Sunday, September 14, 2008

Merujo Flickr Mosaic

The lovely J.M. Tewkesbury, proprietress of The Chronicles of Tewkesbury, recently featured a meme-ish concept where you you take images from Flickr to answer questions about yourself and use this nifty piece of software to turn it into a mosaic. I started to do this the other day when I stumbled on one of the questions - what high school did you attend? In doing the Flickr search, I discovered photos of a man I knew back in the day. He was a very young freshman the year I was a senior. He had that "theatre gene" deep in his DNA - a musically-talented actor who I felt would be coming out of the closet soon. Apparently he did, and, from some of the photos I saw, he must have had some very good, very happy years. But then, he fell into addiction, lost himself along the way, and, in 2007, took his own life. I wrote to the man who'd posted the Flickr images, and he told me the sad story.

I was a little bit shaken up by this. To give you an idea of the strong, warm feelings he left with people, one of my co-workers at Major Non-Profit and TV Network With Its Own Theme Music also went to my high school and remembered him fondly, too. She had been the young, musically-talented actor-type freshman when he was a senior.

I hope he has found peace.

My friend Spencer had come across the Flickr mosaic post on Madame Tewkesbury's blog and posted his own. So, I finally decided to get my rump in gear and do it. BTW, small world that this is, the purveyor of Tewkeshness is a local friend of mine here. Spencer is a friend I met via the Internet. I decide to do this mosaic that one of them got from the other, and, in answering the last question, the ONLY photo on Flickr that features my Flickr name is... one of Spencer, his lovely spouse Kristen, the Sasquatch, Cynicsgirl, her husband the RadioCynic, and me. Go figure, eh?

Merujo Flickr Mosaic

1. melissa in a long beach diner, 2. New York Steak, 3. Patrick Dixon R.I.P., 4. Just an Orchid, 5. Damian Lewis, 6. Raspberry Seltzer, 7. Indigo & Aqua, 8. Sweet Cherry Pie, 9. storyteller, 10. Leapin' for Obama, 11. Hacia "El Paso de Jama", 12. MIchael Penn - WCL Philly 2007


I thought you should know what my search was for #10 on my list: hope - the thing I love most in life right now. That photo, of some deliriously rapturous random happy fat dude jumping for joy, next to an Obama "Hope" poster kinda said it all for me right now. "Hope is a good thing. Maybe the best of things. And no good thing ever dies." Thank you, Stephen King. Without hope, some days, I'm not sure how I get through.

Now, if you have a hankering to try this yourself (it's a neat way to see some very beautiful - and sometimes very strange - photos), here's the skinny:
  1. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
  2. Using only the first page, pick an image. (You can arrange by “Most relevant,” “Most recent,” or “Most interesting.”)
  3. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd’s mosaic maker.

The Questions:

1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school did you go to?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?
9. What you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One Word to describe you?
12. Your flickr name?

Have fun!

3 comments:

J.M. Tewkesbury said...

Excellent results! Damien Lewis is rather scrumptious, isn't he? Do you watch his show on NBC--Life? Quirky bit of television.

I'm still sad about your high school friend. What a loss.

Merujo said...

Damien Lewis is mighty, mighty tasty! And I *love* Life!! I'm going to write a blog entry about it - one of the great shows most people probably didn't watch last season, but really should on DVD before the new season starts.

Patrick's death saddens me. And to know such a life of talent and grace was lost to addiction makes me even more sad. My home town has very serious problem with meth. I can't help but wonder if that was the reason behind his far-too-early exit.

Cyn said...

I did it (twice, due to general knuckleheadedness.)

http://cynicsgirl.blogspot.com/2008/09/12-questions.html

Fun :-)