Album of the Day

The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, by Genesis (1974): Speaking of classic lineups, this was the last hurrah of the classic five-piece version of Genesis. Peter Gabriel would leave at the end of the tour to pursue his own solo career, while the band would regroup as a four-piece and produce two more excellent albums. There are numerous theories as to what exactly The Lamb is about, none of which have seemed completely logical to me. In fact, while The Lamb is a great album, I'd reserve the "best of the era" label for the previous effort, Selling England by the Pound.

The Multi-Faceted Face of Hooliganism

Next time you hear about rioting sports fans in Europe, don't automatically think soccer hooligans. Apparently women's volleyball can get folks pretty riled up, too:

Greek authorities have cancelled all team sports matches for two weeks after a mass brawl between rival women's volleyball fans left one man dead.

* * *

The pitched battle took place between fans of Olympiakos Piraeus and Panathinaikos near Athens.

Witnesses say about 300 fans fought using clubs, knives and stones.

Who knew?

On a related note, I haven't heard any reports of couch burning or other lunacy in Morgantown in the wake of WVU winning the NIT last night!

The Messiah That Melts In Your Mouth, Not In Your Hands

I suppose, with Big Butter Jesus on the scene, it was only a matter of time before somebody made a giant chocolate version of Christ. I am, in me best Dave Berry voice, absolutely not making this up:

A New York gallery has angered a US Catholic group with its decision to exhibit a milk chocolate sculpture of Jesus Christ.

The six-foot (1.8m) sculpture, entitled "My Sweet Lord", depicts Jesus Christ naked on the cross.

The Catholic group in question is the Catholic League, which means more public bloviation from renowned blowhard/jackass Bill Donohue. That alone is reason enough to make me smile.

Copyright Craziness Redux

Over at the Conspiracy, Eugene Volokh has some thoughts on the student copyright suit against a plagiarism database company that I blogged about yesterday. As I suspected, it looks like the kids have an uphill battle in court, although for reasons different than I figured yesterday.

Album of the Day

Keys to Ascension and Keys to Ascension 2, by Yes (1996/1997): Here's a great scam to fleece the fan base - one I fell for whole hog. In 1996, Yes reformed in one of (by my count) their three "classic" lineups (Anderson, Squire, White, Howe, Wakeman) for a series of shows in San Luis Obisbo, California and to record some new material. The reunion was the first one of one of the mid-70s lineups since, well, the mid 70s. A live album memorializing the occasion was appropriate. In addition, there was a full album's worth of new material. What to do? Most folks would say put the live stuff on one 2-disc set, release the new material separately. But no, the Yes guys decided to stretch the material together over two 2-disc sets, each one containing live and studio material.

It's hardly a rip off, but it still grinds my gears a bit. The new material stands on its own merits pretty well. It's hardly Close to the Edge or Relayer, but it's far closer to classic Yes than anything put out during the Rabin years. And, honestly, while the live stuff isn't my favorite performance, I would have bought the separate live set, too (hell, I own the DVD anyway!).

Copyright Craziness

Two interesting copyright blurbs crossed my path today. Both could (potentially) serve as object lessons about the overreach of current law.

First, the company that owns the rights to George Orwell's 1984 (it bought the rights from his estate in 1981) is considering suing the guy who made the pro-Obama ad parody of the classic Apple commercial. Orwell's novel remains in copyright protection (assuming no further extensions - hardly a given) until 2044. "But wait," you're saying, "isn't ad really a knock off of the Apple commercial in the first place?" Yes, but that ad wasn't blessed by the copyright holders either:

After Apple aired its Mac introductory ad during Super Bowl XVII, Rosenblum sent a 'cease and desist' letter to the computer maker, she said in yesterday's statement. 'When the Apple 'Big Brother' television commercial was aired during the 1984 Super Bowl telecast, we immediately objected to this unauthorized commercial use of the novel, and sent a 'cease-and-desist' letter both to Apple and to its ad agency,' Rosenblum said. 'The commercial never aired on television again.'

OK, fine. Apple didn't really have a reason to fight it at the time - they got the bump and PR they needed, no need to risk court action. "But wait," you're saying now, "the pro-Obama ad was political speech and parody on top of that - won't the First Amendment protect him?" Right off the top of my head, I'd say yes, as the copyright holders seem to realize:

'The political ad copies a prior commercial infringement of our copyright,' said Rosenblum in a statement. 'We recognize the legal issues inherent under the First Amendment and the copyright law as to political expression of opinion, but we want the world at large to know that we take our copyright ownership of one of the world's great novels very seriously.'

