The Lydster, Part 72: Lydia is Six

Here are some things about the daughter that I think I'll remember forever, but fear that I will forget:

*She's 50 inches tall, weighs at least 65 pounds. I can still lift her, though I prefer the over-the-shoulder method of transportation.
*She's in kindergarten, going to school with the wife.
*I make her lunch four days out of five. She eats a cheese sandwich (sharp cheddar) on whole wheat bread, with the crust cut off. Every day. That's what she wants. She'll get carrot or celery sticks, fruit cup or apple sauce, pretzels or fig bars, and a juice.
*She has developed a bit of sweet tooth, but she'll eat yogurt as often as ice cream, and seem to find them each acceptable.
*Her favorite cereal used to be Cheerios, but when she tried Froot Loops when we visited my mom in Charlotte in June, that was the only cereal she'd eat for about six months. Lately, she's really into Life cereal.

*She was the fastest girl in her class this fall in the Apple Run, by a considerable margin.
*She dances to EVERYTHING - TV theme music, especially the outro. She's taking ballet once a week, and she likes to choreograph her parents.
*Her favorite show is Martha Speaks (PBS), about a talking dog, though she'll watch her Nick Jr. favorites such as the Backyardigans, Ni-hao Kailan, the Fresh Beat Band and the Wonder Pets.
*She hates it when I pretend I don't remember her name, or make a variation on it. Yet she often makes a variation of MY name or title, and THAT'S funny.
*She doesn't seem to have a single favorite book. Carol's reading the Little House on the Prairie books to her, while she prefers that I read the Dr. Seuss books or other texts. She can read Green eggs and Ham herself; we tend to take turns reading it.
*She's somewhat less shy than she was last year.
*She still covers her ears when she sees conflict on a TV show or movie.
*She's lost at least seven teeth; I believe she ahead of schedule. And she's gotten five back, four lower and one upper.
*Usually, I dress her in the morning and put on her pajamas at night, except Thursday night, which is my choir night.
*She's increasingly more helpful, putting away her clean clothes in the drawer. she also has this system to pick out her clothes for the week.
*We bought her trucks and blocks and other gender-neutral items, and she still is more a girly-girl than I would have anticipated. She likes pink and purple. Someone in Salon was fretting about her girly-girl daughter, who to be fair is even moreso than Lydia. Lydia will wear pants.
But I guess I don't fret about it. If she wants a Disney princess tent and sleeping bag for Christmas, I don't object. I may cringe a little on the inside, but she is who she is.

I love the girl.
ROG

Peevish QUESTION

I wrote a little piece about pet peeves a little while ago. But I'm interested in asking you folks if there are things that really bug you, especially if you have not much to do with it. Maybe it's the political discourse that's distasteful.

I was at work helping someone with a question, and I rediscovered that there are a couple issues that really have been bugging me, and really are, in the end, none of my business. Though I will make a case for the idea that, at least the former issue is a public health issue and therefore everyone's concern.

Issue #1 is the huge number of Cesarean section births in the United States. From this document, the CDC notes that the C-section rate went up for the 11th straight year in 2006 up to 31.8%, the highest ever reported in the country. Lowering the rate was a governmental objective for the last quarter century. The mission actually seemed to be working for a while - the rate went from 22.8% in 1989 to 20.7% in 1996, but it's been going up ever since. The optimal rate is between 5% and 10%. The whys are varied, but it concerns me regardless. And it worries some in the medical community as well.

The other issue involves pregnant women smoking. I know that tobacco is addictive, but when I see it, it makes me crazy anyway. Low birth-weight babies are often the result.

So what issues that really don't affect you directly nevertheless gets on your nerves?

ROG

Condiments

So, today is my birthday. How the heck can I remember how old I am? It's not as though it's a round number.

Get a bottle of ketchup.

Ketchup? What will...

Brand name.

You mean like Hunt's?

The other one.


OK, so what does...

Look at the bottle.

Hmm. What am... OH, 57!

57.

But what will I use NEXT year?

We've got time to work on that.

***
AP — Celebrity birthdays: March 7:
TV personality Willard Scott is 76.
Actor Daniel J. Travanti is 70.
Bassist Chris White of The Zombies is 67.
Singer Peter Wolf of The J. Geils Band is 64.
Actor John Heard is 64.
Keyboardist Matthew Fisher of Procol Harum is 64.
Guitarist Ernie Isley of the Isley Brothers is 58.
Blogger Roger Green is 57.
Actor Bryan Cranston is 54.
Actor Bill Brochtrup ("NYPD Blue") is 47.
Comedian Wanda Sykes is 46.
Singer Taylor Dayne is 45.
Drummer Randy Guss of Toad the Wet Sprocket is 43.
Actress Rachel Weisz is 39.
Singer Sebastien Izambard of Il Divo is 37.
Singer Hugo Ferreira of Tantric is 36.
Actress Jenna Fisher is 36.
Actress Laura Prepon is 30.
ROG

Feeling Your Age QUESTION

One of the things I hated about some of the music of the 1990s was that it sounded like songs I knew, sort of. This wasn't just a copyright issue (Hammer, for one, was very good at attribution of the original source). It was that I would be briefly lulled into the familiar, only to be jolted into...something else. P. Diddy's music did that to me a lot.

(Though the Every Valley from Handel's Messiah: A Soulful Celebration was a GOOD surprise.)

