Island Album

The fact that’ it’s Bono’s 50th birthday today reminded me of a conversation I had in 1988 with a friend of mine, who, as it turns out, I saw last month for the first time in months. I was making my list of maybe 20 island albums, and I placed on the roster on the list Joshua Tree by U2. My friend was practically incensed. “You can’t put that album on! It’s only a year old!”

OK, fair enough. It’s 2010. It’s still on the list.

In the past week or so, I’ve listened to all the U2 CDs I have on CD, only about nine of them, and it continues to be the one that is solid throughout.

Roger Answers Your Questions, Jaquandor and Rebecca

Jaquandor of Byzantium Shores, the finest blogger in western New York AND a fashionista ahead of the curve, asks these questions:

Does David Paterson know what he’s doing?

More often than he’s given credit for, I think. On his Day 1, he’s all funny and charming. On Day 2, he admits that both he and his wife were unfaithful, a brilliant move designed to make sure the state was not suddenly surprised by another sex scandal after Eliot Spitzer’s downfall. It was a calculated risk that worked.

He was right to note the fiscal disaster the state was going to be suffering after the Wall Street collapse, as it affected our state disproportionally; not only was the state heavily invested, but a lot of New Yorkers lost their jobs on Wall Street in the market meltdown. Of course, the state, unlike the federal government, cannot operate in a deficit, so cutbacks and layoffs were inevitable. Part of Paterson’s problem is that he was bearer of bad news.

He was also stifled by the second most dysfunctional state legislature in the country – I’m convinced California’s is worse – and threw a Hail Mary by picking his own lieutenant governor in order to break the state Senate deadlock. I found and read the state constitution and decided that the lower court was right; that picking his own replacement, essentially, was beyond the scope of the emergency powers he was citing. I thought they would be used in cases where the legislature was wiped out by war or disaster that the state couldn’t be allowed to flounder. Apparently, the Court of Appeals (which, for you non-New Yorkers, is the state’s highest court) decided that the gridlock that took place for a month beginning June 8 WAS enough of an emergency that picking his own lt gov WAS kosher. So kudos to him.

Now, he royally messed up the appointment of Hillary Clinton’s replacement for the US Senate. Don’t know what that whole Caroline Kennedy dance was. But while Kirsten Gillibrand was not a popular choice downstate at the time, notice how her primary opposition has melted away.

This is not to say that I’ve agreed with all of his decisions. His unilateral decision NOT to tax the rich more, lest they leave the state, seemed tone deaf to me.

So his abysmally low poll numbers surprise me a bit. There is a local public radio force named Alan Chartock of WAMC who believes part of his problem is him being characterized as a bumbler on Saturday Night Live a few times, much the same way that Chevy Chase’s portrayal of Gerald Ford established the President as clumsy. There was a poll a while back (Siena or Marist College ran it) that said that 7% of the population felt negative towards Paterson because of how SNL portrayed him. Wow, didn’t think that SNL still had that much pull, outside of Tina Fey’s Sarah Palin last year.

I’ll be curious how he does on Meet the Press today, rerun on other NBC networks during the week. You KNOW that David Gregory has to ask him about the report that the Obama people didn’t want him running for governor in 2010, which would not come from legitimate channels right before the President visited the Capital District on Monday.

Photo by John Hebert

To what degree is the eBook the way of the future? (I assume we all grant that there will be eBooks, but how much will they take over?)

Actually, I’ll ask you this, since you read and watch science fiction: do you EVER see people reading books or newspapers in the futuristic portrayals? I don’t recall any.

I think more the question is how much will paper products stick around? There were a couple pieces in Entertainment Weekly recently – pretty sure Stephen King was one of them – that discussed the visceral pleasure of the book – how it feels in the hand, how it smells, how it is laid out, how you can fan the pages to create a breeze (I’m doing this from memory and may have made up that last one) – that the electronic equivalent can NEVER replicate.

There’s a private high school in New England that in 2009 got rid of all of its books, replaced by eBooks. The headmistress said that the students were thriving. If experiences like that “take”, then the books will become like vinyl records; they’ll still be around, but marginalized. Conversely, if there is a pushback from educators who say our kids NEED the actual manipulation of pages – and, IMO, they do – then the flow will be stemmed, though not stopped.

