I never (or at least rarely) “dedicate” a presentation. But I will today, and for the foreseeable future.
The slide following my title slide will read: “For Ray.”
This weekend Susan & I watched on DVD the movie Ray.
To be sure, it is a marvel. But the excellence of the movie per se is not the Inspiration for the Dedication.
My point: Ray Charles is the embodiment of the Spirit of Re-imagine! Time and time and time again he chose to Invent & Go His Own Way, to spit in the face of his prior winners, his assured cash flow, his powerful advisors … and march in the totally new musical direction his Spirit willed him to march.
Surely the movie is a marvelous story of overcoming adversity, from blindness to race to drugs to fame itself. But for me it was, above all, a … Matchless Tribute to the Power & Glory of Gutsy, Lonely Re-imaginings!
To Ray Charles!
(Check it out!)
(NB: I’m no great movie aficionado, but Jamie Foxx as Ray surely seems Oscar-worthy to me.)