So my family was at the 60th birthday party of the colleague of my wife's. And this song comes on. I think it's Werewolves of London by Warren Zevon, a song for which I have deep affection. Turns out to be some popular tune by Kid Rock that I had somehow missed. And, just for the moment, I was feeling my age.

What makes YOU feel like, just maybe, you're not still a kid?
***
Blue Is Frustrated from Blue's Clues. Pray tell, what is Blue frustrated about?
***
GORDON'S BIRTHDAY TODAY.
ROG

Smokey is 70!

If William "Smokey" Robinson was known just for the songs he performed, he would be a memorable artist. But the fact that he has written over 400 songs, according to ASCAP, and probably hundreds more and is a producer as well, then you have a musical force.

The first song released by his group the Miracles was Got A Job, a response song to Get a Job by by the Silhouettes, written by Smokey, Berry Gordy and Roquel Davis.

Here are just a other few songs written or co-written by Smokey. The group listed usually is NOT the only artist who's performed the tune:

You've Really Got A Hold On Me- the Beatles; also performed by the Miracles
My Girl-the Temptations
My Guy -Mary Wells; anyone who could write My Girl AND My Guy is the consummate songwriter
No More Tearstained Makeup - Martha & the Vandellas; a relatively obscure song with one of my favorite lines: No sponge has the power To absorb the shower Of what pancake and powder couldn't cover
Who's Loving You - Jackson 5ive. From the 1st J5 album, a cover of the Miracles tune. Isn't Michael preturnaturally experienced in love in this tune?
Ain't That Peculiar - Marvin Gaye
Tears of a Clown -the (English) Beat. But it was from the Miracles' version that I first heard of Pagliachi, which led me to find out that the reference was to a Leoncavallo opera.
Don't Mess with Bill - Marvellettes
The Hunter Gets Captured by the Game-Grace Jones, covering the Marvelettes' tune
Get Ready -Rare Earth, a song I first heard from the Temptations
No More Water In The Well - the Temptations, with a relatively rare Paul Williams lead vocal, from arguably my favorite Temps LP, With A Lot O' Soul, 1967.
Still Water (Peace) - Four Tops
Floy Joy - the Supremes

I suppose I should do a couple more Smokey songs. I pick the oft-covered Tracks of My Tears and I Second That Emotion.

So, happy 70th birthday to Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Songwriters' Hall of Fame inductee, as well as 2006 Kennedy Center honoree, Smokey Robinson!

1993 photo of Smokey from LIFE magazine, for non-commercial use

ROG

Berry Gordy is turning 80

Back in 1998, when I went to Detroit, I visited 2648 West Grand Boulevard. No, "visited" is not the right word; I made a pilgrimage to Hitsville USA, the house that served as the recording studio for a great number of artists recording for Motown Records. It is a physically unimpressive building, even dowdy, but it was the launching pad for a great amount of music that I own, tunes by Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson & the Miracles, the Four Tops, the Temptations), Martha and the Vandellas, Stevie Wonder, the Jackson 5ive, and the Supremes, among many others. The visionary for all of this was Berry Gordy, Jr.

Gordy, whose Rock and Roll Hall of Fame bio you can read here, developed songwriters, artists, and underappreciated backup musicians to create music that was not marginalized as "race music" or "soul music", but in fact became "The Sound of Young America." This is astonishing: "In 1966, the company’s 'hit ratio' - the percentage of records released that made the national charts - was 75%."

If you bought Motown ALBUMS, as opposed to singles in the 1960s, as I tended to do, you'll note that not occasionally, the same songs would make it onto more than one artist's LP. Famously, Gladys Knight & the Pips had a #2 single in 1967 (#1 on the R&B charts) with I Heard It Through the Grapevine; about a year later, Marvin Gaye had a massive #1 hit on both charts with the same song, albeit arranged quite differently, written by Barrett Strong and the late Norman Whitfield. It was the stable of songwriters, including Holland-Dozier-Holland, some of the singer-songwriters such as Robinson, Wonder and Gaye, and less well-known folks who may be the unsung heroes in the saga.

Another writer was Berry Gordy himself. Songs written or co-written by him include:
Do You Love Me by the Contours, covered by Temptations
Try It Baby by Marvin Gaye, covered by the Supremes and the Temptations
I'll Be There by the Four Tops
You've Made Me So Very Happy by Brenda Holloway, covered by Blood, Sweat & Tears
Money by Barrett Strong, covered by the Beatles and many others
You've Got What It Takes by Marv Johnson
I Want You Back, ABC, The Love You Save, Mama's Pearl, Maybe Tomorrow - all Jackson 5ive; songwriters billed as The Corporation (Gordy/Mizell/Richards/Perren)
Even pre-Motown, Gordy had written hits for the late Jackie Wilson, including Reet Petite and Lonely Teardrops

I refer you to this episode of the podcast Coverville, featuring the music of Motown and Berry Gordy; yes, the thank you in the notes (and the fulfilled request of Remove This Doubt by Elvis Costello, the cover of a song from The Supremes Sing Holland-Dozier-Holland album) is in reference to me.

Also check out this article celebrating not only 50 years of Motown records but also another milestone; Berry Gordy turns 80 on November 28, 2009. ROG

Picture from Life.com, "for personal non-commercial use only"

My Mom's Birthday

My mother's birthday is today. When I went down to visit her and other members of the family in Charlotte, NC back in June, I was reminded of the fact that I am happy that she's had the opportunity to get to know my daughter. This is particularly true since Lydia never got to meet my father, since he died almost four years before she was born. But it really is not adequate. Lydia knows her, and my sisters, for that matter, more from pictures than from personal relationships. Whereas my in-laws she sees with a fair frequency. At some fundamental level, I'm jealous of this fact.

