At Microsoft's last ever CES keynote, the company has a choir warbling tweets halfway through CEO Steve Ballmer's presentation.
LAS VEGAS--Ideas can come from anywhere.
The only question that rattles my Starbucks latte this morning is which interesting, imaginative cranium was the home for this one.
At last night's farewell, never to return, it's-been-great-having-you Microsoft CES 2012 keynote, the stage was graced by hubble, bubble, toil, and trouble.
No, these were not four members of Microsoft's senior management team. Rather, these were many, many singers dressed in long cloaks. Their job was not to sing a dirge, nor a classic Southside Johnny's opus of sadness like "Lights Don't Shine" or "Hearts of Stone."
No, they were singing tweets.
These tweets were, it appeared, real tweets sent in by real people entirely unrelated to any Microsoft PR company.
There were tweets about the LSU/Alabama game. There were tweets about CES. There were tweets about Windows 8. All were put to music, if not, some might say, death. This went on for more than three minutes.
At one point a lady with a beautiful voice sang the word "hilarious." Soon afterward, the fine gentleman lead singer offered: "Somebody send for Eddie Murphy."
Could this have been because this fine choir wanted to trade places?
These singers were from the Las Vegas Mass Choir and one wonders what they must have thought offering up these gospelized Twitterings to a possibly bemused audience.
Perhaps this was an attempt at reaching for modernity. Perhaps someone at Microsoft simply thinks this choir is cool (It is). But whoever takes on next year's CES keynote, how will they possibly be beat this?
For oddness, that is.