Month: April 2007

More Music Meme!

Stolen from Tosy because he steals from me.

What was the first recorded music you bought?
Beatles VI from the Capitol Record Club. I got 11 for one cent, but the one I paid for was that one. My sisters, neighbor and I lipsynched to this one. The others: Beatles’ Second Album, Beatles ’65, Something New-the Beatles, Best of herman’s Hermits, Daydream-Lovin’ spoonful, Big hits from England and the USA, Goldfinger-Billy Strange. I forget the rest.

What was the last?
David Bromberg – Wanted: Dead or Alive. It features a song called “The Holdup”, which also appears on an earlier album, written by Bromberg and some guy named George Harrison.. This version, backed by members of the Grateful Dead, has a mariachi break in the middle.

What was the first “professional” music show you ever went to?
Quite possibly Seals & Crofts, Nov 12, 1971 with the Okie. Love makes you do strange things.

What was the last?
Sean Lennon, April 10, 2007. I even know his birthday: October 9, 1975.

What’s your “desert island” album?
Never easy. Revolver (Beatles), I suppose. No, Rubber Soul (Beatles). No wait, Still Crazy after All These Years (Paul Simon). Of course, it has to be Pet Sounds (Beach Boys). What was the question?

What’s your favorite album/song title?
Rubber Soul. Makes more sense as a result of some Anthology dialogue.

What’s your favorite album art (include an image of it if you can)?
Sgt. Pepper. Often imitated.

Ideal choice for a karaoke song?
Take Me to the River.

Song you don’t like that WILL NOT LEAVE YOUR HEAD if you hear it.
My Sharona-the Knack. Dammit. It’s mot that I don’t like it; it’s that I’m embarrassed to like it.

Which is cooler? — Vinyl? CD? Cassette? 8-track?
Vinyl is definitely “cooler”. I never owned an 8-track. Most of my music is on CD.
ROG

ROG

Oscar-Worthy Movies I Have Seen: 1931-1932

Production (Picture):
“GRAND HOTEL”, “Arrowsmith”, “Bad Girl”, “The Champ”, “Five Star Final”, “One Hour With You”, “Shanghai Express”, “The Smiling Lieutenant”
Nada, though I was in the room once when “The Champ” was playing on TV some years ago.

BTW, this guy named Walt Disney won a special award for his four-year-old creation, Mickey Mouse.
***
I forgot to mention that I appeared in some State University newsletter called The SUNY Watch, dated April 2007:

Your Name: Roger Green
Your Title and Name of Your Office: Information Specialist

Winter Techniques

What winter? The first half was so mild – an average of 12 degrees above normal over a 38-day period in December and January – that I didn’t even get into winter survival mode until mid-January. For me, winter is for seeing movies, usually at the Spectrum, usually Oscar nominated films.

I’ve most recently seen, in reverse chronological order, Notes on a Scandal, Volver, The Queen and The Pursuit of Happyness.
My favorite pictures of 2006, though, were Little Miss Sunshine and Stranger Than Fiction, because they both are intelligent, funny, and a little offbeat.
ROG

ROG

Oscar-Worthy Movies I Have Seen: 1930-1931

Production (Picture):
“CIMARRON”, “East Lynne”, “The Front Page”, “Skippy”, “Trader Horn”
Was watching some chunk of “The Front Page” on TCM in the past few years, but not enough that I’d count it.
But wait! There were some interesting films in this period that weren’t even nominated: Charlie Chaplin’s City Lights, The Blue Angel with Marlene Dietrich, Dracula with Bela Lugosi, and James Whale’s Frankenstein with Boris Karloff were all unnominated. I’ve seen at least portions of all of them, probably all of City Lights over time, which undoubtedly suffered from being a silent film in the talkies era.
ROG

ROG

VOTING Questions

I was reading in Newsweek a couple weeks ago about some (Republican) politician complaining about ex-cons voting. I don’t see the problem. I think the ex-cons SHOULD vote. Perhaps:
1) They’ll feel more a part of the society as engaged citizens.
2) They’ll be able to better suss out the crooks who actually get elected, the Duke Cunninghams, the Bob Neys.

If anything, I’d think we would like to get MORE people to vote. Are people afraid that a bunch of former felons will get together and take over the town? If so, they should get out and register (and vote) themselves.

(Greg noted this story about the White House pursing legal efforts to limit voter turnout. This is not just unjust, it’s pathetic.)

