KEVIN C. NEECE
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Spocktober Guest Blog Post - Shop LLAP: A Nimoy Family Legacy by Lisa M. Lynch, Part 2

10/26/2016

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The second part of Lisa M. Lynch's interview with Leonard Nimoy's granddaughter, Dani Schwartz. Read Part 1 here.
Keeping Busy

The two of them kept up with Shop LLAP despite their own busy schedules.

The shop itself was set up in the house of Julie Nimoy, Dani’s mother. That is where Dani did the majority of the work, from customer service to packing and shipping orders. But the grandfather/granddaughter business associates did find time to work together. 

“My grandpa and I were both busy - he was traveling and still working a little bit and I had a full time job - but we constantly emailed and made an effort to meet up once a week or every other week. We did have “business meetings” at his house in his office. . . . I would go over, and for an hour or two we’d go over things, he’d sign some merchandise and then we would do some brainstorming. Once we finished, we’d hang out and eat lunch in the kitchen.”

“He taught me so much, like how to communicate better in business and how to problem solve.” ​
PictureLeonard Nimoy in the photograph he used as his profile image for @TheRealNimoy
Mr. Spock Online

Leonard spent around thirty minutes a day on Twitter, but he had also discovered something interesting about the online world. “He was new to both Twitter and Google around the same time. He was fascinated at how Google could find millions of results to your search in such a small amount of time.” 

“He could not believe how many results he got when he entered “Mr. Spock” or even his own name. He loved it!”

A Life is Like a Garden

In 2014, Leonard went public about his struggle with COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), a result of his longtime smoking habit, even though he had quit thirty years earlier. Leonard spent his last year on Twitter actively campaigning against smoking and encouraging his followers to either quit or never start.

Trek fans went through the collective pain of losing Leonard Nimoy in February of 2015. His final tweet caught the broken hearts of fans everywhere - “A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP.”

Continuing with Shop LLAP

Dani is still very active with Shop LLAP and its social media accounts. She shares new product information, photos and memories of her grandfather, and photos of happy customers. And of course she selects the occasional musing from @TheRealNimoy to retweet to her followers.

As for the future of Shop LLAP? “I definitely want to keep [the business] as small as possible but I do love having a lot of fun and exclusive merchandise for my customers!”

Shop LLAP continues to add new and unique Mr. Spock and Leonard Nimoy items for sale, many of which are created by artists specifically for the shop. Some of the designs are created by Dani as well.

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The current Shop LLAP logo
Shirts are still a popular item, and she also sells photos, books, accessories and memorabilia. Dani also works with artists who have sold Nimoy and Spock items elsewhere, and collects those items to sell at Shop LLAP. Her most recent addition is the beautifully-illustrated Richard Michelson book Fascinating: The Life of Leonard Nimoy.

With a Shop LLAP purchase, Dani always includes a cleverly-folded receipt with a handwritten thanks, and sometimes she’ll tuck in special items like temporary LLAP tattoos or keychains.

Remember

Leonard continues to play a role in the business despite his absence. “[My grandfather] is still a huge influence on Shop LLAP and in my own personal life. He was not only my grandpa and business partner but he was also my mentor. I learned a lot from him.”

Purchasing from Shop LLAP also helps with a project that is near to the hearts of Leonard Nimoy’s family.

“A portion of the shop’s proceeds go to UCLA’s COPD research team,” Dani says. “The doctor who treated my grandpa has an incredible team there and my family and I are so grateful for everything he did to take care of him. We, the Nimoy Family, made a donation this year to them as well.”

When Your Grandpa is Mr. Spock

By the way, Dani is a fan of Star Trek and Mr. Spock. “I knew what Star Trek was and what Spock looked like but I did not fully grasp the fact that my grandpa was Spock until I was about 11 years old. I love Star Trek TOS and Spock is my favorite character, not just because my grandpa played him! I started to collect Star Trek/Spock memorabilia about 10 years ago when my grandpa gave me a keychain from his own personal collection.”

Of course, to Dani, Leonard Nimoy was mostly her beloved Poppi. She didn’t truly understand the admiration that people all around the world had for him for quite awhile. “I thought it was cool and everything, but it was not until we opened our shop that I realized just how much people loved and respected both my grandpa and Mr. Spock.”

“It was such an honor to be able to experience that.”
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Leonard Nimoy wearing one of Shop LLAP's shirts in his final convention appearance on October 2, 2011

Visit Shop LLAP at www.shopllap.com. You can also follow Dani and Shop LLAP on Twitter at @ShopLLAP, on Instagram at @shopllap, and on Facebook.

Lisa M. Lynch is a small business owner in Portland, Oregon and an occasional contributor for Trek.FM. She contributed an essay to the book Spockology, a collection of essays on Spock and Leonard Nimoy, and tweets at @StarTrekWreck.
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Spocktober Guest Post - Shop LLAP: A Nimoy Family Legacy by Lisa M. Lynch, Part 1

10/26/2016

0 Comments

 
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If you’re a Star Trek fan and you’ve been on Twitter for awhile, it’s likely you’ve been one of the million-plus followers of @TheRealNimoy, the account of actor Leonard Nimoy, who passed away in 2015 at the age of 83. Leonard was very active on Twitter, and his tweets were usually capped off with the abbreviation “LLAP” - Twitter-speak for “Live Long and Prosper,” that famous Vulcan greeting from Leonard’s Mr. Spock.

