Matthew Dicks's Blog, page 525

Writing and recording forgeries

Def Leppard, a band that provided much of the soundtrack of my youth, is re-recording its backlist in an effort to regain financial control of their music.

With newly recorded “forgeries” of “Pour Some Sugar on Me” and “Rock of Ages” now available, the quintet has begun a series of re-recordings of its catalog material and “wrestled control of our career back” from the Universal Music Group, which frontman Joe Elliott says the band refuses to deal with “until we come up with some kind of arrangement” over compensation, especially for digital downloads.

I had no idea that this was possible, but apparently, it is. A record company pays musicians for the master recording of a song but not for the song itself. If a band wants to record a new version of the same song (or attempt to record an identical version of the same song), then the band retains complete financial control over their new version and can do with it as they please, including allowing it to compete for sales with the original version of the song.

I find this fascinating.

Curious about the results, I purchased the re-recording of “Pour Some Sugar On Me” in order to assess the performance, and though it’s a creditable rendition of the song, it’s clearly not the same song that blasted from the windows of every car in the summer of 1987.

I think I’ll be sticking with the original.

But this led me to wonder:

Would this strategy also work in publishing?

Could I re-write my first novel, SOMETHING MISSING, either word-for-word or perhaps slightly differently, adding or subtracting from the story as I wished, and create an entirely new work in a legal sense? 

Unable to read my books after publication because of my preternatural sense of perpetual dissatisfaction and an incessant need to revise, a strategy like this might allow me to take a book that I wrote a decade ago and refresh it, making the necessary changes that are now obvious to me thanks to an improved skill set and more finely honed authorial instincts.

I’m not necessarily interested in doing this, but is it possible?

Could I publish the new and improved SOMETHING MISSING that would compete against the original version of the novel?

Does Wikipedia have a a woman problem or do women have a Wikipedia problem?

Torie Bosch of Slate wrote a piece about a recent debate on Wikipedia over the validity of an entry on Kate Middleton’s bridal gown as a means of illustrating the gender gap that exists amongst Wikipedia’s citizen editors. Only 9 percent of Wiki editors are female, which is actually an improvement over recent years but still exceptionally disproportionate.

Serious efforts have been made to mitigate this gender gap. Wikipedia’s cofounder, Jimmy Wales, recently addressed the problem and has taken action, as have female editors already working on the site. Despite these efforts, female editors, on average, “make fewer changes to articles than male editors” and frequently don’t continue to be active online.”

All of this brings me to Bosch’s title for the piece:

How Kate Middleton’s Wedding Gown Demonstrates Wikipedia’s Woman Problem

I can’t help but wonder if Wikipedia has a woman problem or if women have a Wikipedia problem. While the editorial pages are currently dominated by male editors, anyone is free to make additions, deletions and revisions to the encyclopedia, meaning that women have just as much access to Wikipedia as men. They may have to fight for turf and battle a horde of male editors in order to be heard, but nothing is preventing them from doing so.

Furthermore, the efforts made thus far to involve more female editors have not yielded meaningful results.

I would also argue that the inclusion of Kate Middleton’s wedding gown into the pages of Wikipedia was by no means a slam dunk and not representative of any gender gap. I am glad that there was debate about its inclusion. I’m still not so sure that it belongs in the encyclopedia, but I am confident that if a discussion took place, it’s inclusion is probably justified. This is what makes Wikipedia great. I would also argue that the debate over the dress’s inclusion would have taken place even if female editors outnumbered male editors by a large number.

Like I said, the dress was hardly a slam dunk, regardless of who is editing the site.  

I think it’s great that Wikipedia is making efforts to be more inviting and inclusive to women, but at some point, when a subset of people is not taking advantage of an opportunity that is readily available to them, we might need to shift our gaze away from  the missed opportunity to the people failing to take advantage of it.

Wikipedia may have a woman problem, but I suspect that the problem is the result of women having a Wikipedia problem.

I’m not sure what the problem might be, but knowing the source of the problem is often the first step in finding a solution.

Zapped!

While I was home alone for four days recently, I was reminded about how much easier it is to die when you live alone. Carrying the dog downstairs one evening, I stumbled, and though I managed to regain my balance before falling, I envisioned what might have happened had I not. I could have tumbled down the stairs and broken my neck with no one home to call for help.

