Accept no substitutes

Category: Amusements (Page 16 of 31)

Things that are amusing

The Creation of Heaven in NandO

As I posted here on Thursday this week, I sold one more of my Rule of Seven poems, The Creation of Heaven, to the News and Observer Sunday Journal. It’s out now. The online version doesn’t reflect the stanza breaks correction (make that at all) and the small bit of prose info doesn’t show (instead you get “an error occurred while processing this directive]” I hope that gets fixed as the day goes on).
I had wondered if I needed to completely reconceive this poem and had started to several times. I gave myself several odd rules that are different from those that I used in the other Rule poems and I wasn’t sure that it worked. Seeing in printed makes me feel a little better now.
Off to pick up the paper version.

Here’s a net version with the right line and stanza breaks.

Ocracoke discovered

Yikes! Our favorite secret is a front page NYTimes Travel section feature. Does this mean more people will be on the Island complaining about the slow service at the eateries? (Really are you in a hurry? There is no where to go which is sorta the point.) More people asking “What do you do here?” (Really do you have to be entertained? Doing nothing is sorta the point.)

But worse the writer stays in the same little place on Silver Lake where we stay often and have rooms reserved for Thanksgiving. The picture the Times published is our favorite view. Several of the places she eats are our favs as well (Howard’s, Pelican, Ocracoke Coffee Company, Fig Tree, Cafe Atlantic), but several secrets are better kept and I’m keeping them myself.

The Times automatic indexer managed to link Rudy Austin’s last name to a city in Texas. His father took me over to Portsmouth Island way back in the 1970s.

Triangle Bloggers Blast – Tuesday

Mister Sugar writes on blogtogether to remind us of the Triangle Bloggers Blast:

Who: Bloggers, podcasters and anyone who wants to socialize with us.

What: A reception at the new WUNC studios and a happy hour with free drinks.

Where: American Tobacco Historic District, Durham (across from the Durham Bulls Athletic Park)

1. Start at new WUNC studios for tour, talk about podcasting and reception with catered food. Short welcome messages from Joan Siefert Rose and Keith Weston of WUNC, Michael Goodmon of ATHD, Stephen Fraser of Lulu.
2. Then move next door to Tyler’s Speakeasy for drinks and socializing. Short welcome messages from John Conway of WRAL.com and Henry Copeland of blogads.

When: Tuesday, November 15, 2005 7-9 p.m.

Why: Why not? Let’s meet and greet each other, talk about blogging, or not, and share a few drinks.

How: Sponsors and supporters include: Blogads, WRAL.com, Lulu.com, ibiblio.org, mistersugar.com, WUNC, ATHD and podcastercon.

Jones on Blooker in NandO

In what appears to be a play to get an article mentioning me in every section of the News and Observer during the months of October and November, I just completed an interview with Roger van der Horst about the Blooker prize.

I talked about Charles Dickens as the most respected English serial novelist and about Julie and Julia: 365 days, 524 recipes, 1 tiny appartment kitchen by Julia Powell as an example of a good blook. Wil Wheaton’s Just a Geek personal memoir and Chris Anderson’s Long Tail a book on economics and technology that is forthcoming are two others.

However I expect and hope to be surprised by what we will be reading among the finalists. Blooks create an open environment for writing — one that as a poet I would not likely participate in although I have been publishing a potential chapbook project in the News and Observer a poem at a time — that allows interaction with readers as critics as well as enforcing a discipline of regular writing that new writers need. The form also allows for digressive and unusual inclusions which could make for some new styles of writing.

That said I expect to be reading good writing. Good sentences and paragraphs. Well-told tales. The stuff you would expect in any book prize finalist.

I am holding off on several sections of the News and Observer. The Obits for example.

Jones taped for 22

Ric Swiner and Brian his camera came by and we did a little chat outside Manning Hall about filesharing systems. I explained how bittorrent has many legal uses just like your car or Brian’s camera — even though folks can use any of those things for evil. I explained briefly how Grokster was found in violation of the law but that BitTorrent should not be. Grokster was even marketed as an inducement to illegal behaviors while BitTorrent is a content neutral protocol (I was simplier than that).

In no way did I advovate illegal behavior or illegal sharing, but I did point out examples of legal behaviors using BitTorrent.

Probably I’ll be on a few seconds. But I’ll likely not be watching tonight; it’s election night in Chapel Hill and I leave for DC early tomorrow morning.

