It's the Arts

A few bits of interest from around the artsy fartsy world.

Scambot’s Here! (Almost)
Had a missive in my Email box today from Mike Keneally with some good news on his first new studio album in several years, Scambot 1 (first in a series). It’s about ready for preordering. Here are the groovy details:

The concept of Scambot had its genesis in a comic strip I drew in one of my sketchbooks in 2001, while I was working on Wooden Smoke. It was fleshed out further, with the addition of new characters, during the making of The Universe Will Provide and Dog in 2003, and for the past five years it has been my central creative project, one obviously very long in gestating. (The earliest music it contains is 'You Named Me' from 1998, recorded during sessions which also resulted in Nonkertompf.)

The project evolved in an intentionally relaxed and organic fashion, with no time-related pressure placed on its creation. The three different aspects of the Scambot universe - my character art, music/lyrics, and written plotline/dialogue - each grew individually while they influenced the development of the other two aspects. It was a blast, I am freaking pleased as punch that it's finally done and that I enjoy it as much as I do, and I'm very happy that you'll get to hear it soon.

It’ll be available as a regular CD, a digital download, or a 2-CD special edition with a second “music inspired by” disc. Guess which one I’ll be ordering!

Meet the Beatles (Again)
In his Scambot missive, Keneally also approves of the new Beatles remasters, in stereo and mono format. I used the new publicity wave to plug the holes in my late-era Beatles catalog, picking up Revolver, Magical Mystery Tour, and Let It Be (only had it on tape). Of the bunch, I’m really grooving on Revolver the most, along with Magical Mystery Tour. In the whole scope of their catalog, Let It Be seems a little hit and miss to me, these days. Regardless, I listened to more of The Beatles in the past couple of weeks than I have in years.

Having said that, I agree with Hoyt that replacing the whole catalog on CD, if you’ve already got them, is probably not worth it. Instead, join in on his countdown of the top Beatles tunes, as he whips through all 200+!

Plots R’ Us
You know, in just a few weeks it will be National Novel Writing Month again. I’ll be participating, again, as I have the past two years. If you want in on the action, too (and who doesn’t?), but are having a hard time getting your imagination jump started, David Maliki has you covered. Tuesday’s edition of Wondermark (a brilliant cartoon that you really should read twice a week), he lays out the matrix for the Electro-Plasmic Hydrocephalic Genre-Fiction Generator 2000. But better yet, if you click here, you’ll get a random alignment of those things with no fuss. Why, who wouldn’t want to get started on a story like this:

Your title is: “The Steam Wars”

In an ancient medieval Europe, a young idealistic revolutionary stumbles across a magic diadem which spurs him into conflict with an army led by a sadist, with the help of a girl who's always loved him and her cleavage, culminating in a heroic sacrifice that no one will ever remember.

What are you waiting for? Get cracking!

Read a Banned Book
Next week is Banned Books Week, sadly necessary in a nation where narrow minded dipshits think that knowledge – or worse, fiction! – is a threat to health and welfare. This year, the Banned Book Week site has a nifty map of all the book challenges in 2007-2008 across the country. Sadly, there are plenty of arrows crowding the map. Even more sadly, one points to Charleston, a reminder of the school board’s kerfuffle over some Pat Conroy novels a couple of years ago. At least the good guys won that battle.

Conroy Wins Out

One of the big local stories last year was the controversy about using a couple of Pat Conroy's novels in some advanced high school English classes. The whole mess died down while a committee actually read the books and considered whether they should be removed from the classes. The first, Beach Music, was allowed back in last year. Now the committee has recommended the same for Prince of Tides. Of course, the news of the books being challenged was on the front page, while the resolution appears buried in the nether regions of the local paper.

Yet Again, More Conroy-gate

Further developments in the Nitro school book controversy, thanks to Raging Red. In the comments to this post, the the teacher who is at the center of the controversy weighs in, as well as the GW student whose Email to Conroy sparked his letter to the local paper. Lots of interesting stuff in those comments.

Conroy Weighs In

Author Pat Conroy, whose novels Prince of Tides and Beach Music are at the center of a controversy at Nitro High School, offered his thoughts on the situation today in a lengthy letter to The Charleston Gazette. Conroy spends of the letter in a passionate defense not of his own work, but of English teachers:

I’ve enjoyed a lifetime love affair with English teachers, just like the ones who are being abused in Charleston*, West Virginia, today. My English teachers pushed me to be smart and inquisitive, and they taught me the great books of the world with passion and cunning and love. Like your English teachers, they didn’t have any money, either, but they lived in the bright fires of their imaginations, and they taught because they were born to teach the prettiest language in the world. I have yet to meet an English teacher who assigned a book to damage a kid. They take an unutterable joy in opening up the known world to their students, but they are dishonored and unpraised because of the scandalous paychecks they receive. In my travels around this country, I have discovered that America hates its teachers, and I could not tell you why. Charleston, West Virginia, is showing clear signs of really hurting theirs, and I would be cautious about the word getting out.

As for the books is question, they:

are two of my darlings, which I would place before the altar of God and say, 'Lord, this is how I found the world you made.' They contain scenes of violence, but I was the son of a Marine Corps fighter pilot who killed hundreds of men in Korea, beat my mother and his seven kids whenever he felt like it, and fought in three wars. My youngest brother, Tom, committed suicide by jumping off a fourteen-story building; my French teacher ended her life with a pistol; my aunt was brutally raped in Atlanta; eight of my classmates at The Citadel were killed in Vietnam; and my best friend was killed in a car wreck in Mississippi last summer. Violence has always been a part of my world. I write about it in my books and make no apology to anyone.