This flash of imagined tragedy reminded me of an incident that occurred during the only year of my life when I was actually living alone. I wrote about a few years ago as Elysha and I were moving into our first apartment together:

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I was setting up my computer in our new apartment when I was reminded of an incident that took place about two years ago while setting up the PC in another apartment.

I had just separated from my ex-wife and moved into an apartment down the street in Newington. It was the first time in my life that I was living alone (except for my dog, Kaleigh, of course), and it was  strange for me. I’ve lived with Born Again Christians, co-workers, friends, and even strangers for one summer, but I had never lived alone.

It was about 6:00 AM and I was crawling under my desk, feeding wires through holes and becoming frustrated. It was the kind of task that required someone else’s help, just to grab hold of the wires as you passed them through the holes. I needed just a few seconds of assistance, and not having it, the struggle was highlighting my newfound loneliness.

In an effort to make things easier, I had plugged every connector into the power strip already, and as I was feeding the last of the wires up through the desk, I put a live one between my teeth in order to free my other hand, forgetting that the wire was already plugged in.

I woke up about three hours later. Kaleigh was licking my face and my head was pounding. The television, which I had turned on while setting up the computer, was still on, but I remember thinking that the show that I could hear from under my desk was all wrong.

“This show doesn’t come on this early.”

I then noticed that my tongue hurt as well. It felt as if it been burned, and I slowly began putting the pieces together. My headache had been caused by the sudden jerking of my body as the electrical current passed through me, smashing my head into the desk and giving me a concussion (I’m unfortunately prone to concussions because of a multitude of previous head injuries). My tongue had been burned by the metallic end of the cord, which thankfully had fallen out of my mouth.

I drove myself to the hospital to get checked out, thinking about how dangerous it is for people, but especially me, to be living alone. Considering the number of times I hurt myself, I was genuinely frightened about the prospect of relying on Kaleigh to call 911 the next time I was stung by a bee, electrocuted, knocked unconscious, or whatever else might happen.

My friends call this The Matty Factor.

The Matty Factor dictates that if someone is going to be injured on a particular day, it’s going to be Matty. If something is going to be broken on any given day, it will be Matty who breaks it. If something is going to be lost or stolen, it will be stolen from Matty or lost by him. If tragedy strikes, it will probably strike Matty first and hardest.

I know it seems silly to think that one person can create this degree of carnage, but unfortunately The Matty Factor usually holds true.

So living alone was risky to say the least.

Fortunately I survived my year in that apartment and now have Elysha in my life, poised and ready to call in case of emergency.

I’m sure she won’t have to wait too long.

Signage for the stupid

Honestly, people… who the hell continues to do this? It must be the same moron, traveling from public restroom to public restroom, dropping paper towel after paper towel into the toilet. Right?

There just can’t be this many stupid people in the world to justify the number of these kinds of signs that I see on an almost daily basis.  

More from The Baby Whisperer

My wife and kids spent the last three days in the Berkshires with the in-laws while I remained stuck in Connecticut for work.

As always, my in-laws took remarkable care of the family. My father-in-law is especially great with the kids. He has an infinite amount of patience with them, and my daughter says that he is a “great player.”

He seems to channel his inner child especially (and perhaps unnervingly) effectively.

Being away from the family for so long was difficult, but video and images like this always make it a little easier, knowing that Gramps has things well under control. 

 

Church of the Holy Penis

Our longtime friends, Charles and Justine, moved to Arizona last week, and I am deeply saddened by their departure. Charles was a professor of physics at the University of Connecticut and has moved onto the University of Arizona. In doing so, he and his wife have returned to their roots.

Charles is the second friend whose job as a professor has moved him away from us, causing Elysha and I to swear off befriending all professors in the future. It’s just not worth the pain.  

I was thinking about them this morning and realized that their departure also means that I will probably never attend another religious service in their church, which I have nicknamed Church of the Holy Penis. I found myself surprisingly saddened by this as well.

I wrote about the reason for the nickname several years ago and managed to locate it this morning. In honor of my departed friends (and perhaps spurned by yesterday’s sexually-suggestive Mr. Snuffleupagus), here is that piece:

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Last December I attended midnight mass at The Church of the Holy Penis with our friends. At the time, I had to explain the name that I had assigned to the church, but this morning I returned for a baptism, armed with my camera.

