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Music Monday – The Cream of Britpop Class of 1995 – Where Are They Now?

Noel Gallagher quit Oasis last year (apparently for good this time – it used to be a weekly occurrence back in the day) so the core of the group has reformed as “Beady Eye” with a newly released album, “Different Gear, Still Speeding”, which is pretty rocking…

Blur reunited last year but much more interestingly, Damon Albarn’s side project, Gorillaz, is having more success in the US than Blur ever did (outside of “Whooo hooo” aka “Song 2” which has become a worldwide sports arena anthem.)  Gorillaz most recent album was completely recorded on an iPad.

Pulp have also reunited for a series of 2011 shows though it remains to be seen if they’ll cause as much controversy as during their heyday.

Posted 28 February 2011 § MusicMonday § PopCulture § Uncategorized § Video ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: ,

Signs of the Apocalypse? Brad Wall has 666 followers on Twitter!!!

I did a similar post pointing this out about Dwain Lingenfelter’s Facebook page during the leadership race so I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that I just noticed Brad Wall currently has 666 followers on Twitter!

(The big difference is that a lot of the Sask Party’s support comes from more fundamentalist, literalist Christians so there are probably some who will see this graphic and seriously believe that this is somehow an indication that Brad Wall is secretly aligned with the devil. Until they see an image of Grant Devine burned into their toast tomorrow morning – then they’ll be re-assured that all is well! ;-))

Oh, and that “Following – 0” is pretty telling too!  Doesn’t Brad Wall care about getting any feedback at all from the myriad Saskatchewan Twitter users out there on all sides of the political spectrum?  Wouldn’t it be nice if he subscribed to say, the RCMP Heritage Centre’s Twitter feed or the Globe Theatre’s and occasionally retweeted their posts to help promote these great Saskatchewan organizations?

Posted 27 February 2011 § Politics § Technology § Uncategorized ‡ Comments (1) ° Tagged:

FTRW 2011 – Day Seven – Saturday Snap – Pace writes his name for the first time!

This post has nothing to do with censorship but everything with the power of the written word.

Even though we’re a librarian and a public heath nurse with a special interest in early childhood development, I’d say we’ve been fairly typical in terms of guiding Pace’s literacy development – reading stories is part of our bedtime routine, we sing songs, we play with words (he loves knock knock jokes!), we recite the alphabet (he’s close but doesn’t quite know it from end to end yet.)

But I suspect someday soon he’ll surprise us and just blurt out the whole thing from A-Z, just as he surprised us the other day by saying “I have something to show you!” then bringing out his Magna Doodle from his room with the pictured letters on it.

If I’m honest, I’d say that working on actually writing letters was something we hadn’t really spent a lot of time on. We’d taught him to write a P but otherwise, drawing time tended to be shapes or scribbles (or dad drawing tanks and fighter jets) only.

I know he sees the word “Pace” all around – we have a custom bath towel with his name on it hanging in his room, an Italian Peace/Pace flag hanging there as well. I even bought a John Lennon poster for his room simply because it had the word “Peace” in various languages on it (including Italian – “Pace”).

Still, even though he sees those letters every day, it blew our minds when he showed us what he’d written. In terms of developmental milestones, learning to write your first word (yeah, I know technically he’s written “AECP”) pretty much unlocks everything that will come after for the rest of a life – from going to school to reading a newspaper to filling out a job application – writing is so core to everything we do.

Freedom to read, indeed! I hope you had a good week and spent some time thinking about the issues that are on the forefront of freedom of expression and censorship but also the lesser reported ones, those day-to-day triumphs that help keep that freedom alive.

I started this post by saying it didn’t really have anything to do with censorship (unlike all the other posts I’ve done during this and previous FTRWs.) But on second thought, it has everything to do with censorship.

When people are illiterate, for whatever reason – a failed school system, a lack of parental involvement, learning disabilities, living somewhere that the government or other powerful societal forces condone illiteracy – those people are effectively censored from being full citizens…to the detriment of us all.