I also was interested in the recent French election. Apparently, the top two vote getters, Nicolas Sarkozy, who got 31% in the first round, and Ségolène Royal (26%), will be in a runoff, but the candidate who is reportedly most acceptable (or least unacceptable) to the widest number of people, François Bayrou, came in third (19%), so won’t be in the runoff.

So I’m wondering:

1) What restrictions, beyond making sure somebody is of age and actually lives in the district, should there be on voters? I’m against too many restridctions.

2) What can be done to engage more people in the political process? Would Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) or other alternate voting methodologies work? How about voting over several days and/or online?
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For free IRV? stickers send a self-addressed stamped envelope to: voteIRV.org, 26 Glen Street, Malden, MA 02148. Spread the word and make it stick: IRV; for a better democracy!
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Dennis Kucinich, member of Congress and Presidential candidate, has introduced Articles of Impeachment Against Vice-President Richard Cheney. Kindly, Kucinich waited until the the Veep’s blood clot was under control to reintroduce the measure.
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Bush v. Bush.
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Erin Davies makes the best of a bad situation, letting the world see and contemplate the hate speech scrawled on her vehicle. The initial act of vandalism was especially disturbing to me since it happened in my city (Albany), but Erin’s reframing is quite intriguing.
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What the rains of last week did to the basement of the David Sarnoff Library last week.
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Last, but certainly not least, send some love to Kelly and Lefty.

ROG

ROG

Sometimes, you just get a little down…

The damn home computer has been giving me fits the last three weeks. Initially, I thought it was a faulty Internet connection on the part of Time Warner. I talked to THREE servicepeople, then a fourth actually came to my house. This seemed to fix the problem, briefly, but then it start up again. Finally, with help, I discovered:
1) I have an Internet connection – I can play Internet backgammon – but I can’t get to any URLs. I was thinking about reinstalling one of those old AOL discs, except that
2) I’m apparently dangerously low on memory
So, I’d done some blogging – actually a lot a couple weeks ago Saturday – at the library, and wrote all the posts you read so far that week. And I did write a couple things at home in Word for this week. But I find it harder not to go fact checking or finding a picture or adding a link. So, it’s made me frustrated.

My very good friend Mark came up from the Mid Hudson (an hour or so south of here) to try to fix the beast, but it became so problematic that he had to take it home with him. So I couldn’t even write stuff in Word at home for a few days this past week.

Since I tend to work ahead, it wasn’t TOO problematic for the pieces already posted, but it MAY be in the next couple weeks, because my inventory of emergency posts are kaput. Ironic because..well, you’ll see.

And, oh, yeah, I also lost my wallet. Trips to the DMV, the library and the bank, calls to the credit card companies, blah, blah. (And it gets more brain-dead than that, but never mind.)

…and then I get a couple lovely e-mails:

From an old friend, to her friend, with a copy to me:

Many adore Roger and his understated but hilarious way. I love his curiosity on oh just about any topic and his librarian-like thoroughness when he riffs on it. Have you been reading his blog? Top ten. Met him probably about 15 years ago now…

And from someone I did a workshop on “Guerrilla Marketing for Librarians” a couple weeks ago:

Hi, Roger! I wanted to thank you again for taking the time to share your expertise and ideas with us yesterday at the meeting. I enjoyed meeting you and really found your presentation to be motivating and inspiring! I am sure others felt the same. Thanks for speaking to the group — your energy and enthusiasm, mixed with your business know-how, made for a wonderful presentation.

I post these, not to be an egomaniac. (I may be an egomaniac, but that’s not why I’m posting them.) I’m posting them to remind myself, when I’m a little blue, that it’s OK, I’m OK.

For it was the great ADD who told me, when I started blogging, “”You can’t please everyone; you got to please yourself.” No, wait, that was the late Rick Nelson. Well, ADD said SOMETHING like that at the time.

And, not that anybody asked, but I was considering moving the bloggy to the Times Union page. I think I decided not to on Easter morning. So now that Mark has returned my computer and it’s working again (thanks, effendi!) I can actually work on updating my weblinks, which I’ll try to do a little bit every day.
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Oh, Jack Valenti, former head of the MPAA, died. I remember my first non-G-rated film, The Night They Raided Minsky’s, which was rated M, the forerunner of PG. (I have the soundtrack on vinyl -“Take 10 terrific girls, but only 9 costumes.” The movie ratings, which Valenti helped instigate, were imperfect, everyone knows (much kinder about violence, too fussy about the hint of sex, to my mind), but they’re still somewhat useful.
ROG

ROG
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