UC Irvine awards Gregory Coleman a full Master’s degree

James writes…

Today is a great day! Today I received for my father his Master’s degree in music from the University of California at Irvine. I have to blog & run, but I’ll be back to post more details tonight.

The Register article is online now…

IRVINE – It was Gregory Coleman’s dying wish.

On the day he died, Coleman, his body tumor-ridden, could barely scratch out his initials on a letter asking UC Irvine to award him a master of fine arts degree in music.

He died from cancer in September just a few classes short of completing the curriculum.

“The last thing I told him that day was, ‘You will get this degree,'” said his son, James Coleman. “I promised him that. All I did was help him speak beyond the grave.”

Tuesday, UC Irvine awarded Coleman the diploma his father earned. University officials granted the master of fine arts degree in guitar after a several-month process of determining that Gregory Coleman’s professional and teaching career in classical music had satisfied any missing degree requirements.

His CD “Isla California” met the degree’s final requirement of composition and was called an “exceptional accomplishment.” Coleman’s degree is only one of five that the university has awarded after a student’s death.

“Getting this degree emphasizes the importance of formal education that was so vital to my father,” Coleman said. “When he taught guitar, he wasn’t just teaching music – it was about teaching life.”

James Coleman, 33, began his quest for his father’s degree shortly after he died. Almost like a lawyer, he put together evidence of his father’s work and accomplishments.

Ron Purcell, director of the International Guitar Research Archive at Cal State Northridge, entered Coleman as one of the pioneers of American guitar. He cited “Isla California” in which Coleman plays traditional music from the rancho era, as an example of the preservation of California’s historical music.

Associate Dean Colleen Reardon, also a musician, played a key role in Coleman’s quest. She demonstrated that Coleman’s numerous performances, his CDs and the extra classes he took were part of his “intellectual curiosity.” The music department’s unanimous support sealed the case.

“This was a long process,” said Fernandez. “In the end, this degree has more value – it was earned. It’s so nice to give that satisfaction and closure to the family. He was one of the best. He was agile, expressive and totally committed.”

Coleman’s battle with melanoma began 18 years ago when a student spotted a mole on his neck. Doctors removed it, and for 15 years he was symptom-free. In January 2003, doctors found eight tumors in his body. Coleman suspended his studies at UCI to go through intensive chemotherapy and radiation therapy.

Mark Westling, Coleman’s friend and student of 30 years, played “Romanza” for him the day he died.

“He was an extremely elegant and passionate player,” said Westling. “This is a wonderful closure for Greg. A fitting award to an accomplished musician and someone who loved education.”

Things I Like – “I Skipped February & March” April 2006 doubleplusgood edition

1. The online collection of the journal Design from 1965 through 1974.

2. Ansel Adams’ photos of Los Angeles.

In any case I was running a search in the Los Angeles Public Library’s immense online collection of photographs when something in a record caught my eye, the name “Ansel Adams.” The image attached to this record was of a parking lot with a cars jumbled together around a prominent No Parking sign. I don’t normally associate Ansel Adams with ironic snapshots of parking lots or small format urban photography at all. Like you, a photograph by Adams means the classic evocation of the great American wilderness. It never crossed my mind that he had photographed any of the cities of men, much less Los Angeles. But there it was. Maybe, I thought, there were more.

See the Flickr set for these.

3. The Day Britain Stopped. Another in a series of BBC’s “documentary futures” programs, this one covering the domino effects generated by an overloaded and overworked transportation network.

4. Igor Oleynikov’s blog. I’ve hit link fatigue with many of the illustration blogs lately – too much similar work that’s all above-average, but Olejnikov’s work continually gives my retinas a much-needed recalibration.

5. Nils Olav. A King Penguin who lives in the Edinburgh Zoo, Scotland, Nils was recently promoted to Colonel-in-Chief of the Norwegian Royal Guards.

AppleScript to rename files

Another AppleScript problem that was vexing me this morning. Again, you would think that this would be easy… I wanted to rename a file to append the name of the enclosing folder onto it.

For example, the file “Testfile.txt” inside a folder called “Folderstuff” would be renamed to “Folderstuff Testfile.txt.” Here’s the (drawn out) AppleScript code:

(*
Renames the selected file to append the enclosing folder name to the front.
*)
tell application "Finder"
activate
set theFile to selection as text
set TheName to name of (theFile as alias)
set SourceFolder to name of (folder of the front window as alias)
set NewName to (SourceFolder & " " & TheName)
set name of file theFile to NewName
end tell

I know it’s faster to do this with a shell script, but I want to keep it in AS for now.

Separated at Birth, Part V

Recently retired host of CBS’ In The News Christopher Glenn and sinister Eldon Tyrell from Blade Runner.

In The News was part of my daily diet of Sunday morning television throughout the 1970s. Glenn’s voice was a natural, but what I liked even more was the then-state-of-the art computer graphic globe and the greatest “bleepy bloopy” electronic theme ever. Listen to it here:

 

 In The News’ Jump The Shark entry

Play

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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Disneyland In Los Angeles

A couple of weekends ago I went on Charles Phoenix’s “Disneyland Tour of Downtown.” Oddly enough, with all this food and LA history obsessions I have I’ve never been in Clifton’s Cafeteria before. I’m not sure if my eyes survived all the retinal damage.

The Bob Baker Marionette Theater was a complete riot. I seem to recall that Baker was a semi-regular feature on Hobo Kelly’s KCOP television show in the early 1970s, but I can’t quite recall for sure.

Chinatown crittersAll you can eat - 64 cents!Victor Clothing Co. muralBob Baker onion puppetsDowntown at sundownDowntown LA fountainUnion Station Harvey House Restaurant

See the complete Flickr set.

The LA Times was along on the tour too.