Posted 26 February 2011 § Family § SaturdaySnap § Uncategorized ‡ Comments (1) ° Tagged: ,

FTRW 2011 – Day Six – Friday Fun Link – Leck mich im Arsch

One of Mozart’s lesser known works from his punk classical phase. 😉

 

Posted 25 February 2011 § FridayFunLink § PopCulture ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , ,

FTRW 2011 – Day Five – Karma’s A Bitch! (aka RPL Endorses Censorship…Maybe?)

During my FTRW series last year, I did one post about a book that had been removed from Saskatoon Public Library back in 2004.  Beyond having fun with the healthy rivalry between our two fine cities, I also tried to make a serious point.

In addition to sounding like a really flimsy reason to remove a book (boo!), I also talked about how I worried that this may have direct implications for Regina Public Library, especially in our more closely linked age of SILS.  I used a hypothetical example of someone successfully getting a joke book removed in Saskatoon for its use of the “n” word then somebody in Regina wanting to ban a book for the same reason – except the book in Regina could be “Huckleberry Finn”. (Of course, RPL could just order them the new, improved version!)

Well, karma’s a bitch because RPL ended up having its own mini-censorship controversy this year.  This wasn’t around a book being removed though – it had to do with video of a naked lady! <gasp, shock, horror!!!>

(“What?  She was in a pool, underwater, with barely any “naughty” bits visible? Oh…”  To be honest, I thought it would be funny if I went to that last link and saw the video had been removed by YouTube as being inappropriate.  But our local Prairie Dog magazine was pretty clever as putting it as a semi-restricted link.  Come to think of it, that’d be an interesting test – post the video publicly as is and see if YouTube deletes it?  They have different rules and standards than a library or an art gallery of course.  But posting it as a semi-hidden file maybe indicates that there was some recognition that it would violate YouTube’s guidelines at the minimum?)

Now, for those who don’t know, RPL is very fortunate to be one of only two public libraries in Canada with a fully-integrated, full-service art gallery.  (I think Cambridge is the only other one?)  That means the the RPL’s Dunlop Art Gallery has a full complement of staff, professionally curated shows, Canada Council grants, a publishing program of their own, etc.

Of course, having an art gallery in-house does often lead to challenging exhibitions that have drawn controversy in the past as well.   But the mission of the library and the art gallery are closely aligned and Freedom of Expression is at the core of a lot of what each does.

Even though I work for RPL and also know the artist in question – aka “the naked lady” – having gotten to know her a little bit after I was invited to submit an essay for a book the Friends of the RPL group is doing to celebrate RPL’s 100th Anniversary, I also recognize that I wasn’t privy to every letter that went back and forth, every phone conversation that led to this.  So from my point of view, a lot of this controversy becomes a “he-said, she-said” situation.

(The artist’s connection to RPL’s Friends of the Library group is another wrinkle in this story.  Unlike a lot of library friends groups, RPL’s sprang up in opposition to some proposed branch closures (as well as the Dunlop Art Gallery) back in 2003 which makes for a much more complicated, layered relationship between the library and its friends than exists elsewhere.)

Now, because I get a nice slip of paper from RPL every second Friday that helps me to eat and buy toys for my son and take vacations to nice warm climates on occasion, I am predisposed to think that RPL can do no wrong. 😉  But without getting into who I think was right or wrong in this particular circumstance (does it sound like I’m censoring my thoughts a bit here?  Ironic, doncha think?), I do think it’s really unfortunate that RPL – again rightly or wrongly – is being portrayed as the ones endorsing censorship instead of fighting it.  (Even worse that a local fashion boutique gets to play that role instead.)

I think one of the commentors in the very active Prairie Dog thread where they post the unedited video which is the source of the controversy said it best.  (paraphrasing) “Library patrons can walk by a computer and see something offensive, they can walk by an art book that’s been left open on a table and see something that’s offensive, they can open hundreds of books and see written descriptions of sex, violence, foul language, blasphemy and who knows what else.”

To bring it back to Huck Finn, this fitting Mark Twain quote has been my e-mail sig for the last month:  “Censorship is telling a man he can’t have steak just because a baby can’t chew it.”