Though photos during the service were not permitted, I risked the wrath of God in order to snap off just a few shots (34 in all) of the baptism plus a few of the church’s uniquely phallic lighting fixtures.

At one point, while leaning over to snap a photo of my friends as their babies’ heads were being moistened, my vision was obscured by a tall, thick candle. No matter which way I shifted, the candle continued to block out the face of one family member or another. Frustrated, I grumbled, “Goddamn candle,” much to the dismay of the Puritan-like family sitting behind me. The mother gave me a deadly stare and the father rolled his eyes in disgust.

I returned their looks with a smile and continued to snap my pictures and finally managed to capture a few good images.

Including some of the light fixtures.

Have you ever seen anything so bizarre, particularly for a church?

 

Five favorite quotes

A reader asked me if there were any quotations that served as a source of inspiration for me. While I’m not entirely sure how much inspiration I derive from them, I maintain a list of favorite quotations on my desktop that I add to from time to time.

The following have been rated as my five favorite for a very long time: 

Tears are not arguments. -Machado de Assis

Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein. -H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

The problem is not that there are problems. The problem is expecting otherwise and thinking that having problems is a problem. -Theodore Rubin

Irreverence is the champion of liberty and its only sure defense. -Mark Twain

Sometimes I think we’re alone in the universe, and sometimes I think we’re not. In either case, the idea is quite staggering. -Arthur C. Clarke

The sexually suggestive Mr. Snuffleupagus

We spent the weekend at the in-law’s home in the Berkshires, where my daughter playing with my wife’s old Fisher-Price Sesame Street Clubhouse, circa 1973.

The in-laws throw nothing away.

Included in the set is the fabled Mr. Snuffleupagus.

Were toymakers in the 1970s completely blind, or is it possible that millions of there were sold to children without ever noticing the unfortunate and suggestive shape of Mr. Snuffleupagus from behind?

I questioned why there were young children at the Aurora theater, and there was nothing wrong with me doing so.

In a piece entitled Stop Wondering Why There Were Young Children At The Aurora Theater, author Lisa Belkin asks “What is it that led so many people to dwell on a question of parenting when so many more sweeping questions loomed?”

I would like to answer Lisa Belkin’s question.

We dwell on the question of parenting when so many more sweeping questions loom because human beings are capable of thinking about more than one thing at a time.

We can grieve for the dead and for those who lost loved ones in this tragedy.

We can send positive thoughts to the survivors and hope that they peace in this time of tragedy. 

We can question our nation’s gun laws.

We can demand change.

And yes, we can also worry about infants and small children who are brought to a midnight showing of a Batman movie, because as parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts and teachers, it is our natural instinct to worry about children, and this can include worrying about the wisdom behind exposing small children to a violent film in the wee hours of the morning.

As avid movie goers who want to watch a film undisturbed, we can even find the mental capacity to protest the presence of these children in our theaters simply on the grounds that it is inconsiderate to our fellow patrons.  

Like most human beings, I am not a single minded organism. My thoughts need not occupy only one stream of consciousness. I am capable of thinking and feeling and even acting upon more than one thing at a time.

It’s true. As the parent of a three year old and a two month old, and as an elementary school teacher with fifteen years on the job, my thoughts eventually drifted to the presence of children in that theater and the wisdom of parents who made the decision to bring them, not because they might be exposing their children to a potential gunman, but because it’s at minimum a questionable parenting decision. I did not contact these parents directly or wish any more suffering upon them than they have already endured, but as a human being who cares deeply about kids, this is one of the many aspects of this tragedy where my thoughts settled in the wake of the tragedy.

Perhaps the fact that this is a subject that I wrote about earlier this year influenced the direction that my thoughts took. This was not a new issue for me. 

I even took the time earlier this year to investigate the problem and write about it.

Twice.

So do me a favor, Lisa Belkin. Don’t tell me what I should and should not wonder about, because I am perfectly capable of wondering about many, many things at the same time, including why you might think otherwise.

Three unjust presumptions

1. The cold person’s temperature preference always trumps the warm person’s temperature preference.

2. The parent who argues for greater frequency in the bathing of a child assumes unjust moral authority over the parent who argues for less frequent baths.

3. The person who does not cry is automatically the bad guy.