Beyond Words

I recently toured the Buffalo AKG Art Museum and among all the Monets and Warhols hanging in its beautiful halls, one of my favorite paintings was the above William Harnett painting. The oil on canvas is entitled “Music and Literature” and was painted in 1878. Crazy, right? Sooooo long ago! I was drawn to the piece because it depicts two of my favorite things: music and books. I’ve been thinking about music a lot lately and figured it’s worth a visit here.

Unless you’ve been under a rock lately, you’ve probably heard all about Taylor Swift and Jason Aldean. Swift is setting every live concert record on her current and extremely popular Eras tour, which is the highest grossing tour of all time and the first to shatter $1 billion in ticket sales. In North America alone, Swifites are helping Swift gross $2.2 billion in ticket sales alone. It’s estimated that each of her shows collects $10,000,000 in ticket sales, resulting in a $4 million profit. Merchandise sold at each tour stop averages $2.5 million and Swift’s total profit per show per night is said to be $5.7 million. It’s no secret that, even back when albums were selling, artists make most of their money on tours but this one is off the charts. Excuse the pun.

Aldean is also making headlines thanks to his “Try That in a Small Town” song and video. Truth be told I am a long-time and huge Aldean fan and when I first heard his new song that laments what’s going on in cities across this country, I loved it. I think it’s raw, honest, and somewhat needed. Critics, as you may know, have slammed it but their objections have only helped the song climb to #1 and become a certified hit and anthem. Same with Oliver Anthony’s “Rich Men North of Richmond” song out of nowhere that is currently topping the charts.

So, what is it about music that gets to our hearts and gets to our souls? Why is it I we can remember every word to “American Pie” but can’t remember what we had for dinner last night? I, for one, am never really without it and can’t imagine a music-free flight or road trip. Music hits so heavy in my life that on a recent trip to London with our daughter, my highlights included watching and singing along to “Mama Mia” in the West End and seeing Bruce Springsteen live in Hyde Park. Yes, I loved all the royal things and had to pinch myself several times, but when it came down to it, singing “Dancing Queen” in a historic theatre with our daughter and “Born to Run” with a bunch of crazy Brits was beyond amazing and incredibly memorable.

And speaking of Bruce, my ever-loyal husband has seen the Boss 40+ times (and yes, he’s beyond jealous about the London show) and actually proposed to me with Bruce’s “Wanna Marry You” song. We walked down the aisle at the end of our wedding to Elvis’ “I Can’t Help Falling in Love with You” because Bruce sang it during the “Born in the USA” tour and my hubby liked it. To this day, it’s our song. Suffice it to say Bruce Springsteen’s music is important to us.

Something else my hubby and I love doing is making playlists. Him especially. He has a mountain playlist, a beach playlist, a desert playlist, and a host of Bruce playlists. My range of music varies widely and my playlists include everything from country to chill, rock to pop, Christian to spa, dance to instrumental. A listen to my main playlist will take you from Van Morrison to Sound of Music to Kool & the Gang to Willie Nelson to U2 to Bach to Toby Keith to Jimmy Buffet to Abba. It’s quite the journey and quite the fun!

Fun can also describe live music, which is something my husband and I both have a passion for. I was privileged to work for the main arena in town doing publicity and promotions and got to meet many a star. To this day it was the most fun job I’ve ever had. Austin is deemed “The Live Music Capital of the World” and when we moved to town 37 years ago, we frequented many a live venue. Sadly, Austin’s growth has become unmanageable so attending a show is now more hassle then fun. It also doesn’t help that we’re getting up in age but we like to remind ourselves and others that we saw live music in Austin during its glory days.

