Banned Book Week

I just found out today that this is Banned Book Week. I just couldn’t resist the temptation to record a few thoughts.

50 Banned Books

I like this list of banned books. I also find it immensely funny. I can understand why some of them get banned, not that I agree but I do understand.

1984 can be disturbing, not just in the ideas it brings up, but because of the future it presents. In many ways, 1984 is a bleak and depressing novel. Of course, that is also part of its power. Brave New World is another novel that falls into that category.

Others on this list just make me laugh.

Contemplate the irony of banning a book that attempts to show us a possible future where those who ban books…well, really those who burn them...have come into power, Fahrenheit 451.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn?
The Grapes of Wrath?
The Scarlet Letter?
Jaws?

I cannot really bring myself to comment on those.

Many of the books on this list are on standard High School reading lists.

Have you considered that those books are on reading lists for the very same reasons that they are banned? These books make you think. They make you question things. Some of them bring you to a greater understanding of mankind, and, some of them will confuse the hell out of you. Well, I know that Slaughterhouse-Five confused the hell out of me.

Have you also considered that some of these books are on reading lists because they were banned? We can learn a great deal about human beings simply by reading what some people find offensive. Of course, most of these books weren’t banned because they were offensive, though certainly someone was offended.

Most of them were banned because someone was afraid of them.

Fear, not a displaced sense of moral outrage, is the cause of book banning. They may wrap themselves in moral outrage, or political correctness, or even patriotism, but that is just the cloak. What lies beneath is fear.

Now, it may be a bit late to let you know that I am only providing commentary on books that I have actually read, and I have only read 14 of them.

So, when I saw this list, my thought was…oooo…new reading list.

Formula 1 in Austin

This should be old news to everyone…well, unless you don’t follow racing and I mean real racing, not red-necks driving in circles.

Formula 1 is coming to Austin, Texas in 2012.

You can learn more here.

I first got in to Formula 1 during my High School years when I was reading Road & Track. Mario Andretti was racing Formula 1 in those days, in the beautiful black & gold JPS Lotus. I thought it was the world’s most beautiful race car and I still do. When you combine that beautiful car, a successful Formula 1 team, with an American Driver and you have a scenario to grab the heart of a young man who was fascinated with cars. And it didn’t hurt when Mario Andretti won the World Championship.

Years later I rediscovered Formula 1 on cable and watched as Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill battled it out.

I’ve never liked Michael Schumacher because I watched the race where he very obviously crashed into Damon Hill to win his first World Championship. To me it was so obvious that I cannot believe he was still given the championship. Schumacher should only have 6 championships and Damon Hill should have two.

Then, just before this season started I learned how to use the BBC iPlayer from the US. I did it to watch Top Gear and Doctor Who, but then discovered that I can also watch Formula 1.

So, I am back to watching Formula 1 and while I am disappointed that there are no American drivers, I am once again excited about Formula 1.

And then…the big announcement…Formula 1 is returning to the US, but not only that, but it is coming right to my backdoor, Austin, Texas. I would never have dreamed that was even possible.

I can hardly wait.

Goodbye Concept Album

I started this at least three times, but I can’t seem to find just the right way to begin. So, let me start with the quote that started my train of thought.

"The music business historically has been built around albums. This album-centrism is like saying the sun revolves around the Earth. We don't listen to albums now; we listen to collections of songs."

-Tom Silverman, chairman and CEO of Tommy Boy Records (quoted in a Gizmodo article)

Now, I have two problems with this statement. One is quickly dealt with so I will start with it.

What is an album? Not, what is a music album, but in the generic, what is an album? An album is a collection of items. A photo album is a collection of photos. A music album is a collection of music.

So, unintentionally what Mr. Silverman is saying is “we don’t listen to albums…we listen to” albums.

Now, before you run down to the comments, I understand what he means.