My mother goes to an adult day care every weekday. I believe it has been tremendously helpful in engaging her mind, which is important at her vintage.

As I noted before, my mother, sister and niece were in a car crash a couple weeks ago. They're OK physically. But the vehicle was totaled, and the amount of money they'll get from the insurance will be inadequate to get as comparable used vehicle.

I was having a conversation with someone recently, and the question was whether either of us had been knocked unconscious. I had, twice. The second time was the car accident I was in when I was 19. The first was when I was pitching in a sandlot baseball game, when I was 10 or 11, and the batter, who was the older sister of one of my sister's friends, hit the ball straight back to me, hitting me on or near my left temple. My mom stayed up with me all night, waking me up periodically to make sure that if I had a concussion, it didn't lapse into something worse, which was the recommended treatment at the time. My parents may have called the doctor, but I'm almost positive we didn't go to the doctor's, but instead engaged in that course of treatment. I'm sure she did lots of other things that moms unselfishly do, but this is the strongest recollection that came to mind.

These pictures were taken in the Bojangles Coliseum parking; my niece Alex's high school graduation was held at the center.

ROG

A Couple Lennon Flicks

Sometimes I see October 9 creeping up on the calendar and have not much to say past "Happy birthday, John." This year, though, as a result of the 09/09/09 VH1 Classic extravaganza, there were a couple Lennon-related items worthy of noting, neither of which I had ever seen before.

One was a live concert in New York City in 1972, a benefit for the mentally handicapped (the preferred term in the day). It was odd, though. It all SOUNDED particularly familiar, such as him referring to his old group as the Rolling Stones. That's because I own the album that was released posthumously in 1986; I have it on vinyl, perhaps one of the last LPs I ever bought. A photo of Lennon given to me by my friend Rocco was almost certainly from the same set of concerts. (Yes, the same Rocco who gets a mention in Love & Rockets 40.)

VH1 bleeped a couple words in the concert, one of them a pronoun. One was in the title of Woman Is the N***** of the World, which was excised several times. The other word was from Well Well Well. In the line, "She looked so beautiful, I could eat her," the "her" was clipped. The interesting thing about the technology is that it didn't affect the backing track, only the vocal track.

Something that I DIDN'T know until recently is that there were two concerts. And Elephant's Memory, John and Yoko's backing band, was reportedly really ticked off with Yoko Ono, believing she should have released the music from the tighter second concert rather than the first. A few of those second show performances appear on the box set Lennon Anthology. John messes up the lyrics to Come Together in both.

Here's a performance of Instant Karma, followed by Mother.

The other item I saw was the 2006 feature film, the U.S. vs. John Lennon, which chronicled the development of John Lennon's evolution from moptop to the famous/infamous "The Beatles are more popular than Jesus" comment to John & Yoko on the cover of Two Virgins. But ultimately, he was recognized as a political creature - black activist Angela Davis, e.g., took notice of the Beatles song Revolution. Many may have thought John and Yoko's bagism and bed-ins were silly; John didn't seem to care. Yet "Give Peace a Chance", recorded at the Montreal bed-in, became as much the antiwar anthem as "We Shall Overcome" was the anthem for the civil rights movement.

Post-Beatles, John and Yoko's activism became more pointed, hanging out with Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, and Bobby Seale (who appears in the film). When John was seemingly successful in freeing activist John Sinclair, the Nixon White House became concerned about the 1972 election, especially given the passage of the 26th Amendment allowing 18-year-olds the right to vote for the first time nationally.

What to do? Based on a suggestion by Senator Strom Thurmond, the Nixon White House decided to try to deport John Lennon. The basis was a marijuana conviction that lots of pop stars in England had been subjected to, all performed by one overzealous officer.

The twists and turns of that four-year journey are fascinating, especially as told by among others, Walter Cronkite, Mario Cuomo, John Dean, Ron Kovic, George McGovern, Gore Vidal, and Geraldo Rivera, who had broken the story of the abuses in the mental health system, and was MC for the One to One concerts. Most interesting, though, was Watergate convict G. Gordon Liddy, who freely confirmed that the Nixon White House WAS out to get John.

October 9, 1975 was not only John's 35th birthday, it was the date of Sean Lennon's birth AND the day their immigration lawyer Leon Wildes informs John that he'd won the case. In some ways, I think the movie should have ended there. Instead, we get happy scenes of John, Yoko and Sean for a few minutes, followed by four gunshots. It seemed tacked on, though Yoko's only complaint was that the bullets should have been louder.

Still I learned a LOT in this film that I did not know. Recommended. Here's the trailer.

ROG

The Lydster, Part 65: Stretching It Out

As I have mentioned, there were a couple weeks this summer when Carol was away at college and I got to play what is quaintly referred to Mr. Mom. (Did I see that film? I have vague recollections of it.)

It was not too bad during the week. I would drop her off at daycare in the morning. On Monday/Wednesday/Friday, my friend who has a daughter slightly older and a son slightly younger than Lydia would pick up the daughter and take her to their house and I would pi her up from there. On Tuesday/Thursday, I'd leave work early and pick up Lydia from daycare myself.

This meant truncated workdays. I don't know about your work habits, but mine has a certain rhythm which involves getting through the e-mails, and doing some of the tasks therein before working on reference questions. It was not an optimal situation but it was doable.

