Every once in a while, I go over to the Writer’s Almanac, read the poem for the day and glance over what happened is history on this date. Yesterday I was very discouraged to discover that the little phrase that Keillor uses at the end of the show, “Be Well, Do Good Work and Keep in Touch” is actually trademarked.

I suppose I’m violating trademark by using it here, although it feels like fair use.

Speaking of fair use, at last night’s AGO meeting one member was buttering up another. The butterer was complimenting the butteree on a service he attended at the church Sunday. He saved some bulletins which he shared and suggested that we (the local AGO) keep a directory of local program and services bulletins on our website. The member being buttered up told him he would send him a PDF. I spoke up and asked if he would send one to me to share on Facebooger.

He refused saying he didn’t want quite that much exposure. He felt that there were copyright issues (which there are of course since he probably reproduced music under copyright). The butterer chimed in and said that putting these up on the chapter’s website is more like fair use or educational use.

 

He’s a teacher and he probably knows better because once its online it’s in violation of copyright no matter where it is.

But I quickly acquiesced. No problemo.

After the meeting the presenter said to me that he hoped I wouldn’t put pictures up of him on Facebook. I told him I had already shared a picture. When I showed it to him, he was horrified. I told him I would take it down. Again, no problemo.

I realized that I was probably the only person in the room who uses Facebooger at all. I sort of maintain the chapter Facebook page. We have more people in that group on Facebook than we have in our chapter, since I invite all sorts of interested people to be part of it.

I see sharing of information and ideas as fundamental. I also love the way the Interwebs does this. I get a tad discouraged when I see this not being taken advantage of, but in the final analysis, I’m mostly happy to do so myself.

Take this morning for instance. Having read where Vierne dedicated his Suite Bourguignonne, a piano piece to a student of his, my curiosity was piqued. In a matter of seconds I was inspecting the entire score online.

Earlier I had been intrigued quotes from two books used by Kent Greenfield at the beginning of a chapter in his book, The Myth of Choice.

We don’t live in a world that suffers from doubt, but one that suffers from certainty, false certainties that compensate for the well of worldly anxieties and worries.

Les Back, The Art of Listening

I liked that and interlibrary loaned the book this morning.

There was a second quote.

After all, what was adult life but one moment of weakness piled on top of another? Most people just fell in line like obedient little children, doing exactly what society expected of them at any given moment, all the while pretending that they’d actually made some sort of choice.

Tom Perrotta, Little Children

I kind of liked that one too.

It’s sitting on the shelf at the local library. I will probably pick it up soon to look at.

I should probably explain today’s title since it didn’t make that much sense to Eileen when I read it to her. I find myself about equally disinterested in local Dutch Reformed civic stuff and local Dutch Reformed college stuff.

Usually you can go with one or the other, town or gown, the city or the college. In this case, I have one colleague locally (Hello again Rhonda if you’re reading) and a few sympathetic dance teachers at the college.

What I really depend on is the internet to keep the old brain cells working and the morale reasonably good.

I do wonder if the internet should just happen to crash (Heartbleed), having all this access to information will motivate me to continue seeking out answers even without the internet.

Hey. It could happen.

By the way, I did get the presenter’s sort of permission to post a “discrete” pic of him on Facebook. Now all I have to do is work up the motivation to fuck with it at all.

Another by the way, Eileen is beginning to smile a bit more after talking to her CPA brother. It does look like there’s probably a way out of our most recent crisis.