blog posts & podcasts
you, us, them
I want iTour Beaufort
Conceived, created, produced, and published in Beaufort, SC with
100% local talent: writers, voices, singers, musicians, and visionary partners.
iTourBeaufort will launch very soon.
CDs will be available in retailers and gift shops.
Downloads will be available via custom ecommerce websites - virtual stores for the websites of Penn Center, Hunting Island, and Fort Fremont.
For insider updates or to get a smart cool business tool for yourself, click and Contact Us.
Digital assets generate revenue, action, results.
My notion is to use content to drive ecommerce.
Authentic local voices sharing real stories about a place that barely exists anymore.
It worked well for CityTrex iTours in Savannah, GA and Charleston, SC from 2008 to 2012. I retired those iPod-based tours, thanked Steve Jobs for the iPhone and iPad, rebuilt some things, and am relaunching a proven ecommerce store and push-button media publishing platform with the example of iTourBeaufort.com.
I want iTourBeaufort.com to work as well as CityTrex always did.
But more niche. That's one thing the Internet does so well, niche markets.
As if to prove no one is a hero in his hometown, I'm restarting and going All-In with the showcase of a niche microsite within a power domain.
If that sounds clever, good, you get it. Come aboard, we're expecting a nice ride.
If that sounds as swift as a 56kbps modem, that's okay too.
Let's just stick together; if you tell your story and share your guide to the Sea Island Lowcountry, and I do my job, then we'll all get more of what we want.
My #1 wish is to be heard and understood.
How about you? You in?
Then click and Contact Us. You can talk to me.
Call for Memories, Voices, Tour Guides
We're using our maintenance period as a birthing process - with an open call for new voices, new tales, tours, and an invitation for any entity (org, biz) to get on the new media platform. Browse the site, then contact us with your ideas or questions. We're ready to help you produce, publish, and monetize yourself.
Story of Childhood on St. Helena Island, SC
A remote Sea Island Lowcountry childhood is the source of rich storytelling skills and the material to draw from.
In this CityTrex podcast episode, the Friends of Hunting Island take us to meet Doctor Jonas Gadson, currently a Minister with the Beaufort Church of Christ.
He's a local who went to the mainland to have a career with Xerox and with Eastman Kodak, then returned home to found a church and serve his native community.
It's fitting that this podcast is published prior to Mother's Day 2014, because, as you'll hear, "Everything I am today I owe it to God and I owe it to my marvelous Mother."
Enjoy this episode where CityTrex takes us to hear an accomplished man recall his Gullah island childhood, a world that barely exists anymore.
He lived the African proverb, "It takes a village to raise a child."
The land is the Sea Island Lowcountry, and the island is St. Helena Island (the home of the Gullah culture), a barrier Island off the coast of South Carolina,
Doctor Gadson is a gentleman that has lived the advice of his marvelous Mother, who told him that "Manners will take you where money won't".
Another podcast of "Local Voices Telling Real Stories" brought to you by CityTrex.com and sponsored by the Friends of Hunting Island.
Want to hear one more of Dr. Gadson?
I do! So we produced this to help promote a church revival he was leading last summer:
What can we say... we love authentic voices!
# # # # # # # # #
Salt water drowns and saves
CityTrex and Lowcountry author Roger Pinckney combine talents to tell two stories about one constant: the salt water that surrounds us can sustain us but also can take away our loved ones.
The water took away a good man, Willis Frazier, 50, of Hilton Head, during a storm offshore.
A river of the same water helps us save our souls.
In this dispatch of Radio Free Daufuskie, Roger Pinckney reports on two current events on our barrier islands.
Click Here to Hear it in QuickTime
about 6 minutes
.
.
.
Singing the World Awake
ALERT: Postponed due to medical Emergency. Stay Tuned for update.
Vocalist Heather Houston (Santa Cruz, CA) and Host Pat Keown (Beaufort, SC) discuss the CD tour: "Singing the World Awake Community Sing with Prayers for the Water", offered as a gift to our community by Threshold Singers of the Lowcountry.