The weekends were trickier. It was daddy being "on" for 15 or 16 hours. Not only did I need to do her hair in the morning (and preferably at night), and give her all her allergy medicines at night, I needed to entertain - read more than the evening books, play various games inside and out. On a weekday evening, by the time I made supper, cleaned up after supper, did her evening routine (which involved her 30 minutes of television per day), then got ready for bed, there wasn't all that much time. On weekends, it was a LONG period.

Fortunately, there were birthday parties for Lydia's classmates each of the two Saturdays. The first party was in a suburb of Albany called Clifton Park. The father of the birthday girl picked us up. It was one of those combo bouncy bounce/video places; it seemed very LOUD. Of course, we had to wait to get a ride home until after the clean up, but this was not at all a bad thing as it ate up the time. If I were using a baseball analogy, it would be like a workmanlike pitcher eating up innings.

The second weekend, the party was in another suburb, Latham. This time, I was determined to find a way to get us there without help. Plan #1, taking the #29 Cohoes bus was out; it doesn't run on Saturdays. What I discovered, though, is if I got to the uptown SUNY campus (via the #12 bus), there is a #90 bus that goes to all the malls in the area, including Latham Farms, near where we were heading. It meant leaving the house at 10:15 to get to the party at 11:30 (a half hour early) and staying a little longer to catch the right buses back. But since we were at Chuck E. Cheese, this was not a problem.

The biggest hassle, actually, was getting from the Latham Farms bus stop to the Chuck. To say it was not designed for pedestrians would be a gross understatement. There were trees by the side of the road that jutted out in a way that it was impossible to even walk on the lawn; of course, there was NO sidewalk to speak of.

Did I mention that I HATE the name Latham Farms? There are few to no agrarian features.

I hadn't been to CEC since 1995 in an Atlanta suburb. It's more tech oriented now, with our electronic hosts Justin and Kelly (really - but not the folks from American Idol) hosting the gig on a half dozen TV screens until the rat, er mouse, came out.

On the ride back to SUNY, there was a woman with her eight-year-old coming from Troy to SUNY. Her daughter was getting antsy, so it was mutually beneficial when she got to read to Lydia. We got home at about 3:15.

If we had gotten a car ride there and back, we would have been gone from 11:30 to 2, 2.5 hours. Since we took two buses each way, we were out a total of FIVE hours. This is a GOOD thing. It was an adventure. Lydia is good riding buses, and this was new to her.

I'll admit that maybe she watched a little more television than is generally allowed on the two Sundays, but she survived. As important, *I* survived.

Photo by Ray Hendrickson
ROG

The "Obama Birthday Surprise"

It's Barack Obama's 48th birthday. While I do have some real policy issues with him (I fear a quagmire in Afghanistan, among other issues), those can wait. After all, it IS his natal day, wherever he was born.

OK, I jest, but that is my basic point. I think that too many people, including me, have gotten caught up with the various attacks on the President, from whether he's a natural-born citizen of the United States to whether he's a racist (Jeremiah Wright -I heard invoked by Glenn Beck just recently - to Skip Gates) to whether he's a socialist (single payer health care). Or merely the Antichrist who wants to euthanize old people. What we've been missing, what I've been missing, with all those trees, is the forest.

I've become convinced that the proponents of these theories don't need to PROVE the smears against Obama as unAmerican (by birth or by values). It's merely necessarily to repeat them over and over. And over and over and over again.

Take the birthers, please. Jon Stewart pretty much eviscerated their points a couple weeks ago. The very next day, I get an e-mail that goes on and on and on about how the group (I won't bother identifying them) will lead a campaign to "FAX All 50 State Attorneys General To Investigate Obama's Birthday FRAUD"
According to published reports,[WHAT published reports?] Barack Obama's legal team has been paid over one million dollars, so far, to STOP anyone from seeing ANY of his actual identification documents, or many other documents:
* Actual long-form birth certificate (NOT an easily-forged electronic copy of a short-form document that is not even officially accepted in Hawaii) except by legal authorities in Hawaii...
* Columbia University senior thesis, "Soviet Nuclear Disarmament" - writing about the USSR; maybe he's also a Communist? ...
* Obama's client list from during his time in private practice with the Chicago law firm of Davis, Miner, Barnhill and Gallard Hey, yeah, and while you're at it, reveal why the clients were there. But wait, wouldn't that violate lawyer-client privilege?
* Baptism records
* Obama/Dunham marriage license
* Obama/Dunham divorce documents
* Soetoro/Dunham marriage license
* Soetero/Dunham Adoption records
But would even THAT be sufficient? Ask David Hernandez.
It's a longer list, but it's brilliant in its innuendo.

The point is that it does not matter what Obama does; he will be criticized. And not on legitimate grounds, such as the deficit, but over specious stuff.

Take the mundane example of the so-called "beer summit". Obama was criticized for his choice of beer - Bud Light. But think about it: don't you believe he'd be criticized for ANY pick he made? If he'd picked a German beer, he'd be criticized for not picking a domestic brew. (Is Anheuser-Busch still considered "domestic" now that InBev owns it?) Even a selection of Sam Adams would have been picked as blue state elitist, I'm willing to bet. There was never going to be a satisfactory choice.

So for the President's birthday, we should vow to vow not to get confounded by the - dare I say it? - vast right-wing conspiracy - designed to make sound and fury signifying absolutely nothing. Let us hold this President accountable for the substantive issues, but ignore the politics of distraction. And distraction it is, though it has the capacity of being believed. The repetition gives some the belief that "Where there's smoke, there's fire," except that it's the same cabal blowing smoke.

Irwin Corey is 95

"If we don't change direction soon, we'll end up where we're going." - Professor Irwin Corey
Irwin Corey - I'm related to him! (Well not really, but sorta. Pay attention: the quiz is brutal.)

My maternal grandmother (Gertrude Yates Williams) had a brother, Ernest Yates.
Ernie married Charlotte Berman.
Charlotte's sister was Frances Berman.
Frances was married to Irwin.
So Irwin is my great aunt's brother-in-law.

I need to explain that Aunt Charlotte was one of my closest relatives, not biologically but in terms of the effect she had on my life. My mom, who was an only child, really didn't know the relatives on her father's side until after her mother died in the 1980s.

Gertrude had three surviving siblings (one died as a child). Deana had no children, Ed had children much later in life. So it was Ernie's four kids, Raymond, Fran, Donald and Robert, who were my mother's first cousins, her closest relatives. And until the mid 1950s, when Ernest died, they all lived near Binghamton. So Aunt Charlotte was a pivotal character in my mother's life, and the lives of my sisters and me, as we (with my father) would go down to their large house in Queens at least a couple times a year. Since my father was ALSO an only child, my sisters and I have no first cousins, and it was Charlotte's grandchildren who were the closest thing to contemporary cousins, even though they were 2nd cousins once removed (I think).

For reasons that I can no longer remember, I was at Irwin Corey's house on the Island (that's Long Island to you) when I was a kid. Irwin and Fran weren't there. While we thought Charlotte's house in St. Albans was large, I recall that Irwin's house was huge, at least to my mind.

We always made a point of watching Professor Irwin Corey, The World's Foremost Authority, when he appeared on various TV variety shows. I wasn't sure that it was a shtick; Irwin really DID seem to know an great deal, and would explain things in convoluted ways. I'd run into Irwin at various family functions of the Berman tribe, such as weddings and funerals.

The last two times I saw Irwin was at Charlotte's 80th and 88th birthday parties, in 1994 and 2002, respectively. He could be funny, but also coarse, vulgar and a bit obtuse. He gave a toast at the 80th birthday party and rambled on about Richard Nixon (not favorably), among other things, and no one could really stop him. When we met for Charlotte's 88th birthday - Charlotte died few years ago, before reaching her 89th - Irwin started pontificating again, but this time, a couple of the relatives cut him off with a "Thank you, Irwin"; he must have lost a step.

Irwin and Charlotte both were part of that 1930s Socialist tradition and never truly strayed from it.

Here's some Irwin monologue and a 2008 New York times article. This is a great picture; note especially the hat. Have a listen to Irwin.
ROG

The Wife's Birthday

My wife has had a very busy year, and that busyness was contagious.

Last year, she had just returned from a grueling two-week-plus stint at a college working on her advanced certification in teaching administration. Before she even arrived, she had books to read and papers to write. The first week in particular included 12-and 13-hour days in classrooms and workshops; the subsequent time was was shorter only because the students needed more time to research and write MORE papers.

When she got back, four weeks of relative calm before she had her excruciating jaw (breaking) surgery, and had her jaw wired shut for the first four weeks of the semester, hardly optimal for a teacher, ESPECIALLY a teacher of English as a Second Language. Just making food was often a literal strain.

This meant she got started late on the 600 hours of internship she had to complete, sometimes trying to discern her assignments. Among other things, weeknights meant meetings and weekends were usually dedicated to to various projects. Then a less than perfect end-of-fall-semester evaluation spurred her on to a stellar evaluation at the conclusion of the spring semester, but through even MORE effort on her part (and greater cooperation, watching the child, e.g., on mine). But she did achieve her goal. She is FAR more disciplined in that way than I am.

In fact, her current schedule, reading books and writing papers for THIS summer's classes, still forthcoming, has made it virtually impossible for me to even buy her birthday present, though I know what she wants, and I've had to enlist the assistance of a purchasing ally to pull it off. (I won't mention it here, on the off-off-OFF chance she happens to read this.)

This summer will also mean I'll be doing the single parent thing for a couple weeks. I left her with her grandparents for a week last year but she got all clingy and melancholy - crying on the phone almost every night. The daughter missing one parent is tough, but two was too hard (for me too) for more than a few days, especially not on her own turf. But we'll metaphorically will leave the light on.

Anyway, happy birthday, Carol! Hope you have SOME fun on your day in the midst of all the school work and helping to feed the folks working on our church this week.
ROG

MOVIE REVIEW: Up

On Sunday, July 5, I realized that I hadn't seen a movie since late April, So I looked at the listings for the Spectrum, my favorite theater and discovered that Up, the new Pixar flick, was in its final week. Reluctantly, the wife and I agreed to the split movie date, which involves one of us going, then later that day or soon thereafter, the other one attending. The first cannot reveal anything other than a generic thumbs up or thumbs down. The flaw with this, besides the inability to share the moments in real time, is that on at least three different occasion, the first person went, but then the second couldn't for some reason; I know I got sick once and never saw a film Carol saw and liked.

Anyway, I opted for the noon showing of the movie, in 2-D. First up, the previews. I really would like to see the new Hayao Miyazaki film, Ponyo; great voice lineup in the English translation, including Cate Blanchett, Matt Damon, Tina Fey, Cloris Leachman, Lily Tomlin, and Betty White. And surprisingly, I think I'd like to see the new Harry Potter film; I suppose, having seen only the first one, I should catch the subsequent ones beforehand.

