What am I doing here, other than waiting for my laundry to be done (at almost 2AM)? What is a blog anyway? I guess this'll be, at least for now, closer to the antecedent of the present-day blog - the online diary, since I seem to have a block at sustaining a hard copy, i.e. pen and ink diary. Of course, since this is ostensibly a public thing, a certain amount of self-censorship will be necessary (names changed to protect the innocent, etc.).
*A possible form of therapy for long term writers' block? - Seems like a safe way to try to get started, as I figure nobody's going to bother looking at it for awhile (although it seems that I unknowingly posted a video of celebrity mugshots that somebody showed me months ago and it's been viewed 38 times).Hold on a minute - have to move stuff to the dryer.OK - the clock's ticking - 1/2 hour til I have to empty the dryer, if I don't want to look too wrinkled tomorrow.
*A place to jot down random thoughts on music**, film, life, etc. Maybe plug some of my favorite websites. Explain the clips on my Myspace page, or better yet link to the clips , so that my page won't take forever to load (or until I find a better way to do the whole page). I wouldn't dare trying a coherent "blog" like my friend Tom Warner's Accelerated Decrepitude. I don't know where he gets the time (perhaps he's a little more focused then I am ).While I'm under this heading, let me suggest a look at one of my favorite webpages, HiMonkey, suitable for young and old alike. Every new co-worker of mine, eventually is forced to take a look, but generally enjoy.
[Sick Bed Blues]
He does take a little getting used to, but is really worth it.
Unfortuneately, I can't find video clips of Hard Time Killing Floor Blues (here's one of John Hammond doing it), Cherry Ball Blues, or his great, idiosyncratic piano playing - you'll have to check out recordings for those.
James was a loner and didn't hang out much with other bluesmen, but I can't imagine anyone not wanting to hang out with Mississippi John.
It's addictive (at least to a librarian, frustrated folklorist and DJ in another lifetime) to stick in all of these links - maybe someone while appreciate them. Ain't hypertext grand (especially when you don't have to do all the HTML yourself).It's 3:30AM; luckily I don't have to be to work til 12 noon today. But that stuff is still in the dryer (luckily I put the timer on for 90 minutes)I hope my stream of conscious ramblings haven't turned a potential audience off - It's been very therapeutic for me. I'd love constructive criticism.I'll say goodnight and apologize for poor formatting (hopefully I'll get the hang of it soon). And I didn't even get past my second reason for blogging/flogging.Didn't even get to mention notes for my forthcoming(June 2050) autobiography, "Women, Music, Movies and Me." Stay tuned!
Currently listening : Vanguard Sessions: Blues From The Delta By Skip James Release date: 11 August, 1998
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Friday, September 07, 2007
Listomania Current mood: Wide awake, though I don’t know why
No, this has nothing to do with the
Ken Russell filmor to the documentary,
Cinemania, though perhaps a little bit of the latter (which I have, ironically, or perhaps due to a little fear, have not seen yet). No this is just about lists; and I haven't become completely obsessed with lists, at least not yet.
An ex-girlfriend, a much more disciplined soul than I - one of the many reasons she dumped me; a good thing in the long run, as we were really incompatible personality-wise, background-wise, and many other kinds of wises - had an obsession (and still does, I'm sure) with working her way through reading lists. And not just lists of things she wanted to read, just all the titles on lists that she had accumulated. I know how compulsive she is, because at one point I lent her all the volumes of my set of
In Search of Lost Time (formerly
Remembrance of Things Past) so that she could do the whole thing in one fell swoop.(Before I die, I'd like to read the whole thing, though so far, I've only negotiated
Swann's Way, and that only on
audiocassette. Currently, the only real connection I have with
Proust is a tendency toward run-on sentences and an admiration for his powers of description). Last year she just had to read every single play of
Moliere, because the list said,
the plays of Moliere." Moliere wrote more plays than I've ever heard of (and I enjoy Moliere) and
many of them haven't made it into English, as far as I can tell. This left my friend D. very frustrated, but she plowed thru all the plays that we could round up. More power to her, and I'd be glad to search out any obscure book she may look for; I am a librarian, and we do our best.
As a librarian, an erstwhile film programmer, and a DJ (in another incarnation - I'm sure of this, despite the fact that I'm a bit skeptical about
afterlife,
reincarnation, etc. - though I'd be a much happier person if I could convince myself, and I know that it's a matter of
faith, not
reason) I find lists fascinating, useful, and as one who becomes aware of failing
memory as I get older, sometimes indispensable.
Anyway, to "undigress," when I restarted this blog, one of the things that I'd intended to do was to indulge my interest in lists, primarily for
playlists [if one stops to follow this link, 'm sure a multitude of play lists will show up] and
film lists. If I ever set up a really good
blog, perhaps titled Listomania, possibly more people would see it, contribute to it and perhaps find some edification in it. I'm sure that I'm not the first one to think of doing this, and when I get a chance, I'll list other list makers that I find.
