cont from part 1
3. Poetry: You can read one of his poems and hear his
voice in the
award-winning Multimedia piece that a group of us
built together back
in 1997, inspired by Joe's poetry. Check out "from The
American Book
of Answers". It was based on a poem of the same name
that Joe wrote
while running across America in the 90s. Joe came up
with phrases
that he posited might found in an apocryphal book he
called "The
American Book of Answers". He wanted the lines of the
poem to be
accessed in non-standard ways, so that although the
reader would some
have input into their path, it would be different each
time, and not
able to follow a predictable path. This is wonderful,
eclectic Joe
stuff, and it's lovely to hear his warm voice and his
educated
English accent.
One of the scenes has a video grab of Joe's face,
matching the phrase
"Hey! Freeze-frame that face!". A sneaky hint: if
you're having
trouble accessing more than about 20 phrases with the
mouse, try
using the arrow keys on your keyboard: up, down, right
and left...
breaks the rules a bit, but you can view more of the
lines that way
if you want the whole thing. Only about half the
images are animated.
Some are just meant to stand still.
If we did it again we could use Joe's painted
textures, but he wasn't
painting so much back then...
It has been wonderful for me to re-visit this piece.
Three weeks of
no speech from him and now we can all hear him still
speaking to us -
articulate, warm, challenging. It's a been a great
treat to share
this side of Joe with those of you who had not seen
this side of him.
This is a very Joe vibe and I hope you all enjoy it...
Cheers,
Barb.
Hi everyone, just got this update from Joe's friend Barb. By the way, you can also send e-mails (humorous ones would be good) to this address: info@mastery.com.au
Margaret
Florence, Italy. --
Hi All,
I'll try to keep it to just a short note this time (promise!). We visited Joe today and he is showing remarkable improvement from 2 days ago. Although he still drifts off a bit when he's tired, when he's fresh, his mood is light and friendly and very positive. He allowed us to stay while he went through his paces with his physio - and I think he was showing off a bit for us, as he seemed pretty pleased with himself.
On Wednesday he could twitch some fingers and some toes slightly and get a bit of a voluntary jitter going in his legs. He breathed for himself for 3 hours and then was back on the machine. This left him very tired, but it was a great achievement.
Today (Friday), in his physio session Joe could (voluntarily) curl all of his fingers inwards and flex them outwards, use his biceps to pull his hands up towards himself (with some assistance), curl his toes slightly, flex his feet, use his quadriceps to lock his knees flat down on the bed, and push his feet back towards the end of the bed from a flexed position. All of these exercises were repeated 5 times, and some held for 5 seconds. This is a remarkable transformation. I actually saw him work up a light sheen of sweat, and we saw determination and real effort. It's an expression we are happy to see return to Joe's face.
Joe has also spent all of today breathing for himself. His breath still comes through the trachaeostomy tube, but there was no machine on the other end of the tube for the whole day...
He is still battling infections, but his speed of recuperation is amazing.
Clare said that yesterday he was apparently not so happy and very restless and bothered with it all, wanting to just get up out of bed and get out of it there, but today he was in a very peaceful mood and we had a great visit. He has promised me he won't leave there without us all there to help him.
Many of you have asked for a postal address to send cards to him:
-- Joe Record,
Fremantle Hospital,
ICU Department,
PO Box 480, Fremantle WA 6959, Australia
-- Cheers,
Barb.
--
Geoff Jagoe & Barb de la Hunty
Mastery Multimedia Pty Ltd
Multimedia and web content production
Phone: 08 9364 2134
web: http://www.mastery.com.au
That's some amazing, inspiring stuff there. Wishing him all the best. Cheers -- Susan
Got this sad message re Joe Record
Hi all,
It is with great sadness that I have to tell you that Joe passed away this afternoon.
Clare has asked for an autopsy in the hope that we will understand better how he could be doing so well yesterday and then deteriorate so suddenly overnight. The current working theory is that the myeloma interfered with his recovery to the point that he had sudden kidney failure, which triggered the atrial arhythmia and consequent multiple organ shutdown.
Joe had a hard struggle during the day, but at the end of the day when it was clear he was really going, they disconnected all the tubes and he went peacefully.
No funeral plans have been finalised. His family is in no hurry to decide. We want to do it right for Joe and give him the kind of sendoff he would have wanted. I will let you all know when something has been decided. Joe hated funerals but he loved parties. The current theory is a quiet cremation and a noisy party, coupled with a gallery showing of Joe's paintings if possible.
Thank you all for your love and support for Joe. We read all your emails to him and they made him grin and I know they were a big factor in improving his state of mind and quality of life over his month-long journey through ICU.
Regards,
Barb.
--
-- mmm-MMM-mmm-MMM-mmm --
Geoff Jagoe & Barb de la Hunty
Mastery Multimedia Pty Ltd
Multimedia and web content production
Phone: 08 9364 2134
web: http://www.mastery.com.au
I must say that I enjoyed reading Joe's posts. I always regarded him in a different sort of way- in a positive sense. I think that I will email Mastery.com and look into some sort of visual content authored by Joe- see if there is some sort of work that I can put on the b-m.org site. David
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