I was looking through my photos today and thought I should post these two.

The first is my billboard, up this entire past season in various well-traveled locations, and the subject of much teasing from my friends here.



The second is my life-sized cardboard cut-out, made to help advertise the HSO raffle this past year, but kept for other potential uses in the upcoming season. If you think I got a lot of grief from the billboard, it was nothing compared to the flack generated by this:



It can be somewhat odd to be a local celebrity. It must be really strange in the larger markets. I remember when Movin' Out opened in NYC, and there was a building-sized photo of Michael Cavanaugh up in Times Square. That must have been intense and pretty cool for Michael. Then I think of the real mass-market celebrities like the sports, TV and movie stars, who see themselves everywhere, and have no aspects of their lives to themselves. At what point does it cross over the line between fun/cool and horrible/invasive? Tough to say, but I'm certainly glad that most people don't have any desire to know what conductors do when they are out of their tails.

My kids loved the billboard, though...