Of course, eBooks might be replaced by something else – remember how ubiquitous the VCR used to be? – are replaced by some sort of computer chip that goes directly into our brains.

There are, by my rough estimation, about fifty thousand books about the Beatles. Can you recommend a couple, to help narrow it all down?

You are a relative newbie to the Fabs, so I’d start with The Beatles by Hunter Davies, one of the first. It’s pretty thorough without overwhelming (e.g., the Beatles Anthology), though ends before the end of the group, if I remember correctly. Beyond that, it would depend on what you’re really interested in: their songwriting, the recording techniques, their lives, Beatlemania. Many dismiss Philip Norman book Shout! as anti-Paul, but few doubt his thoroughness and it’s a good read; he has a newer book I haven’t read that seems to be better received. Peter Brown’s The Love You Make is “an insider’s story”, and is interesting at that level. There’s a relatively recent book Can’t Buy Me Love that has reviewed really well, but I haven’t actually read.

My personal favorite, actually, is The Beatles: An Illustrated Record by Roy Carr & Tony Tyler. It was about the recordings, and it was at the point where I (thought I ) knew everything about them, but I was basing my knowledge on the US LPs I bought; this book totally upended my understanding. But now the CDs are out in the “British” order, so it wouldn’t have the same effect, I imagine.

I’d love to hear the opinions of sages such as Fred Hembeck and Johnny Bacardi on this topic.

Rebecca from 40 Forever, who is intelligent, attractive and personable – naturally she’s a librarian – asks:

How many guitars are in Rochester’s famous House of Guitars?

37,326.

Actually, the website says “it’s home to an estimated 30,000 to 40,000 guitars and 4 million albums, CDs and tapes.”

Meant to get to Scott’s questions, but I still feel not great and I may be the healthiest of the three of us. Certainly feeling better than the wife, who took a three-hour nap yesterday. Anyway, Scott, before the end of the month. as the J5 title goes, “Maybe tomorrow.”

Unabashed Plug: Conversations with ADD

Alan David Doane (pictured at left) is a mensch. Now, for those of you not down with your Yiddish, mensch means a person having admirable characteristics, such as fortitude and firmness of purpose.

Or you could say, ADD is a PITA, which means pain in the tookus. I mean that in a good way. As Christopher Allen describes him, Alan is an agent provocateur.

ADD was one of those young people who were customers of FantaCo, the comic book store/publishing empire where I used to work in the 1980s. Subsequently, ADD became a noted blogger in the comic book realm. This week – September 1st, 2009 – marks the ninth anniversary of his Comic Book Galaxy’s original launch, and “approximately the tenth anniversary of my beginning to write about comics online,” he noted.

To mark the occasion, he has released his third eBook, Conversations with ADD. It is nearly 300 pages long, and “contains nearly four dozen interviews, including cartoonists, writers, artists, publishers, editors, comics retailers and bloggers.”

I had the chance to look at a preview copy, and I got to read interviews with some of my favorite creative people, including Peter Bagge, Howard Chaykin, Tony Isabella, Denny O’Neil, Harvey Pekar, and Walt Simonson, along with the ever-enigmatic Dave Sim. There’s a piece on Earthworld Comics owner J.C. Glindmeyer, who really DOES do Free Comic Book Day right, as I can attest from personal experience.

There is even a brief interview in there with a historic relic, yours truly. I should note that it’s largely ADD’s persistence that got me to blog about old FantaCo stuff such as the counterfeit Cerebus or the Fantastic Four Chronicles, so you can partially credit (or blame) him.

ADD’s POV comes through in his questions without overwhelming the interviewee, a delicate balancing act. Of course, many of the subjects have their own strong personalities, so the resulting interaction can make for a lively piece.

These interviews span the entire last decade, which in part gives a snapshot into the comic book market over the period.

As Mark Evanier likes to say, Go See It!
***
Since I’m plugging things:
The Vermont Monster Guide by Joseph A. Citro, illustrated by Stephen R. Bissette
Harvey Pekar: Conversations, edited by Michael G. Rhode
From the Wall Street Journal: Spider Mouse? Marvel/Disney Mash-Ups for True Believers. Analysts applauded Disney’s offer to buy Marvel, announced Monday, saying that the move would help the company make inroads with boys.
But were they expecting Gooflactus?
We do know that Hitler is ticked. And the fandamentalist internerds are all whiny.

