From: owner-onlyjoni-digest@smoe.org (onlyJMDL Digest) To: onlyjoni-digest@smoe.org Subject: onlyJMDL Digest V2010 #360 Reply-To: joni@smoe.org Sender: owner-onlyjoni-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-onlyjoni-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk Archives: http://www.smoe.org/lists/onlyjoni Websites: http://www.jmdl.com http://www.jonimitchell.com Unsubscribe: mailto:onlyjoni-digest-request@smoe.org?body=unsubscribe onlyJMDL Digest Saturday, January 1 2011 Volume 2010 : Number 360 ========== TOPICS and authors in this Digest: -------- JMDL Facebook page [] Re: SJC? Happy new year and thanks for a good year [Bob Muller ] Re: Facebook and Happy New Year! [] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 31 Dec 2010 00:25:14 -0800 From: Subject: JMDL Facebook page Hi Lieve and all, I don't think there is any way FB would ever supplant the list! No worries. I also was surprised last night to suddenly get a flood of emails from the JMDL FB group but it was also fun to have everyone pop up from all over, too. What is great about it is that people have found lots of former list members on FB and so there has been a few happy reunions going on. The JMDL FB group is not at all like the discussion list - it's just fun, short and chatty (and sometimes gossipy) postings amongst many friends. As someone who resisted joining FB for a long, long time, I would now recommend it to anyone who has not yet joined. You can completely control how much or how little info you want posted and choose your "friends" ;-) I hope you will relent and join in, Lieve. It's pretty fun. Kakki ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 31 Dec 2010 07:05:14 -0800 (PST) From: Bob Muller Subject: Re: SJC? Happy new year and thanks for a good year Hi Lieve, Not to worry - the JMDL will continue on as it has. Granted it has quieted a bit but that's mainly due to Joni's retirement, the novelty of this format having worn off, and the fact that most of us old-timers have talked out most Joni topics and there have been few newcomers to re-generate stuff. Facebook, while not replacing the JMDL, has sucked away a lot of the TIME that people spend in recreational computing. Anyway, I've been meaning to chime in about The Kids Are All Right, which I saw Saturday and LOVED. A good story, brilliant acting, and the Joni content was exciting too. Funny that Joni was used to connect the 2 characters that were somewhat at odds, a common denominator of kinds. And, I had intended to post my top 20 albums this week but got caught up getting Covers #132 ready, so look for that next week. Bob NP: Drive-By Truckers, "This F*cking Job" ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 31 Dec 2010 18:32:30 +0000 (GMT) From: Lieve Reckers Subject: Re: SJC? Happy new year and thanks for a good year Dear Terra, Catherine, Kakki, Bob, and Lori, thank you so much for your thoughtful replies and attempts to steady my nerves! I guess I was initially alarmed by Bene mentioning that Dave Blackburn had commented on the potential consequences for the list, without us knowing what exactly had been set up, and that combined with the realisation that the next Holycombe get-together is being discussed on FB and not on this list, just made me feel like: "What the hell is the point of continuing with this list?" Now I am very humbly aware that people are free to join up and use whatever forum they want, and that nobody owes me (or anybody else like me) any loyalty on this list. After all, I am perfectly at liberty to join FB if I think that is where all the fun is happening. So I was only really asking: Is This It? If so, let's not prolong the agony. But from the responses, I guess the answer is not that simple, and at least for some time longer we wil continue with both systems: some of us preferring the discussion on this list, while others have moved themselves and a part of the action onto Facebook. I will, just for the sake of conversation and exchange of ideas, explain why I stubbornly refuse to go on Facebook. To put it simply: if I were living in prison or hospital or be somehow otherwise deprived of another life, I would embrace FB as a total life saver. But I don't want to close my "real life" down. I don't want to find out who has gone on holiday where, or has had a baby, or has done whatever it is, from Facebook. Because there would be just too much of that information, constantly updated and available, all perfectly nice and interesting, but it would stop me from reading a book, get out into the park, listen to my local jazz band or see the latest art exhibition - not to mention find out how my friends or family are doing by seeing them face to face, or speaking with them on the phone, or writing a personal email to them. That is the contact I don't want to lose, and I see people around me everywhere giving it up without question. To me FB cheapens and trivialises real contact, and there is simply no time to do both. I thought this list, when I joined it, was beautiful. Where else could you find such witty, tolerant and intelligent people who were dedicated to proper writing? It chimed so much with the spirit of Joni Mitchell, the connection with her explained it all to me. But it has slowly been disappearing. Bob says it is because Joni hasn't done anything active for so long, and I guess that could be part of the reason but not all of it, I feel. I do think FB has used up the time people had available to write, so the writing misses out now. Facebook makes sense to me in the way it started: as a way to connect students on a campus. But to transfer all our social contacts to it? No way, that feels like a nightmare! I think that one day people may look back with regret and think: "Did we really do that to ourselves?" It's like celebrity culture, the illusion to be important just because we appear on Facebook. And then I haven't started on Twitter yet. Yes, let's fill my last available minutes with checking what some person or other has tweeted... oh PLEASE, when will it stop? Sorry, I have allowed myself to rant now. But it feels good to get it off my chest - ha! I came here for conversation, and my wish to all of you for 2011 is that there will still be real conversation on this list at the end of the new year! Plus, of course, my very best wishes for health, peace, love and happiness to all of you, even if you're on Facebook! :-) Lieve in London ________________________________ From: T Peckham To: Lieve Reckers ; JMDL Sent: Thu, 30 December, 2010 21:43:49 Subject: Re: SJC? Happy new year and thanks for a good year Dear Lieve, just so you know: I'm an initially-very-reluctant and still-often-complaining-about-it Facebooker, and this JMDL "live chat" thing is brand-new. It just popped up late last night on my FB page and in my email account where I receive the List. (Because, obviously, I used this same