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How do you arrange your books on your shelves? Is it by author, by genre, or you just put it where it falls on?
Okay, I’m thinking answering this may indicate a degree of anal retentiveness or, perhaps, even OCD.
The first case of my main bookshelves contains autographed or collectible works, the winners of the Hugo Award for best novel (in chronological order, of course), and my growing collection of works in translation. The remaining bookcases contain, in order, other SF/fantasy works and fiction, all alphabetically by author’s last name. Now’s where it gets even a bit more embarrassing. The fiction is followed by nonfiction works ordered by where I would put them under the Dewey decimal classification system. I even have a photocopy of an outline of the classifications on one of the shelves to refresh my memory if a question arises.
There are a couple exceptions. First, I still put biographies and autobiographies in the class no longer used by Dewey (but, naturally, ordered alphabetically by last name of the person the book is about). The order is far more relaxed in the other nonfiction categories. Size of the books and available shelf space are about the only thing that determine the order of a book within a class. Finally, the “to be read” bookcase has little organizational structure and, at best, may be divided between fiction and nonfiction.
Some may well think this indicates I’m a bit obsessive. From my standpoint, though, I think the organization of my books and music (alphabetically by artist and then chronologically by date of release) says more about the value I place on them. Ask my wife or any of my college roommates or take a look at my desk at work or at home. All things considered, I am about as untidy as they come. But you gotta draw the line somewhere and when it involves material things, it may as well be with the things you treasure most.
You know, if you ever crave knowledge, there’s always a library. The Dewey decimal system really works.
Michelle Rodriguez, October 2000
Although I had just turned 14 when it was released, I still remember the controversy over Jesus Christ Superstar. While it wasn’t the first “rock opera” (Tommy came out about 18 months earlier), this one attracted attention because of what it did, most notably humanizing the events in the last days of Jesus’ life.
 Like Tommy, this was a concept album as opposed to the soundtrack of a stage musical. Created by Andrew Lloyd Weber and Tim Rice, it didn’t reach the professional stage until mid-October 1971 and was the first such musical for that duo. Yet the two-LP album spent a week at number one on the charts beginning Feb. 20, 1971, some four months after its release. But since Easter was still two months away (which would return the album to number one for another two weeks), it became a hot topic. In fact, I specifically recall a late night AM radio talk show with a heated debate over whether the album was blasphemous.
Perhaps that was one of the things that initially intrigued me. In part because I’d attended a Catholic grade school, the Catholic Church’s ire over the album made it seem like forbidden fruit. Yet I didn’t buy the album. It was a gift from my favorite aunt at Christmas 1970. But not only did I come to love the music, it actually opened my eyes to something that my Catholic education never really seemed to seriously consider.
But first the music. The role of Jesus was sung by Ian Gillian, then the lead singer for Deep Purple. As far as I’m concerned, it may be Gillian at his finest. More than any of the Deep Purple and his later solo albums, Jesus Christ Superstar portrays the full extent of Gillian’s talent. He’s not just the front guy of a hard rock band who can belt and bellow it out. There is subtlety to some of his performances on this LP while at the same time his vocal range is fully on display. There are also some other excellent vocal performances, many by artists who we’d never heard of. One who really gained from it was Yvonne Elliman. Singing the role of Mary Magdalene (which she would reprise on Broadway and in the 1973 film), she reached the pop charts with “I Don’t Know How to Love Him.” Finally, the musical ensemble included some top-notch rock musicians, giving the LP an honest to goodness rock edge.
From an educational standpoint, the LP seemed to explore aspects of the events not commonly discussed. One is the political nature of what transpired. For example, prior to entering Jerusalem, Judas expresses concern about how Jesus may have lost control of his followers. Among other things, he notes, that Jesus may have come to mean more than his message. Similarly, when Mary Magdalene anoints Christ’s head and feet, Judas’ response is that starving people are more important and the oil could have been sold and the money used for the poor. And Simon Zealotes thinks Jesus should use his increasing popularity to rally the crowds to the advantage of the Jews, urging him to “add a touch of hate at Rome.” As a result, for the first time in my life I realized that there were political overtones to these stories, not just religious ones.
