For those of you unable to attend, Dwight's service on Sunday was extraordinary. The church was beautiful, with one entire wall consisting of a massive window looking out onto the slopes of nearby Camelback Mountain. The room was flooded with sunlight, creating a cheerful, open atmosphere that was perfectly in tune with Dwight's personality. Marty Manning, Danny Zelisko, and many others paid tribute to Dwight's generosity, sense of humor, and zest for life. There were some amazing musical performances: Mark Myers and Ken Skaggs sang "Ripple" (Mark joked that it was probably more appropriate for a church setting than Dwight's other favorite Grateful Dead song, "Friend of the Devil"); Mariah Fleming's heartfelt "Amazing Grace;" two beautiful renditions of "Let It Be" (as a harp instrumental and a vocal solo); and old-fashioned hymns (solo and chorale) by Dwight's fellow church members. Ken Beals provided a wonderful video tribute with filmed interviews and audio clips, and Dwight's mother, Nancy O'Reilly, was presented with a plaque inducting Dwight into the Arizona Musicians & Entertainers Hall of Fame. Afterwards, there was food and conversation and music in the social hall next to the church, and after that a bunch of us gathered at the Alwun House till late in the evening. At 11:00 KDKB turned over the airwaves to Danny Zelisko, who remembered Dwight in his own words, took calls from Marty and Wonderful Russ and Johnny D, and played some of Dwight's favorite music: Dylan, Zappa, Little Feat, the Dead, the Move, Procol Harum, Tom Rush, and on and on and on. Ken Beals filmed the whole service, and I recorded Danny's radio tribute off the air, so maybe we can find ways to get this out to the folks who couldn't be here on this remarkable day.
I imagine that the blog won't show many postings for a few days; Mariah and all the others who worked so hard on the ceremony need some time to rest and recuperate. Let's remember Dwight at Thanksgiving, and get the blog rolling again next week.
Tom
8 comments:
Tom:
I'd like to get a MP3 of Danny's show, to include it on here. Have you got it in that form, and do you have a way to make it available (since I would imagine it'd be too big to e-mail)?
GARCIAS, TOM
This whole event has been stressful but beautifully handled by all concerned. I have at least one remarkable story that I am waiting on "permission to post" before I share it here and I suspect that when everyon reads it, there will be more memories jogged with a buncha love, to boot.
Can't wait. The Dream of an online museum/audio/video/picture archive seems to be "Jelln'" here.
It becomes more important it seems, as a point of refference for 1960's & 70's Sociologu 101 classes AS WELL AS an artistic study for Journalism and Broadcast students. Heck it even (perhaps especially), spills over into Political & Government Studies.
Maybe we should ask for a grant? Ha.
Ronco
Thank you for writing that beautiful description of the services, Tom. And for recording Danny's show. I'd like a copy of Danny's show too.
Didn't get home till 3 am after hanging out with the Amoeba (o:, Julia Flanagan, Slagge and a bunch of people. Ray and I had such a GREAT time but today I am a zombie.
Ron, I will send you a copy of the life sketch, it has a beautiful quote from you at the end. Your name was mentioned in many a conversation yesterday!
Forgot to say that there will be some pictures posted but it's gonna be next week I'm sure. Ray took some as did a woman from the church who promised to send them to me.
Thanks so much for the synopsis. I'm also looking foward to the posting of Danny's broadcast.
www.yousendit.com is a site you can use to transfer large files. Their size limit for free accounts is 100 MB, but I just got an invitation to upgrade to the Business Plus account for free, which allows transfer of files up to 2 GB - so if your file is over 100 MB but under 2 GB you too can probably get in on a promotional offer for a Business Plus account. Not sure about this, but if it's under 1000 MB this should be a good way to send the file to others.
:~)
Note about the above referenced yousendit.com site: I just upgraded to the free Business Plus account and the confirmation email I received tells me it's good for only two weeks, so it wasn't a permanent upgrade, just a "trial period." At any rate, if the file's under 100 MB you can still send it with the free account.
:~)aniel
I'd be proud to host the a/v content from my server...I have plenty of room. If you guys wanna send me the files I could have them up quickly.
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