In other words, "keep your virtual mouth shut, or else."

Next, this article from the Washington Post, comes word that several student are suing a plagiarism detection company:

The lawsuit, filed this week in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, seeks $900,000 in damages from the for-profit service known as Turnitin. The service seeks to root out cheaters by comparing student term papers and essays against a database of more than 22 million student papers as well as online sources and electronic archives of journals. In the process, the student papers are added to the database.

* * *

'All of these kids are essentially straight-A students, and they have no interest in plagiarizing,' said Robert A. Vanderhye, a McLean attorney representing the students pro bono. 'The problem with [Turnitin] is the archiving of the documents. They are violating a right these students have to be in control of their own property.'

This raises at least two issues in my mind. First, who owns the copyright to student works? It doesn't seem clear to me that the students do. Are student works similar to works for hire, in which the copyright resides with the mother company or government works in which the copyright resides with the agency for which it was produced? For example, I do not control the copyrights in the briefs I write, my office does.

Second, assuming some of the material is plagiarized (which, from the story, it doesn't appear to be), what copyright claim could the kids make? If it does have copyright protection, they would violated it themselves by copying it, right?

Both of these cases make me think that the only area of law that's more interesting than criminal law is copyright.

Album of the Day

Just a Game, by Triumph (1979): If Triumph is a poor man's Rush, then this is their Moving Pictures. It was a favorite of mine back when I was a kid, but I only finally picked it up on CD last year. Each of the 8 tracks work very well, in their own way. The rockers ("Movin' On" and "Lay it on the Line") rock, there's a good screaming blues tune ("Young Enough to Cry"), a good laid back blues tune ("Suitcase Blues"), a patented Rik Emmett acoustic piece ("Fantasy Serenade"), and even a couple of near-prog tracks ("Just a Game" and "Hold On"). In fact, I think what appeals to me so much about this album is its variety. That and the cool "rock and roll star" board game in the liner notes (although, I'll note, Gilgamesh did it a few years earlier).

Sympathy for the Devil

Earlier this week, I watched an excellent flick called Downfall. Released in 2004, and nominated for Best Foreign Language Film in 2005, it tells the story of the last days of the Third Reich from within Hitler's bunker. It gained notoriety in Germany for being the first film made there in decades in which an actor portrayed Hitler (as opposed to using newsreel footage, for example). That actor, Austrian Bruno Ganz, delivers an amazing performance, bringing fully to life one of history's great monsters. Really, it's matched only by Ulrich Matthes's uber-creepy portrayal of Hitler henchman Joseph Goebbels.*

It being a movie about Hitler, there's also the question of whether comes off too sympathetically in the end. To be sure, the narrow focus of the film precludes extensive discussion of Hitler's reign. With the exception of a brief scene in 1942 (and bookend documentary interviews with Hitler's secretary), the film takes place entirely between Hitler's birthday on April 20, 1945 and the surrender of German forces to the Soviets on May 2. But the portrayal of Hitler in the film doesn't leave a lot of doubt that he's anything other than a psychotic killer.

While the events of the Holocaust aren't specifically depicted or mentioned, for example, Hitler's musing that history will remember him fondly for dealing with the Jews leaves little doubt of his thoughts. As the military situation collapses around him and the Soviets grind on towards the bunker, Hitler rants and rages about how his generals and soldiers are worthless betrayers and repeatedly brushes off concerns for the plight of ordinary Germans as deserving their fate. I tend to agree with what Roger Ebert said in his review in responding to, among others, this piece in the New Yorker:

Admiration I did not feel. Sympathy I felt in the sense that I would feel it for a rabid dog, while accepting that it must be destroyed. I do not feel the film provides "a sufficient response to what Hitler actually did," because I feel no film can, and no response would be sufficient. All we can learn from a film like this is that millions of people can be led, and millions more killed, by madness leashed to racism and the barbaric instincts of tribalism.