Posted 24 February 2011 § Library § PopCulture § Video § Work ‡ Comments (1) °

FTRW 2011 – Day Four – Political Censorship

There are numerous ongoing examples of governments and political institutions preventing the sharing of information – often in the name of “security” but often, more accurately, in the name of “not being embarrassed”.

Posted 23 February 2011 § Politics § PopCulture § Video ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , , , ,

FTRW 2011 – Day Three – Banning Books For Fun & Profit

A few links about where the place where writing, publishing and selling controversial books intersects…

Posted 22 February 2011 § Library § Politics § PopCulture ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , , ,

FTRW 2011 – Day Two – Music Monday – “Like sex on the beaches/What else is in the teaches of peaches? Huh? What?”

We screened a few films during library school that either had a library theme (Party Girl) or that somehow related to library issues.

One that we showed which is very heavily connected to the concept of freedom to read/freedom of speech was “The Aristocrats” and my frequent partner-in-crime, Quinn Dupont outdid himself by playing this song (a different video mash-up than this one though the one below would’ve worked too) before the film started as people walked into the lecture room we were using.  (I think only one person walked in then turned around and walked right back out! ;-))

Posted 21 February 2011 § Library § MusicMonday ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: ,

FTRW 2011 – Day One – Fat Vampire Banned, Somewhere

Time for my annual weekly series of posts for Freedom to Read Week.  (Yay!)

I’ll start with a great response from a YA novelist to a parent who got the writer’s book removed from a school library.

All the core points of any book challenge are there in this brief letter: you should monitor you own child’s reading but that doesn’t give you the right to try to control what others read, it’s the publisher and the school library who ultimately put the book there so writing to the author (who isn’t going to stop writing) isn’t very useful.  And anytime you get a book removed, you’re basically guaranteeing it more attention and more sales so nah-nah-boo-boo.  (Er, he doesn’t say this but I’m reading between the lines! ;-))

Posted 20 February 2011 § Library ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged:

The Heritage Classic and The Playoff Race Is On!

Today’s the second ever Heritage Classic outdoor hockey game (Heritage Classic is in Canada – there’s also an annual outdoor game/marketing bonanza in the US called the Winter Classic.)

Today’s game is between the Montreal Canadiens and the Calgary Flames and even if you’re not a hockey fan, it’s worth paying attention to how the season is going right now with a couple months left until the playoffs start.

The Flames are my team but have had a pretty crappy season, being in second-last place in their division just a couple months ago and basically sucking pretty hard all year long.

Fans were up in arms speculating about trading the team’s captain and long-time face of the franchise, Jarome Iginla which would basically indicate the Flames were blowing up the whole team and going into full rebuild mode.

But they’ve gone on an unreal run after their GM got fired resigned at the end of December – getting at least a point in something like 21 of their last 25 games – which is unheard of in the NHL by *any* team and where the top teams play about .650 hockey.  That run has catapulted the Flames back into a playoff spot (well, they’re currently in 9th spot and the top 8 teams in each division make the playoffs.)

The league’s parity (which is part of the reason teams don’t go on 16-4-5 runs) especially in the Western Division where the Flames play most of their games meant that at one point last week, FIVE of the eight playoff spots had teams tied with the exact same number of points (I think it was 86.)  Today, three points separate the team in 4th spot from the team in 10th spot. Only ten points (five wins) separate the 4rd spot from the 13th.

One thing working against the Flames’ claiming one of those top eight spots is that they’ve played more games than most of the teams they’re competing against (eg. those other teams still have games-in-hand to gain points on the Flames).  But there are some things in the Flames’ favour including a lot of home games which usually give an advantage to the home team – both because of crowd support but also in a practical sense because the home team gets last change and an advantage on face-offs too because they put their sticks down last.

So yeah, if you want to catch the excitement, check out the forum on CalgaryPuck.com and read a few of the threads, especially the ones debating the Flames odds of making the playoffs.  You can also check out this site, aimed at sports bettors, which numerically shows the impact of not only the Flames wins and loses but shows you which other teams to cheer for each night to give the Flames the best odds of making the playoffs as well!

Posted 20 February 2011 § PopCulture ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , ,