Back to index of "this and that in my life" pages by Donald Sauter.
Dedicated to the proposition that every thought that's ever been thunk may be of use or interest to someone . . .
ME: Subject: duos
I've got a new system for controlling your duo parts for
potential performance. I've moved everything to a notebook,
which we could add to at your place. Can't do that with plastic
comb binding.
The main point is, whatever you think has possibilities as gig
material, make a copy so we can put it in your notebook. Let me
know, too, so I can add it to mine.
For instance, you mentioned renaissance, and I think we should
add the John Johnson Flatt Pavin duos from the Noad book. (Even
though I think we should only perform one of them.) Lesson For
Two Lutes, Rossignol, Drewrie's Accordes, and Toy For Two Lutes
are all good, too, but I doubt we need them all.
I've added that Brazilian piece, the Giuliani Polonaise and the
spanishy thing from Noad's Romantic Guitar book as potentials for
Strathmore.
ME: Subject: book reports galore
I finally got the most up-to-date book reports page uploaded.
It's at
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/7049/books.htm
It should be worth at least a C-.
Hope your summer is going well.
ME: Subject: update on wild honey pie
I went around telling everybody, "Hey, somebody found a mistake
in my Beatles game! The other Beatles played on Wild Honey Pie!"
Then I finally looked up the episode in Many Years From Now, page
497, and now I'm not so sure.
Paul talks about all 4 squeezing into a cupboard for Yer Blues,
and later asking the others if he can make something up, but it
doesn't say exactly that the others were present when he got
started.
I thought Wild Honey Pie had always been claimed as a solo Paul
effort in *all* the reference books - even the unreliable ones.
Mark Lewisohn calls it a "one-man McCartney performance" in
Recording Sessions (see Aug 20 1968).
Then I went to look up the original reference in Beatles Book
Monthly, if there was one. Sure enough, Mal Evans discusses the
white album songs one by one in issue 64 (November 1968). He
says Paul "sings and plays both guitar and bass drum, double-
tracking the whole thing so that he finishes up sounding like a
couple of singers and a quartet of guitarists!" The odd thing is
though, before that sentence, Mal wrote, "Paul did this more or
less on his own." What does "more or less" mean, I wonder???
THEE: Subject: New adventures
This morning I go to CompUSA for my class. I'm feeling nervous
like the first day of school! I decided to, at least, sit at our
computer for a few minutes before I go so I don't say, "Computer?
What's a computer?" I hope I learn a lot because I can't get over
how much it cost. It should really be good! I'll get back with
you about it. Wish me luck.
THEE: Subject: Happy Belated Birthday!
I want to let you know that I am retiring as of Wednesday 6/30/99
(in two days!) My new home email is... I had to drop my Hotmail
account because I was getting disgusting mail and they did not
have a way to stop it. I plan on working full-time as an artist
in my retirement. I took one of those Early Retirements where
they pay you to leave!! I have a lot of ideas for starting my
own art related business, too.
THEE: Re: update on wild honey pie
> The odd thing is though, before that sentence, Mal wrote,
"Paul did this more or less on his own." What does "more or
less" mean, I wonder???
I had always thought it to mean that he thought of it on his own
. . . When he says that he asked the others if he could make
something up I took it as to mean he says, "Ok, John, what about
some rhythm guitar there . . . George, we could have this riff
there . . . " sort of thing. That they all just wanted to be
spontaneous and have fun . . . But like I said before, don't take
my word on it. I borrowed "Many Years From Now" from the
library, and so can't read it over again. As to references in
"*all* the reference books - even the unreliable ones", I
couldn't tell you. I was just introduced to the Beatles last
summer and with the tons of reading for school and extra-
curicular activities I try to squeeze in pleasure reading
whenever I can, but I don't get much time. I've only read "A Day
In the Life", "The Official Biography" - the one by Hunter Davis,
I forget the actual title, "Many Years From Now", and anything
else I can get my hands on without bursting my budget.
But in this instance I had pictured them all in the closet, and,
having finished "Yer Blues", Paul asking if they could go into a
jam session. Then, later, Paul wanting to salvage it (I'm not
sure if you have "Flaming Pie" or not, but he did the same thing
I was thinking of with "Really Love You"), he went into the
studio and tracked it, adding extra guitars and vocals. Jam
sessions usually don't produce very complete songs! =) Whether
or not this is how it went, I obviously have no way of knowing.
Does it make sense to you?
ME: Very surprised to see your note in my mailbox, as I had just
been thinking about. One reason is because a third of D.C.'s
Folk Life Festival this year is devoted to New Hampshire (along
with South Africa and Rumania.) I spent some time there on
Saturday. Picked up a piece of N.H. granite as a souvenir. The
N.H. food concession is run by "The Common Man, Ashland, NH".
There are very well-done picture-boards (don't know what to call
them), but saw a glaring typo - "Mondadnock" - on one of them. A
guy who makes covered bridges demonstrates his skills. He
sharpens a chisel so sharp he can shave his arm with it! There's
also music and logging and net-making and a maple syrup house,
etc.
Also, coincidentally, NH was on the mind because Ronnie went up
in June to be best man at his friend's wedding. I'll bet Ronnie
holds the world's record for number of "best man"s. Get this,
the wedding was on top of the Old Man Of The Mountain!
Was hoping an "instructional aide" position would come through at
the elementary school I volunteered at. Now I'm doubtful the
budget will allow it. By the way, there was an awards dinner for
substitutes and volunteers at the school, and while everybody
else got certificates, I got a really nice-looking apple
sculpture trophy for stand-out volunteer work.
The church also had a picnic yesterday. I wasn't planning on
going because for social events like that, I need somebody to
hang on to, but a good friend there talked me into it. Had a
good time; again, mostly with the kids, playing my racquetball
game, and a made up game like volleyball with the kids on the
moon bounce.
I also helped with the planning of the carnival for July 10. I
lined up a steel orchestra, got the elementary school chorus
(even though they're out of school), and Bob and I will do a
short program of guitar duos.
Found someone who wants to buy a copy of all the guitar music
I've been getting out of the Library of Congress. That's
exciting for me. It makes the effort so much more worthwhile,
doing it for others besides just myself. Now, if only a few
thousand guitarists around the world were as enthused as this
man...
Speaking of guitar, there's been another major catastrophe.
Hself's attacks on me whenever I put something in the newsletter
have gotten unbelievably vicious, and the last time meant the
end of me and the newsletter, me and the guitar society, and me
and the trio. Hope Hself's happy.
I had a hard disk failure yesterday and figured it would be
months before I was rolling again. But I gave it another try
tonight, and after failing several more times, it cranked up for
me. That leads me to think it's a power supply problem, rather
than a problem with the disk itself. I've spent hours tonight
backing up everything just in case the next time I turn the
computer off, I never get access to the hard drive again. It's
about 2 am now.
ME: Subject: much too late for subject lines
The trip before that to LC, I almost left a page of their music
on top of the card catalog near the copy machine. I still
shudder every time I think about what would've happened if I left
it there.
I've always enjoyed helping people with the copy machines at LC,
and lately it's been paying off with people giving me their cards
with leftover money on them in gratitude. The last one had $3.10 .
In Dale City last Tuesday, Norm and I hit our McDonald's. (This
mostly for my benefit, as Norm caught a case of dysentery on his
recent vacation to NC.) Still finding goodies on the jukebox.
For the last song, I punched up God Only Knows. We left in the
middle of that with me chuckling, as only I knew what was coming
next, when we'd be a minute down the road - You Know My Name,
Look Up My Number. Hahaha...