What sympathy is generated for Hitler comes from portraying his complete detachment from reality. The war, clearly, is lost by the time Hitler's birthday comes around. Members of his inner circle are pleading with him to follow them out of Berlin. Artillery shells thunder outside the bunker and the nearby Chancellery building. The distance of the Soviets from the center of Berlin is measured in meters, not kilometers. Still, Hitler futilely consults his maps, moving units around that either have ceased to exist or are barely capable of retreating, much less counterattacking. At one point, he fawns over Albert Speer's scale model version of a reconstructed Berlin, musing that, in essence, the city must be destroyed in order to be rebuilt in greatness (indeed, a chorus of "Best of All Possible Worlds" from Candide wouldn't be out of place).

In the end, I think the filmmakers intend their audiences to be fairly smart about the movie. It's goal is not to provide a comprehensive overview of Hitler's life and times, but a depiction of a specific time and place. I'm reminded of some of the IMDB comments to The Motorcycle Diaries, which criticize the film for not showing the violent authoritarian Guevara would become. They miss the point. A movie isn't responsible for anything beyond it's own metes and bounds. It's not required to be a full-blooded educational tool, if that's not what the filmmakers want it to be.

Judged on its own merits, as historical drama, as a war film, and as a psychological study of several days at the end of an historical era, Downfall is one of the best movies I've seen in a long time.

* Still, every time he came on screen, I heard Timmy from South Park calling after his pet turkey!

Album of the Day

Jazz from Hell, by Frank Zappa (1986): Apropos of my discussion about computers and music, here's Zappa's first in-depth work with the Synclavier. Rather than rehash what I wrote about this album last year, I'll pass on a couple of extra facts. First, the album actually won a Grammy in 1988 for Best Rock Instrumental performance (one wonders what the other nominees were - this stuff is just too weird for the Grammy folks). Second, in spite of being entirely instrumental, the album got a parental advisory sticker from the RIAA, presumably because of a song titled "G-Spot Tornado."

Welcome to the Caaaarrrr of Tomoooorrrrrooooowww!

Last weekend marked the debut of NASCAR's hopelessly misnamed "Car of Tomorrow" in the Nextel Cup. In spite of the name and the hype, the car is decades out of date compared to other modern race cars or, indeed, the average street car. As David Phillips points out over at SpeedTV.com:

Nor did the . . . 'Car of Tomorrow' provide much solace for those hoping NASCAR will reverse field on more than five decades of technophobia. With their carburetors, rudimentary electronics and acres of sheetmetal, the CoT’s closest brush with contemporary (let alone future) automotive trends are its Avenger-, Camry-, Fusion- and Impala-headlight/grill decals.

As Phillips makes clear, the real cars of tomorrow were on display at other locales:

Leading off, alphabetically and chronologically, was an ALMS’ Twelve Hours of Sebring themed on motorsports’ linkages to the automotive industry. Whether it’s the GT2 Porsches that spend part of their gestation on the production line with the 911 Carreras, Targas and Turbos destined for your local doctor, lawyer or hedge fund manager, or the ALMS’ commitment to alternative fuels now (be it “clean” diesel or E10) and in the future (E50 within 18 to 24 months; bio-diesel and perhaps hydrogen fuel later), Sebring celebrated racing as an incubator/proving ground for cutting-edge technology with direct applications to the broader automotive industry.

* * *

If anything, the [IRL] XM Satellite Radio 300 IndyCar race was even 'greener' than the 'Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring.' From the Honda Hybrid pace car and all 20 Honda-powered Dallaras running on pure ethanol to Jeff Simmons’ sound bite on ABC’s 'World News Tonight' that he prefers 'getting our fuel from the Midwest rather than the Middle East,' the IndyCar season opener was cloaked in green . . .

What's NASCAR got that the ALMS and IRL lack? Fans. And lots of them. Sadly.

Album of the Day

Intersections [1985-2005], by Bruce Hornsby (2006): This 4-disc box set is an absolute treasure trove of goodies for Bruce fans. Disc 1 is ironically called "Top 90 Time" and contains the "hits," such as they are. But, in true Bruce fashion, most of the tracks are live or alternate versions from the original releases (the version of "The Way It Is" is solo piano, for instance). Disc 2 contains a lot of solo piano stuff and collaborations, including the Olympic tune "Barcelona Mona" with Branford Marsalis, both a Grateful Dead cover and the Dead (with Bruce) playing "The Valley Road," a high-octane bluegrass version of the same tune, and a ripping "Darlin' Cory" with Ricky Skaggs. Discs 3 and 4 are all "by request," fan and band favorites. Most cuts are live or solo, but some aren't, so here is where the most duplication of prior releases come in. Still, over all, there just so much good stuff here that's it's almost unseemly to complain.

This Means David Jackson is the Antichrist

Via Pandagon, here is a YouTube video in which a very uptight person explains to a church what makes music "Godly" or sinful. The short answer: if it makes you want to dance, it's not Godly. Or, as Amanda puts it:

The first part of the video, he tries to explain the difference between godly and ungodly melodies, which is a little hard to understand, but it seems that the main signal that a melody is ungodly is it has any kind of soul.

That first part of the video includes a demonstration of Godly versus unGodly melodies on a sax. The "good" melody is bland as white bread on a rainy day. The "bad" melody, on the other hand, sounds like something David Jackson would unleash all over a Van der Graf Generator album.

But the meat of the video is the preacher's extolling the benefits of the march, while demonstrating the Devil's rhythms - boogie woogie, backbeats, and break beats. Exhibit A in the unGodly musical world? "Heart and Soul." Such non-marchy rhythms, he explains:

That’s not gospel music. It might be good for Elvis, it might be good for Jimmy Swaggart, and a whole bunch of other people, but that’s not gospel music.

There's something inherently amusing about a fundy Christian taking pot shot at Lonesome Cowboy Jim, but we'll leave that for another day. What becomes increasingly clear is that, for the preacher, he doesn't prefer march tempos for some aesthetic reason. March tempos are Godly because they propel Christian soldiers, marching unto war. More militant Christian militarism, just what we need!

The whole thing is alternately humorous and pathetic, as this poor guy - who clearly enjoys playing the "bad" stuff (he probably sneaks hits of "A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers" late at night) - tries to convince himself and the congregation of the dangers of enjoying most modern music. Again, from Amanda:

I do sort of agree with Ives that backbeats and upbeats and every kind of toe-tapping, hip-shaking kind of tune does in fact present a real threat to a rigid, fundamentalist worldview. Pleasure and beauty are constant threats, because they give people something to live for, and a sense of self that gives them space to question authority. If anything comforts me in the face of the increasingly agitated fundamentalism in America, it’s that they have no clue how to compete with the pleasures of living available to most of us, pleasures that help assist us in telling them all to fuck off.

Amen. If life in this world is only a preparation for some kind of eternal paradise, than the pleasures and beauties of this world - which might make one hang around in it - must be tools of the devil.

All This Machinery Making Modern Music . . .

Yesterday's New York Times had an interesting article about the march of musical technology. It was about the increasing use, off-Broadway, of computer programs that play back entire sections of scores, replicating all the various instrumental parts. An operator keys in the rhythm, so as to allow the "instruments" to speed up or slow down along with the conductor's whims. This allows the orchestra to sound fuller than its small numbers, but doesn't completely resort to using canned music. Union rules are keeping the tech off Broadway for now, but it's sure to make it in the long run (as sampling synthesizers already have).

I'm not sure what I think about this development. Part of me has never been a fan of "live" music being produced by anything other than live musicians. But modern tech began blurring the lines long ago. Since I've gotten some schooling in the history of musical synthesis and how synths work, I've softened my stance a bit. I used to not be able to stand drum machines, but now that I've played around with one, I recognize them as just another kind of instrument. So, I guess a person who creates tunes using pre-recorded loops can't exactly champion live-performance purity, can he?

Album of Last Friday

Images and Words, by Dream Theater (1992): Last week, I was called out on the WV Blogger board for calling someone of college age a "kid." I defended myself by invoking Crotchety Old Man Syndrome and that, therefore, anyone younger than I am is a "kid," college age versions probably "damn kids." What can I say, thinking about college makes me feel old. This album makes me think of college, as that's when my brother introduced me to Dream Theater. Looking over the disc at work the other day, I realized that was 15 years ago! DAMN KIDS!

Oh yeah, and it's the paradigmatic example of progressive metal, blah blah blah . . .

Album of the Day

Hot, by Squirrel Nut Zippers (1996): Back in college, jedi jawa and I had sort of a bilateral musical preaching going on. I plowed him with Marillion albums, and in return he stocked me with several Squirrel Nut Zippers albums. I might have gotten this one myself, as it was their breakout album (remember "Hell"? Sure you do!), although they quickly plummeted from public consciousness. It wasn't for lack of quality, as their updated variant of early 20th century pop, jazz, and swing is pretty cool. Certainly a step above the similar (yet very different) neo-swing bands that peaked popularly about the same time.

