From: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org (loud-fans-digest) To: loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Subject: loud-fans-digest V7 #112 Reply-To: loud-fans@smoe.org Sender: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk loud-fans-digest Thursday, May 10 2007 Volume 07 : Number 112 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: [loud-fans] In An Unimaginably Ugly Coincidence... [Scout82667@aol.co] [loud-fans] local music scenes + internet ["outbound-only email address" ] [loud-fans] age differences/faith differences [Scout82667@aol.com] Re: [loud-fans] age differences/faith differences [2fs Subject: [loud-fans] local music scenes + internet A few random thoughts If you read through the reviews column of pretty much any issue of Punk Planet, you'll see adjectives like "DC punk," "SoCal punk," "Louisville-style," "Minneapolis-style" etc. applied to bands that have no geographic ties to the regions mentioned. The pacific northwest band Dwindle, for instance, recorded much of their output with DC-based producer/recording artist J. Robbins (Jawbox, Burning Airlines, etc.). I think the 'net makes it easier to connect with people into the same stuff who happen to be somewhere else, but there's also a feedback loop. Any local scene I've been familiar with enough to comment on has a lot of diversity, but to the extent that the scene is identified with a sound, that identification makes it harder for bands who don't embrace the sound to get traction. There were a lot of bands in DC that didn't sound anything like DC punk (a few were even on DC punk labels like DisChord) but it was harder for them to get press. Craigslist is any amazing tool for hooking musicians up. I joined the Hyphens as a consequence of searching for people looking for bass players in the Boston region. I looked about a hundred want-ads and compiled a list of maybe ten that were worth a call, I had auditions lined up in a couple days. The difference between the pre-internet era is that you'd have to watch the local indie weeklies and haunt the 3x5 card section of the local music stores for several weeks to get the breadth that I got in a single hour. Promotion is SO much cheaper in the internet age, but the payoff is also lower. When the pre-Feckless Beast band played a show, we spent, I dunno, maybe $20 sending out postcards? But then, the postcards were much cooler than e-mails. I've tracked thousands of downloads on songs posted on the Internet which is very ego-gratifying, but it doesn't seem to translate into more people at the gigs. Does Providence, Rhode Island have the world's-highest per capita of awesome bands right now? I think it well might. What's up with that? The Internet's gotta responsible somehow. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 May 2007 16:48:00 EDT From: Scout82667@aol.com Subject: [loud-fans] age differences/faith differences How much of an age difference between a couple is too much? No more than 10 years? 15? Does it matter? Some say yeah and some nah. What this has to do with Scott Miller or music, I don't know. My stepfather was 17 years younger than my mom, and it worked for them, I think, until she got into her sixties--she was in a different phase of life than he. Feedback appreciated--I guess off the list is appropriate. What about different spiritual beliefs? Is it disaster waiting to happen for people of different faiths to marry? - --Mark ************************************** See what's free at http://www.aol.com. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 May 2007 17:16:38 -0500 From: 2fs Subject: Re: [loud-fans] age differences/faith differences On 5/9/07, Scout82667@aol.com wrote: > > How much of an age difference between a couple is too much? No more than > 10 > years? 15? Does it matter? It matters only insofar as it makes a difference - and it makes a difference only insofar as it creates incompatibility. The older you get, the less relevant it's likely to be (unless, I suppose, the hypothetical couple is thinking of having children, in which case one partner's relatively advanced age could conceivably be a problem). What about different spiritual beliefs? Is it disaster waiting to happen > for people of different faiths to marry? Depends on how strongly held the faith, and how dogmatic the faith (or the holding). My advice - probably worth what it cost you ;-) - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 May 2007 12:41:27 -1000 From: "R. Kevin Doyle" Subject: Re: [loud-fans] age differences/faith differences > On 5/9/07, Scout82667@aol.com wrote: > > > > How much of an age difference between a couple is too much? No > more than > > 10 > > years? 15? Does it matter? Well, there is always the Tskebe Formula, which purports to mathematically calculate what age is "too young" or "too old" for you. Tskebe being a Japanese word which is an adjective that describes a dirty old man. Take your age, divide it in half, add seven. This will give you the younger age. For example, I am 39. Half of that is 19.5, but we'll round up to 20. Add 7 and my lowest age is 27. Fortunately, my fiance is 29. To calculate up, subtract seven from your age and then double that number. For me, that would be 64. If you are living in a state with more liberal dating beliefs, I suppose you could reduce the number to 5. As far as religious beliefs go, well, I've seen couples that were absolutely sure they could work it out until they had kids and then all hell broke loose. I think if you've agreed to compromise, you have to address that issue as soon as its clear that you want to spend the rest of your lives together. R. Kevin ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 May 2007 19:26:30 -0400 From: "Michael Bowen" Subject: Re: [loud-fans] age differences/faith differences On 5/9/07, Scout82667@aol.com wrote: > What about different spiritual beliefs? Is it disaster waiting to happen > for people of different faiths to marry? If you marry an atheist, particularly one from the northeast, you're OK. If you marry a Southern Baptist, you might as well start looking at divorce lawyers right now. http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_dira.htm MB ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 May 2007 19:06:46 -0500 From: 2fs Subject: Re: [loud-fans] age differences/faith differences On 5/9/07, Michael Bowen wrote: > > On 5/9/07, Scout82667@aol.com wrote: > > > What about different spiritual beliefs? Is it disaster waiting > to happen > > for people of different faiths to marry? > > If you marry an atheist, particularly one from the northeast, you're > OK. If you marry a Southern Baptist, you might as well start looking > at divorce lawyers right now. > > http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_dira.htm My favorite part of this was when one representative of a born-again community said, essentially, that if someone calling themselves born again got divorced, they weren't really a born-again. Thereby reducing the divorce rate among born-agains to zero - definitionally, in that anyone who divorces ipso facto can't be a born-again. Convenient! As "Doonesbury" pointed out a few weeks back, three leading Republican presidential contenders have five divorces among them (McCain, Giuliani, Gingrich); three leading Democrats (Clinton, Obama, Edwards) have none... - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 May 2007 17:32:22 -0700 (PDT) From: zoom@muppetlabs.com Subject: Re: [loud-fans] In An Unimaginably Ugly Coincidence... >> "penned a (allegedly) masterpiece"? I'm afraid I don't quite follow. > > Well, you'd have to change it from an adverb to an adjective..."alleged." I did mean to say that she allegedly wrote it, rather than, the book is allegedly a masterpiece. Probably safe to say the novel's more popular with readers and teachers, than with critics. To select a somewhat-arbitrary illustration of the disparity between popular and critical opinion: http://www.randomhouse.com/modernlibrary/100bestnovels.html ...although Capote too makes the grade, over in non-fiction: http://www.randomhouse.com/modernlibrary/100bestnonfiction.html >> Curiously, Capote also "hid under the tsunami of >> > [his] >> > own fame" (as did, speaking of writers with one and only one novel but >> > hugely successful and/or influential) Ralph Ellison. >> >> Not sure I follow, again. Capote adored the limelight, and may well >> have >> furnished Lee with a negative example to reverse-follow. > > Yes, I just meant that for all these writers' fame (even though they dealt > with it differently - Lee by disappearing, pretty much) none of them > managed to finish another full-length novel. According to Shields--though we have only Lee's sister as a source for this story--Harper Lee was almost finished with a second novel, only to lose the manuscript to a burglar. She then planned a work of non-fiction work based on a man whose relatives kept mysteriously dying, but that never saw light of day either. As Wikipedia notes, Ellison had a second novel underway when a house fire destroyed his manuscripted. He never recovered from that loss, although he went back to work and the new version eventually saw print after his death, as JUNETEENTH. Capote's ANSWERED PRAYERS eventually saw print after his own death. Admittedly, though, it's a short book, leaving out some material published during Capote's lifetime that he probably meant to be included. Depending on who's asked, pieces of the controversial work may have been destroyed by the author, or by others. > According to the Shields book, Ms. Lee, however, made an enormous, and >> hardly acknowledged, contribution to IN COLD BLOOD, starting, but not >> finishing, with her ability to charm and open doors when the >> flamboyantly >> bizarre