Alexander

Ah, ah...would you..."say" is not the word I'm looking for...rather, would you "opine" that...ah, ah...William F. Buckley's voyage to the...ah, ah..."undiscovered country," if I may be so bold as to make a Shakespearian allusion at this...ah, ah...point in time...would you say that Mr. Buckley's passing might be a...ah, ah...a metaphor for the death of the conservative movement for which he...ah, ah...spoke? Or would that be de classe to note at this juncture?

In addition, I've read some pretty persuasive arguments that racisim was a factor in the anti-disco backlash. A lot of people equated disco with "black music." Kind of ironic that while that might have been the case in the beginning, by the time disco was at its popular height most of the top selling disco artists were white (Vicki Sue Robinson, the Bee Gees, KC and the Sunshine Band).

"Why do you need Hattori Hanzo's steel?" "I have records to play..." "You must have biiiiiiiig collection." "Huge."

Shellac is proof that outdated technologies do indeed die as the medium for transmission of new content. It's a question of time. That's because shellac sucked, frankly. It was very fragile AND highly flammable. I know that the Joe Bussards and Dick Spottswoods of the world adore them, but there was really nothing the 78 could do that the LP couldn't do better. And the technology was exactly the same (except the change in speed and the change-over from steel needles), it was simply a question of creating a more durable format. A record is a record.

Neither do I. Groups like the Yellowjackets, the Rippingtons and Spyro Gyra, while not my cup of tea, are legit outgrowths of jazz fusion. George Benson, David Sanborn, and Chuck Mangione all have real jazz cred (Chuck was even in the Jazz Messengers!).

Well, speaking personally, I think it's held up very well. It's a brilliant album, probably Beck's overall best (although he's done some really good stuff recently on "Guero" and "The Information"). I bought the second disc of the deluxe package off of iTunes. There's some good stuff there, but nothing as good as the original album itself.

I go through cycles. I think most people do. Right now I'm listening to more jazz (especially since I'm working my way through Allen's "Devlin Tune" sets), but only recently I listened to very little. My listening has been divided between African music, Tuvan throat music, Brazilian music, plus lots of pop, rock, and hip-hop. And country. I've been on a Johnny Cash kick of late. To me, it's not about how much of any genre I listen to, I just follow wherever my interest leads me. Eventually, I always wind up coming back to the Beatles, anyway...

I don't have sympathy for him. He's out of his mind. I just think that this is an interesting legal case. I don't think the law ever anticipated something like this.

should've just passed the buck. The deer was probably dressed provoctively.

Yet the law says that if the deer is in season and if he is appropriately licensed, this man CAN kill the deer. The law doesn't specifiy good or bad reasons for killing the deer. It doesn't say, "you can hunt deer for food or for sport, but not for sex."

I hate to say it, but I think the guy has a legal point. The statutes that forbid sexual contact with animals exist, in part, to protect the animals who cannot consent and may be injured by being forced into sex acts with a human. Since the animal in question was dead, no further harm could come to it. Similarly, the statutes that forbit sexual contact with corpses usually assume that the corpse in question is a HUMAN corpse, and as such having sex with it does injury to the deceased's memory and to any family that may survive. But having sex with a dead animal (especially a wild animal, as opposed to a pet or livestock) has no effect on the memory of the dead animal, nor does the animal have any relatives likely to be offended or otherwise injured by the act carried out on its dead body. I'm not saying that I approve of this man's actions in any way, shape, or form. I just think that what he has done puts him very much outside the law as we have currently conceived of it. If they're going to bust him, I think some new laws need to be written.

I was very sad to read of his passing. I started a thread on it just before I saw this post.

The RVG is VASTLY superior in terms of sound. The version with the airchecks is essential as well. I actually put both discs in to a two CD container. Whenever I listen to the RVG, I follow it up with the live material.