Mass Suicide, a Decade Later

Remember the Heaven's Gate cult? They were the bunch who offed themselves in San Diego in order to catch a ride on a UFO hidden in the tail of the Hale-Bopp comet. That mass suicide, which so captured the public imagination at the time, occurred ten years ago next week. In advance of the anniversary, LA Weekly has an extensive article based on new interviews with Rio, who left the cult just before the suicide because he had another mission to complete. That mission, being undertaken as we speak, is to witness to the world that the Heaven's Gate leader, who called himself DO,* was actually the second coming of Christ. It's a long article, but it's a fascinating look inside a cult from a true believer who managed to avoid his brethren's fate.

* And whose end-of-days ravings are immortalized in Porcupine Tree's "Last Chance to Evacuate Planet Earth Before It Is Recycled," from Lightbulb Sun.

An the Propogandist Is . . .

Well, that mystery is finally solved. The author of the now famous anti-Hillary ad, a reworking of Ridley Scott's famous "1984" ad for Apple, has revealed himself over at Huffington Post. It was not done at the behest of the Obama campaign, tho' the guy admits he's a supporter and had some ties (now severed) to the campaign.

With that resolved, I'll say the same thing I did in the WV Blogger Board thread on this topic - I don't get it. It's moderately clever (tho' it replicates whole chunks of the original ad), but doesn't seem to make a real point. If Hilary is Big Brother, i.e. non-Apple computers, that makes Obama the Mac I guess, right? It's the upstart Macs versus the world. Well, guess what - it's 20-plus years later and Mac is still losing the battle, snarky TV ads notwithstanding. If that's the fate Obama's supporters want for him, he needs a new batch of supporters.

Considering Commas

Earlier this month, the DC Circuit threw out some of the District's gun control laws, embracing a individual rights interpretation of the Second Amendment in the process. While much analysis has been made of the decision from legal and historical angles, this column in today's LA Times takes another approach - a grammatical one. Specifically, an English professor from the University of Illinois takes issue with the court's interpretation of the Amendment's commas:

The court dismissed the prefatory clause about militias as not central to the amendment and concluded that the operative clause prevents the government from interfering with an individual's right to tote a gun. Needless to say, the National Rifle Assn. is very happy with this interpretation. But I dissent. Strict constructionists, such as the majority on the appeals court, might do better to interpret the 2nd Amendment based not on what they learned about commas in college but on what the framers actually thought about commas in the 18th century.

I suppose it's only natural, if we're going to wed ourselves to the meaning of the Constitution when it was passed, to take a look at the grammar of the time as well. I would point out, however, to the good professor that one of the grammar texts he cites as being "popular . . . in the framer's day" was, by his own writing, published in 1795. That would be eight years after the writing of the Constitution and seven years after ratification.

A 1795 grammar book has about as much relevance to the original meaning of the Second Amendment's commas as that dang furrin' law that gets the conservatives so upset!

Album of the Day

A History of Madness, by Thinking Plague (2003): When it comes to "weird" music in my collection, Thinking Plague has no peer. While their 1998 breakthrough release In Extremis contained a fairly accessible chunk of RIO/avant prog, a lot of the rest of their catalog is pretty out there (I'd use parts of their first album to drive people from a room). More of this disc is on the weird side, to the point that I don't find much of it very compelling. Case in point, "Least Aether for Saxophone & Le Gouffre," 8+ minutes solo sax followed by soundscapes. Not really my thing. I will say, however, that they produced one of the best Duhbya-era song titles - "Our 'Way of Life' and 'War on Terra'". Of course, it's an instrumental!

Album of the Day

Peter Gabriel (aka, Security), by Peter Gabriel (1982): Apropos of yesterday's post, of course. To be honest, it occurred to me yesterday that I was into the Hs in the A-Z and didn't remember the run of early Gabriel albums. Since they all have the same name (technically, this one got the name Security for the US market, but it's the fourth eponymous elsewhere), they would have come in order all at once. I realized that I'd whiffed on those by not renaming them in my inventory program. So, I caught up today. As I said yesterday, this isn't my favorite of the early Gabriel albums, but it contains a few real gems: "The Rhythm of the Heat," "San Jacinto," and "Shock the Monkey" among them.