NeverStopUrFlo

What better way to start my new personal-professional Blog, “NeverStopUrFlo,” than with a little comedy-styled piece dedicated to MIT Comparative Media Studies [CMS] Program Founder and Director Henry Jenkins and his wife Cynthia, who will be leaving us after two new media genre-defining decades at MIT for The University of Southern California this summer? After all, not only it is precisely his own “Confessions of an Aca-Fan: The Official Weblog of Henry Jenkins,” [http://www.henryjenkins.org/] that became the first Blog I started to read on a regular, daily basis, it is also its thoughtful exposes and vivid descriptions that revealed to me the CMS program and MIT, and eventually led me to apply to it exclusively.

Mixing the silly and the serious, but always informative, from Photoshoped Democracy to Jenkins’ decapitated head, and to my first in-depth introduction to D.I.Y. content production philosophy “produsage,” the “Confessions” took me on an adventurous discovery tour of Newmedialand and soon became a must-read exclusively reserved for supper-time, the first relaxed moment of my day spent chasing media makers for interviews.

As I sat in my drab Soviet-era Moscow apartment reading about Jenkins exploring the colorful comics scene of Poland, enjoying a performance of Soulja Boy’s “Crank Dat” dance by a group of CMS students sporting lab coats and thick glasses on a lawn of the MIT campus, and flying around the limitless landscapes of Second Life, my “Confessions” Blog reading ritual and exploration of CMS added a surrealistic touch to the tough realities of my life as a Moscow-based correspondent and foreign journalist in Russia.

So when I learned that the CMS community of staff and students were preparing multimedia messages of gratitude and goodbye to be presented during his and his wife’s Farewell Party on campus this Friday, May 8, I thought, ‘let’s make something, let’s make a little media-related something for him, that I will give at the time of my spoken address during the presentations. Cool.

True to the CMS spirit that he created, Pr. Jenkins has been teaching us to explore fearlessly new media, both in theory and in practice. So I thought I would explore new media. Let’s make something based on his Blog, like his Blog’s photograph for example, his ‘Me’ entitled headshot, in a cool, interesting new medium.

What’s a cool, interesting new medium?… Digital paper? Color-changing plastic?… Being from Brussels, my thoughts wandered towards Belgium and… chocolate – of course, chocolate!

I would make – or rather order – a box of design chocolates, with each piece representing the effigy of Pr. Jenkins based on an exact copy of the headshot on his Blog. Since Godiva had made earlier this year an entire hotel room in The Bryant Park Hotel in New York out of chocolate, complete with furniture and Gustave Klimt’s “The Kiss” painting, all carved out of chocolate, surely this was kids’ stuff.

I was thinking along the lines of two pieces per person. The first thing I needed to do was to find out approximately how many guests we were expecting at the Farewell party. After a few initial enquiries, an estimate came from CMS’official quarters: “About 120-130.”

!…

Oops, I clearly had miscalculated. Shame on me for unforgivably underestimating the size of Pr. Jenkins’ community of colleagues and friends and of the CMS family generally.

Flo on the phone                 

May 6, 2009

“Hello Godiva?

Yes, this is Florence Gallez who called earlier about an order… yes, the student.

I would like to order 260 pieces of design chocolates representing my professor of comparative media studies based on a photograph of him.

For this Friday, yes.

Pardon?.. a $25 “express service” fee? Eeeerrrrrr…………………………

Sure.”

On my desk, my credit card looked livid.

No, this won’t do. I mentally blocked my imaginary phone call.

‘Florence, forget about the other 128 people, just scale it down and do something just for Pr. Jenkins and his wife, like a 15-20 piece box for example.’

So later this past Wednesday I called Godiva, for real this time, and placed my order for such a box.

After much deliberation and speaking to numerous Godiva representatives in its boutiques around the country, first in Cambridge and Boston, then at its other stores scattered from coast to coast, including the main Godiva office, I heard the verdict: “We can’t do it, we don’t do this.”

Finally, I found a little store in Boston, “Chocolee Chocolates,” that readily agreed to take on the order.

“Certainly, we can do that. Please just send us the photograph.”

I obliged and emailed them the link to Pr. Jenkins’ Blog with detailed instructions for each piece: oval shaped, flat surface, convex top, plain milk chocolate, no fillings, eyes, nose, mouth, bald, beard, mustache, glasses, smiling, and the shape of his right hand/fingers on his beard. Just like on the photo-portrait.

Simple.

An important note: “Please don’t contact the person, it’s a surprise!”

I received the following response:

[On May 7, 2009, at 11:53 AM, dolci napoli wrote:]

“Hello Florence,

I remember your call about the order. Unfortunately I cannot create what you want. It may take more time than I have till Friday and the result would be questionable. That is a very difficult order.”

At that point, I thought, ‘Do I want to go down that path, ‘take the risk,’ and tell them to have a go at it anyway? What if it comes out totally unrecognizable?…’

“The only way I can think of that the image on the chocolate would sincerely resemble this person would be to have it air brushed onto the piece of candy. I don’t do that and don’t know who does in the area. There are some bakeries that air brush images onto cakes, maybe they could help you with a chocolate. I am sorry I cannot be of more help to you. Best of luck!”

Lee Napoli

ChocoLee Chocolates

Thus ended my ill-fated, perhaps too bold attempt at combining my words of gratitude and goodbyes, love of a symbolic Blog and curiosity about chocolate as an artistic medium into one seamless and delicious whole.

Perhaps like Prince, of whom I am a hardcore fan and of whom a biographer once wrote that “As a true Gemini, Prince has his head in the clouds,” I tried to realize the unrealizable. However, I cannot make that statement safely, given that Pr. Jenkins is a Gemini too, and that I have made enough blunders for this week as it is.

In terms of exploring a new medium, this was certainly a trip into interesting, uncharted territory, very much CMS-style!

Eventually what became clear to me, after carrying out this chocolate experiment and seeing the presentations last night, was the size and cohesion of the CMS family and their friends, of all the people and communities that the Jenkins have touched by their words and actions throughout their time at MIT. And there can be no doubt they will have the same impact on the other Coast.

In any case, ce n’ est qu’ un au revoir…