February 19, 2008 Alain Robbe-Grillet, 85, French Author, Is Dead By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS PARIS (AP) — Alain Robbe-Grillet, an author and filmmaker who was one of France’s most important avant-garde writers in the 1950s, died on Monday. He was 85. He died at a hospital in western France where he had been admitted over the weekend for cardiac problems, officials said. As a novelist, Mr. Robbe-Grillet helped establish the New Novel, a genre that rejected conventional storytelling. As a screenwriter, he was best known for his work on Alain Resnais’s “Last Year at Marienbad” (1961), for which he was nominated for an Academy Award. An enigmatic work whose characters, often bored and identified only by initials, live in an otherworldly chateau, not sure whether they are planning seductions or remembering them, “Last Year in Marienbad” was released in the United States in early 1962 and became one of the most talked-about art films of the year. Among the films Mr. Robbe-Grillet directed himself were “L’Immortelle” (“The Immortal”) (1963), “Trans-Europ-Express” (1967) and “Eden and After” (1970). He was the most prominent of France’s so-called New Novelists, a group that emerged in the mid-1950s whose other members included Claude Simon, Michel Butor and Nathalie Sarraute. Their experimental work tossed aside literary conventions like plot and character development, narrative and chronology, chapters and punctuation. Mr. Robbe-Grillet’s best-known works of fiction include “Les Gommes” (“The Erasers”), a 1953 novel about a detective investigating an apparent murder who ends up killing the victim, and “Le Voyeur” (1955), about the world seen through the eyes of a sadistic killer. His last novel, published last year, was “Un Roman Sentimental” (“A Sentimental Novel”). In 1963 he wrote “Pour un Nouveau Roman” (“Toward a New Novel”), a highly regarded critical essay laying the theoretical foundations of the genre. It became the French avant-garde’s bible and catapulted Mr. Robbe-Grillet to star status among Parisian intellectuals. Mr. Robbe-Grillet was born in Brest, France, the son of an engineer. He graduated from the Lycée St.-Louis in Paris and received a degree in agricultural engineering from the National Agronomy Institute. Information about survivors was not immediately available. Mr. Robbe-Grillet was inducted into France’s Legion of Honor and was one of the 40 so-called immortals of the prestigious Académie Française, the anointed protector of the French language. President Nicolas Sarkozy’s office said in a statement, “The Académie Française today loses one of its most illustrious members, and without a doubt its most rebellious.”

I want to make it clear that I do NOT think that my students are "unintelligent." There are a lot of different kinds of genius, and since I've been teaching, I've been exposed to several kids who undoubtedly qualify as physical genuises or mechanical genuises, etc. What bugs me is the apparent lack of curiosity about the wider world. These kids know all about the ins and outs of surviving on the streets of Schenectady, New York. But they couldn't care less about what's happening in Washington, D.C. or in Iraq or Darfur, much less things that happened over a hundred years ago. I sometimes think that their brains have learned to reject all information that it regards as unessential. In fact, it may be a survival technique.

I have encountered so many students who don't *like* to read. Not only do they regard reading as a chore (at best it is a necessary evil), but they think that people like me who genuinely LOVE to read, whom they never see without a book in his hand, as gluttons for punishment. I really think that they see me and my enthusasim for reading as some sort of masochism. And why shouldn't they? Reading is hard for them. They derive no pleasure because they're spending all their time simply decoding. I am not fluent in French or German, although I have studied both in high school and college, respectively. If I were to sit down with a book in French, I wouldn't enjoy it because I'd be too busy just trying to figure out what it says. On the other hand, my good friend HWright IS fluent in both French and Spanish. He reads books in both languages all the time, both for pleasure and to bolster his language skills. The difference between me and my students is that I am able to look beyond my personal experience and understand why another person does what he or she does. So many of my students really can't see beyond the ends of their noses. If something is uninteresting to them, it must be uninteresting to everyone. If someone enjoys something they don't, then that person must derive some perverse pleasure from being bored or annoyed.

My whole thesis in this thread (and previous ones) has been about illegal copies of the music, not the buying and selling of used cds. I buy and sell used cds in person and on this board, and don't have a problem with doing so. But buying a used CD DOES deprive the artist of a sale. If the used CD didn't exist (as has been pointed out elsewhere), the potential consumer would HAVE to buy new, and the sale of a new CD is a benefit to the artist. Take5 may not be "entitled" to his copied files, but I don't see how the mere existence of those files constitues an actual injury to the artist. Now, if Take5 is making those copied files available for download via a file-sharing service, then I can see how this hurts the artist. It does not merely deprive the artist of one sale (as the sale of a used CD does), but potentially deprives him of hundreds, possibly thousands of sales. For this very reason, I personally condemn illegal file-sharing. But if Take5 is simply keeping the files for his own use, his actions affect nobody, not even the artist who remains competely ignorant of the files' existence. Alexander , as discussed a few posts back , the existence of the copied files constitutes an injury to the artist in the sense that a ripped CD is more likely to end up in the used CD market with the result being more used CD sales at the expense of new CD sales . There is no inconsistency in sanctioning the existence of a used CD market while wanting to minimize such a market's impact on new CD sales . I guess I should have started my own thread , for my attempts to steer this one towards the REAL issue behind all this has failed . So the problem is ripping CDs to a computer hard drive? That's funny, I've ripped dozens of CDs to my computer, yet I've never sold one of them...