Jones on WLFL WB 22 on p2p

I got a frantic series of calls during a meeting (a day of meetings but that’s a sadder story) on my cell. Finally I went out in the hall to at least listen to the voice mail. A producer from WLFL WB 22 (got all that) wanted an expert on p2p, copyright, and file trading. I am listed on the UNC experts pages as knowing about technology and copyright. Since I did put together the panel (and part of the audience/attendees) for the UNC Symposium on Intellectual Property, Creativity and the Innovation Process last week and I paid attention to what the folks were saying, I guess I am.
The story they want to do is about Grokster being shutdown. Okay. But “Have you heard of this other thing out there that’s even worse? BitTorrent?” Err. It’s not worse, only worse if you wanted to be anonymous. It uses a tracker that remembers who had been trading. And we use it for legal downloads at torrent.ibiblio.org. “I guess you are an expert. Ric Swiner will come by at 11:30 tomorrow and we’ll talk with you.”
I do a lot of this but if you have suggestions and advice, do sent it my way.

McGuinn at Country Music Class in NandO

I asked Roger McGuinn if he would come to town a little early for the UNC Symposium on Intellectual Property, Creativity and the Innovation Process and talk to/play a bit for Joselyn Neal’s History of Country Music class. There are about 200 students in the class which meets in a large auditorium (Hanes Art). Naturally the word got out a little and a bunch more folks showed up which was fine. The class went very well and all had a great time.
The News and Observer (Anne Blythe writing) did a good story with pictures that was on the cover of the City & State section and jumped to the center of the University section.

Being a garbage brain pays off

Sally and I became winners of a box of chocolate covered blueberries last night. At a local Halloween party, the costumed guests were encouraged to mix by participating in a hunt for clues about gruesome deaths of famous and nearly famous people. How is it that I would realize that Atilla the Hun died of a nosebleed, that William Klemmer was the first person killed in a not very effecient electric chair, that Tennesee Williams choked on the top of his nasal spray bottle, that Isadora Duncan was strangled by one of her flowing scraves, that Guy de Maupassant, the author of the Inn, killed himself after being driven mad by syphilis and about 15 other odd deaths? Paid off somehow though.

Factiod: For nutritional reporting the serving size of chocolate covered blueberries is 18!

Testing Lyceum

I’m spending a little fun time trying to be helpful to the Lyceum developers — JJB and Fred — by using their test environment and trying to find bugs.
If you visit my blog there, poke at it a bit and see if you can get a bug to show up. [Changed to point to Lyceum front page per JJB suggestion].

UPDATE: Lyceum has been reloaded a few times over the night. JJB has been working hard. That means I’ve recreated the test blog there a few times. Each time the location changes. That’s one thing to work on. Any how, when you test things may have changed and will likely change again.

Alright, All Right, Already

Sally who has taught grammar tells me that my alright is either a misspelling or vulgar. I prefer the second of course. I would rather be vulgar than wrong.

Merriam-Webster online says:

The one-word spelling alright appeared some 75 years after all right itself had reappeared from a 400-year-long absence. Since the early 20th century some critics have insisted alright is wrong, but it has its defenders and its users. It is less frequent than all right but remains in common use especially in journalistic and business publications. It is quite common in fictional dialogue, and is used occasionally in other writing. “the first two years of medical school were alright” — Gertrude Stein.

But those 20th Century critics include the American Heritage Dictionary and Fowler’s Dictionary of Modern English Usage both of which nurtured Sally’s English PhD.

Still more recent versions (1996) of the American Heritage Book of English Usage are milder on alright while not giving in to it:

Is it all right to use alright? Despite the appearance of alright in the works of such well-known writers as Flannery O’Connor, Langston Hughes, and James Joyce, the merger of all and right has never been accepted as standard. This is peculiar, since similar fusions like already and altogether have never raised any objections. The difference may lie in the fact that already and altogether became single words back in the Middle Ages, whereas alright (at least in its current meaning) has only been around for a little over a century and was called out by language critics as a misspelling. You might think a century would be plenty of time for such an unimposing spelling to gain acceptance as a standard variant, and you will undoubtedly come across alright in magazine and newspaper articles. But if you decide to use alright, especially in formal writing, you run the risk that some of your readers will view it as an error, while others may think you are willfully breaking convention.

The Columbia Guide to Standard American English is blunt:

All right is the only spelling Standard English recognizes.

Evan Morris, aka Word Detective, is broader and gives a better feel for the what and why for alright. WD is a bit long but worth the read:

After mentioning how Fowler dismisses alright (in 1926) and later how Harper did as well, Morris gives us this:

On the other hand, Bergen and Cornelia Evans, in their “Dictionary of Contemporary Usage,” point out that there’s a case to be made for “alright.” Using “alright” as a synonym for “O.K.” or “satisfactory,” they note, “would allow us to make the distinction between ‘the answers are alright’ (satisfactory) and ‘the answers were all right’ (every one of them).”

Convinced me (but that didn’t take too much. Will it convince Sally?).

Morris also covers the rise of O.K. on the same web page.

