It’s interesting to watch newspapers, television stations and radio stations converge here on the web. Increasingly, all media outlets are just that: media outlets. Or perhaps, multi-media outlets would be more accurate. And while many lament (rightly) the demise of the daily newspaper, the daily newspaper is having to reinvent itself (rightly) for the web. And in this case, it’s doing a great job.

As you’ll see when you click to THIS AMAZING STORY at The Denver Post, video, audio, photography and the written word have all converged in one place on this monumentally ambitious military coming-of-age story. It’s about young Ian Fisher, and it ends here in Colorado Springs. (We can only imagine how much this all cost to produce!)

For our limited money, the photos alone are worthy of a Pulitzer, but it’s worth exploring this whole piece and all the well-designed links just for the sheer number of internet-friendly mediums used to cover it and cover it well: a program that turned the article into a page-turning book, videos that intermix pictures with video and audio independently, an “extras” page that features a photo-animation of pictures taken inside a humvee that’s set to music. Then there’s a glossary of Army ranks and acronyms. It’s like a DVD with extras. It goes on and on!

Is it too much? Regardless, it’s truly dizzying and it’s yet another excellent piece of journalism that helps flesh-out the broader picture of our ongoing involvement in the wars overseas and how they affect families here at home.

On that subject, don’t forget that the first Big Something Book Club featuring Jon Krakauer’s latest book Where Men Win Glory meets this Thursday evening. Details HERE.

(Thanks for your comments! thebigsomething@krcc.org)

Kudos to the Denver Post a

In the first installment of this series, which ran last Wednesday right before Thanksgiving, we took a look at local artist Sean O’Meallie’s former career as a toy inventor.

In this second installment, O’Meallie talks about how the toy inventing business influenced his art.

(Y’all know we love your comments! Or send us an email: thebigsomething@krcc.org. Thanks!)

It’s hard to forget the incisively playful artworks of Colorado Springs-based sculptor Sean O’Meallie. Like toys, their bright colors, high contrasts and sleights of wit give them a primordial visual and tactile appeal. What you may not know is that O’Meallie spent many years working in the highly secretive toy business as an inventor and concept designer for one of the very few entrepreneurs who had entree with the big toy companies.

In this first of two features to bookend this holiest of holiday shopping weekends, O’Meallie shows us some of his concepts, designs and a few of the toys he helped create that made it to market.

On Monday when we return after Thanksgiving, we’ll look more closely at the influence his toy designs had on his artwork.

(Thanks, darlings, for your lovely feedback. We do so appreciate it. Leave us some more or drop us an email at thebigsomething@krcc.org. Thanks!)

We are very pleased to present this world premiere of the music video for “Normandy” by local band Pachisi Champion (aka Rence Seyb). The production of the song and the video was a collaboration between The Big Something and Colorado Culture Cast. (Thanks also to Jay Schwan for mastering!)

The concept for the video was to shoot Rence Seyb singing and performing atop as many of the downtown bell towers as possible. We originally wanted to shoot from tower to tower—to connect the dots between all the towers, but it didn’t quite work out that way. The day we shot turned out to be the coldest day of the fall (and even colder on the towers), which worked well for the song.

In any case, we got to peek inside and shoot at six of the most prominent towers downtown: Shove Chapel and Cutler Hall at Colorado College, The Pioneers Museum, First United Methodist Church, First Congregational Church and Grace and St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church.

As a bonus to the video, here’s a quick and dirty primer on the history of the buildings featured in the video.

(Please leave us some feedback! Comments below are just fine, while email will do in a pinch as well: thebigsomething@krcc.org. Thanks!)

DISCLAIMER: KRCC IN NO WAY ADVOCATES THAT ANYONE EXPLORE DRAINAGE TUNNELS LIKE THOSE DEPICTED IN THESE PHOTOS. PHOTOGRAPHER DUNCAN GOLD IS AN EXPERT CAVER WHO DOES EXTENSIVE RESEARCH AND CAREFULLY MONITORS THE WEATHER BEFORE ENTERTING A TUNNEL. DRAINAGE TUNNELS ARE EXTREMELY DANGEROUS PLACES THAT CAN FLOOD WITHOUT WARNING AND HAVE CLAIMED MANY LIVES.

These photographs of drainage tunnels and other underground concrete structures by local caver Duncan Gold epitomize what we seek to feature here on The Big Something every week day: They take us to hidden corners of the Pikes Peak Region that we might not otherwise see, and they do it beautifully. (If you’re interested in purchasing a print of one of these photos, you can contact Duncan directly at autowitch@gmail.com)

We thought this audio-slideshow was a fitting way to relaunch The Big Something after our multi-week hiatus. We believe that we live in an amazing place that suffers from a fair amount of bad PR. And if perception is reality, we hope to help change perception.

Welcome to all the recently added subscribers and welcome back to those of you who’ve stayed with us over the past six months.

As always, we love your feedback and comments. Please share your thoughts with us in the comments below or you can send us an email to: thebigsomething@krcc.org. Thanks!

Greetings Big Something subscribers old and new. We apologize for the long gap in service, but had a few major kinks to work out in our email list and hope to have those issues resolved.

Now that we’ve got a new list and have scrubbed it of SPAM flags, we’d like you to know this:

If you ARE on the list and DO NOT wish to receive The Big Something in your email inbox, you have two options:

1. You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the “unsubscribe” button at the bottom of the emails. That link will also be on all future emails as well.

2. If you want to get The Big Something, but you don’t want to receive it every weekday, you can sign up for our WEEKLY DIGEST, which will go out on Fridays ONLY with links to all the week’s features. To do that, simply unsubscribe from the email list at the bottom of any one of the emails and then click on this link and enter your email: Join The Big Something Digest

Please don’t hesistate to contact us at thebigsomething@krcc.org with any suggestions, questions or concerns. Thanks so much, and we’ll you see you back here again on Monday with the next installment of The Big Something.

Dear Big Something Readers,

We apologize for the “gap in service,” but want to make sure we get everything right before we launch with a new email list. Our previous email service proved to be too buggy and was causing too many spam complaints.

When we return we’ll also have a new “digest list” that will allow you to continue to receive the Big Something on Friday’s ONLY with a list of the week’s posts.

Stay tuned and thanks!

Noel & Delaney
thebigsomething@krcc.org