Today, we rarely listen to collections of songs by a specific artist as chosen by the artist, his producer and his record company. We listen to collections of songs that we choose or that the software on our music player chooses.

Before I go on I should probably provide this link to my post of a year ago.

A New Music Paradigm

As the paradigm shifts from album to song we free the artist from the need to find 35-60 minutes of new songs each year. This is a good thing. It may bring new problems, because the artist will make less money, but I am not terribly concerned with that. If he makes money for what people listen to, then that is enough.

The record companies may be the ones who suffer, but I don’t care at all about them. Without LPs or CDs there isn’t much need for a Record Company, though there may be just as much need for a Recording company.

But, while artists will no longer be forced to produce an entire album of music each year, they will also never be stretched by that need. The need to produce more of your art can either be boredom and drudgery, or it can be the spur to find greater creativity.

It is true that a lot of albums are a couple of good songs and eight album fillers, but there are some really great exceptions. The Smoker You Drink, The Player You Get (Joe Walsh) is a great album. I love all the songs, and oddly it is the one hit on the album which doesn’t fit with the rest of the album.

In addition to missing out on a few gems, the new music paradigm may come deny us something else.

The Concept Album

It has been some years since I saw a concept album. Back in the 70s and 80s the concept album often marked the point when a band or musician tried to push beyond just being musicians and attempt to raise their music to the level of art.

Instead of just another album, we get…

• Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
• Tommy
• The Wall

I was happy to see Pink Floyd win the right to keep their albums intact. Yes, it may hurt their sales, but Pink Floyd, possibly more than any other band, actually put together albums. In addition to The Wall, Animals and other albums are the sort of thing that you really need to hear all the songs together.

As consumers we asked for songs and now we get songs, but in buying only songs are we denying artists the opportunity to produce more than songs? Are we denying them the opportunity to tell a story across multiple songs?

I am not saying that the Concept Album is dead, but increasingly it feels to me like our unwillingness to buy anything but a song is driving the Concept Album to extinction.

When Monday Isn’t

Rising on a Monday holiday, I have thoughts totally different from other Mondays, even when I awake to a headache, like this morning. First, it’s after noon. Yes, I sleep late…whenever I can. No work day starts so late, though if I worked an afternoon helpdesk shift I might not truly wake up until after noon, but Monday, Wednesday and Friday I have to be alert and ready at 8:00 am, or as soon after that as I arrive. Tuesday and Thursday I get a small break and I man the helpdesk from 10:00 to 12:00. Add to that, one lunch shift every 7 days (not once a week, but 7 work days) and you have the most visible part of my job, and the only part that is scheduled…well, except for 8:00-5:00.

I like my job…sort of. The people I work with are nice…mostly. I just don’t like working…well, even that isn’t quite true. There are only a few things about my job that I don’t really like. I don’t like getting up in the morning. I don’t like dealing with the same stupid question day after day.

“Why isn’t my password working?”

“Because you’ve forgotten it for the 3rd time this week.”

We don’t have anyone quite that bad, but when you are resetting a password for the fifth time that morning for people who call every couple of weeks…well, you get the picture.

Then, there are the people who seem to feel that they are doing you a favor by letting you fix their computer…even when it is their fault, like they clicked on the “would you like to be infested with a virus?” link.

Working an IT helpdesk can give you a very poor opinion of people. They do really stupid things, they never learn, and so you spend your time fixing the same thing that you fixed last week, and they can never understand why things go wrong.

Then you have the people who think they know what they are doing. Obviously, most of them don’t, but you have to be polite. A few of them do, and that can be an even bigger problem, because for each knowledgeable user to shows it by staying out of trouble, you have two who think they know enough to fix the problem, and end up calling after they have really screwed things up. Some say that you need a computer to really screw things up, but that computer needs a thinks-he-knows-more-than-he-does user before it will really get screwed up.

So, on this Monday that isn’t, I am just happy that I don’t have to answer any of those questions this morning.

And now, if only I could get rid of this headache.