The short is Partly Cloud. It was pretty much a one-joke bit, with lots of old Warner Brothers cartoon violence. I enjoyed it less than some of their previous efforts, though at least I learned about procreation.

Then the main event. I must say that I got caught up (i.e., became a little verklempt) in the whole backstory of Carl and Ellie; as others have noted, she looks quite a bit like Elastigirl from The Incredibles. Indeed, there was also a documentary style that also borrowed from that earlier Pixar film.

Carl (voiced by Ed Asner) finds a reason and the means to uproot himself, and his home along with it. But he is not alone. Will Carl get to South America, as he promised Ellie they would?

The rest I don't know how to describe without spoiling it except there is a character who looks a lot like Kirk Douglas but is voiced by Christopher Plummer who has a major role. Also dogs; lots and lots of canines, not all of the friendly kind.

I previewed this in part to see if this would be the first movie Lydia, the five-year-old daughter, will see in the movies; it will not. If we see it on video later, the pause and fast-forward buttons will be used at least a couple times. Now other kids may react differently, but I know my child.

This was a good Pixar film. It had more depth in the characters than I would have imagined. And the house is definitely one of the characters. Yet part of the problem, I realized, had to do with little things - continuity problems regarding some important plot details - that distracted me. But it was most definitely worth seeing, and I'd give it an A- or B+.

Did I mention that I was the ONLY person in the theater? One might think I would have appreciated the private screening, but I like to hear where others laugh and gasp and cry; but for the size of the screen, I might as well have been home.
***
Little girl's last wish: to see 'Up'. Tip o' hat to Jaquandor.
***
I check Rotten Tomatoes now and then, because I love seeing, for instance. The Hangover (78%) rate better than the more prestigious Public Enemies (65%). Up, BTW, got a 97%
***
Today, Ringo Starr turns 69. Please don't send him anything to sign; he's too busy.

ROG

Ray Davies Is 65 - tomorrow

I think I may have heard the Kinks' All Day and All of the Night as an in-store play in a Binghamton, NY department store called Philadelphia Sales. It seemed to be the loudest, most unrelenting piece of music I ever heard; I loved it.

The Kinks seemed to go in and out of fashion. There was the early success, then a second wave in the early 1970s (Victoria, Lola, Apeman) to some spotty success in the late 1970s (Superman) and somewhat greater acclaim in the early 1980s (Come Dancing, Don't Forget to Dance).

I've been listening to a lot of Kinks music this month. One is the The Ultimate Collection, a 2002 greatest hits compilation. It's a great grouping of songs, though it does not include the minor hit Destroyer [YouTube video], which cops the main riff from All Day and All of the Night, and the storyline is a continuation of the Lola saga. Fortunately, that song and Give The People What They want both show up on a live Kinks album I own.

Nor does the collection contain anything from my favorite Kinks album, the 1971 release Muswell Hillbillies. It was their debut album on RCA Records after their previous contract had expired. "The album is named after the Muswell Hill area of London, where band leader Ray Davies and guitarist Dave Davies grew up and where the band formed in the early 1960s." The album bombed horribly, especially in contrast to the hits, but I enjoyed it greatly. It has elements of Dixieland jazz, dance hall tunes, and country. While Alcohol is probably my favorite song, I recall going around at the time saying, in the manner of Complicated Life, "Why is life soooo COM-plicated?"

I'm pleased to note that Ray Davies' Other People's Lives was one of my favorite albums in 2006. I noted at the time: "Given its long gestation period, an amazingly coherent album."

So Ray Davies has had a positive musical effect on me for over four decades. Happy early birthday, Ray.

Old friend of mine with Ray late in 2005 or early in 2006.
ROG

Barry Manilow Turns 65 66

And I thought I'd acknowledge that; now I have.




Actually, there is one song Manilow wrote and performed that I rather like. Call it a guilty pleasure. And no, it's not "I Write The Songs", which was actually written by sometime Beach Boy Bruce Johnston, the guy who wrote 'Disney Girls (1957)'. Bruce, BTW, turns 65 on June 27.

The Manilow song I like is Could It Be Magic. I love how the intro morphs into the main theme and then morphs back into the outro piano bit. Here is how Barry himself describes it: "I thought I had come up with the coolest batch of chords in my composing experience. And then I realized that before I had that glass of wine, I had been playing my Chopin preludes. And I wrote the song around Chopin's 'Prelude in C Minor.'"

This has brought me a whole lot of sympathy for at least some of the musicians who have cribbed parts of other songs. I always believed George Harrison when he copped 'He's So Fine' for 'My Sweet Lord'. Paul McCartney was so worried that he had inadvertently stolen the tune for 'Yesterday' that he ran around asking people if they'd heard the song before. The difference between Harrison and Manilow is that Manilow's subconscious had the wisdom to swipe from a dead guy whose work is in the public domain, while Harrison pilfered from a more recent composition.

Manilow
Chopin
ROG

Covering Bobby Z

Musing about the May birthdays of musicians, particularly musicians whose work I own, I noticed that any number of them covered Bob Dylan songs. Not a surprise there; Dylan's put out over 40 albums.

What WAS a little surprising was that I couldn't find the May birthday songs I own on YouTube; I've just started to expect it.