email address when I signed up for FB.) I haven't even read any of today's chat yet--haven't gotten to it. I've largely stayed out of this conversation when it's come up before, but here are a few thoughts: I don't think it necessarily signals the end of the List--and I don't think anyone who chooses not to be on FB is a dinosaur. As a matter of fact, I think one is ahead of the game in many ways if one is not signed up there. It requires discipline in order not to fritter away time there and vigilance to protect one's information from the relentless data miners. But it has provided me with some very positive things as well, especially getting to know some folks on the List. Much of the allure is the immediacy (and the ability to easily share photos and videos). It is very much what one makes of it. (Altho that is my major complaint: the FB folks have an uncanny knack for "introducing" new formats and features just around the time one has become comfortable with the old. They regularly muck up the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" adage.) While the format lends itself to short quips and quotes, it's possible to have longer discussions. (And now, apparently, LIVE discussions!) So technically, I guess it provides a "chat room" without someone having to separately host one online. (Betraying my dinosaur-era knowledge of such things). I have yet to look into the privacy part of it, tho. (But I bet Chuck has!) ;-) When I joined the List I was initially put off by the way it worked, especially the "Digest Only" option, because I had only experienced a msg. board community format and wasn't accustomed to the sometime lag in responses. (I tried it for a while and found it even more difficult to keep up with--just not my style.) But I soon realized that managing a msg. board (even among the--largely--highly civilized JM community) requires a larger time commitment than a List. I also thought, at the time, that the subscriber-only format meant just that: that only those who belonged to the List could read it--ha ha! I think there is a lot of room for discussion before writing the epitaph for the List format. It would be nice if it were a catalyst for bringing out some of the lurkers. Why not join in and write something? No time? Too shy? Afraid of disagreement? Worried about your privacy? I think there are a couple of things that would revitalize the List--if that's what is wanted--but at least one would require technical changes I don't fully understand. As has been mentioned previously, apparently the SMOE server (?) doesn't allow for the List content to be "locked"--that is, unsearchable by databases and search engines. So the advantage over FB that one thought was there really isn't--tho it's much more obscure than FB. The other has to do with human nature--most people like the "instant gratification" (or not!) of a format like FB or a msg. board. (Tho there certainly can be a lag-time in responses on any online format). Sorry I've blathered on so long here, but I'm still a bit sick, so if anyone's still reading, forgive my lack of editing! I hope perhaps I've sparked more conversation. :-) Terra AKA "Nettie Wherry" on FB ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 31 Dec 2010 12:55:45 -0800 From: Lori Fye Subject: Re: SJC? Happy new year and thanks for a good year Lieve, I completely understand your position on Facebook -- and certainly your position on Twitter. Interestingly, because the FB JMDL group was Mark's "happy accident" and because it generated some concern on the JMDL email list, I find myself checking in *here* more frequently. That may cause me to resume more posting here ... I can sort of feel it coming. I have no plans to leave this list. I've come and gone over the years, but mainly when I've been "gone" I've just been lurking. I have way too many friendships that have come about as a result of this list to ever let it go unless it simply disappears, and I really don't think that will happen. From my point of view, Bob is right about why things have slowed down here. For me, though, it's simply having been a part of this list for 14+ years, and feeling sometimes like I've said most of what I could possibly say. However, when new folks come around and join, and bring with them their impressions of Joni, that often starts a new conversation. That's why I went to the "Joni Joan Mitchell" page on FB the other night to invite people to join us HERE. I didn't mention the FB JMDL group at all. I'd like to see more people HERE, and more new conversations (as well as patience exercised when new people ask questions we've "answered" many, many times over the years). Sometimes, in my more idealistic moods, I see Facebook as a place to gather even more like-minded people -- not just "Joni people" but folks who have the same notion that we all must get along -- but then I've also seen this list similarly. Anyway, for me it's all good. Happy 2011, everyone! Lori who joined this list from San Antonio, TX, then moved to Philaldelphia, PA, then to Alexandria, VA, then to Silver Spring, MD, and the general Washington, DC area, then had a pit stop in San Francisco, now in Santa Rosa, CA, and STILL HERE (and still crazy) after all these years ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 31 Dec 2010 18:36:57 -0500 From: "Richard Flynn" Subject: Happy New Year Have been working like a dog on writing projects and so not going on Facebook or checking e-mail a lot, but . . . Happy New Year to my Joni friends! Richard ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 31 Dec 2010 17:05:07 -0800 From: Subject: Re: Facebook and Happy New Year! Great points, Laura! I am a very visual person and love all the photos and videos and stuff on Facebook. It is also very helpful to get updates on local performances by musicians and artists I love. So much better than to search multiple websites to see where faves might be appearing. Lieve, I share many of your hesitations about the "social media." I still don't text and will never "tweet"! At my age I don't need anything that might make my attention span any shorter than it is sometimes! ;-) I agree that this has resulted in some loss in generall spelling and grammer skills and the use of expressive language. That is why the discussion list remains so special. If there are fests or minifests being organized off the list, I hope people will remember to alert us in here. I've got the martinis chilling and am getting ready to run around the neighborhood tonight ringing in 2011 in sunny, freezing L.A. Wishing the very best to everyone for a happy, healthy and fun new year! Love, Kakki ------------------------------ End of onlyJMDL Digest V2010 #360 ********************************* ------- Post messages to the list by clicking here: mailto:joni@smoe.org Unsubscribe by clicking here: mailto:onlyjoni-digest-request@smoe.org?body=unsubscribe