I can honestly close my eyes and hear certain songs and they will forever remind me of something. “We Are Young” takes me back to Moms Weekends with our daughter when she was in college and Miley Cyrus’ “Party in the USA” takes me back to driving around with a dear friend. From way back, I can hear “Urgent” by Foreigner or “Every Little Thing She Does is Magic” by the Police and be transported to a frat party during my college days and a fellow coed’s boyfriend’s truck, respectively. “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” by the Rolling Stones will always remind me of that great funeral scene in “The Big Chill,” Darden Smith’s “Little Victories” reminds me of being in labor and us driving to the hospital to welcome our daughter into the world, “You Were Meant for Me” by Jewel ushers me back to helping a dear friend pack things up during a divorce, Lyle Lovett’s “Nobody Knows” was beautifully included in a scene out of “Beverly Hills 90210” as was Abba’s “Dancing Queen” in “Firefly Lane, and I’ll never forget Tom Petty’s haunting rendition of “I Won’t Back Down” during a 9/11 TV special. Random, right? These don’t even include expected ones and the list could go on forever.

Music is powerful. Music is moving. And music helps you move. I can’t even imagine a treadmill workout without it and the same goes for running errands. Sadly and regrettably, I am not musically inclined at all. I did take guitar lessons when I was young and I love to sing and was in choir, but knowing notes and reading music are not skills I have. I might be able to write a good song if I had to and would love to be able to play the piano. It’s never too late, right? My dream? Playing a piano in the privacy of my own home surrounded by a library and shelves full of books. I’ve always said if I could be anything or anyone in life, I’d pick either a professional tennis player or a singer a la Stevie Nicks or Shania Twain. “I Feel Like a Woman” by Shania is forever my go-to karaoke song. Let’s go girls!

Perhaps no one said it better than the great Dick Clark. What about you? Do you have songs that take you back to certain people or places? Are you a music lover and listen to it whenever and wherever? What music is the soundtrack of your life? Let’s end here on a high note and share your songs of life.

During lunch recently with dear friends, one of them mentioned that her granddaughter got some emoji stickers and chuckled at the “poop” one. It made us all laugh thinking about it and got me thinking about things I’ve read about emoji. Truth be told, I love them and use them often; mostly in texts. Apparently, so do millions of others but do you know who created the cherished little cartoons, what research says about them, and that they created a growing job market?

First up, the research.

The U.S. Emoji Trend Report was conducted by Adobe as part of its Future of Creativity study and it showed the vital role emoji play in our lives. In fact, the report found that 91 percent of U.S. emoji users agree they make it easier to express themselves and 71 percent say they can help spark positive conversations about cultural and social issues. They also help people overcome language barriers and form connections that would otherwise be difficult to do, empower self-expression, make conversations fun, impart personality into a conversation, and positively impact mental health. In fact, 73 percent of emoji users think people who use them are friendlier, funnier, and cooler than those who don’t. Pretty heady stuff for simple characters, right?

A couple of other interesting findings:

The top 5 emoji in the U.S.? Smile with tears, thumbs up, red heart, winking with heart kiss, and tear.

Sixty percent of U.S. emoji users agree that using them in their communications has improved their mental health. Insert “thumbs up” emoji here.

Emoji use at work improves efficiency, boosts creativity, and builds stronger relationships with 71 percent saying using emoji at work positively impacts likability and credibility and 63 percent saying they make team building more efficient. (The most effective emoji at motivating users at work are reportedly thumbs up and muscle arm.)

75 percent say its ok to only send an emoji as a quick response instead of words.

There are more positive emoji than negative ones.

Making an emoji a personal reflection of your race and appearance is as diverse as emoji users themselves. I personally use the brunette but other than that, all of mine are that yellowish-gold. To each his own, right?

Emoji are so part of our lives that there is an actual World Emoji Day every July 17. Who knew?

Yes, it’s true, inserting and using cartoon pictures of objects we love and feelings we feel can serve as words we can’t vocalize or write, but it’s important to note that certain symbols mean different things in different places so emoji etiquette is important.