I first looked for the pair of songs from Pete Seeger's We Shall Overcome album, a live 1963 recording. Pete did A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall and Who Killed Davey Moore; nope. Instead, here's Paths of Victory


Then I sought out Poor Immigrant by Judy Collins from my beloved Who Knows Where The Time Goes album; no such luck. Here's Judy singing Like a Rolling Stone


Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons perform the amazingly goofy Don't Think Twice, It's All Right, which simply must be heard to be believed. Not there. I foiund, though, the Jersey Boys doing Queen Jane Approximately


I DID discover live versions of a couple songs: Stevie Wonder performing Blowin' the Wind


Not found on the Billy Joel YouTube channel, but otherwise available is his version of To Make You Feel My Love


Finally, some Dylan doing Dylan; I couldn't find Seeger doing Davey Moore, but here's a version by Bob himself.


Happy birthday, Bob.
ROG

The Lydster, Part 60: Lydia is Five

Gordon also asked: "How's the Lydster?"

Well, her birthday is today. I wrote a letter to our Bradley birth instructor this week indicating how important that childhood education was for us. (The birth story, BTW, is here.)

We're planning her birthday party. This will be her first one that wasn't ice cream and cake with the family. Meanwhile, she's been to LOTS of fancier gigs of her friends. It's not a matter of competition, but on the other hand, this one at least, we thought we'd do something at the local museum.

The invitations have turned out to ber more of a chore than we thought. She wants to invite her old friends from day care, some of whom we have no contact info. Meanwhile, she's decided that she doesn't want to invite a couple of her new friends because they recently took her stuffed animal without permission. Her mother suggested that she just not bring the stuffed animal; I say that she's got to speak up when that happens and complain to them and, if necessary, to her teachers. Someone told me kids don't hold a grudge; I'm not convinced that's true with mine.

I was tentatively pleased about the news on the peanut butter allergy front. It'd be nice if, one day, she had one less allergy, since it's about time for the daily sprays to deal with her pollen allergies.

There's a working dog on our bus every morning. She's gone from making sure that I'm between her and the canine to hurrying past it; this is progress.

There's an open house in Albany for kids entering kindergarten this weekend, with registration starting on Monday. Someone suggested that this will make life easier; I'm not convinced. Since we live in walking distance of her school, I'm still not sure how I get her to school and get to work on time. (And by "on time" I'd settle for within a half hour, as opposed to 2.5 hours.) The buses run infrequently to Corporate (frickin') Woods, and kindergarten starts late - 8:45 a.m. Don't know how other parents who both work outside the home deal with this stuff.

Lydia is either going to take her first train ride or first plane ride this year; I haven't decided.

Any specific questions?



ROG

Swampy

Almost every year, I go out and buy something for me for my birthday. Usually it's been music, or occasionally a book. But I've been going to my old buddy Steve Bissette's webpage, and he's been selling some artwork. The above piece was in my price range, spoke to me visually and had a caption that made me laugh. It's been a long time since I actually purchased artwork, probably 25 years ago or more.

Steve, along with writer Alan Moore and inker John Totleben, created a tremendous run of the comic Swamp Thing in the mid-1980s. I got to know Steve a little when he'd truck over from Vermont to work on various FantaCo horror-related publications. As I've mentioned before, we reconnected in part recently both through his compiling the history of FantaCo publications and our collective efforts - mostly successful - trying to get the writer of the FantaCo Wikipedia post to fix up some egregious errors.

I then went back to the site to buy the 16-page promotional "Sweeney Todd Penny Dreadful" by Neil Gaiman and Michael Zulli, edited by Steve, as well as The Comics Journal #185 (March 1996) with a full-color dinosaur-collage Tyrant cover by Steve plus a 50-page interview with Mr. Bissette. Yes, I've read the W-H-O-L-E thing.

In each package, he threw in something else. In the first, it was a couple Mars Attacks! mini-comics. As a FantaCo employee, I took MA! writer Mario Bruni to Madison, WI in 1988 to the gathering put on by Capital City Distribution, a then formidable comic book distributor, now defunct, to market the product. I must have had the issues at one point, but certainly lost track of them over time. Somehow, Steve, sensitive Piscean fellow that he is, sussed out that I likely didn't have copies for myself.

Suddenly on a Bissette kick, I went here and ordered SAGA OF THE SWAMP THING BOOK ONE HARDCOVER w/exclusive signed P2P bookplate, collecting SAGA OF THE SWAMP THING #20-27. I LOVED those stories, but I must say the bookplate by Steve makes it almost worth the price of admission all by itself.

Anyway, I thought Steve's natal day was today. Alas, the Intersnet deceived me, as it was yesterday. Regardless, thanks, my friend, for everything, and a (belated) HAPPY BIRTHDAY to YOU!

ROG

Fair use

If you follow the comic book blogs, there's been a war of words over whether the demise of Scans Daily, which showed some comic book pages and commented on them, is a defeat for the comic book consumer or a victory for the comic book creator. (You can read about it lots of places - I'm picking the narrative by Gordon because his narrative is short, concise, not vitriolic - and because today is his birthday.)

All of the articles I've seen make use of the term "fair use". Ive copied the copyright page brochure on fair use, which I'm going to use in its entirety without concern, because it's a federal government website and stuff produced by the federal government, with rare exceptions, cannot be copyrighted. The Boston Globe famously published the Declaration of Independence on July 4 a few years back and slapped on a (c) Boston Globe; nice try, that.