Capote went over like a lead balloon out in Kansas. The movie >> INFAMOUS depicts a fair portion of this. > > Haven't seen that one yet - but _Capote_ certainly makes this clear as > well > (perhaps not as strongly...though, again, haven't seen _Infamous_ yet). I find INFAMOUS a far superior work, though flawed (the talking heads grated on me). For one thing, Toby Jones inhabits the character of Capote, where Philip Seymour Hoffman went about posturing as though at a Halloween party. And Gwyneth Paltrow sings Cole Porter, Andy "However, to the American administration, trying Posada Carriles as a terrorist was like putting itself on trial." - --from http://www.miamiherald.com/416/story/101105.html ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 May 2007 20:33:42 EDT From: Scout82667@aol.com Subject: Re: [loud-fans] age differences/faith differences In a message dated 5/9/2007 6:50:00 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, r.kevin.doyle@gmail.com writes: If you are living in a state with more liberal dating beliefs, I suppose you could reduce the number to 5. Or, if you live in South Carolina, you could start dating the other person if they were at least 5. LOL. Thanks for the feedback, everyone. M ************************************** See what's free at http://www.aol.com. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 May 2007 19:48:29 -0500 From: 2fs Subject: Re: [loud-fans] age differences/faith differences On 5/9/07, Scout82667@aol.com wrote: > > In a message dated 5/9/2007 6:50:00 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, > r.kevin.doyle@gmail.com writes: > > If you are living in a state with more liberal dating beliefs, I suppose > you > could reduce the number to 5. > > > Or, if you live in South Carolina, you could start dating the other person > if they were at least 5. Yeah, but only when she makes the first move. - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 May 2007 17:48:22 -0700 (PDT) From: zoom@muppetlabs.com Subject: Re: [loud-fans] local music scenes + internet >There were a lot of bands in DC that didn't sound anything like > DC > punk (a few were even on DC punk labels like DisChord) but it was harder for > them to get press. Case in point, the Happy Flowers, easily one of my favorite bands ever. Recorded by the same guy who recorded Ian MacKaye's interminable eat-your-vegetables posturing, but exponentially more precious, not to mention hilarious. > Does Providence, Rhode Island have the world's-highest per capita of awesome > bands right now? I think it well might. What's up with that? The Internet's > gotta responsible somehow. Of which bands do you speak? Frankly, they're all guided by the spirit of H.P. Lovecraft, Andy "I Am Providence" - --epitaph on H.P. Lovecraft's headstone, Swan Point Cemetery, Providence, Rhode Island, viewable at http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=1188 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 May 2007 19:46:29 -0500 From: 2fs Subject: Re: [loud-fans] In An Unimaginably Ugly Coincidence... On 5/9/07, zoom@muppetlabs.com wrote: > > > > > As Wikipedia notes, Ellison had a second novel underway when a house fire > destroyed his manuscripted. He never recovered from that loss, although > he went back to work and the new version eventually saw print after his > death, as JUNETEENTH. Sort of: as a review in the latest _Harper's_ of a new bio of Ellison points out, what was lost in the fire seemed to become more and more major, and correspondingly its effects upon Ellison, as the years went by and Ellison wove the event into his speaking gigs. - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 May 2007 19:12:45 -0700 (PDT) From: Gil Ray Subject: Re: [loud-fans] age differences/faith differences - --- 2fs wrote: > > Or, if you live in South Carolina, you could start > dating the other person > > if they were at least 5. > > Yeah, but only when she makes the first move. ..and is your cousin.. Gil ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 May 2007 22:04:43 -0700 (PDT) From: zoom@muppetlabs.com Subject: Re: [loud-fans] age differences/faith differences > As far as religious beliefs go, well, I've seen couples that were > absolutely > sure they could work it out until they had kids and then all hell broke > loose. I think if you've agreed to compromise, you have to address that > issue as soon as its clear that you want to spend the rest of your lives > together. I'm always fascinated at how Van Morrison, Patti Smith, Lester Bangs, and the Jacksons, all came from families in which one parent was Jehovah's Witness and the other was not. David Thomas might have got it from both sides, though... Andy "I love my wife's brother's wife." - --written inside the men's toilet at the Fun House bar, Seattle ------------------------------ End of loud-fans-digest V7 #112 *******************************