any day now, again

 

(Douglas Tilden's The Tired Boxer: you & me both, bro)

Wow, the new computer set-up is all much, much more time-consuming & irritating than even I thought it would be! I'm still having troubles: the mouse doesn't work (is it another faulty piece of equipment, like the first laptop they sent me, or did I misread the inexplicable stick figures that pass for "instructions"), the photography set-up is, um, odd, the screen is too small for me to see (yes, I know I can enlarge the font), but an on-going theme here is that you have to hunt & peck & guess at these things, & anything you touch could turn out to be the very thing you did not want to touch. Feh! I won't even start on the tech companies; my generalized loathing of them has not been eased by my recent experiences. They keep wanting to sell me more products & services that I don't need when I really just want the ones I've already overpaid for to work. Big Tech now has the annoying tendency to insist that I can only operate under various "accounts", even if it means taking over an identity I've already created & giving me a new ID that requires new passcodes &c which I don't have because I didn't set them up. And no, I don't want to receive texts from you, faceless tech company,for the rest of my life. And you can't just block them, as someday you may need to hear from them, with more of those codes &c to get access. Underlying all this, of course, is the classic trope of "cranky old person who doesn't understand technology". It's inaccurate: I'm a cranky old person who has enough experience with technology to figure things out, eventually, but to be wary & annoyed while I do so. Arguably, in fact, people my age are more adept at tech than younger people: anyone starting out now in computers knows he/she/they should learn the MS Office Suite, & a few other things. When I was starting my working life, it was the Wild Wild West & I had to learn multiple systems quickly, & unlike today's systems they did not have a basic set-up in place (so that for instance someone now looking for a copy function has a pretty good idea of where to look). In fact for about half of the 1980s I worked at a publishing house where they would throw me on to various desktop publishing systems, have me learn them ASAP (let me revert to office lingo), & then teach them to others, & assist them, all while also having to meet actual deadlines on real projects, often ones that had been messed up by people paid more than I was This would have been great if they had made it clear what was going on; instead I had the feeling I was thrown into systems & then yanked off them just as soon as I was beginning to figure them out, while my manager sniped at me for . .  . well, anything that came into his mind. But complaints about terrible managers, especially ones long ago & far away, are not really the path I want to travel down here. I plan to start posting again soon, though possibly without photographs. I can always go back & add some later. In fact I always go back & tweak my posts anyway.

In short: new opinions, or old ones repurposed, coming soon; deepest thanks to those who have been checking in. Some day I'll get all this figured out, just like life.

any day now

My computer died on Labor Day weekend. It was sudden but not unexpected. It was showing signs, warning signs, but of course I put off dealing with it because of a general lack of time, energy, & money; also, I hate hate HATE dealing with things like this. I just want things to work, & to keep on working. The obvious & inevitable result of my ostrich-with-his-head-in-the-sand behavior was that I was forced to deal with it, on an inconvenient timeline that was not one I picked. And the whole thing has not gone well! Obviously nothing can be simple or easy or even work the way it's supposed to. I bought a replacement, then had to send it back as it was defective, then . . . well, look, I'm not interested in this stuff, why should you be?

People of course have been offering advice, which is mostly even more useless than most advice, &, what's worse, reactions of envy, as I've been freed from the suffocating embrace of our current world, &, well, NO. I still have to do the same things, they're just more difficult to get done. Yes, I survived for decades without a computer, but the infrastructure that was in place – the newspapers, magazines, phone directories, maps, box offices, &c, that could answer questions such as "when does the show start?" or "where is the venue?" – have all mostly migrated online. I've been staying abreast, at least of email, just barely, with a public-use computer, & I'm glad I have that resource, but there are drawbacks, such as other people: there is a regular user of these computers who can turn a single lozenge into an entire percussion section. I've never heard anything like it. Then there's the person who comes in to watch Fox, whom I have to remind, every single time, that he's supposed to use headphones. Not an atmosphere conducive to writing up performances, or doing much of anything else but catching up with email & then getting out.

Presumably my new system will be up & running in a few days (of course, I've been thinking that for days now. . . ). Then I have to figure out how to do the things I was used to do on my old system. We have our little shortcuts, we fall into our grooves, & now I have to re-plough those grooves in my digital earth.

Anyway: back soon with the usual fare, I hope. Thanks to those who have been checking; much love to you! And I hope to see you soon in our usual digital realms.

