On listening to MLK

January 18th, 2010 by Brianna

I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality… I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.
– Martin Luther King, Jr.

I sat down and listened to the “I have a dream” speech today – and realized that I had never actually heard it before! Sure, I’ve read the speech, and others of his perhaps a dozen times, but I never actually listened to it, all the way through, as spoken by the man himself.

It was surprisingly enlightening.

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On the quality of a musical recording…

March 6th, 2009 by Brianna

Once upon a time, long, long ago, there weren’t any music recordings. Nothing. If you wanted to hear music, you had to find someone to play it.

Then some smart person invented the wax cylinder record and the wire recorder (like a tape recorder, only with a wire). They sounded terrible. Really terrible. From a modern perspective, they are rather hard to listen to.Here are some halfway decent pre-1910, as an example.

But things got better very quickly. Microphones improved dramatically, magnetic tape and vinyl records were invented, all the way to 24 bit DVD audio and $10,000 sound systems. And here’s where it all gets stupid.

Now, recording engineers are obsessed with headroom, with avoiding distortion, with getting the cleanest, ‘hottest’ recording at all costs (it is their job, but still…). Audiophiles, when they’re not buying the latest gadget, are debating the benefits of 24 bit vs 16 bit vs vinyl. And musicians (who were the actual inspiration for this post!) are obsessed with being recorded properly, with getting just the right equipment, and on and on and on.

I’d like to offer a simple solution. It doesn’t matter! Listen to this recording. And this one. Yes, there’s clipping, noise, distortion. Yes, Armstrong’s trumpet sounds strange and muted, significantly different from the true sound. Yes, the tape hiss on the Heifetz is almost as loud as the music at times. But they both are wonderful performances! Would it really make a difference if the recordings were better? Really? Sure, I might listen to the better one if I had it (or not! I’d have to hear it first – I’ve been known to prefer live versions of e.g. the Indigo Girls over studio versions.), but would I enjoy it more? I somehow doubt it.

Maybe all that really matters in music, is, well, the music.

Just a thought.

This ends today’s impassioned rant.

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Do humans have a collective need to exist?

February 21st, 2009 by Brianna

I probably shouldn’t be reading Making Light – I only started because I thought the insights into the publishing industry were interesting. But the blog is just another non-feminist liberal blog, and those usually annoy me.

They just published another post about the wonderfulness of immunizations, wherein they do a nice job of steamrollering over any opposing arguments. But I’m not going to write about that.

During the lack of discussion, Roxanne said this;

Vaccinations are a gamble: Will the reduced chance of a future disease outweigh the chance of complications now? Everyone has to make the choice for themselves. No medical procedure – and that includes vaccination – should be required by law. Period. End of sentence.

and then, Giacomo said this:

Roxanne, I’m sorry but you are wrong on “No medical procedure – and that includes vaccination – should be required by law”.

The right of the human race to survive as a whole overrides the right of individuals to be careless. If an epidemic is endangering society as a whole, collective and democratic bodies have the right to impose vaccination. I think this thread made it quite clear.

Is that so?

Say that the population is falling from too few births. Does the ‘right of the human race to survive as a whole’ trump the right of a woman to refuse to have children? Not quite ‘being careless’, I suppose, but still the same principle.

And there is hardly an epidemic that is endangering society as a whole. For the sake of argument, though, let’s say that there is, or say that if a significant number of individuals don’t take some action (preventing themselves from being sterilized by radiation, perhaps) or any other event, human race will become extinct. Is there some moral mandate to preserve the race at all costs?

Another fun example – some people seem to think that it’s extremely important that we place a ‘backup’ of humankind on a planet. That way, if decide to nuke ourselves, human life will be safe! After all, everybody knows that human existence has made such a valuable contribution to the advancement of the universe, that it is imperative we continue existing.

Remind me again: How does the universe determine value? Why do you care what happens after you and those you care about are dead? If humans suddenly, painlessly, ceased existence, why would that bother you? And if we die out naturally, where is the loss? Heck, some ecologist-types believe we deserve to become extinct!

Here’s the point: if it is wrong to not be vaccinated, or if anything else is wrong, it is wrong because it hurts people. Not ‘the human race’, not ’society’, but individual, specific people, whom are hurt by your specific, individual choice. You don’t have proof that anyone beside yourself exists. Humans are not a hive mind. We do not exist collectively. We infer others’ existence, and we act based on that, but we only care because we assume they are like us, that they feel our pain. Even more specifically: I care about you, because you are like me. Nothing more.

More on this later, when I can come up with some counterarguments.

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A little rant on spoilers

January 30th, 2009 by Brianna

So there I was, sitting harmlessly in my fiction writing class, participating in an interesting discussion about symbols in literature, when someone decided to bring up Harry Potter. And what were the first words out of her mouth? “Has anyone not been spoiled?”

Sigh…

I don’t understand this. Is it really true that a person’s enjoyment of a story could be dependent on not knowing what’s going to happen? Look – there’s only one ending to any story: “They died.” It doesn’t matter whether the story goes, “She lived happily ever after in a little house on the coast,” or “He was pushed off the cliff by a pack of wolves,” the end result is the same. “and then they died.” Okay, okay – I suppose, “they lived for eternity,” is a possible ending, but that make… two? You know how the story’s going to end already! This applies to Harry Potter too – guess what! He’s going to die, either now or later.

Get over it.