A week or so ago, I was about to throw out a Cap'n Crunch box,
but took a glance at the back at the last moment. I was
flabbergasted. It leaves the butcher cover in the dust. There
are all these characters called "Meanies". One is a dead,
runover cat, complete with tire track across the back. Another
is a wicked Burny the Bear starting a forest fire. One is Bare
Bear, trying to cover up his privates. There's a duck bursting
to pee, and snot galore. And here I always put Cap'n Crunch
right up there with Captain Kangaroo.
If I mentioned in a previous message that someone told me that
all the Beatles helped with Wild Honey Pie, I see now that she
misread the McCartney book (p 497). Paul talks about all 4
squeezing into a cupboard for Yer Blues, and later asking the
others if he can make something up, but it doesn't say that the
others were present when he got started.
The odd thing, though, is that Mal wrote in BBM 64 (Nov 1968),
"Paul did this more or less on his own. He sings and plays both
guitar and bass drum, double-tracking the whole thing so that he
finishes up sounding like a couple of singers and a quartet of
guitarists!" What does "more or less" mean?
THEE: I think being able to play "YKMN (LUt[or M]N)" on a jukebox
should be on my list of life's greatest pleasures.
Congratulations. I haven't had that chance in way over 10 years,
I'm sure.
It sounds like you're blasting through the McCartney book.
Highlight well so we can talk about it when I read it in about 10
years. (My shortest backlog book list still has Bloomington
books on it.)
All's not well with our old computer. Firstly, I don't think it
has a monitor. Our monitor seemed to fail each summer, when
people used more power, so we may have tossed it when we moved
last year. Hself was cleaning our storage bin last weekend and
couldn't find it.
Also, I recall that there was dust in the large floppy drive.
Maybe it won't be too hard to clean.
All in all, I'd say these flaws bring its value down to $0 for
selling purposes. I'll talk to you more about it telphonically.
ME: Subject: making hay while the sun shines
The subject line refers using my computer (hence this email)
while it is still running. The next power outage might mean the
death of it, and a few days of scrambling around setting myself
up on a "new" machine.
Went in twice today to the Summer Tent Camp. Had a blast again.
The kids wanted to see my Bantu String Trick fifty times. A
change in plans today meant no "field activities" again, but
there'll be plenty more opportunities.
The tents arrived late and were up today for the first time.
However, there is a lot of dissatisfaction with them, so they're
coming right back down. The Summer Tent Camp will be held inside
for quite a while longer, I guess.
Not "blasting through" the McCartney book. Just looked up that
one paragraph via the index. However, must say that, based on
that one little piece of research, the book seems like it will be
very valuable. I don't remember too much enthusiasm for it when
it was issued.
Speaking of books, I don't remember if I included the url for my
book reports page for you. There's no rush getting to it,
especially since I just added a dopey review of "Sorry, Chief..."
Now that version needs to be uploaded. I'm sure I got "Sorry,
Chief..." from you, right?
Mowed my lawn today, and continued with my lawn work right
through the downpour. I think I started a trend, because other
neighbors came out to work or recreate in the rain.
Was talking with neighbor friend Hself today. He knocked me out
with his encyclopedic Simpson's knowledge. He can play every
episode in his head from beginning to end. I think he gets the
dialog about 97-98% accurate. Any vague memory I had, he could
flesh out the whole scene. I requested Homer sliding out of the
ambulance back into the canyon; the flying pig; Lisa's braces;
and Bart and pal's escapades at the Knoxville World's Fair. He
even had me laughing at a Halloween special that I hated on tv
(where the kids get eaten at school, and everybody pops inside
out after Bart wakes up.)
THEE: Subject: Technology is the most
I'm just grooving to the Jam, part of my current effort to spend
my new year's entertainment allowance in two weeks! The Jam are
cool. They sang the line in our subject field for this evening.
It's been a quiet evening here at 3702.
Did you ask your "Simpsons" buddy about the Yellow Submarine
reference? I stopped keeping episodes when I realized that I
couldn't remember what I had.
You read your Macca book. I'll read "Masters of Deceit" by J.
Edgar Hoover (1961 edition of 1958 book). I need to know "What
the communist bosses are doing now to bring America to its
knees."