This was just part of the impact on my views of Judas. Catholic school essentially taught me he was a traitor, an evil man undoubtedly condemned to hell. Yet not only does Jesus Christ Superstar indicate his betrayal may have been motivated by perhaps legitimate political concerns, it raised an even more interesting question. If this was all part of God’s plan, wasn’t what Judas did foreordained? Wasn’t it God who gave him that role? This was reinforced by an exchange between Judas and Jesus at the Last Supper, where he says Christ wants Judas to betray him. “What if I just stayed here/And ruined your ambition?” Thus, Judas comes off more as a tragic figure whose fate was predetermined than an architect of evil.
Undoubtedly, though, the most telling part of the music is the humanization of Jesus, the emphasis on the latter aspect of being both God and man. That idea runs through much of the performance but it is perhaps best expressed in “Gethsemane (I Only Want to Say),” where Jesus is praying in the garden before his arrest. Like a man, he does not want to die. Not only is he not as sure of God’s plan, he is scared, wonders what his death can accomplish and seeks an explanation of why it is necessary. Yet Christ ultimately concludes: “Take me, now!/Before I change my mind.” Certainly, no one I knew in the Catholic Church, whether teacher, nun or priest, would ever have suggested that Jesus would be scared, let alone that he might have or want a choice in these final acts.
Perhaps these views of Judas and Jesus didn’t and don’t comport with tradition. For many, however, emphasizing the human side of these events did not diminish Jesus but made him more accessible. Regardless of what one thinks of Weber and Rice or the quality of the lyrics or music in Jesus Christ Superstar, that says a heck of a lot for any musical work.
Can you show me now that I would not be killed in vain?
Show me just a little of your omnipresent brain
Show me there’s a reason for your wanting me to die
You’re far too keen and where and how, but not so hot on why .
“Gethsemane (I Only Want to Say),” Jesus Christ Superstar
Lebanon, particularly Beirut, was torn asunder by the civil war that raged in the country from 1975 to 1990. Both external forces and internal strife contributed to the depredation. It is perhaps no surprise, then, that the war is the backdrop and more to Yalo, the most recent work of Lebanese novelist Elias Khoury to appear in the U.S.
Originally published in 2002, Yalo is the fictional story of Daniel Yal’u, a Beirut native in his 20s repeatedly tortured while under arrest for rape and robbery. Going by the nickname that gives the book its title, he becomes almost a metaphor for Beirut as his torturers force him to write his life story. The torture and Yalo’s own internal strife produce a kaleidoscopic, at times hallucinatory, tale as his life is torn asunder physically and psychologically.
Yalo, translated from the Arabic by Peter Theroux, is not for everyone. While undoubtedly accurate (and even somewhat innovative), some of the torture scenes are graphic. More important, the book is not those who prefer a linear narrative. Yalo’s recounting of his life has loops within loops and at times contradictory flashbacks that run into and merge with each other. As Yalo, who tells most of his story in the third person, puts it, “Yalo was confused as to how he should organize his memory. He was confused because things came to him all at once and the images intermingled in his head, times overlapped in his consciousness, as if he were an old man.”
The rudiments of Yalo’s story are straightforward. Born in 1961, Yalo is raised by his mother and his grandfather, a Christian cleric. Yalo is in his teens when the Civil War breaks out and the family is forced to move from predominantly Muslim West Beirut to predominantly Christian East Beirut. A few years later, he joins “the Lebanese Forces,” most likely an Israeli-backed militia, where he serves as “a fighter” for 10 years. In 1989, he and an army buddy steal money and escape to Paris. Yalo’s friend abandons him, leaving him penniless and begging in Paris subway stations, where he is unable to speak the language. A Lebanese arms dealer comes across Yalo and brings him back to Lebanon to be a bodyguard for his family near a village outside Beirut. Yalo has an affair with his rescuer’s wife and then takes to robbing lovers in parked cars in the surrounding forest, occasionally raping the women. He falls in love with one of his victims, Shirin, and while it is unclear whether she also has an interest in him, she is the reason for his arrest and detention.
