With the upcoming 2008 Olympics in Beijing, there is an effort to correct obvious mistranslations into English in signs. China Daily Article.

One of the fun things in China was reading the English mis-translations everywhere. It seems kind of mean. But it is funny. Eileen was looking for a t-shirt before we left with an obvious one but she didn’t find it.

RIAA is still sueing it’s customers according to this article in the U of M Michigan Daily. The idea that sellers should control our society is one of the more beserk notions I observe on a daily basis. Whew. (Rev Jim sigh)

Sueing the people who want your product is ridiculous. When this product is something like music, it’s really unethical. It also (I hope) is shooting yourself in the foot.

What is music for? I think it’s part of the whole human dance of what makes us human. One thing that I think makes us human is that we are “meaning-makers.” We make sense of our environment, our lives, our feelings, our bodies. Music can help. Indeed, I think music, art, poetry and literature are basic to this aspect of being human.

To exploit this for a profit is akin to charging for air (or water or medical care…. get it? …. just my opinion, of course)

Yesterday I heard a radio report about patents for certain Tax shelter procedures. There was a clear defense of this idea. (pretty dumb, but clear: wouldn’t you want to be able to protect a bunch of work and research you did so that you could charge for it and no one else). But wait a minute. Taxes are part of the social contract. You know. We tax ourselves in order to provide ourselves with services and safeguards. Why should we pay a third party because it can figure out our admittedly arcane rules better than we can? Why not just change the rules and make them clearer? silly fucking me

RIAA is an example of a seller that is not thinking clearly. For the longest time, they were able to sell music over and over to the golden goose consumer. Now that the consumer is consuming in new ways, they want to kill the goose to keep the egg. Good grief.

And at the same time it becomes clearer and clearer to me that populist music (i.e. music that is selling bigtime) along with populist everything is turning into dross.

Mediocrity sells. Imus sells. Misogyny sells. Fair enough but whatever happened to integrity of the product.

I don’t want to stifle Don Imus’s free speech, I just don’t want him to be in the million-zillion dollar club because of his racial pandering. Let him say whatever he wants, but please media people remember you are a kind of public trust.  Try not to sponsor out-and-out hate.  If people want to buy it, fine.  That is their choice. Their consumer choice. Their vote, if you will.

As for me, it’s in the same boat as Haliburton profitting from the war and people who watch a calamity (like 9/11 or Katrina) and are already on the phone trying to scam (skim) some of the money they know will follow the disaster.

Netflix now has us on their streaming video list. This is an added service they provide with no extra charge. Subscribers get one hour of monthly streaming videos for every dollar of their subcription payment (which depends upon which level of service you have chosen…. Eileen and I have the 2-videos-at-a time service which costs about 15 bucks a month).

Last night we streamed Heater. Eileen picked it out and I enjoyed it immensely. Judging from customer reviews, this flick isn’t for everybody. Made around 1999, it chronicles a day of two men living on the street. Nothing happens, okay? Bruce Willis is not in this movie.

I liked it better than any movie I’ve watched in a while. The acting was pretty strong. The title comes from the fact that one of the main characters carries around a new heater in a box for most of the film. The dialogue is believable. The story is believable.

When I first discovered that we had the streaming option, I streamed The Ladies Sing the Blues.

It’s a sort of documentary which has two arresting moments. One when Bessie Smith sings on camera and one when Billie Holiday sings on camera. I guess it’s worth it just to watch these two for me. The rest is pretty limp. Ethel Waters sings a disturbing song called about “darkies.” The great Lena Horne and Sarah Vaughan and Sister Rosa Tharpe are also on camera but these don’t show these people at their most interesting and artistic.

I really like the new Netflix streaming option. Not all videos are available, but still it’s kind of cool.

I think it’s ART. More here (warning: this site is in Italian)

Cornell U online Archive of US mags from the 1800s….. I think this is cool. Of course I am a “print media” guy. The list includes Atlantic Monthly, Harpers and Scientific American.

So let me get this straight: U of M is going to redesign it’s stadium so the crowd noise is louder. Weird.

Today seems to be “church day” for me. I meet with my priest at 12:30. Then a worship commission meeting at 1:30. Eileen got up telling me she thought that the hymn committee met at 3 PM today. Wow.

I had anxiety dreams about two different choir rehearsals (neither of them specifically the choir I direct) in which I did not have the music chosen yet. Heh. I have yet to choose music for the rest of the season so I guess I’m doing that today. Actually I’ve already started by compiling the list of readings. Eileen pointed out once again how convenient it would be if I had a computer at work with an internet connection. She says this because the readings are conveniently online plus other resource material. I utilize all this when I prepare. But I can’t do it at work. O well.

Also I want to choose prelude and postlude today.

Yep. Looks like a church day fer sure.

Johnson, whose world ranking shot up to 15th after winning the tournament, told sports commentators: “This being Easter, Jesus was with me every step. I felt him. It was awesome.

“Today was a day of perseverance and patience, I guess. I just feel very blessed and very honoured.”

Johnson’s religious conviction reflects a strong evangelical undercurrent in the world of top-flight US golf.

The Scotsman

Student punished for Spaghetti Beliefs… (another Metro link)

A student has been suspended from school in America for coming to class dressed as a pirate.

But the disciplinary action has provoked controversy – because the student says that the ban violates his rights, as the pirate costume is part of his religion.

Bryan Killian says that he follows the Pastafarian religion, and that as a crucial part of his faith, he must wear ‘full pirate regalia’ as prescribed in the holy texts of Pastafarianism.

The school, however, say that his pirate garb was disruptive.

Pastafarians follow the Flying Spaghetti Monster (pictured), and believe that the world was created by the touch of his noodly appendage. Furthermore, they acknowledge pirates as being ‘absolute divine beings’, and stress that the worldwide decline in the number of pirates has directly led to global warming. 

Not content with simply smashing into the floor, the instrument bounced off the gravel and hurtled over a bank before clattering onto a set of granite steps.

from The Metro

from Sequenza21 (new music) blog

from Sounds and Fury blog

from Minneapolis Star Tribune

link to my blog entry about this

The tea-masters collected only objects which fell strictly within the measure of their individual appreciation.

One is reminded in this connection of a story concerning Kobori Enshu. Enshu was complimented by his disciples on the admirable taste had displayed in the choice of his collection. Said they, “Each piece is such that no one could help admiring. It shows that you had better taste than Rikyu, for his collection could only be appreciated by one beholder in a thousand.” Sorrowfully, Enshu replied: “This only proves how commonplace I am. The great Rikyu dared to love only those objects which personally appealed to him, whereas I unconsciously cater to the taste of the majority. Verily, Rikyu was one in a thousand among tea-masters.”

It is much to be regretted that so much of the apparent enthusiasm for art at the present day has no foundation in real feeling.
The Book of Tea by Kakuzo Okakura

Indian Music Academy Awards Ceremony

I woke up groggy this morning, but at least I slept past 5 AM. Last night, my friend Jonathon came over and we chatted and played songs with each other. He showed me the song he wants me to play on his new CD.

I have been asked to play for a Global Warming protest at Centennial Park on Saturday. Although I know that some of my readers are doubters about this phenomenon (ahem), my main reservation about this will be the weather. If it’s too cold, forget it. I am thinking of calling and telling the organizers if it looks like the prediction for Saturday is 30 degrees farenheit or below, that I won’t play.

I am thinking of doing several of my songs that I have on my mind these days:

Naked Boy
Why did the elephant cross the road
Ghost Dance

and by Tom Waits: Everything you can think

The first two I have changed to be a bit more rhythmical.

Jonathon and I were discussing recording techniques last night. He has developed a system whereby he does not record by himself or one track at a time. Instead he gets better performances if he has at least one other musician to record with simulatneously. This makes good sense to me.

I played him the Gipsy Kings’ CD, Roots, which I understand was not tracked but recorded with most if not all the musicians playing simultaneously. The recording is pretty phenomenal as far as I’m concerned. He agreed and he has much better ears for that sort of thing than I. It reinforced his idea of not tracking individual tracks.

Today I give one of my best lectures. I have a series of recordings I play for the students to demonstrate the line that can be drawn from African war chants through Spirituals through Blues to Early Jazz. It’s fun to do and I think pretty convincing.

My brother Mark’s Easter vigil sermon. Of course I’m biased, but I think it’s pretty good. As usual.

I’m quite taken with the novel I am reading, Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. My interlibrary loan copy is not near as cool looking as the one above. It looks like this:

Anyway, I picked up the title in a comment on the blog Involuntary Memory In it there are six lives that link together. I am on the fifth life and am quite taken with the whole story.

“The student became violent,” said Frank Mercurio, the no-nonsense chief of the Avon Park police. “She was yelling, screaming — just being uncontrollable. Defiant.”

“But she was 6,” I said.

The chief’s reply came faster than a speeding bullet: “Do you think this is the first 6-year-old we’ve arrested?”….

There was a problem, though. The handcuffs were not manufactured with kindergarten kids in mind. The chief explained: “You can’t handcuff them on their wrists because their wrists are too small, so you have to handcuff them up by their biceps.”

“6-Year-Olds Under Arrest” by Bob Herbert, NYT 4/9/07