ME: Subject: thanks
Also forgot to mention a little anecdote. I met a man at the
Library of Congress recently, and he had a flute he was so proud
of. I know it's a long shot, but I was wondering if his wood
flute was by the same maker as Hself's . His was made in 1995 by
Jan de Winne in Brussels. His isn't modern, though; it's a copy
of an 18th century Carlo Palanca Torino.
ME: Subject: moctezuma or montezuma?
What is the outstanding question about YS in the Simpsons? My
memory says that Lisa had her hallucination in the braces
episode, also famous for it's "Big Book Of British Teeth". There
was also the episode you noted that *needed* the Pepperland theme
as its background music. I forget what made everybody so nice,
but even Itchy and Scratchy were offering each other lemonades.
Forgot to mention in yesterday's message that Hself also
refreshed me on the "Bart goes to military school" episode. The
thing that cracked me up cracked him up, too - Bart nesting 20
bullhorns, saying "Testing", and the shock wave leveling
Springfield.
Foiled for the 3rd day in getting kickball or racquetball going
with the kids. Had fun with word searches inside, instead.
THEE: Subject: Thee Simpsons
I still have not seen the Bart-goes-to-military-school episode!
I remember the episode where Itcy and Scratcy become nice--Marge
leads a community protest to clean the show up. That episode is
a scream!
THEE: Hers is a modern flute made by Verne Q. Powell. She used
to build flutes for the Powell Co. before getting her job in the
Army band. Hers is one of the first of the new wood flutes they
are making. I think the wait is about 3 years.
THEE: Happy 4th of July. Play a Jacobs march today. (there must
be one in your stack, no?) I was just wondering how everything is
going.
ME: Thanks for the 4th of July wishes. My catalog shows 2 works
arranged by Jacobs with "march" in the title - "Vienna Ma Belle
March" and "B.M.I. March". At least the first one should be in
The Guitar Soloist Vol. 1, judging by the layout and typefaces.
The collection actually contains 14 Sousa marches - all
different.
ME: Subject: sont le mon
I did, in fact, successfully retrieve an LC item by copyright
number from Landover on Saturday. If they thought I was a pest
before, now I'm *dangerous*.
There's a great book they keep at the information desk at the
music division. It's generally called "Fuld's", after the
author's name. It tells you the history and composer of hundreds
of songs that are very familiar, but you probably don't know who
wrote it. Things like Marseillaise, Rock-A-Bye Baby, Yankee
Doodle, Aloha, Oe!, The Old Oaken Bucket, Columbia The Gem Of The
Ocean, etc., etc. I've referred to it frequently. In the index,
I spotted "Beatles". I've just decided to turn this into a quiz.
Tell me what one Beatle-composed song is included in this book.
Another great moment in supermarket muzak - Mayor Of Simpleton.
Can I pay Muzak to hook up to my car radio, you think?
Somebody almost drove into me on the BW Parkway Sunday night. It
seems like it's rare when I drive anywhere without some sort of
incident, but this must have been extra special. At least I
don't remember ever screaming before. I really thought this was
it.
Got a call from the music teacher at the elementary school
yesterday cancelling the school chorus for the church carnival.
A conflict came up for her. It was my brainstorm to line it up
and it was going to be a blast. I'm disappointed beyond words.
THEE: Subject: sont le mon--sorry, don't speak German
I'm sorry about your near-miss with a rendezvous with destiny
Sunday night. I hope you're all fine now. I hate stuff like
that and I'm truly grateful that I take the bus to work rather
than drive.
Did you have a nice weekend any way? Our weekend was low key,
though we did go down to the Mall around 8:30 p.m. July 4. It
went incredibly smoothly. We parked at NIH, took the Metro down
to Metro Center, found some unoccupied grass on the Mall, enjoyed
the show, walked up to Union Station but cooled our heels in a
bar for 45 minutes to let the crowds beat us to the Metro, and
got seats on the Metro back to NIH. For all that ease and
convenience, we got a $30 parking ticket at NIH.
I thought we still had a question about which episode of "The
Simpsons" featured the "Yellow Submarine" tribute.
As for the one Beatle song in Fuld's, I'll go with "Thinking of
Linking." Second choice--"Yesterday."
ME: Subject: sont le mont qui von tre bien awnsawm (that's french)
Had fun today helping my guitar partner supply music for a tea at
Strathmore Hall. He's done it 5 or 6 times as a soloist. Our
format was basically alternating duets with his solos. I'm sure
we were well appreciated.
Not Thinking of Linking; not Yesterday. Two old chestnuts, fer
sure, but *everybody* knows where they came from. Nope, Fuld has
apparently determined that most everybody trying to pull birds
strumming a guitar and singing Michelle figures they are doing a
Chevalier, or Halliday, maybe.
Isn't the Yellow Submarine dream scene from Lisa's trip to the
dentist? Did I goof that up?
Hself recounted much of the episode where Marge campaigned to
clean up Itchy and Scratchy. There was Bart's head cast; Maggie
with a pencil; Homer calling Marge a Jane Fonda; the kids going
to their doors rubbing their eyes at the unfamiliar sunlight;
etc.
Your $30 ticket burns me up. Think about it, those jerks
blasting up a Colorado high school, if they hadn't done
themselves in, there would have been millions of dollars worth of
legal machinations (and billions of man hours of attention
devoted to it) but they would never have had to suffer any sort
of pain or sacrifice for their crime. But a parking violation -
the government has that one down pat.
ME: Subject: thanks
Thanks a million for the generous tip. I know what a bummer it
is the way postage alone makes a "free" book more expensive than
what you would pay for it if you saw it on a bargain shelf in a
store, so thanks again. Hope you have some fun with it.
THEE: Subject: Life's unfair
So, Fuld thought it was necessary to identify "Michelle" as a
Fabs' song? Well, OK. I guess he's propagating knowledge.
We did a lot of grumbling about the aprking ticket, of course.
I can tell you all about the legal ins and outs when next we
meet, but be assured that the ticket is in the bills-to-be-paid
pile. This is one battle I shall not fight.
We are going to try to see the Washington Mystics (women's
basketball) tonight.
Back to eBay!
THEE: Subject: Evolution as tautology
Hooray for your evolution page. Make sure you read Neck of the
Giraffe (I think the author is Francis Hitching, a Brit), for a
professional biologist and museum curator that's on your side!
The sleight-of-hand goes like this: Microevolution is self-
evident fact. The only known "cause" for microevolution is
selective pressure. Macroevolution is probably true. Therefore,
macroevolution happened via natural selection. Incredible that
nobody sees the holes in this logic.
Microevolution happens by shuffling existing genes between
individuals of a given genus, like Mendel explained and every
goatherd since before Moses has observed. Macroevolution
involves (AT LEAST) the creation of whole new chromosomes filled
with all new genes. How in the name of hell can this occur via
gradual accumulation? Did the deer with 34 chromosomes evolve
into a giraffe with 36 chromosomes via a creature with 35.07713
chromosomes?
Your thought experiment with bears and whales is similar to one
in Neck of the Giraffe: The idea that a drought made high-up
leaves the only good food source, influencing giraffes-to-be that
were a few inches taller to have a selective advantage over the
average ones, is rubbish. How did any females survive, given
that they are a whole meter shorter than the males? How did the
adolescents survive, given that they're even shorter? Enough
environmental pressure to cause ANY males to starve would wipe
out adolescents and females, making the race extinct. Besides,
geology proves that the climate was warm and rainy, so where was
the drought?
And don't let anybody tell you that this debate is "just
semantics" or "unimportant." Kids sense the "softness" in
biology and turn away in droves. People are dying of cancer
because our research dollars were given to researchers following
"politically correct" (ie, pro-evolution) ideas about how
microorganisms work, rather than just following what seems to
work without ideology.