The Word Maven at Random House has interesting tales to tell in the alright/all right wars including how people were outraged over the “Kids are alright” or are all the kids right as in the “Kids are all right“? Obviously the first is clearer but…

Well, read the article, alright?

Thanks to Roger for stirring this up. As he says “I trust everything will turn out all right” or is it “I Trust (Everything Is Gonna Work Out Alright)”?

UPDATE: Pam Nelson the NandO Gammar Mediator is not all right with alright either, but when it comes to rock and roll, the kids are more likely to be alright than all right even she somewhat admits.

Open Library and MSFT

Brewster Kahle was trying to get UNC involved in the Open Content Alliance for digitized public domain books while he was here for the Wilson Knowledge Trust meeting.
Now he announces that Microsoft Network will not only join the Alliance, but will commit to scanning 150,000 books in 2006!
Brewster’s brief press release includes a link to a Word version of the MSN release

The Open Library site which will house the collections has a very nice book browser.

Engelbart, not Englebart

It’s great to hear from an Internet pioneer, but this time a little embarrassing too. Doug Engelbart writes to tell us first that he loves ibiblio (thanks so much) and second that a very nice resource on ibiblio has his name misspelled throughout. Yikes!. It is a great site. Internet Pioneers even has an audio interview with Vint Cerf looking forward from 2000. But almost everywhere Doug’s name was wrong. The site was created in 2000 as part of a masters project to which I gave some technical and other assistance. I wasn’t the copyeditor ;->
The good news is that I have a corrected version of the site ready to install tomorrow. There are two image files with Englebart instead of Engelbart which will take a bit to match, but all others should be right.

Flyover flub?

I never heard the flyover on Saturday. I think I must have been in the University Mall at the second of the Saturday Flyover. Tucker and Sally heard it, but they said it was nothing like the experience that we each had in different parts of town on Thursday.
That day there were six or more passes at the Stadium from different approaches. Over Tucker’s school, over Carrboro, down Morgan Creek, and at least three times over campus in different directions.
Saturday – maybe one pass?
The flyovers generated a lot of attention on OP and on our neighborhood mailing list on Thursday. No one mentioned the Saturday flyover at all either place.

Studio v Live

JB does Sex Machine
Was just at a house concert/jam where the players were Will McFarlane and Armand Lenchek. This was serious stringbending live music with a good blues. In the course of the evening, Will was talking about the difference of playing in the studio and playing live. Basically with the earphones on, you play subtlely and with more details and more cleanly than you would play live. In fact, if you are playing to a big house (say touring with Bonnie Raitt, Will’s example), you are playing LOUD and with no understated sounds at all. And you have to be more reactive and even a bit well sloppy (although I don’t think Will would call it that) and ready to vary wildly from the original song if needed.

This reminded me of the time a few years back that Sally, Tucker and I were living in Paris for a week or so. We were there during the Bastille Day celebration. The little fountain at Place de la Contrescarpe where we were staying was converted into a bandstand. We went down to hear the music expecting to hear something French. But the band turned out to be a very hot but very tight coverband doing American Rhythmn and Blues. One particular introduction and song stick in my mind: Chancion de James Brown – J’me un Sex Ma Chien (pardon my poor French). The band launched into a perfectly executed version with mixed French and English lyrics of Sex Machine, but it seemed so wrong. The band was too exact and too tight to ever be the JBs (especially the version that cut SM in 1970 with Bootsy Collins and his brother Catfish and the wonderful Fred Wesley). I was used to the live swinging funk of the JBs recording. The French band was exacting — so exacting that it sounded wrong to me — not just the Sex Ma Chien instead of Sex Machine, but the whole of the sound. The excitement of the JBs was replaced by precision that missed the point of it all.

Will was explaining how the limits of tape to record certain sounds required that session players learn to play within the limits or that devices called limiters would be in place to pull down a shouted vocal that would have gone off the tape. The French band was clearly playing within the limits. No one would ever accuse the Hardest Working Man in Show Business, the Godfather of Soul, Mr. Dynamite of staying within the limits.

Bracing for the Flyover

We live close enough to Kenan Stadium that we hear every cheer. I don’t mind that. But soon, weather permitting, we’ll hear much more noise than the cheers.

From Tar Heel Blue:

F-15 Flyover Before Saturday’s Game.
Four F-15C Eagle jets will cruise Kenan.
Oct. 18, 2005

Fans attending Saturday’s home football game against Virginia will want to make sure to be in their seats with their eyes turned to the sky before kickoff. As part of the pregame festitivies, a group of F-15 C Eagle fighter jets will do a flyover of Kenan Stadium. The lead jet will be piloted by Maj. Brent “Wrench” Allen, a 1994 Carolina graduate.

Glad I had my coffee earlier.

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