Posts by Benjamin
Working On A Dream
Every morning, I walk to work swaddled in headphones. At worst, headphones protect me from the bombast of New York City: horns, sirens, jets and helicopters. At best, though, they deliver me effortlessly to my corporate doorstep. On Friday, those headphones were blaring Bruce Springsteen’s latest title track, “Working On A Dream.” I’m not quite…
Read MoreStay Tuned
Well, that didn’t take long. Or did it? Two weeks ago, my brother handed off a hard drive loaded with “Mister Rogers & Me” footage, and taught me how Avid Editing 101. After a fifteen-day period that included ten of travel (and one marathon), I sat down in front of the computer to get started.…
Read MoreHer Eyes All Swimming Pool Blue
The second Corona is better than the first, even if it is from a can; it’s colder, sweeter, and flush with lime. The Florida sun is playing hide-and-seek with the billowing cumulonimbus clouds. When it breaks through, the air grows hot and thick like steam. I watch the great, white clouds race across the piercing…
Read MoreMiami, Florida (Winter 2009)
2009 Miami Marathon (Or, Pull The Sunlight Through Me)
The last time I was on Miami’s Brickell Avenue Bridge, it was midnight. Hurricane Katrina was lashing the city with crushing wind and stinging rain. Nonetheless, my Video Music Award colleagues and I thought it a lark to stand defiantly mid-span, leaning into the gale drunk like teenagers. Some five years later, I was mid-span…
Read MoreInaugural Snapshot, Part II
Union Station, Washington, DC. Amtrak Gate K. Passengers on Northeast Regional 178 are packed together struggling to board. Everyone is exhausted, weary of long lines, hung over, and eager to get home from the Inauguration. A quiet voice squeaks above the fray. “Ellen McQuarry? Ellen McQuarry?” Seconds later, further down the queue, another rings out,…
Read MoreInaugural Snapshot, Part I
I am wedged between a mass of angry, frustrated and anxious Presidential Youth Ball attendees and a phalanx of Police and Secret Service in the Washington, DC, Hilton. With the ballroom at capacity, and POTUS on his way, the men in black are immovable. I reluctantly pull out every item I possess in my defense,…
Read MoreOur Better History
Let other people write about yesterday’s other big first; without diminishing the historical significance of Barack Obama’s inauguration as the first-ever African-American president, race wasn’t what reduced me to a sobbing mess. President Barack Obama’s inaugural address was the first time in my life I felt like a politician was speaking to me. It was…
Read MoreShepard Fairey Brings ‘Hope’ To Barack Obama Inauguration
Shepard Fairey’s Barack Obama posters were the defining image of the presidential campaign. The high-contrast red, white and blue portrait went viral overnight, appearing on everything from posters to T-shirts to the cover of Time magazine, and catapulting the Los Angeles-based graphic designer and street artist from subversive propagandist to mainstream icon. On Saturday, in…
Read MoreObey Shepard Fairey
I violated the cardinal rule of journalism on Sunday. I began an interview by squealing like a schoolgirl, “I’m a huge fan!” Oh well; I am. I’ve been huge fan of Shepard Fairey for years. I noticed his Obey Giant stencils and posters almost immediately upon moving to New York City in 1995. And I…
Read More