And the plots in the middle aren’t much better. I once read a Dickens novel (Hard Times, I think it was), which had an introduction containing this sentiment: (paraphrased) “Nobody but a small child would read this book to find out whether the [protagonist] foils the [antagonist]. Instead, we read it for the characters, the emotional meaning.” I think that this is true of everything. Remember Shakespeare? He’s supposed to be a pretty good writer, right? (I happen to think that he’s overrated, but still…) Get an edition of his plays containing plot summaries of each play, and just read the summaries. Than go read the ’soap update’ in TV Guide. Shakespeare’s plots suck! They really do! Now, I suppose you could make an argument that they were fresh and original when they were written, but I doubt it. Fortunately, we don’t watch and read Shakespeare for the plots – in his case, it’s the language that matters. And that goes for most other books. You read Austin and Tolstoy and Alcott for the characters, Asimov for the ideas, etc., etc., etc.

That’s not to say that plot only exists to provide a vehicle for characters and language, of course. I’ll argue all day that the plot is the main feature of The Handmaid’s Tale. (It’s mostly indirectly expository, but still plot) But in order for a plot to be worth caring about, it has to stand up to scrutiny, to bear repeated readings or watchings, not fall apart when you find out the ’secret’!

So please, people, don’t be so crazy about being ’spoiled’. If it was worth seeing in the first place, it won’t hurt anything to know about it beforehand.

Note: Spoilers for games are a legitimate worry – if you know the solution to a puzzle, it’s often not as much fun. But: 1. Puzzles are usually meant to only be solved once, and 2. These sorts of games are not literature!

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The Last* Word on Subtext in Xena

December 12th, 2008 by Brianna

(*Yeah, right!)

And now for something completely frivolous!

Xena fans have expended an astonishing amount of effort on analysis of lesbian subtext. Is it really there? How intentional is it? How much of it is there? Let’s make a complete list of every possible subtext moment in every single episode! Let’s make subtext the whole point of the show, and interpret every single phrase out of context! Let’s declare that that scene/line/episode never happened, because we don’t like the implications it has on X&G’s relationship!

Now, don’t get me wrong – there is nothing wrong with any of this. In fact, it’s amazing what we have accomplished – the fan fiction alone is absolutely amazing. And I certainly appreciate the need to re-imagine something in order to identify with it. But in the end, I like to think that the authors’ story is, well, the real story! Call it artistic integrity, if you will. (I’m guessing that my classical music background has a lot to do with my opinions on this subject – ‘composer’s original intent’ and all that.)

Anyway, I’m going to try and write something that I haven’t seen yet – an analysis of Xena subtext that is completely canon. (Excepting, of course, the intentionally out-of-character comic moments.) It will consider all of the relationships, and try and ‘connect the dots’ in a reasonable way. In other words, it’s the story, told as I would have wanted to see it, without ignoring what was actually written. And as a bonus, it’s yet another take on the Xena chronology; I make no claims as to accuracy.

So, here goes!
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Essay sites

July 2nd, 2008 by Brianna

I love essays.

Yes, I realize this is weird and geeky of me. Essays are supposed to br those annoying things you have to write in English class. You turn them in, you get the grade, and you throw them away. Nobody is supposed to like essays.

But, what is an essay? The dictionary thinks that is a “…piece treating a subject from the author’s personal point of view.” So basically, it’s what you think about something. And really, who doesn’t have an opinion? I have an old book called Never at a loss for an opinion. As far as I can see, this describes almost everybody.

Just pick a subject, any subject. Dental Hygene? Bulldozers? Fly Fishing? It doesn’t matter. If the person in question knows anything about the subject at all, they’ll usually tell you all about it. Most will, anyway. A few people are wise enough to know when to keep quiet. Everyone else (and this includes me, by the way), will tell you what they think, and make fools out of themselves in the process.

I’m not sure that this is all bad, though. Sure, airing your stupid opinions on subjects you have no idea about is useless, but surely everyone has a few worthwhile thoughts. Thoughts that others would benefit from hearing. So, if you write these down, you’ll have an essay – and one that is worth reading. While you’re at it, why not put it on the Internet so anyone can read it?

Maybe this is what blogs are – a continuous essay of life. I don’t think so, though. Most blogs don’t have opinions, or arguments. They have information, often, news – sometimes, and lots of pointless rambling. now, back in the good olde days, pre-web 2.0, there used to be what might be called “essay site’s”. At least, that’s what I called them – I never saw anybody else use the term. But that’s what they were, websites full of essays. Coolest. Sites. Ever.

Unfortunately, most of them have shut down. The only one of my bookmarks that didn’t give a 404:

Curry Bucket’s Controversial Web Presence

It’s a pretty good example of what I’m talking about – but it’s also as dead as a doornail. Now the guy has a blog. (Which is not as cool – it’s all poetry)

And that was the problem with those sites. There really wasn’t any way to keep people checking the site day after day, like a blog, so the blogs won. But blogs don’t encourage the essay format at all. They are meant to be read soon after they’re written, and then disappear into the archive, never to be seen again. And who wants to read thorough endless archives to find a few dozen essay-quality posts.

So what’s the solution? An essay page. If you write something worth reading again, put it on a seperate page with a short summery of the post. That way you can use a blog, and people can find really good stuff without looking through endless archives.

The only page like this that I can think of is at the shakesville blog – they have
a feministing 101 page – basically an essay page. I’m sure there are others, but there need to be more. Every blog ought to have one.

Or maybe not. Maybe nobody really care what anybody else actually thinks. I know that I’d rather read an essay than see yet another picture of someone’s dog.

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