Some emoji are used in different ways with different people. Case in point, what many call “praying hands” some consider “high five.” Certain emoji also hold different meaning in different cultures. The “thumbs up” emoji is popular in the west but in some Middle Eastern cultures it is an offensive gesture. The same can be said about the “A-OK” hand gesture, which is distasteful in Latin America. And in Japan, the words for “poo” and “luck” sound similar, so it’s not uncommon to send a friend a “poo” emoji before an exam or job interview. Emoji don’t always mean what you might think they do, can differ in appearance from platform to platform, and are always changing. Remember when Apple ditched the handgun and replaced it with a water gun? Then there are the ones that are used in ways not originally intended such as the eggplant and the peach, but we won’t go there.

So how did all this come to be and where did the name come from? It all goes back to 1999 when then 25-year-old Shigetaka Kurita of Japan designed the first emoji as a way to ease communication on a mobile internet system developed by Japanese telecom giant NTT DoCoMo. The system offered emails but was restricted to 250 characters so emoji offered a way to say more in a limited space. And the name? The word emoji comes from the Japanese e (picture or image) and moji (character.) Many consider them one of Japan’s most transformative modern designs but they still remained largely confined to Japan for more than a decade.

It wasn’t until 2010 that emoji were incorporated into Unicode, the standard that governs the software coding of text, when 722 emoji were released on both iPhone and Android. A year later Apple added an official emoji keyboard to iOS and Android followed suit two years later. At last count there are now more than 3,600 emoji with a new batch reportedly being unveiled next month.

Angela Guzman knows a little about this, as she was an Apple intern who, with a mentor, designed the company’s original emoji set including face with tears of joy, red heart, party popper, and pile of poo. (What many don’t know is that pile of poo, the same one my friend’s granddaughter giggled at, is also the ice cream on the ice cream cone.) Her first design was the engagement ring and she says one of the hardest to design was the dancer with the red dress. She and her mentor are today proud owners of a U.S. patent for the close to 500 characters they created.

Guzman is as surprised as anyone on how her and others’ creations have revolutionized communication and that emoji would eventually appear on everything from toys to stickers, apparel to candy, and the subject or characters of movies, books, and music videos. And get this, in 2016 the original emoji set was added to the collection at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. Emoji is an official work of art!

Two other interesting things I learned while researching all of this: emoji is not capitalized and there is no plural for emoji.

And just in case you’re wondering, my favorite emoji? In no particular order: praying hands, laughing faces, girl with hand up, girl with hand on face, girl with both arms up, face with heart eyes, sunglasses face, thumbs up, and eyes wide open face. How about you? Which ones are your faves?

So, you think you have the skills and desire to design more little characters for society? There may be a job for you! Yep, Emoji Designer and Emoji Translation are growing job opportunities. Keith Broni from Ireland is said to be the first person in the world with the job title Emoji Translator; a position that many companies have created to help them navigate through the growing emoji minefield. Broni beat out 500 other applicants for the job and has since worked with PR firms, marketing departments, and multinational companies.

Other emoji spin-offs include an emoji spelling bee (how fun would that be?!), emoji convention Emojicon, Emojipedia, and emoji summer camps for kids with the requisite Emoji Art Instructor position leading the way. So prevalent are emoji that one UK linguist once said emoji was the country’s fastest-growing language. But, Rob Drummond, a senior lecturer in linguistics at Manchester Metropolitan University, says no way no how. He reports that a test for a language is that you have to be able to translate a full sentence from one to another with shared meanings and since emoji meaning vary from person to person, this is not the case. Still, the tears of joy emoji, considered the most commonly used one on the planet, was the Oxford English Dictionary’s word of the year back in 2015.

So, the next time you insert a smiley face, praying hands, or champagne toast in a message, think about that little character’s backstory and you’ll forever want to give all the creative minds behind them a big thumbs up.

I recently saw the movie “Oppenheimer,” a movie and history I was so excited to see. Growing up in Santa Fe meant I knew about the man who invented “the bomb,” Trinity Site, and of course Los Alamos. The town was right up the mountain from Santa Fe and we used to tease that seeing its lights at night meant it was “glowing.” Los Alamos had a mystery about it and not until I was older did it open up so-to-speak. The Lab is still there and I will say, the town is definitely worth a visit.