Not everyone is appreciates his point of view:

Board member Bill Raglin was not sympathetic.

'That fool, Conroy, assumes ... that every person who is an English major [or teacher] is above reproach,' Raglin said. 'I’m a chemist. Do I believe that all chemists are good? No.

'Maybe I should go back to school and change my major.'

He favors a book rating system or disclaimers on controversial books.

Another little interesting tidbit from that article: the College Board, which oversees materials for AP classes, approved the use of Prince of Tides in the Nitro class.

* Just to clarify, there is no "Charleston school board." The local school board covers all of Kanawha County. Nitro, in fact, is a wholly separate city from Charleston.

Even More Banned Books

The battle between the Kanawha County Board of Education and the novels of Pat Conroy continued last night at a contentious board meeting. I'm proud to say that students from my alma mater have joined the students at Nitro in protest at the books being removed:

Nitro senior Justin Fletcher organized a silent student protest after 'The Prince of Tides' was suspended from his Advanced Placement literature class.

'We’re not here to challenge parents’ rights,' he said, saying parents like the Tyrees and Frazier deserve alternative books. Still, he added, 'We want to read this book. We want to stand up for these books.'

The complaining parents don't seem to have a firm grasp on the legal issues:

Rich Edwards, a Cross Lanes resident, argued against allowing the books in classrooms.

'Our students, as well-meaning as they are, are still subject to the norms of our society,' he said. 'It’s very indecent, it’s very obscene.' He said to the students that 'this is not an individual-rights question.'

Obscenity is a legal term of art with a precise meaning. Under the Supreme Court's Miller test, one element to be considered is whether the work as a whole "lacks serious literary, artistic, political, and scientific value." Say what you will about Pat Conroy (I'm sure he has his critics), I don't think any court is going to find that his books lack artistic or literary value. We're long past the days when works by mainstream authors with a few "dirty" parts will be considered obscene.

Nevertheless, the dispute continues.

Banned Books (redux)

An update on the Nitro High School/Pat Conroy kerfuffle. A group of parents, including the two aggrieved parents, met last night in a church building (color me shocked - the library was booked?) to discuss the situation. They don't want the books banned - they just want alternatives made available to their delicate children. As one former Nitro HS parent put it:

Brad Liston also attended the meeting. In 2000, Liston complained that his daughter, also a Nitro student, had to read John Irving’s 'A Prayer for Owen Meany.' Liston argued that the book contains vulgar language, sexual innuendo and lewd behavior.

Liston had said teachers should have provided his daughter with a list of alternative books, the same argument Frazier and Tyree are making now.

Frazier wants a list, not just one book for required reading or one alternative.

'That’s the way it used to be,' she said. 'That way there’s freedom of choice and no one has to be offended.'

What a novel concept - choose your own curriculum! If only I had thought to beg for something other than Of Human Bondage during my AP English class. And why stop there - that required reading of the tax code in law school certainly wasn't any fun.

Why is it that when non-believers object to school prayer or the 10 Commandments being posted in public buildings, we're told that it's only a passing reference and that we should suck it up - "Ceremonial Deism," they call it. Well if we have to put up with that, is it too much to ask that honors high school students put up with a little "Ceremonial Debauchery" now and then?

It's Always Banned Book Week

Although Banned Book Week is officially over, censorship never sleeps. On either side of the Atlantic. Here in Kanawha County, author Pat Conroy is the subject of controversy in a high school AP English class. Why?

Because some parents (well, OK, a whole two of them) think his novels Beach Music and The Prince of Tides are too "adult" for their kids to handle (nearly adult kids, keep in mind). The county's main English guru appears to be fighting an uphill battle:Gillian, the language arts curriculum specialist for Kanawha County schools, is asking board members to let a committee of local volunteers decide whether the books should be suspended.

'Is there any concern about age appropriateness?' [school board member] Raglin asked.

'Age and maturity are two different things,' Gillian said. She believes that should be defined by parents and teachers.

Raglin persisted, saying he wants to know what’s age appropriate.

'This is not a situation where absolutes will work,' Gillian said.

Perhaps the school board will seek an ally in the UK with the Happy Ending Foundation. It argues that children's books that don't have happy endings should be banned. And they're old school about it:

The Happy Ending Foundation is planning a series of Bad Book Bonfires for later this month, when parents will be encouraged to burn novels with negative endings.

The foundation has also written to school librarians across the country to coincide with Children's Book Week, which began on Monday, urging them to take ' controversial' books off shelves.

Shockingly, this all begins with a troubled child and clueless parent:

Adrienne Small founded the organisation when her ten-year-old daughter became depressed and withdrawn after reading the first book in the Lemony Snicket series.

She said: 'I talked to other mothers and friends and we decided to do something positive with books that were more upbeat.

"I'm not trying to say the world should be viewed with rose-tinted glasses but you have got to do your best to protect your children.'

And because you failed in that role, Ms. Small, the rest of the populace has to suffer?

Contrary to what Tears for Fears may think, not everybody loves a happy ending. Kids should get a little idea of what the world might be like in their literature - where they can absorb it, digest it, and discuss it with adults and each other before the reality of the real world comes crashing through their door.