Month: May 2008

Mother’s Day

According to Peace X Peace:

Mothers Day is celebrated in many countries on various dates throughout the year. Still, North Americans are not alone in observing the second Sunday in May. We’re joined by Anguilla, Aruba, Australia, Austria, Bahamas, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belgium, Belize, Bermuda, Bonaire, Brazil, Brunei, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Croatia, Cuba, Curaçao, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Ecuador, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Grenada, Honduras, Hong Kong, Iceland, India, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Latvia, Malta, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Puerto Rico, Singapore, Slovakia, South Africa, St. Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, Switzerland, Taiwan, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey, Ukraine, Uruguay, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe! So to mothers in these nations, to mothers everywhere else, and to everyone who ever had a mother, we send our love and greetings.

Love to my mom in North Carolina, who I’ve actually seen in the last six months.

Love to my mother-in-law, who actually mowed our lawn with ther power mower while I was away last week.

Love to Lydia’s mom, Carol. Funny thing, that phrase. Although lots of people refer to her as Lydia’s mom, she doesn’t like it it when I say it, maybe because it falsely implies that 1) Carol and I aren’t married (we are) and/or 2) Lydia isn’t my daughter (she is).

Hello to all you mothers, old and new; some have said these things never quite as efficiently.

Happy Mother’s Day.

ROG

ROG

Music covers QUESTION

There was a 90-minute discussion on the Coverville podcast, episode 450, about cover music. Brian, the host, posed several questions of the panel of fellow podcasters of cover music. I listened to it some weeks ago, so not all the particulars are fresh in my mind. Still, here are a couple questions inspired by that podcast.

1. What IS a cover version? For instance (and this was on the show), is Eric Clapton doing Layla considered a cover of the Derek and the Dominoes version? The panel thought not.

2. How about when a songwriter writes the song, gives it to another artist, THEN records it? I believe Gene Pitney’s Hello Mary Lou, recorded by Ricky Nelson before Pitney recorded it, would qualify. Which one is the cover? I don’t know.

3. Or what if Ronnie Spector took a Ronettes song such as Be My Baby and sang background vocals on a more contemporary artist? I think that WOULD be a cover?

4. What makes a good cover song? Sometimes, but not always, a different point of view – a female singing what had been a song previously performed by a male – will help. It cannot be a slavish imitation of the original; what’s the point? Often the remake features faster or slower tempos, unusual instrumentation or other qualities.

5. What is the first cover song that you really enjoyed that you recognized as a cover? Motown folks were always covering each other, but mine was We Can Work It Out, Stevie Wonder’s cover of the Beatles’ tune.
ROG

ROG

The Mail Failed

Damn! I just realized that Jenna Bush is getting married tomorrow AND SHE FORGOT TO SEND MY INVITATION! I hear that Crawford, Texas is very nice this time of year.

Or, more likely to the Post Office lost it. And they have the nerve to raise the postal rates starting Monday, May 12 to 42 cents for the first ounce, 17 cents each for the next few ounces, and 27 cents for a postcard. I use so few stamps any more that I still have 37-cent and 39-cent stamps, plus one of those First Class stamps, the denomination of which I have no idea. Speaking of no idea, lots of people I’ve talked to seem unaware of the rate change. I wonder if the Post Office still has those “forever” stamps?

Oh, and Laura’s been multitasking so well this week, playing mother of the bride and working on foreign policy. To be fair, Myanmar has been her issue for a while, and the devastation there is awful. But why does she insist on calling the country Burma?

ROG

ROG

Copyright Orphans

Paul Rapp “is an intellectual-property lawyer with offices in Albany and Housatonic, Mass. He teaches art-and-entertainment law at Albany Law School, and regularly appears as part of the Copyright Forum on WAMC’s Vox Pop.” He writes a regular column on intellectual property rights.