Captain Ahab Does Not Need Your God-damned GPS

Previously, William Wordsworth shared his thoughts on those who cannot tear their eyes away from their "smart" phones. And now Captain Ahab discusses the pros and cons of using a GPS, or Global Positioning System:

Then gazing at his quadrant, and handling, one after the other, its numerous cabalistical contrivances, he pondered again, and muttered: "Foolish toy! babies' plaything of haughty Admirals, and Commodores, and Captains; the world brags of thee, of thy cunning and might; but what after all canst thou do, but tell the poor, pitiful point, where thou thyself happenest to be on this wide planet, and the hand that holds thee: no! not one jot more! Thou canst not tell where one drop of water or one grain of sand will be to-morrow noon; and yet with thy impotence thou insultest the sun! Science! Curse thee, thou vain toy; and cursed be all the things that cast man's eyes aloft to that heaven, whose live vividness but scorches him, as these old eyes are even now scorched with thy light, O sun! Level by nature to this earth's horizon are the glances of man's eyes; not shot from the crown of his head, as if God had meant him to gaze on his firmament. Curse thee, thou quadrant!" dashing it to the deck, "no longer will I guide my earthly way by thee; the level ship's compass, and the level dead-reckoning, by log and by line; these shall conduct me, and show me my place on the sea. Aye," lighting from the boat to the deck, "thus I trample on thee, thou paltry thing that feebly pointest on high; thus I split and destroy thee!"

Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chapter CXVIII, The Quadrant

Though personally, speaking as a passenger, I have found such systems to be quite useful.

William Wordsworth analyzes the smart phone phenomenon

Here's something else to file under "the more things change":

On Seeing Some Tourists of the Lakes Pass by Reading; a Practice Very Common

What waste in the labour of Chariot and Steed!
For this came ye hither? is this your delight?
There are twenty-four letters, and those ye can read;
But Nature's ten thousand are Blanks in your sight.
Then throw by your Books, and the study begin;
Or sleep, and be blameless, and wake at Your Inn!

-- William Wordsworth

Very elegant and witty, and pointed, but I'll probably just continue snarling "Watch where you're going" to those clueless idiots who walk down the sidewalk staring at their stupid toys, assuming everyone else will leap out of their way. If it's so awful to be where you are, maybe you should think about why it's so awful, and what you're doing there.

The poem is on page 432 of the Penguin Classics edition of The Poems of William Wordsworth, Volume 1.

Netflix sux

Like everyone else, I was annoyed and irritated by Netflix's latest reduction in services: pay more, get less! It had all been so easy and elegant when it started. That's why I, along with apparently everyone else, was fooled into falling in love with a corporation. I was interested to read that the format my protest first took in my head -- a break-up letter -- was the most widespread format in the outpouring of irritation.

Maybe it's not such a bad thing to be reminded that your beloved friend/corporation is really a money-making scheme. (As some realist is always eager to point out, Netflix is not a charity, it's a business, and paying more to receive less is just the American way these days.) If Netflix wants to trash its brand loyalty, well, that's their business, in every sense.

What I really object to, though, isn't so much the price hike; I'm not crazy about it, but the service is still cheaper and better in every way than going to movie theaters. No, what I really object to is that Netflix has been steadily trying to pressure (or bully) customers into streaming rather than receiving DVDs by mail.

I see how it would be cheaper for them, but I really don't care. DVDs are easier and cheaper for me, and offer superior sound and picture. Streaming would require me to replace all of my home-viewing equipment at considerable expense, and all for lesser quality (I've been told reliably that picture and sound for streamed movies is not nearly as good as on DVD, let alone Blu-Ray). How long can I keep something I've streamed? Can I go back and easily watch just one or two scenes again? Can I stop it halfway through and pick it up again two days later?

These are questions I don't really want to know the answers to, because I don't care. DVDs are perfect for me, and I'm afraid I selfishly put that above increasing Netflix's profit margin.

I get very suspicious when corporations start cheerfully asserting that something is so much easier for the customer; usually it means it's cheaper for the corporation, and the customer now has to do all the production work. And I get very, very suspicious when corporations start implying that resisting whatever cost-cutting convenience they're trying to force on me means I'm resisting the very future itself. In a youth-obsessed society there's always that undercurrent of panic that you'll be rendered irrelevant by the kids and their crazy digital devices. But I'm not interested in watching [insert the name of your favorite film/director/actor] on an iPhone, and I don't believe that anyone who really cares about movies would be interested in that. Streaming, as far as I can see, offers a lower-quality, disposable product for people who don't care that much about the product to start with. It's Kleenex. (That's assuming they even have the film you want to see available for streaming; I understand there are huge gaps in what is available.)

So I'm down from my three-DVDs-at-a-time service to one-DVD-at-a-time. OK, I have quite a backlog of purchased but unwatched DVDs to work through. And I suspect there will be a bit of a spike in DVD sales; considering how long it will now take me to watch something like the six seasons of the Sopranos or even the three seasons of Deadwood, I might be better off just buying the whole series if Amazon or Barnes and Noble has a sale.