Photo stolen from Fred Hembeck. Probably taken by Lynn Moss.

ROG

ROG

World Book and Copyright Day

From the news release:
On 23 April 2009, we will celebrate the 14th World Book and Copyright Day, proclaimed by the UNESCO General Conference in 1995 to promote greater awareness of the importance of books in the world.

In order to support the Organization in today’s society, this year international professional associations are once again kindly invited to play an essential role in informing and mobilizing both their members and their external networks of experts and stakeholders.

For this edition of the Day, UNESCO suggests to explore the topic of the paramount function of books for the development of quality education, as well as the link between publishing and fundamental rights.

One of the cool things my wife did this past year was to apply for and receive a $600 minigrant to buy books for her English as a Second Language unit that had been limited by ancient, archaic texts. Even more impressive, she got a publisher to donate – that is, give for free – an almost equal number of books.

Something I know from personal experience is that teachers often spend money out of pocket for books and supplies that they bring to the classroom. In honor of today, perhaps you might contract your local school or PTA to see what books they might need. Or contact your local library; ironically, in a period of increased demand for library services, library budgets are being slashed.

So buy a book, for yourself and/or for someone else.
***
An action film, Salt, starring Angelina Jolie, will be filmed in part on the streets of Albany. Some folks are up in arms, even though the schedule suggests that it won’t disrupt the morning or evening commutes. I think the real issue is that there was NO information at all going out to the general public until a couple days ago about something that begins today, and there is a lot of misinformation floating out there.

ROG

ROG

Easter Sunday

At some level, it’s easier to be a Lenten person than an Easter person. But I’m (still) working at it.

But even if you’re not a Christian, I have some wisdom for you. Specifically, it’s from a very small (4″ X 3.25″) book I got for my last birthday called “Wisdom from It’s Not Easy Being Green and Other Things to Consider” by Jim Henson, the Muppets and Friends.

“I think there are lots of ways of leading very good lives and growing spiritually. This process of growth goes on whether we believe in it or not.”
-Jim

Now please rise.

ROG

ROG

The NAACP and Abraham Lincoln

Today marks the centennial of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The linkage to Lincoln was more than coincidental. Mary White Ovington, one of the founders, wrote in 1914: “In the summer of 1908, the country was shocked by the account of the race riots at Springfield, Illinois. Here, in the home of Abraham Lincoln, a mob containing many of the town’s ‘best citizens,’ raged for two days, killed and wounded scores of Negroes, and drove thousands from the city. Articles on the subject appeared in newspapers and magazines. Among them was one in the Independent of September 3rd, by William English Walling, entitled “Race War in the North.” She and others heard Wailing’s call to address the issue, and it was decided “that a wise, immediate action would be the issuing on Lincoln’s birthday of a call for a national conference on the Negro question.”

I will recommend to you the timeline of the organization’s history. You may also be interested in reading Chairman Julian Bond’s 2008 NAACP Convention speech, where among other things, he castigates virtually every US President of the 20th Century, save for LBJ, on the issue of race. I note this only in the context of those who believe that “freedom” was achieved in 1865 or shortly thereafter.

It feels to me, though, that the group is probably more known these days for its Image Awards (airing again tonight on FOX, feting Muhammad Ali) than for its import in the civil rights movement. The current president lays out the goals for the next century.
***
This is also the 200th birthday of Abraham Lincoln. Has there been anyone in the last 1900 years written about more often?

So, I was interested to note that the Library of Congress will digitally scan “The Heroic Life of Abraham Lincoln: The Great Emancipator” as the 25,000th book in its “Digitizing American Imprints” program, which scans aging ‘brittle’ books often too fragile to serve to researchers. The program is sponsored by a $2 million grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The Library, which has contracted with the Internet Archive for digitization services, is combining its efforts with other libraries as part of the open content movement. The movement, which includes over 100 libraries, universities and cultural institutions, aims to digitize and make freely available public-domain books in a wide variety of subject areas.

