers have the ability to decide when they want to transition to the new experience. Primary sending, signing and management capabilities are available now and we're adding advanced features regularly. Full details about the New DocuSign Experience are available here.
From Best-In-SaaS to Carrier Grade Architecture
You may recall that during the 2013 Super Bowl, a power outage suspended play for 34 minutes, forever dubbing that game as the "Blackout Bowl". When is your Super Bowl? Knowing that customers rely on DocuSign for mission-critical business processes, we redesigned our already Best-In-SaaS system architecture from the ground-up to be continuously available. Our carrier grade architecture ensures that DocuSign is always on – including when you rely on us most, like at the end of the quarter. Carrier grade architecture eliminates downtime for maintenance and provides resilient system performance, even during peak traffic and disaster scenarios.
DocuSign Security Appliance
In meetings, focus groups, and surveys, customers have been asking for more control over their own encryption key security and auditing. These customers include some of the world's largest financial institutions. The DocuSign Security Appliance delivers on this ask by enabling organizations to manage document encryption keys in their own data centers in accordance with their own security policies while allowing them to take full advantage of all the benefits of DocuSign's cloud-based Digital Transaction Management platform. This new solution offers greater flexibility for DocuSign customers to enhance the security and compliance of their digital processes.
DocuSign Apps for Microsoft
What do you get when the global leader in Digital Transaction Management joins forces with the global leader in productivity software? Last month, we announced a strategic partnership with Microsoft to make our industry-leading Digital Transaction Management apps available from within Outlook, Word, and Sharepoint. Now, with our new suite of DocuSign for Microsoft Apps, you can use DocuSign directly from Office 365 products to legally and securely send, sign, track and store important documents. DocuSign lets you manage email attachments more efficiently in Outlook, edit and get electronic signatures with a single click from Word, and automate existing business processes and transactions with cloud storage in SharePoint Online. The new DocuSign Apps for Microsoft makes it even easier for Microsoft's billions of users to securely transact business anytime, anywhere, on any device. Learn more about our DocuSign apps for Microsoft here.
DocuSign MOMENTUM is an exciting time of the year for DocuSign and our customers. It is a gathering of the world's leaders in digital transformation and the energy is incredible. Most importantly, it's great to see how are companies are leveraging DocuSign's product innovations and expertise to fulfill the digital transformation of their enterprises.