The torture is designed to not only obtain Yalo’s confession to rape and robbery, but to force him to admit involvement in a bombing plot. To avoid further torture, Yalo is required to write the story of his life. But what he writes is often unacceptable to his captors, resulting in more torture. The torture reaches the point “felt that time was frozen, and that I was living the last moments of my life; yet that my life was long — never-ending. I wanted it to end so that the pain would be over, but it stopped ending. That is eternity.”
In struggling to write his life story and avoid torture, Yalo examines the events of his life and that of his mother, the question of love and the events which led him to his present situation. The scenes are at times confusing. Did Shirin love him or was he simply stalking her? Which ruminations on who his father was are correct? Which recounting of his love affairs and his crimes are accurate? But, ultimately, the torture and the burden of coming to grips with and articulating his life become too much for Yalo.
You were wrong to ask him to write the story of his life. Yalo cannot write because he has gone to another place, where they do not write, where they have no need to write. I, Daniel, am writing, and will write everything you want about him and about me and about everyone. But Yalo, no. I want to be frank with you and say that Yalo left me and went far away. I am body and he is spirit. I suffer and he soars.
And to what conclusion does this suffering lead Daniel? “Yalo’s story, sir, has a name — war.”
Undoubtedly, the experiences of the Civil War, like the miasma of the prison cells and torture chambers, influence how Daniel/Yalu experiences and perceives the events of his life. Yet even that is too simplistic an answer. Yalo may well have been formed and he may seek to justify his action by the Civil War. But is the same true of Daniel? Are the events of childhood and struggles with the concept and meaning of love part of Daniel or Yalu? And how is Daniel different from Yalo? Or is he? And, ultimately, is he even capable of ever finding the answers to or in the story of his life? In fact, Khoury asks, “if I don’t find the end of the story, how will I be able to write it?”
It’s a question that applies equally to life, Lebanon’s experience and the Middle East as a whole. As such Yalo is as much a political novel as one that explores the human psyche and our capacity for both love and violence.
Yalo discovered that a man was capable of anything.
Elias Khoury, Yalo
Some people tend to see social networking sites like Facebook as a way to market themselves. But I’m guessing most people don’t realize that the content of their Facebook pages basically becomes the property of Facebook to use pretty much how it likes forever.
This month, Facebook updated its Terms of Use. Here’s what the 13th paragraph says:
You hereby grant Facebook an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to (a) use, copy, publish, stream, store, retain, publicly perform or display, transmit, scan, reformat, modify, edit, frame, translate, excerpt, adapt, create derivative works and distribute (through multiple tiers), any User Content you (i) Post on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof subject only to your privacy settings or (ii) enable a user to Post, including by offering a Share Link on your website and (b) to use your name, likeness and image for any purpose, including commercial or advertising, each of (a) and (b) on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof.
(Emphasis added.)
Translated from legalese: not only can Facebook use anything you put there — pictures, posts, what have you — however it wants at no cost forever, it can also use your name and photo “for any purpose” forever as long as the use is somehow “in connection with” Facebook or the promotion of Facebook. Moreover, here’s what Facebook deleted from that paragraph: “If you choose to remove your User Content, the license granted above will automatically expire, however you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content.”
Don’t like it? Tough. The Terms of Use say at the outset that Facebook “reserve[s] the right, at our sole discretion, to change or delete portions of these Terms at any time without further notice. Your continued use of the Facebook Service after any such changes constitutes your acceptance of the new Terms.” So, even though you weren’t given direct notice of the change, if you’ve used Facebook in the last couple weeks, you’ve agreed that it can use your name and photo.
Granted, most of us probably don’t have a lot of material on Facebook that’s of value. But if you’re an artist, do you really want your work appearing in a Facebook ad without compensation or perhaps any attribution? Do you want the photo a friend posts that makes you or your spouse look silly being used to promote Facebook without your permission?
Hoping to quell an internet uproar about these provisions, Mark Zuckerberg, one of the founders of Facebook, sought to reassure users in a blog post Monday afternoon. “In reality, we wouldn’t share your information in a way you wouldn’t want,” he wrote.