At the present time, I'm teaching students who are working towards their GED (many are very far off from this goal...a large number of my students read below a sixth-grade level). In the morning, I teach kids between 16 and 19 years old. In the afternoon, I work with women in a county jail, who can be anywhere from 18 to 99 (most are in their 30s and 40s). These people have almost no prior knowledge, which can make my job a challenge. It's hard to prepare kids to answer a question that compares the Civil War to World War II when they don't know anything about either. When I asked my morning class when WWII happened, a large number guessed "the 1980s." I don't blame these kids, of course. I know that at least one of them is homeless (his family is living in a motel on the taxpayer's dime), and almost all of them have at least one family member in prison. These kids have a LOT on their plate. The public school system failed them, and they've dropped out. I know that I'm their last, best hope of getting a start in life that doesn't include drugs, crime, or minimum-wage hell. What bothers me is not their lack of knowledge, so much as their lack of curiosity. They don't know things: That's fine. There are a great many things that I don't know. I'm always telling them that an intelligent person knows just how much he or she doesn't know. But they don't WANT to know about things. When I try to teach things to them, they complain that it's irrelivant to their lives. They want to know how math, science, history and literature are going to help them as hair stylists or while working at McDonalds. I try to explain how a great many things I'm teaching them do have a practical application, but they don't really believe it, and I'm at pains to show them how algebra is going to help them make correct change. I want them to understand that education is their ticket out of the ghetto, but I think they've lived in the ghetto too long to be able to conceive of a world outside of it (they certainly have made it abundently clear to me that they don't care who the next president is, they don't care what happens in Iraq of Afghanistan, and they don't care about Global Warming). My students at the jail are a completely different story. They are hungry to learn and they do care very much about the world. We just watched "An Inconvienent Truth" and they are all writing letters to elected officials asking what they plan to do about Global Warming. We're also reading "The Diary of Anne Frank" at the jail, and the students are finding that they really identify with Anne and her ordeal. On Friday, we watched most of "Schindler's List" and they were shocked by what humans are capable of. These women make it worth getting out of bed in the morning, I'm telling you. I guess what I want to know is this: What happened to "common knowledge"? Did it ever really exist?

My whole thesis in this thread (and previous ones) has been about illegal copies of the music, not the buying and selling of used cds. I buy and sell used cds in person and on this board, and don't have a problem with doing so. But buying a used CD DOES deprive the artist of a sale. If the used CD didn't exist (as has been pointed out elsewhere), the potential consumer would HAVE to buy new, and the sale of a new CD is a benefit to the artist. Take5 may not be "entitled" to his copied files, but I don't see how the mere existence of those files constitues an actual injury to the artist. Now, if Take5 is making those copied files available for download via a file-sharing service, then I can see how this hurts the artist. It does not merely deprive the artist of one sale (as the sale of a used CD does), but potentially deprives him of hundreds, possibly thousands of sales. For this very reason, I personally condemn illegal file-sharing. But if Take5 is simply keeping the files for his own use, his actions affect nobody, not even the artist who remains competely ignorant of the files' existence. I have a feeling that if they could make the sales of used cars illegal, btw, auto manufacturers would do so in a heartbeat. Again, if I buy a used car (as my wife did not too long ago), the manufacturer has not benefitted in any way from that sale. If I could not buy a used car, I would have to buy a new car: a positive benefit to the automaker. Put it this way: Two men are in the market for a car. One buys a used car. The other steals a car. In both cases, the manufacturer was compensated only for the original sales of the respective cars. From the manufacturer's point of view, is there any appreciable difference between the used car and the stolen car? I'm not talking about the point of view of the guy whose car was stolen or from the criminal justice system which has a vested interest in catching the car thief. I'm talking ONLY about the automaker. Is there a difference to them between the used car and the stolen car? Did they benefit from either?

"I don't eat pig, man." "Are you Jewish?" "No, I ain't Jewish. I just don't dig on swine, that's all. A pig is a filthy animal." "Yeah, but bacon tastes good. Pork chops taste good..." "Sewer rat might taste like pumpkin pie, but I'll never know because I ain't gonna eat the filthy mother fucker. Pigs root and sleep in shit, and I won't eat any animal that don't have the sense to disregard its own feces." "Dogs eat their own shit." "I don't eat dog, either." "But do you consider a dog to be a 'filthy animal'?" "Well, they're definitely dirty, but I don't know that I'd go so far as to call it 'filthy'. But a dog has personality. Personality goes a long way." "Ah. So if a pig had a better personality, it would cease to be a 'filthy animal'." "We'll, it'd have to be one charming motherfucking pig. It would have to be ten times more charming than that Arnold on 'Green Acres'."

I want one!

"I'm an American. Our names don't mean shit..." "On the night of the fight, you might feel a slight sting. That's pride fuckin' with you. Pride never helps. It only hurts."

What you are doing is effectively the same as the people who are downloading it illegally. You've created a copy of the music that is just as illegal to possess (since you no longer own the license to have that digital copy, which you sold with the CD) as the one that is downloaded illegally. I'm sure the artist that produced that particular album would see that he's sold one copy of the CD, and yet you AND the person who bought your used cd now both have a copy of it. So he's sold one copy but two are out there. Is that o.k. from the artist's perspective? Do you care whether the artist gets what he's due for those two copies of the music? Because he/she is not. You and I have gone head-to-head over this issue before. I still argue that while it may be true that Take5 has created an extra copy of his purchased music, he has NOT deprived the artist of a sale. He purchased the music legally, and resold it. The person who bought his used copy has not contributed to the artist's royalties because he bought a used CD. So here we have a case where two people have owned one CD (at different times, granted) but the artist was only compensated once. This is true regardless of whether any illegal copying has taken place. Since the artist WAS compensated by Take5's purchase, please explain to me how this artist has suffered by Take5 keeping the copied files after selling the CD. I know the artist isn't being compensated by the second copy, but he also hasn't been compensated for the second sale of his CD. You can only logically make your argument if you ALSO argue that buying and selling used CDs is also unethical, since it also deprives the artist of a sale.

It's up to your individual ethics and moral compass I guess. Illegal copying contributes to a negative spiral - it results in fewer sales of music, and is helping to destroy the industry. Labels shut down, get bought out and shuttered, inventory ends up in some storage facility in some mountain somewhere, never to be seen again, and people lose their jobs. Availability of music dwindles, and artists lose established avenues to provide us music. I disagree. Illegal copying and file-sharing are a drop in the ocean compared to what's really killing the music industry: People aren't interested in music anymore. They like it. It's a nice background to their lives, but it's not a consuming passion for 99% of potential consumers. Instead, people are interested in DVDs and video games. There's so much more competing for our entertainment dollar, compared to the 80s or even the 90s, that music is getting lost in the shuffle. Since music isn't selling in the quantities in once did, retailers are shrinking their music presence. My local Borders used to have a pretty damn good music section. Now it's been shrunk by half to make room for the DVDs. This creates a self-fullfilling prophecy: There's less music available, so people buy less of it. The less they buy, the more the space is shrunk. Etc, etc. The problem is that record companies aren't looking for music that inspires a lifelong interest in music. They're looking for the next number one hit. Record companies have always looked for hits, but they've also taken chances on less marketable music just because it was good (think of Alfred Lion recording album after album of Andrew Hill music, even though he wound up releasing only a fraction of it). With the music insdustry in trouble, who's going to take a chance on an Andrew Hill, or even a Bob Dylan (who conventional wisdom would have told executives there was no market for)?

I remember there being two types of "skipping" on records. One is the more common case in which the needle jumps out of the groove for a second. The other is where the record gets "stuck" and keeps repeating a phrase over and over again. The first case happens only seldom to me these days. It's usually the result of something on the record itself and it easily fixed (it's probably not the best thing to do, but I find that when this happens, if I run the turntable backwards over the same spot, the skip goes away). The second case hasn't happened to me since I was a kid.