All scanning operations are housed in the Library’s John Adams Building on Capitol Hill. Internet Archive staff work two shifts each day on 10 “Scribe” scanning stations. The operation can digitize up to 1,000 volumes each week. Shortly after scanning is complete, the books are available online at www.archive.org. Books can be read online or downloaded for more intensive study. The Library of Congress is actively working with the Internet Archive on the development of a full-featured, open-source page turner. A beta version, called the Flip Book, is currently available on the Internet Archive site.
***
With Malice Toward None: Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Exhibition

ROG

ROG

Z is for Zebra

Have you noticed that in children’s books, Z is almost ALWAYS for zebra? It might be for something else as well, but zebra is nearly inevitably represented. For instance:

Poor Puppy by Nick Bruel (2007)

A to Z by Sandra Boynton (1984, 1995)

A to Z Animals: A Bedtime Story by Danice Baker. Illustrated by Judith Moffatt (2005)

Robert Crowther’s Most Amazing Hide and Seek abc Alphabet Book (1977, 1999)

The Alphabet Book by P.D. Eastman (1974)

Even in non-alphabetical books, the zebra will get its due, such as in The Zoo Book by Jan Pfloog (1967); even the book is in the shape of a zebra.

Now, in English, an X in the first position usually sounds like an Z, such as xylophone. (An exception is a word like X-ray, where the letter sounds like ks.) Maybe, to lessen the burden on the poor zebra, we should attribute to Z some of those X words. Or not.

One of the first jokes I ever learned: what black and white and red all over? A sunburned zebra.

ROG

ROG

2009: A life odyssey

I’ve never been that big on resolutions. Sure I’ll work on losing weight, but I think (know) I need more…fun challenges.

Thus and therefore, I resolve:
*to play more backgammon. I’ve been playing online quite a bit in 2008. But I have an actual board with actual pieces in my cubicle, and I haven’t touched it, except to dust it off, in the nearly three years we’ve been in cuby land. This MUST change. I have one opponent lined up, and a date for next Tuesdayand a novice ready to learn.
* to play more cards, specifically hearts. I may have played once in 2008. Not acceptable.
* to see more movies. The wife and I may have to go to the virtual date plan, where one of us sees the 1 pm movie while the other watches the child, then the other sees the 4 pm movie while the first watches the child, then discuss later. It’s not optimal, but neither is seeing five movies/year.
* to play more racquetball. Actually, more correctly, to continue to play racquetball. This year, the daughter goes to kindergarten. There appears to be no preschool at her school. Since the wife can’t take her to school because of timing, it would default to me. But that would mean that I’d almost NEVER play racquetball, which might, quite literally, kill me, since it is both my primary form of exercise – especially in the winter, when I don’t ride the bike – and something with which the competition provides a joie de vivre that riding on a stationary bike or running around a track simply doesn’t generate for me. To that end, we’re investigating hiring someone to get Lydia up, dressed, fed and taken to school, perhaps a student from a nearby college. We’re paying for daycare now, so that’d be the source of the payments.
Oh, jeez, I almost forgot: come spring, I need to BUY a bike to replace the one that was stolen.
*read more books. I’ve started literally dozens that I simply never finish.
*listen to more music at home. This will be facilitated by the fact that the daughter got a boom box for Christmas. This means that the other boom box, which technically belongs to the wife – my matching one got stolen from my office a few years ago – can reside in the living room. My stereo, specifically the CD player, has ceased to work, despite taking it into the shop. So until I buy a new one, the boombox will be the primary form of entertainment in the living quarters.

I think that’s enough.

Do YOU have any resolutions that you’d like to share?

Oh, and I had one of those reminders why I do the blog this past week. My mother, sister and niece made an impromptu visit to the Salisbury National Cemetery where my father was buried, but they couldn’t find the grave site. They knew they were close, but lots of folks have been buried there in the past eight years. So my sister calls me on her cellphone; did I have a record of where he was buried? I went to my trusty blog and found the citation, section 8, grave 358. Yet another notation that while I like to provide the best of the psychodrama in my head for your entertainment, I have to do the blog for ME.