Today, more than a million people still carry him on their “following” list and every once in awhile, in several hundred timelines, an erstwhile @TheRealNimoy tweet pops up and reminds us of a different, kinder era. And above that tweet, the words “A retweet for my Poppi. #LLAP.”

Dani Schwartz

The person behind the retweet is Dani Schwartz, Leonard’s granddaughter. Dani maintains the @TheRealNimoy account, and she also runs the Twitter account for the online retail business, Shop LLAP, that she and Leonard co-founded. Dani, who refers to him as “Poppi,” is the reason Leonard joined Twitter in the first place. ​
PictureLeonard Nimoy with his granddaughter, Dani Schwartz
Before Shop LLAP, Dani and Leonard opened “Secret Selves” in March of 2010 as an Etsy shop named for Leonard’s 2008 photography series. There they sold tee shirts with his photos printed on the back. Dani says, “Our shop first started out sort of as a challenge to see if I could make and have better quality shirts than his previous ones for the upcoming Secret Selves show that summer.”

Leonard Nimoy meets Twitter

Prior to opening Leonard’s Twitter account, Dani had taken a marketing class on the influence of social media. Dani and Leonard then opened the new Twitter account in order to publicize the Secret Selves shop. “Both my grandfather and I were new to Twitter, so we were both learning together. We created @TheRealNimoy in April of 2010. By the second week he was doing 90% of the tweeting.”

At the beginning, @TheRealNimoy was used almost exclusively for promoting the Secret Selves shop, “but [we] changed it when we discovered how many people he knew had a Twitter account and that he could communicate with not only them but also his ‘followers.’”

Leonard found that he loved tweeting and interacting with his fans online.

LLAP

Leonard put Twitter’s word limit to good use. “About a week or two after he started tweeting, he began ending every tweet with ‘LLAP.’ Many of his followers followed suit and started to add the hashtag. My Poppi would add it as well, if he remembered.”

Dani was surprised at how popular the hashtag “LLAP” had become, and even now it continues to be a ubiquitous presence on Twitter for the Star Trek community - a familiar signal of good will and a loving tribute to Leonard Nimoy and Mr. Spock.

The Merchandise Comes With Something Extra Special
​

During the early days of the Secret Selves shop, Leonard offered signed 8 X 10 glossy photos of Mr. Spock along with the purchase of a tee shirt. Eventually he would send along signed Spock trading cards. Dani and Leonard also sold Secret Selves shirts which Leonard would sign on the back. Then they began a promotion where they would sell blank white tee shirts, and on the back Leonard would use a marker to trace over his hand doing the Vulcan salute with “LLAP” written underneath. “The tracing of his hand was his idea. We would probably spend 2-4 hours a month working on those shirts.”

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Leonard Nimoy tracing his hand for an "LLAP" shirt
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One of Shop LLAP's shirts featuring Leonard Nimoy's hand tracing
Eventually they outgrew their Etsy shop. 

“. . . when we saw how many followers he was getting and how big of a thing LLAP was becoming, we decided to close our Etsy shop and open Shop LLAP. Shop LLAP became the shop for all things Spock, and Leonard Nimoy, of course.”

That Half Spock Face

Soon they created the iconic half Spock face, which became synonymous with Shop LLAP. It became the shop’s logo and was also featured on some products.

“The half Spock face was my idea. My grandpa was on board with the concept, so he put me in charge to find someone who could draw it for us. I got in touch with Josh Zingerman who is a comic book artist and an old friend of mine from elementary school. My grandpa and I worked with him to achieve what we were looking for.”
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A signed 8x10 of Leonard Nimoy from Lisa Lynch's private collection
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A shirt from Shop LLAP featuring the half Spock face design
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A Spock trading card autographed by Leonard Nimoy from Lisa Lynch's private collection
Dani and Leonard also opened the Twitter account @ShopLLAP so they could continue to promote Shop LLAP products there exclusively, and Leonard used @TheRealNimoy primarily to communicate with fans. He still promoted items from the shop, however. Along with his daily musings, Leonard would mention new shop items - like newly-designed shirts, signed photographic prints, signed tote bags, audio and video recordings, and even artistic prints created by Dani’s cousin, musician Jonah Nimoy. Also for sale were books and shirts from his other photographic endeavours, Shekinah and The Full Body Project.

For the rest of the interview, Click HERE for Part 2!

Visit Shop LLAP at www.shopllap.com. You can also follow Dani and Shop LLAP on Twitter at @ShopLLAP, on Instagram at @shopllap, and on Facebook.​

Lisa M. Lynch is a small business owner in Portland, Oregon and an occasional contributor for Trek.FM. She contributed an essay to the book Spockology, a collection of essays on Spock and Leonard Nimoy, and tweets at @StarTrekWreck.
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    Kevin C. Neece

    Kevin is a writer and speaker, the author of The Gospel According to Star Trek Series and the editor of Spockology.

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