Does anyone know of another DVD-by-mail service? I'm looking to switch.

AT&T Sucks!

So after being without a phone for several weeks, I called AT&T and they sent someone out to take a look. And now I have neither phone or Internet. I am on an ice floe, heading out towards cold and choppy seas. Though presumably I will return at some point, and will post the backlog (haiku, Cyrano, Measha Brueggergosman, Zenshinza Theatre, Makropulos Case, and maybe more) then. Check back soon. I hope.

good news/bad news

The other day I received an e-mail from the Boston Symphony regarding two new releases on their BSO classics label. The first celebrates the 40th anniversary of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus but it was the second, Celebrating Carter’s Century, that excited me.

Until I saw that it was download only.

I knew this day was coming, but I treated it the way most people treat such days: as something I didn’t need to think about just yet. I’m not exactly – how shall I put this? – a gadget/tech guy. I have no car (and no driver’s license), no microwave, no cell phone, no i-anything . . . I’m not exactly a Luddite – I bought a digital camera last year, I love (love!) my big screen TV, and I was an early adopter of both DVDs (hence the big-screen TV) and CDs (back when those were shiny and new, and not the equivalent of listening to wax cylinders), and I’ve shopped on-line for years. But I’m really only going to bother to learn about technology that I think I need. And will enjoy. And I already spend enough time cursing at my slow computer and AT&T's lousy service.

I understand the concept of downloading, and I understand how it works (more or less). I can even see some advantages, mostly in storage space. (Though I think one reason I’ve been resistant to downloading is that it’s part of a whole move by corporations to cut their production costs and dump them on the consumer and then call it “empowerment” or “anytime access” or some nonsense like that.) But with a CD, I have something semi-permanent and transportable, something not dependent on any particular system. Do I have that with a download? We’re only a few decades into computerland and already I’ve been hearing for years about data that can no longer be retrieved because the systems that held them are so outmoded. And like everyone who uses computers, I’ve lost documents through crashes or through switching systems.

So if I download music to my computer, won’t I lose it if the computer crashes or I buy a new machine? Can I copy downloaded music to a CD and if so will that CD be compatible with normal CD players? In other words, how do I keep the things I want to keep? Does anyone know? (And I will consider any answers starting off with “it depends on your system” to be proving my point about the downside of downloading.)

Here’s what’s on the disc, by the way. I hope I get to hear these performances some day:

Syringa
Texts by John Ashbery and an aggregate of ancient Greek authors
Conductor: Stefan Asbury
Kirsten Hoff, mezzo-soprano
Evan Hughes, bass-baritone
Ensemble: Fellows of the Tanglewood Music Center and guest artists*
Mimi Tachouet, alto flute, Henry Ward, English horn, Ryan Yure, clarinet/bass clarinet, David Becker, trombone, Joseph Becker, percussion, Nolan Pearson, piano, Ruby Chen, violin, Melissa Reardon, viola, Hugh LeSure, cello, Kevin Jablonski, double bass, Oren Fader,* guitar

Reflexions
Conductor: Ryan Wigglesworth
Ensemble - Fellows of the Tanglewood Music Center and TMC alumni*
Sandy Hughes, Jessica Lizak,* flutes/piccolos, Nicholas Stovall, oboe, Annie Henneke, English horn, Giancarlo Garcia, clarinet/E-flat clarinet, Virgil Blackwell,* bass clarinet/contrabass clarinet, Andrew Cuneo, Ellen Connors, bassoons/contrabassoon, James Robertson, Matthew Oliphant, horns, John Russell,* Michael Martin, trumpets, Jeremy Buckler, Karna Millen,* trombones, Sam Solomon,* Matt Prendergast, Nick Tolle,* percussion, Sadie Turner, harp, Tatiana Vassilieva, piano, Jeanine Markley, Jessica Blackwell, Alissa Cheung, violins, Amelia Clingman, Tiantian Lan, violas, Marie-Michel Beauparlant, Matthew Beckman, cellos, Dylan Palmer, double bass

Mad Regales, for six solo voices
Texts: Poems by John Ashbery
Conductor: John Oliver
Ensemble: Fellows of the Tanglewood Music Center
Ashley Logan, soprano, Abby Fisher, Katherine Growdon, mezzo-sopranos, Zachary Wilder, tenor, Matthew Worth, baritone, Alan Dunbar, bass-baritone

Sound Fields, for string orchestra
Conductor: Stefan Asbury
Ensemble: Fellows of the Tanglewood Music Center