THEE: Subject: Ford Frick quote
It's the reason capitalism destroys such nitwit things as racism:
it only takes one team to break the color barrier, and its
broken. Competition forces people to try outlandish things, and
they get kept when they work. This kind of evolution DOES work.
Are you familiar with the quote (I can't find who said it) by
some university president (I think at Harvard) who let the first
black student in? Some preppie geek student came in to say that
he had a petition signed by over 50% of the students saying that
they would quit if the black kid stayed. The president said that
the Board of Governors vote was final, and they controlled the
money. "What if most of the students quit?" "The university is
prepared to spend its entire budget educating that one student
who stays!" None of the white students quit, and that was the
last we heard about that.
THEE: Re: Message to Beatlefest
> This is Donald Sauter, who produced Beatle Significa. I see
your catalog is bigger than ever, and I hear the vendors are
still going great guns at Beatlefest. So I find myself ever more
baffled why Beatle Significa was quashed some years ago. Was it
singled out for some reason? Or is every last item on every
dealer table now licensed with Apple? That seems very unlikely to
me. Apple would never communicate with me, beyond "give us all
the games and all your profits." Any advice or help still
greatly appreciated.
ME: Subject: Fiddle: Bobby Bruce. Viola: D-- S--.
Church carnival started at noon on Saturday and looked to be a
total wash-out up until about 3:30. Hardly anyone had shown up
by then, and the thunderstorm almost tore down our tents. My
steel band hadn't showed up. They were scheduled for 2:00 and I
had given up on them. Then, the weather cleared up, Bob showed
up, the steel band showed up, and everything fell into place for
a rousing success. Bob and I played a guitar duo set that was
greatly appreciated. I had a case of nerves, but still managed
to play at about 87-89% (rough estimate.)
Follow-up to the Strathmore tea story: only one performance and a
fan has signed my guestbook.
If you should ever get up to Joe's and have a moment to riffle
through the $2 records, grab me another Snuff Garrett and the
Texas Opera Company record. They're somewhere near the middle, I
think. Look for cacti. Side one is good and side 2 is great. A
neighbor of Hself's heard my copy and won't rest until he has
his own.
How come no clever Beatle mention along with the sewing machine
guy? Too obvious for your audience?
I have no recollection of how N. Rockefeller died. This isn't
too shocking since I have always been vague about what
Rockefellers are - rich people, or politicians, or both? Or
maybe the 2nd as a perq of being the 1st, or maybe even the other
way around? Filthy luchre from coal? Steel? Trains? Glue?
Robber barons or philanthropists? Would I like them?
ME: Thanks for the thoughtful emails, and the recommendation to
read Neck Of The Giraffe. Of course, it takes getting up courage
to take a look at responses to my evolution page, so your message
was a pleasant surprise. It's always been right near the top of
my "to do" list to put together another page with all of the
responses I got from the talk.origins people. They were brutal,
but I want people to hear what the most ardent pro-evolution
people say. I also presume there's no problem including your
essay, when I get around to doing it.
No, I hadn't heard that story about the university president.
Hope to stumble on that some day.
THEE: Subject: Grouchy
I'm glad the carny went well. Did you have a chance to get to
the bottom and turn and go back to the top at any time?
What's the connection between the Fabs and Singer? Am I a dunce
for not knowing this?
Nelson Rockefeller almost certainly died of a heart attack while
[...] His grandfather made his zillions in oil.
I'm a tad grouchy today. I won too many auctions on eBay this
weekend, naturally.
THEE: Strolling down Amsterdam yesterday when I stopped in front
of a glasses store. It had a pic of John Lennon in the window.
The owner says he sold Johnny the specs that made him famous and
he has the documentation to prove it - displayed just out of my
sight and the store was closed for the day.
Could this be true?
THEE: RE: thanks for messages
I saw an editorial in today's paper that reminded me of you.