ALERT: Postponed due to medical Emergency. Stay Tuned for update.
Friday April 17th, 2015.
OLLI Event - Open to the Public
Friday, April 17 3:00-4:30
(click for map) USCB Beaufort Campus, Sandstone Bldg., Room 124
Saturday April 18th, 2015
6:30-8:00pm with reception following.
Port Royal Sound Foundation
310 Okatie Hwy, Okatie, SC 29909 Click for Map.
Contributions of gratitude are appreciated but not necessary.
Here's a beautiful flyer for this event.
More about Heather Houston: HeatherHoustonMusic.com.
ALERT: Postponed due to medical Emergency. Stay Tuned for update.
7,700 Loggerhead Hatchlings Await
Hunting Island, South Carolina still shows that nature can operate very well without us. We're the ones needing electricity, gasoline, telephones, or a calendar beyond the sun and seasons.
Accessible unpaved places are more precious than ever.
In the winter, this State Park is about horses on the beach and solo beach combing.
The Summertime brings sandcastles and campers that know the sensation of a sunrise saltwater bath.
Click on the player below to hear from two top turtle volunteers,
Turtle veteran, Denise, and Turtle Vet, Doctor Chris:
Play using the SoundCloud player (above) or for the FLASH impaired,
Click and hear from two top turtle volunteers:
Turtle veteran, Denise, and Turtle Vet, Doctor Chris.
About 10 minutes
It's a perfect setting for an ancient reptile to swim home from a life at sea, just as her ancestors have done for millions of years.
In springtime, loggerhead turtle mothers do what their kind has done for centuries - return to the place of their birth to lay eggs. It's going on with or without us, so it's a healthy reminder of our place in the scheme of things.
They don't need us, except to stay out of their way; to be a good neighbor and let them do their thing, which, as humans, we're not very good at. We like to pave things and have lights at night and poke around and say, "Hey, Y'all, look at this!".
Coastal locals and our visitors love the Sea Island Lowcountry and feel a claim to the natural resources - shown by good stewardship of what we're blessed with.
The Friends of Hunting Island (FOHI) started a Sea Turtle Conservation Project in 1981.
Since then, it's been globally recognized for its successful service.
In 2013 volunteers located and protected 125 loggerhead nests; so about 7,700 turtle eggs successfully hatched and hustled out to sea.
If this interests you then join in! If you're local to beautiful Beaufort, SC, you can actually see a turtle boil - where hatchlings erupt from the sandy nests and scramble into the surf.
Turtle season starts each May, click here for volunteer info.
If you're not local - and our web stats indicate that thousands of the readers are "from away" - then join Friends of Hunting Island, or adopt a nest, or get on the newsletter.
We have educational and entertaining media for your diversion, for homeschool curricula, etc. Let us know what you're into and we can tailor production.
# # #
Hunting Island State Park is one of the worlds top beaches.
It's a barrier island along the coastal sea island Lowcountry of beautiful Beaufort, South Carolina.
Get your bearings: we're located north of Savannah and its popular Tybee Island, Georgia; north of South Carolina's of Daufuskie, Hilton Head, and Fripp.
Also, south of what we think of as Charleston, SC: Edisto Island, Kiawah Island, Folly Beach, Sullivans Island, and the Isle of Palms.
CityTrex LLC
Local Stories. Local Voices.
Handheld multimedia tours & mobile guides.
Walking tours. Driving tours.
MP3 audio tours.
Guide Apps with local folks, authors, artists, and guides.
Photos courtesy of FriendsOfHuntingIsland.Org
# # # # # # # # #
Oh, the Buford Boat Done Come
Lowcountry Voices: Gullah Tricksters, Storytelling, and Song.