ROG

ROG

The Lydster, Part 56: Too Shy

There are times when my daughter is bold and fearless. In her classroom, for instance, her teachers rave about how well she helps the newer students get acclimated. Other times, she just wants to retreat behind one of her parents.

Her favorite TV show – pretty much her ONLY TV show she watches on a regular basis, as we’re TRYING to limit her consumption – is something called Little Bear. It is based on some 1950s books by Maurice Sendak, for which, quite coincidentally, we received a three-in-volume volume of the book. Little Bear lives in the forest with his parents and has friends with Owl, Duck, Hen and Cat. The TV series was filmed in the 1990s in Canada.

Most of these stories she enjoys, but a few of them made her quite frightened: one with Father Bear arguing with the personified North Wind, a couple featuring goblins, which look more like Santa’s elves.

But the episodes cycle through and repeat after a number of weeks, and Lydia’s discovered that there’s nothing to fear from the wind or the goblins.

I was reminded that, last Christmastime, we were at a party. The kids went upstairs with an adult to play. As it turned out, they were watching Little Nemo. I went to check up on her, and I noticed my child, in ithe midst of a bunch of happy children, looking terrified. She ran to me, and I watched the remaining part of the movie with her, including the scary dentist scene, during which she buried her head under my arm.

It occurred to me while reading Tosy, who has two girls about Lydia’s age, that before we venture on showing Lydia the movie The Wizard of Oz, perhaps I ought to READ the story to her first. Interestingly, my wife has a friend whose daughter had seen the Wizard of Oz a half dozen times, or more, by the time she was THREE, and wasn’t afraid at all. I remember being still afraid of it at age seven; on the other hand, in a pre-video age, I saw it but once a year.

Ah, the power of repetition.

ROG

ROG

BOOK REVIEW: Across the Charts-the 1960s

I am an unabashed fan of those Billboard books such as Top Pop Singles and Top R&B /Hip Hop Singles. Arriving in the mail this week, Joel Whitburn Presents Across the Charts-the 1960s. It takes all the songs that hit the Hot 100 (HT), Bubbling Under (BU), R&B (RB), Country (CW) and Adult Contemporary (AC). from January 1960 through December 1969. Additionally it notes those “list” songs such as the Rolling Stone 500 greatest songs, RIAA/NEA 365 songs of the (20th) century, BMI top 100 songs of the century, etc.

Examples: Whipped cream by Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass entered the AC charts on 3/20/66 and got to #13, spending 8 weeks on the charts, while it hit the HT charts on 2/20/66 and stayed there for 10 weeks, but only got to #68.

The Beatles’ From Me to You was released on 8/3/63 but only got to the BU charts at #116, but was re-released on 3/7/64 and got to #41. Another Beatles’ song, Something, was #3 on the HT but also #17 on the AC, the ONLY Beatles song to reach the AC in the decade. Also, Something was #273 on the Rolling Stone list and #17 on the BMI rating.

Nat “King Cole’s Ramblin’ Rose was #1 for 5 weeks in 1962 on the AC charts, #2 for 2 weeks on the HT chart AND #7 on the RB charts. Similarly, the 1960 Elvis Presley hit Stuck on You was #1 for 4 weeks on the HT, #6 on the RB(!) and #27 on the CW. I note these last two examples to describe the universality of music, and why I was never able to organize my albums by “genre”.

Additionally, the book lists all the songs alphabetically, so I can see that All My Loving charted for the Beatles, the Chipmunks, Jimmy Griffin and the Hollyridge Strings.

There are three songs that made it to #1 on three of the four charts
I Can’t Stop Lovin’ You by Ray Charles (1962): RB (10 weeks), HT (5 weeks) and AC (5 weeks); #161 on the Rolling Stone list, #40 on the BMI.
Big Bad John by Jimmy Dean (1961): AC (9 weeks), HT (5 weeks), CW (2 weeks).
AND, OMG
Honey by Bobby Goldsboro (1968): HT (6 weeks), CW (3 weeks), AC (2 weeks).

There’s is only one song that made the Top 10 in all four charts, HT, RB, CW, and AC. Any guesses?

This is a really fun book, at least for a music junkie of this period such as I. For more information, go to RecordResearch.com.

(This was an unpaid, unsolicited announcement for a book I’m loving.)

ROG

ROG