But, first, here's the core paragraph:
The distinction between “fair use” and infringement may be unclear and not easily defined. There is no specific number of words, lines, or notes that may safely be taken without permission. Acknowledging the source of the copyrighted material does not substitute for obtaining permission.

"Not easily defined." That means that, short of taking a recent book, pulling off the cover, and re-covering it as one's own, it just ain't that easy.

One of the rights accorded to the owner of copyright is the right to reproduce or to authorize others to reproduce the work in copies or phonorecords. This right is subject to certain limitations found in sections 107 through 118 of the Copyright Act (title 17, U. S. Code). One of the more important limitations is the doctrine of "fair use." Although fair use was not mentioned in the previous copyright law, the doctrine has developed through a substantial number of court decisions over the years. This doctrine has been codified in section 107 of the copyright law.

Section 107 contains a list of the various purposes for which the reproduction of a particular work may be considered "fair," such as criticism, which is what Scans Daily was claiming to do, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Section 107 also sets out four factors to be considered in determining whether or not a particular use is fair:
1. the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
In other words, if I use your copyrighted item, will I be profiting from it financially?
2. the nature of the copyrighted work;
Here's an example. If I find a photograph of a cover of a record album and use it, there's enough law out there that says that I'm PROBABLY safe. That is UNLESS that photo is "transformative" and captures the album cover in a new and artistic way.
3. amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole;
As librarians, we struggle with this all the time. A couple pages is OK; a whole chapter? Well, how many chapters ARE there?
and
4. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
In other words, if I use your copyrighted item, will you be suffering from it financially? It seems that the courts have leaned heavily on this fourth point in determining whether it's "fair use".

The distinction between "fair use" and infringement may be unclear and not easily defined. There is no specific number of words, lines, or notes that may safely be taken without permission. Acknowledging the source of the copyrighted material does not substitute for obtaining permission.
In my first year doing this blog, I did a series of pieces about a book by Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colon in which comic strips were done with a supposed African-American perspective. It was difficult to explain without showing specific examples. So I ended up actually showing about one panel in four. I felt a bit wasier about this because, as far as I can ascerttain, the book is out of print; certainly, I've never seen it on Amazon. Did I make the "right" decision concerning copyright? I dunno.

The 1961 Report of the Register of Copyrights on the General Revision of the U.S. Copyright Law cites examples of activities that courts have regarded as fair use: "quotation of excerpts in a review or criticism for purposes of illustration or comment; quotation of short passages in a scholarly or technical work, for illustration or clarification of the author's observations; use in a parody of some of the content of the work parodied;
Parody, the stock in trade of MAD magazine, e.g., is a huge one, not previously mentioned.
summary of an address or article, with brief quotations, in a news report; reproduction by a library of a portion of a work to replace part of a damaged copy;
As a matter of fact, our library HAS done this, rarely.
reproduction by a teacher or student of a small part of a work to illustrate a lesson;
Elsewhere in copyright law, there's the mention of "spontaneity". Let's say you're a teacher and you happen across an article in a magazine you thought would illustrate the lesson plan. You might make the case for making 20 copies of the article. Say, though, it's next semester; deciding to copy that same article would hardly be considered spontaneous.
reproduction of a work in legislative or judicial proceedings or reports; incidental and fortuitous reproduction, in a newsreel or broadcast, of a work located in the scene of an event being reported."

Copyright protects the particular way an author has expressed himself; it does not extend to any ideas, systems, or factual information conveyed in the work.
So a second book on the same historical event as the first is not in violation of copyright, unless the second book substantially lifts the WORDS used to describe the event.

The safest course is always to get permission from the copyright owner before using copyrighted material. The Copyright Office cannot give this permission.
I was surprised to get in a discussion with a librarian about the AP copyright infringement case over Obama's image. She thought Shepard Fairey should have sought permission from the AP to use the picture. I, having worked with artists, tend to see the work as transformative, tend to side with Fairey. (She also thinks Fairey is arrogant, which is probably true, but irrelevant.) I suspect it would be less of an issue had Fairey not been making lots of money from the image.

When it is impracticable to obtain permission, use of copyrighted material should be avoided unless the doctrine of "fair use" would clearly apply to the situation.
Except that this document has already stated that when fair use would "clearly apply" does not exist.
The Copyright Office can neither determine if a certain use may be considered "fair" nor advise on possible copyright violations. If there is any doubt, it is advisable to consult an attorney.
Thus keeping attorneys employed for another generation.
ROG

Hembeck is 56

It's no great secret that my good friend Fred Hembeck was instrumental in getting me to start blogging. I had contributed a couple things to him that he used in his blog, and that inspired me to do my own.

In recent months, though, Fred's blogging output had begun to slacken appreciably. Part of that was due to the work involved in preparing for his still-available book, but also, he'd seemed to have just lost a little of his blogging mojo.

Until...

Fred discovered a revolutionary new technology that has re-energized his blog in the last month and a half. It's called:

YouTube

As Fred himself said, "Okay, I'll admit it--regarding YouTube, I'm way, WAAAAY behind the curve. But only because I knew what would happen if I allowed myself to do more than peak into the occasional video embedded over on another blog.

I knew I'd become obsessed."

And obsessed he has become. But an obsessed Fred Hembeck is a Fred Hembeck who's exciting to read. If you haven't been been by Fred Sez, or haven't been there lately, check it out.

WARNING: You may spend more time there watching his YouTube links than you planned.

Oh, and happy birthday, effendi - you're older than I am for five weeks!
ROG