Sounds of the season from the Ely Public Transit Choir

Last Friday a number of us revived a Christmas tradition by caroling around Ely. Mark Palser came up with the brilliant idea to put together an impromptu Ely Public Transit choir, advertising that we would carol anywhere in town for a $5 donation to Northern Lights Clubhouse. Then he drove us around town in the van while his better half, Liz Langley, navigated the circuitous route, announcing our mission and the donors at each place we visited.

We sang at a number of homes, the nursing home and assisted living buildings, Adventure Inn, Bear Island Realty, Wildlife Liquor, and Zup’s grocery store, ending up at Insula restaurant where we sang for our supper…well, delicious complimentary eggnog, anyway. We had a wonderful meal, sang a few more tunes and ended up with $242 in donations. We had a ball, reviving fond Christmas memories for singers and listeners alike while we created a new Ely tradition. Yes, we’re already talking about doing it again next year.

People were touched by our singing for them, knowing someone who cared had donated money for us to bring them some Christmas joy. We saw a few tears, which I optimistically interpreted as joyful, not as a judgment of our singing. Mark and Liz had joked that anyone who wanted us to stop singing could get their wish by just donating more money. As far as I know, no one did, but maybe they just didn’t offer enough.

We actually pulled off a pretty big sound for just eight of us, with beautiful harmony on favorites like Angels We Have Heard on High, Silent Night and Joy to the World. We had a few really excellent singers including local songbird Irene Hartfield and her two nieces visiting from the Twin Cities; I called them the “ringer singers.” Our renditions of Rudolf, Jingle Bells and We Wish You a Merry Christmas, accompanied by lots of bells, were perhaps more enthusiastic than melodious, but well-received nonetheless. One singer brought beautiful, antique sleigh bells from her great-grandfather’s horses.

Mark and some of the bystanders shot videos and apparently we were immortalized on Facebook before we even finished our caroling. Liz said there were 2,000 hits as of this morning. I asked, “How is that possible?” I’ll admit that I am a reluctant Facebook user but I do visit. I find it to be a puzzling, aggravating, fascinating, addicting, hilarious, informative (and did I mention aggravating) phenomenon that can snarf up time, luring you from post to post, enticing you with yet another link, leaving you wondering how in the world you got where you ended up and where did the evening go?

Although bombarded with requests, I’m not following anybody; I’ll lead my own excursions into WWW land, thank you very much, and Twitter is beyond my comprehension even after reading about its incredible and messy two-guys-in-a-garage startup. I receive more emails packed with significant information from around the world than I have time to read; why would I want someone nattering at me in sound bites with whatever pops in their head?

Thinking I should be better informed, I looked up guidelines for twittering…er, tweeting…and found “Rules and Best Practices” on the official twitter.com site. I’ll bet some of you have been tweeting without reading that manifesto, so listen up. Here’s one gem: “Automated pro-active following and automated un-following are not allowed.” I mean, really, what does that mean? Do you see why I don’t follow anybody? That could get a person in serious trouble. I could innocently be following someone and out of the blue be auto-un-followed; where would that leave me? Floating in cyber limbo searching for my followee? Frankly, I’m just not interested in investing the time to comprehend that ever-changing landscape. If I have to learn a new language, I want it to be Italian or Swahili. Buon giorno, hujambo, much more useful, friendly, poetic and stable, don’t you think?

The guidelines go on to say, “When you follow someone, they will often take the time to check out your profile and recent Tweets. If some accounts are aggressively or indiscriminately following hundreds of accounts just to get attention, it can really bother other users and make Twitter a less-nice place to hang out.” Well, there ya’ go, I told you it could get dangerous: all that indiscriminate aggressiveness going on in a hang-out place I didn’t even realize was a place. Take my advice: if you don’t want your Tweets investigated and your profile examined, just say “no”. Thank you, Nancy Reagan. More bad news: you’re limited to 2,400 Tweets or Retweets per day. In what universe do people have that kind of time?

All right, all right, I know that good things have happened since Twitter was hatched, like instant eye-witness accounting of atrocities that used to be hidden from public viewing and rallying people to protest or help. People get informed tidbits about significant goings-on, but to me it seems like one more strategy to exacerbate the public’s already-abbreviated attention span in our ADD culture, not to mention atrocious spelling and grammar habits, IMHO (In my humble opinion). However, others choose to differ: pcmag.com declares that “Crafting a good 140 character Tweet on Twitter is truly an art. Every sentence is a complete idea with a minimum of fluff and needless words.” Clearly, not my style since I’m up to 896 words here, but, hey, at least people are writing with the discipline of a structured idea, sort of like haiku. And there are rewards: pcmag.com informs us, “When you hit exactly 140 characters in a Tweet, feel free to reward yourself with a silent “Twoosh!” At least somebody had a lot of fun creating a new lexicon.

Still, I am concerned about all this compulsive “communication”. It is reported that youngsters (and oldsters?) feel lost and isolated if they’re not in constant IT contact with friends; that some have no idea how to have a real, in-person conversation. One university professor challenged her class to abstain from using their technology for a week and to write about what they experienced. One young man couldn’t last the week and said, “I felt like I didn’t exist.” I’ve walked into the Front Porch coffee shop to be greeted by eerie silence, even when every seat is occupied. Every person was bent over a computer, tablet or smart phone, no conversations, no eye contact. One summer day when a construction worker had accidentally cut a cable, the region was without cell phones, landlines, DSL and credit card processing. I overheard a teenage boy complaining to his friends, “Geesh, what are we supposed to do? Go over to his house and yell for him?” Feeling like an aged crone, I refrained from saying with a warble in my voice, “Sonny, in the old days that’s exactly what we did. Try it, why don’t you?”

Okay, yes, it was fun to see our caroling group singing on Facebook. But it didn’t hold a candle to the experience of singing around Ely in the company of friends, new and old, blending our voices, bringing some joy to others, sharing a meal. As we gather with family and friends this week or find some patches of peaceful quiet, let’s turn off the phones and gadgets, enjoy some conversation, laughter and tears…and maybe even sing together. Buon Natale e Felici Anno Nuovo.