Let’s assume Zuckerberg is sincere and somehow knows how any of us would want any information shared. I hate to tell you, but in reality his statement carries no weight compared to the Terms of Use you have already agreed “you have read, understand and are bound by.”
The bottom line? To paraphrase an old internet catchphrase: “All your content are belong to us.”
UPDATE: Facebook Wednesday announced it has withdrawn the new terms of use. Here’s what it posted:
Over the past few days, we have received a lot of feedback about the new terms we posted two weeks ago. Because of this response, we have decided to return to our previous Terms of Use while we resolve the issues that people have raised. For more information, visit the Facebook Blog.
If you want to share your thoughts on what should be in the new terms, check out our group Facebook Bill of Rights and Responsibilities.
Actually responding to user complaints. Quite the concept.
If we have a property system, and that system is properly balanced to the technology of a time, then it is wrong to take property without the permission of a property owner.
Lawrence Lessig, Free Culture
As I’ve indicated before, because my musical formative years were when vinyl LPs were the mainstay, I believe musicians put songs on an album in a particular order for a reason. As a result, I rarely use the shuffle feature on my iPod. But last month my kids convinced me it was at least worth trying while walking the track at the local gym.
As a result, I’ve used the shuffle feature more in the last four weeks than in the prior two years. One of the things it has brought home is how varied or eclectic my musical tastes are. Here’s the tunes it produced the last time:
- “Flying (Part 2),” Keith Jarrett, Gary Peacock and Jack Dejohnette, Setting Standards. Excellent jazz and a good way to start a walk but, clocking in at just under 15 minutes, a tad long for exercise purposes.
- “A Six Pack To Go,” Leon Russell, Hank Wilson’s Back. A fun chance of pace, although a drastic shift in genre. For some reason, iPod classifes Russell’s 1973 release consisting entirely of country music covers as “Pop.”
- “Make You Feel Better,” Red Hot Chili Peppers, Stadium Arcadium. Nothing wrong with a transition to decent, recent rock — even if it is another rather rapid shift in genres.
- “Son Of Orange County,” Frank Zappa, Roxy & Elsewhere. Not a bad transition at all but a selection that proves my point. The track cuts off just as Zappa and the band are segueing “More Trouble Every Day” and the two tunes really belong together on this live recording.
- “The Wrestler,” Bruce Springsteen, Working on a Dream. Nothing wrong with a switch to new Springsteen.
- “Cody, Cody,” The Flying Burrito Brothers, Sin City: The Very Best of the Flying Burrito Brothers. Springsteen’s tune is actually a good transition into this song from the second LP of this early — and often overlooked — country rock band (with emphasis on “country”).
- “Hear Me Lord,” George Harrison, All Things Must Pass. While this might be another transition too quick, I never complain about hearing a tune off this album.
- “Baba O’Riley,” The Who, Who’s Next. With a classic rock roll here, this cut off The Who’s best album is also an excellent tune for the gym.
- “Tired Of Waiting,” The Flock, The Flock. This cover of The Kinks’ tune surpasses the original and is one of the highlights of the first eponymous LP by this far too ignored progressive/jazz rock band out of Chicago.
- “Cinnamon Girl,” Neil Young, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere . More classic rock but this tune — a favorite of mine — fits in well with the flavor Leon Russell and the Burrito Brothers gave this set.
- “Apple Scruffs,” George Harrison, All Things Must Pass. The only artist and album that’s repeated, I repeat: I never complain about hearing a tune off this album.
- “Blue In Green (Take 1),” Bill Evans, Portrait in Jazz. Having opened with jazz, this seems a perfect wind down, especially since it comes from the Keepnews Collection edition.
There you have it. As might be expected, a lot of what is now called “classic rock,” but which was the music that was the seed bed of my musical tastes. The touch of country rock and jazz reflects changes in and the evolution of my tastes in my late teens and early 20s. While I’d still rather hear an album in the order the musician(s) intended, I must say this was an interesting journey around the track at the gym.
It’s only teenage wasteland.
“Baba O’Riley,” The Who, Who’s Next
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