About Me

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The Office of Naval Research Public Affairs Office provided my first encounter with the World Wide Web. In addition to the text creation and management part of editorial service, I had the pleasure of coding and uploading ONR publications back when there was nary a WYSIWYG HTML editor in sight. It was all still new for consumers back then in 1995. The changes in online publishing have, of course, been nothing short of incredible in the 17 years since then (I'll spare you the typing of that article right now): I've become a pretty good photographer with a legacy of unfulfilled ambitions in literary and musical circles, the detritus from that has itself been rather spectacular.

Zoetrope.com: close to 850 reviews of photographs submitted in the "virtual film studio" photography wing and I have no idea the count on posts or correspondence.

Models.com: I'm just going to say "thousands of posts".

Modelmayhem.com: 2,248 posts as of 3 May 2007.

In music . . . I've made a very little money although I would call some of the "gigs" the best jobs I've ever had. First Night Alexandria, the open deck of a restaurant in Ellicott City, Maryland, travel for a community group in Seaford, Delaware, bars around Takoma Park and Cleveland Park in D.C.--priceless (and remunerative: First Night paid $500, for example). There, however, is a business whose retail floor you have to rather love and for which a young lifestyle may be helpful (for all those late nights and all that beer). Music probably helps me stay healthy (partly because it helps to run; it's also spiritually exalting when you get it about right), but it bothers me to have the voice I do (and do I ever have that) as well as more than a few of my own songs laying around. I'd like to get the whole thing back into shape and working for me as well.

Altogether, that's a lot of service for not a lot of reward, something too typical of the English major's fate and something I'd like to change with this blog by having it help me focus my efforts and by cultivating associates, clients, readers, publications, and patrons.

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James S. Oppenheim
Communicating Arts
Hagerstown, Maryland

www.communicating-arts.com

jso@communicating-arts.com

Editor & Writer

Photographer

Singer & Songwriter

Education

B.A., English, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio 1977

M.A. Outdoor Recreation Resources Management, University of Maryland, College Park 1985

M.A. English, University of Maryland, College Park 1988

Work in Progress

Glaros, Tony (Writer) and James S. Oppenheim (Photographer). Maryland Food Traditions. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, TBD.

Literary Credits

Managing Editor. Ethos, Literary Magazine of the English Graduate Organization, University of Maryland, College Park. 1987 & 1988.

Plays

Strategies: A One-Act Play. Thirty-minute tragicomedy Performed by Takoma Repertory, Takoma Park, Maryland, 1987.

Short Stories

“Leather,” The First Saffron Short Story Collection, United Kingdom, 1996;
"Tandem," The North American Review, 1995;
"Leana and the Boy," Ethos, 1988;
"Swans," Ethos, 1987;
"The Dream of the Beautiful Woman," Alioth, 1986;
"The Beast at the Crossing," Ethos, 1986.

Music Composition and Performance

2007: I've started playing open mics again and am considering developing an entirely new repertoire of traditional American and English folk music while returning some energy to songwriting and recording--I have no problem getting gigs but one business at a time, and I'm keeping photography first for occasions--I'm in business to make money--and journalism (and I'm in the "communicating arts" in general to deploy my talents and enjoy my life.

A Shug's Country. 1993. Produced guitar and vocal track for second 60-minute album of socially-conscious and unconsciously pastoral blues, country, folk, and rock music.

A Shug's Delight! 1989. Album (60 minutes) with distribution split between sales and promotion.

1997-2000—Noon show, Darlington Apple Festival, Darlington, Md., 1997, ‘98, ‘99, '00; Courtyard Troubadour, P.J.’s Restaurant, Main Street, Ellicott City, Md., August through December, 1998; Street Singer (two years running), Alexandria First Night Festival, Alexandria, Virginia; Evening Entertainer, Presbyterian Home, Washington, D.C.; February (1997): troubadour, private Valentine’s Day party, Fairfax, Va.; principle concert performer, The Boardroom, Seaford, Delaware.

1995--produced 3-minute dance composition, "Swingin' Dada" for Alexandria Department of Recreation, Merrymaker Summer Camp, Arts Division (performance: July 14, 1995). 1994--gigging private parties as pianist with standards and show tune repertoire; continued songwriting.

1993--In September, played at Fratello's in Gaithersburg, Md.; performed Tuesdays, July and August, at the Judge's Bench, Ellicott City, Md.

1992--performed in October as open mike opening act (30 minutes) at E.C. Does It Café, Ellicott City, Md., and in November as a featured act (45 minutes) at Silver Spring Folk Showcase; performed over spring and summer at Songwriter's Showcase, Westminster Inn, Maryland.

1990--Principal Male Vocalist, Alexandria Royal Fifes and Drums. Venues included Omni Shoreham, Washington Hilton.

1988-89--A Shug's Delight! won airplay on WWDC's Local Licks program; 1988--Led trio, The Shugs, into Washington, D.C. venues, including Galleghar's Pub, The Royal Warrant, The Takoma Café, and Bosco's.

1987--while on vacation in Jacksonville, Florida, played at TJ's Oyster House (won free-seafood-dinner-for-two contest), Applejacks, and Mayport Naval Air Station.

Journalism

I have reviewed works by Anthony Burgess, Robertson Davies and others for The Washington Book Review; sold features on Maryland's trapping industry, outdoor recreation (e.g., winter backpacking on Assateague Island National Seashore), and local entertainment for The Washington Post, Times Journal Co., (e.g., Montgomery Journal), and Recreation News. Also covered annual Chincoteague, Virginia pony swim and carnival for Firehouse Magazine, a national trade journal. In 1989, produced a short feature in The Washington Post on the Sun Dance hosted by the Piscataway Indian Nation located in Port Tobacco, Charles County, Maryland. In 1997, per the editor’s request, reported on Annual Christmas Bird Count for the Journal Express and provided the same paper with articles about the New Year’s holiday and St. Charles Town Centre, Maryland’s second largest shopping mall.

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