I think we all pretty much know how the Oppenheimer story ends, and thankfully that kind of “ending” hasn’t happened since. War is brutal and WWII was especially so. The U.S. kinda watched from afar but on December 7, 1941 we watched “the day of infamy” unfold. News of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor set in motion our entry into WWII. The country rallied behind our troops and our efforts.

A book I’ve had for many years

Growing up in Santa Fe also meant I’d heard about another WWII legend, the Code Talkers. Perhaps not as well-known or famous as Oppenheimer, Code Talkers are nonetheless credited with helping us win the war. Who were they and what did they do?

According to the National WWII Museum in New Orleans, a “code talker” was the name given to American Indians who used their native tribal language to relay encoded messages for the U.S. Marines. The timing of their enlistment was critical, as the Japanese had broken all previous codes sent over radio waves and our Marines were desperate to find a secure way to communicate critical information. With new Code Talkers on board, they were in good hands.

Code Talkers actually had a hand in every major Marine operation the in the Pacific theater and were never successfully decoded by Japanese codebreakers. At the critical and famous battle of Iwo Jima, it is estimated that 800 messages were transmitted and received by the Code Talkers without error. So essential were they to our military efforts, that Major Howard Connor, a Marine officer of the signal division at Iwo Jima, once said, “Were it not for the Navajos, the Marines would have never taken Iwo Jima.”

Author Laura Tohe’s father was a Code Talker and she gives an inside view of their journey. President Roosevelt’s announcement of America’s entry into the war was heard coast-to-coast, including in many parts of the Navajo Nation homeland in Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. Known for their collectible blankets and jewelry, young Navajo men were moved to enlist and being that they came from reservations, rural backgrounds, and military-style boarding schools, they were well-prepared for harsh military life. What they didn’t know and maybe weren’t as prepared for was that they would be asked to develop and us their native Navajo language…a language they were often forbidden to speak in government schools…as a secret weapon.

The idea of using American Indians fluent in both their traditional tribal language and English to send secret messages in battle was first put to the test in WWI. It wasn’t until WWII however, that the U.S. military developed a specific policy to recruit and train American Indian speakers to become Code Talkers.

The U.S. Army was the first branch to begin recruiting Code Talkers from places like Oklahoma in 1940. Other branches, including the Marines and Navy, followed suit and the first class of 29 Navajo Code Talkers begin training for the Marines in 1942. Navajos made up the majority of Code Talkers, but there were at least 14 other Native nations, including Cherokee and Comanche, who served as Code Talkers in both the Pacific and Europe during the war. It’s estimated that around 400 Native Americans served their country and served it in a most unique and valuable way.

As the war progressed, the military shifted to using just Navajo. It was chosen mainly because it wasn’t spoken outside of the U.S., was at the time unwritten, and is the most spoken indigenous language in the country, meaning finding native Navajo speakers proved easier than finding those from a mix of smaller groups. But why a native language and why Navajo?

For one, it was spoken almost exclusively by Navajos and is a mostly oral language with no written alphabet. There was no published dictionary on it and grammar was deliberately complicated with metaphors, tricks, and obscure references. In short, it is a very complex language and its tonal qualities and dialect make it very hard to learn. Some actually believe the code devised and carried out by the Navajos may have been the only unbreakable code is military history.

So, what happened to these war heroes after victory? Most went back to their homes without any fanfare. In fact, upon discharge they swore to never reveal their role as it wasn’t known if they and their codes would be needed in future battles. The code was declassified in 1968 and the Code Talkers have since been honored by Presidents Nixon, Reagan, and Trump. In 1992, a special exhibit at the Pentagon revealed a permanent display of photos, equipment, the original code, and explanation of how the code worked. It was a long time coming and deserving honor for their loyalty, bravery, resilience, and ingenuity. As Tohe writes, “A language once forbidden became a weapon that was quick, accurate, and never deciphered. Most important, it saved many American lives.”

Congressional Silver Medal that reads “The Navajo language defeated the enemy.”

Thank you Code Talkers and God Bless America.