Here's a dance song in the Charleston rhythm from the Geechee country in South Carolina, learned in Florida from a Geechee woman:
About 7 minutes
or click here to hear it in QuickTime on your smart phone, iPad, etc.
As part of our new series we're calling "Lowcountry Voices," CityTrex is scouring the region in search of local, "real deal" Gullah storytellers and tales.
Although we're looking for original and compelling Gullah voices to feature in the series, you don't have to be (or pretend to be) Gullah to help us document them, just someone with their discerning ear to the ground.
This project is motivated by the realization that most Gullah stories known to the larger American public have been filtered through the literary imaginations of non-Gullah writers and that actual audio recordings of these tales in local Gullah vernacular are few and far between.
We're calling on you to help us begin reversing this trend.
Whether you are a Gullah storyteller yourself or whether you have been fortunate enough to be in the right place at the right time when a Gullah friend or neighbor shared a story, we want to hear from you.
Who knows, perhaps some of the Gullah folks who where were around when Lydia Parrish, Zora Neale Hurston, Mary Granger and others were collecting stories, songs, and recipes are still out there somewhere today. If they are, one thing is for sure, they're not getting any younger!
Help us find them so that we can begin documenting and preserving their voices for future generations.
by Kenneth Routon, PhD, Cultural Anthropologist
Brantley Harvey tells about Strom
Here is the voice of Brantley telling stories about Strom.
One South Carolina statesman shares his recollections regarding another.
Priceless.
Click it and thank Books Sandwiched In for making this happen:
About 9 minutes
or click here to hear it in QuickTime on your smart phone, iPad, etc.
(QR code goes to the above MP3.)
This is one of several podcasts
sponsored by CityTrex LLC for
Books Sandwiched In
USCB Performing Arts Center
801 Carteret Street, Beaufort, SC 29902
12:00 - 1:00 pm (doors open at 11:30 am)
February 28, 2011
The event is free and open to everyone.
.
.
.
Harriet Keyserling books it going Against the Tide
The President of the United States introduced this reviewer to this author.
How cool is that? Pretty darn so.
"Against the Tide: One Woman's Political Struggle" by Harriet Keyserling.
Reviewer: Linda Tarr-Whelan.
Click it and dig it, a radio preview of the Books Sandwiched In for Jan 31st:
about 10 minutes
Or
click here to hear it in QuickTime on your smart phone, iPad, etc.
Want Mobile Media?
(QR code goes to above MP3.)
Our reviewer this week is Linda Tarr-Whelan, author of "Women Lead the Way: Your Guide to Stepping Up to Leadership and Changing the World."
Click and download an eBook version, or go to the source (LindaTarrWhelan.com) to learn more.
Books Sandwiched In
USCB Performing Arts Center
801 Carteret Street, Beaufort, SC
12:00 - 1:00 pm (doors open at 11:30 am)
Monday January 31, 2011
The event is free and open to everyone.
Bring your lunch or purchase it at the Outtakes Cafe table in the Performing Arts Center.
And dude, save your Hooters sweatshirt for another day. The President of the United States introduced these two women. Can anyone in the room top that?
.
.
.
Oral history: Remembering the Way It Was at Beaufort, Sheldon and the Sea Islands
Fran Heyward Marscher is a delight, so it's a double-treat hearing her review her book, Remembering the Way it was at Beaufort, Sheldon and the Sea Islands. She is speaking on Valentines Day and she's the perfect fit.
Click and feel a Lowcountry tidal rhythm:
About 7 minutes
OR click here to hear it in QuickTime on your smart phone, iPad, etc.
Want Mobile Media? Scan this and get your dose of Fran To-Go:
This is one of several new media promotions
sponsored by CityTrex LLC for
Books Sandwiched In
USCB Performing Arts Center
801 Carteret Street, Beaufort, SC 29902
12:00 - 1:00 pm (doors open at 11:30 am)
February 14, 2011
The event is free and open to everyone.
Here's a link to her book on Amazon.com.
Highly recommended!
.
.
.