His most recent column addresses the “Orphan Works” copyright and potential legislation regarding it. What is an orphan work? Paul cites Meredith L. Patterson’s Radio Free Meredith where she uses this example about “your parent’s wedding pictures from 1955. You want to publish them? Guess what? The copyrights are probably owned by the photographer! Who was who? And is now where? You don’t know? Uh-oh.” The proposed bill, H.R.5889, the Orphan Works Act of 2008, seeks to provide “limitation[s] on remedies in cases involving orphan works.”

Rapp wrote just before the actual legislation was introduced, but still got it right. “The legislation will…seek to rectify the problem of lingering, abandoned copyrights, to loosen this stranglehold of ghosts on our culture, by allowing the reuse of pre-existing materials in situations where after a reasonably diligent effort, no copyright owner has been located. If, after the work is re-published, a copyright owner shows up and says ‘that’s mine’, the copyright owner will be entitled to a reasonable licensing fee for the use, but won’t be able to stop the use.”

If this legislation had been enacted, the case about the use of the street artist’s picture for their business that one of my library colleagues wrote about last month would almost certainly have applied.

Rapp, BTW, is a/k/a Lee Harvety Blotto, drummer for the legendary Albany band, Blotto.ROG

ROG

Persnickety

Last Tuesday, I got a couple e-mails with similar problems. One was from a friend of mine promoting her daughter’s photography sessions. The deadline for contacting her for a Mother’s Day photo shoot was Monday, May 1. Of course, May 1 was not on a Monday this year, so I wrote back to the mother with this info, and she wrote: “You are correct. My daughter’s photography skill trump her day/date skills apparently….” Well, swell, but I STILL don’t know the correct information, and I was a bit put off, frankly, and was disinclined to pursue the issue further.

The second was a .jpeg attachment to an e-mail for a cultural event from a member of my church. There was all sorts of information about the organization, and what events would be taking place. It contained the location, but lacked a couple things: the date and the time. So, I wrote to that person, and she gave me the date and time, but I was so distracted by this fundamental error that when I was telling this story to my wife, I forgot what the benefit was for, so focused was I on the lacking information, especially when the sender seemed lackadaisical about fixing it.

I bring this up because I realize that sometimes, I’ve gone to some of your blogs and made suggestions about things that I thought needed to be changed. It tends to be, to my mind, substantial issues of fact, which, if left alone, might put the writer in a less than favorable light to other readers. I’m not talking about opinions here. Nor am I talking about typos (teh); in fact, I’ve totally given up even mentioning its/it’s errors. I am inclined, though, to correct misspellings of proper names, if only because someone Googling will be unlikely to find the page otherwise. And I almost always mention dead links within a post, primarily because I’d like to know that if it were happening with my post.

This is not to be a nudge. It is because I think that other people will take you less seriously with uncorrected errors. It’s also, I suppose, a librarian’s curse. I’ve made similar suggestions to governmental and association blogs.

A couple of non-Internet examples:
Some time ago, I was reading an article about the Beatles’ white album. The author said something like, “Only Paul McCartney could get away with the sentimentality of the closing tune Good Night.” Well, OK, except that I knew that it was John Lennon who actually penned the song. I totally dismissed whatever else that writer had to say because of that egregious error.

At a conference about ten years ago, the featured speaker was talking about waste in government, and he was focusing on studies paid for with federal funds. He noted that there was money spent for finding out why more people don’t ride their bikes to work. He proclaimed, “Everybody knows that; it’s because it rains!” Well, having ridden my bicycle to work and being reasonably knowledgeable on the topic, I knew it had as much to do with distance, safety, time, coming to work sweaty and other factors than just this simplistic response. And I was so furious that I just walked out of the meeting. Of course, there were several hundred people there, and I seriously doubt that anyone noticed, but I so didn’t want to be in the room with this dolt… Thing is, he may have had some legitimate points later on, but he lost me early on.

So, if I have corrected you in the past, and it has annoyed you, I’m sorry. I just want you to look good.

ROG

ROG
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