A couple things have triggered this newly heightened interest in lists (I refuse to call it a mania yet):
(1)My purchase of an 80gig
iPod [and just yesterday I hear that they've come out with a 160gig model - room for 40,000 songs, not a measly 20,000; Drat!!]. In iTunes there's the capability to set up all kinds of play lists. I only have 5,000 tunes from my collection loaded so far, as I have to replace my DVD drive (an unfortunate spillage accident - and no, I didn't think it was a cupholder), so I haven't developed too many personal playlists
So far, but some play lists on my playlist list are:
'60's-70's Protest
Calypso
Gershwin
Irish All Over [folk(field recordings and revival), stage Irish, instrumental] - planned for a never made drive to NY for St.Patrick's Day - approximately 14 hours worth
Love Hurts***
Morbid Side of Life
Names (in titles, or about)
Railroad ( the amazing
Dick Spottswood**[a former librarian devotes a
show every year to train songs] [**Answers.com leaves out a "t"]
Check out his
playlists.
That's The Story of, That's the Glory of, Love ***[re Love Hurts] Roy Orbison's wonderful Running Scared fits on "That's the story of…- I won't give away the ending, while
Nick Cave'scover manages to fall on the Love Hurts list
Covers, Sequels, Steals, Borrowings, Hommages and Amazing Coincidences [while driving to a concert of the late, great
Dave van Ronk, I was listening to the even greater
Anthology of American Folk Music, I heard the cajun song
"Le Vieux Soulard et la femme" which oddly(?) enough had the same tune as
Romping Thru the Swamp which I remembered from his sole rock album,
Dave van Ronk and the Hudson Dusters (long out of print; whoever I lent my copy to - you know who you are (another reason to keep lists)- I hope you enjoyed it). I asked him about it at intermission and he said that he hadn't written it, that
Peter Stampfel of the
Holy Modal Rounders and the
Fugs had - everyone
from the 60's who was into folk was influence by the Anthology directly or indirectly. I had probably heard the
Rounders' version of Romping in my "radical" high school; days, but I didn't recall it. Van Ronk said that he felt honored when he got to sing along with the daughters of the singers/composers of the original at a concert celebrating the rerelease of the Anthology at Wolf Trap. (BTW, my own personal favorite Fugs tune is
Nothing," great for meditation.) I won't even get into the relationship of the sublime Robert Mitchum's "Ballad of Thunder Road" and the WWII propaganda film The Commandoes Strike at Dawn. I'm already thinking of retitling this entry "Digressions, or the Story of My Life"
As it is extremely late (or early, some might say), I'll only briefly mention (2) of my reasons for the renewed interest in lists (and yet another Internet distraction - albeit one of some utility),
LibraryThing, a combinaton of a means of cataloging your library online with relative ease and a
virtual community or, more specifically, a social networking site, although it hasn't made it unto
Wikipedia's list of
Notable Social Networking Websites yet. I was a bit embarrassed that, though
Librarything is a 2 years old, I only discovered it when I chanced upon a young DC librarian's
Myspace page in on her favorite books list she had a link to
her LibraryThing page. I've asked to be added to her "Friends list," as a means of thanking her, but she has yet to add me - perhaps she thinks I'm a little strange, although anyone I know (I think) can attest to the fact that I'm completely harmless, if not totally benign. BTW,
my LibraryThing page is
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/rozu. I've only catalogued 173 items so far, of anI estimated 4-5,000 (not including CD's and DVD's, which are not so easily accomodated by LibraryThing). One can catalog 200 for free; after that it's $10/year or $25/lifetime., which to a librarian seems well worth it - or maybe I really am becoming obsessed with lists.
To be continued………
To anyone who has managed to get through this tome, please send list suggestions to this this very hidden blog , to
my Myspace page, or to marcslistsmail@gmail.com.
5:41 AM -
1 Comments============================================Saturday, September 22, 2007
Listomania, Pt. 2
Current mood: bleary eyed
I'm keeping this relatively short, as I want to finish the next post (on Pandora & the Music Genome Project - which has kept meup most of the night; fortunatelyI don't go to work today. Any suggestions for improving this list or specific/personal example to add would be appreciated.
For some examples you might want to look at Answers.com's own
list of listsDifferent types of lists (a very preliminary outline)
Personal lists Personal play lists Personal reading listsVery personal lists (of very little use to anyone but oneself,except for future biographers, present therapists or counselors, or archaeoologists) e.g : "to do lists" and their converse, "things not done lists" ; "things I used to remember, and will probably come back to me at some point" "songs I can't get out of my head" perhaps by writing them in a list and dating them, along with the name of the person or situation that got it into your head to begin with, so that you can seek revenge later, or pass it on to l someone else, as in
"Casting the Runes" by M.R. James," or its film version
Night of the Demon "shopping lists"
Joint Personal - Internet Assisted Lists (
Web2.0) essentially personal list + social networking
Pandora play lists (Music Genome Project selections based on
personal input) *****see next posting
Librarything (personal collection cataloging)
Public lists by individuals:
Best, or favorite, film song, or any other "genre" or "format" list
Subject/author/format bibliographies, filmographies,
discographics, or any other -ography
Authoritative lists:
Major author, national, or topical bibliographies, discographies
(such as
Brian Rust's
various works)
Currently listening :
We Are Pilots By Shiny Toy Guns Release date: 01 January, 2005
4:40 AM -