Tom Delay, Congressman from SugarLand Texas, near here, said
[sarcastically] that the massacres in our school cannot have
anything to do with them teaching that evolution is a fact; that
we are nothing more that pieces of slime that have evolved to
reason slightly better than other pieces of slime, etc.
The editorial ripped him, saying that he can't reason at all,
etc. Backwater southern imbeciles think with their emotions, not
logic, yada yada. The key statement was that the news is in: of
DeLay's 100,000 genes, all but 500 are shared with chimpanzees.
This is the same old sleight-of-hand that they always use,
blending microevolution (changes of beak shape within a genus,
etc) and macroevolution (new types of critters) together under
the word "evolution." Origin of Species is two thousand pages of
hammering away about the minutiae of microevolution, then the
giant leap on the last page, "If selection has been proven to
cause microevolution over hundreds of years, it must be the cause
of macroevolution over millions." The book discusses changes
within species, never the origin of new ones!
YOU can't get away with this. You'd flunk high school geometry
if your proofs used such logic: (1) Barry Sanders is a
ballplayer, and gets tackled; (2) Mia Hamm is a ballplayer, and
gets tackled; (3) I am a ballplayer (rugby), and I get tackled;
(4) Therefore, ballplayers get tackled (induction); (5)
Therefore, Cal Ripken gets tackled (deduction).
They accuse anybody who tries to discuss baseball separately from
football, soccer, and rugby of being a creationist nincompoop.
Amazing.
Enough already.
ME: Subject: sounds of the century
Yes, I believe the Amsterdam shop-keeper had the Dutch franchise
to sell British National Health specs.
The carny helter-skelter was kids-only.
Re: "Howe come no clever Beatle mention along with the sewing
machine guy? Too obvious for your audience?" The movie "Help!"
was *dedicated* to Elias Howe (or has my brain run amok again?)
That surely makes the guy the true 5th Beatle, no?
Sorry about the smashed mirror. Things like that eat at me too
much, too. Easy to say, but in the scheme of things, it's no
biggie, as you will find.
I don't recall hearing the name pass your lips, but you must know
the Shaggs, right? - the '60's girl group? A guitar friend of
mine played a sample of their stuff reissued on cd. He was in
awe of their badness. It *was* pretty amazing (except I can't
help saying to myself, "gee, I couldn't do that good.")
Bought a book at the used book store near Chevy Chase circle.
Thought, hmmm, here's one to put aside for Hself since I've
already read it. It's "The Fabulous Phonograph" by Roland
Gelatt, but I couldn't contain myself and started rereading it,
highlighter in hand. I guess it's mine, now. Thrilled again to
the local story of Emile Berliner, inventor of the gramophone.
Also bought another goodie, "The Concise Oxford Dictionary of
Opera".
When I was dogsitting a few days ago, Tiarnan, the senior
wolfhound, still resisted eating. He didn't respond to various
medical industry potions, either, and Karen had to have him put
down on Monday, a day after her return from chemo treatment.
Very sad for everyone who knew Tiarnan, and a hundred times
moreso for Karen, of course. He didn't show signs of being
unhappy when I was house-sitting, though, and we spent some
quality time together.
THEE: Subject: Sounds from the street
Ooh, I don't know about that bookstore near Chevy Chase Circle.
Did you notice all those paranoic homemade newspaper "headlines"
about the Kosovo situation in the window? Also, I think the
proprietor is a grouch worthy of a Bloomington used-book dealer.
I never go in there anymore.
Thanks for the reminder about Elias Howe. That does sound
vaguely familiar.
I'm slowly weaning myself off eBay. I've gotten so much stuff!
Right now I'm listening to a Bonzo Dog Band bootleg CD. Sorry,
but it doesn't feature the unedited "Urban Spaceman" recording
session. (Don't think about it. I made it up.)
ME: Subject: it's in the mail
I got your check today (Saturday) and got your music off in the
same day's mail. There are 2 boxes. I hope to get my web page
up before you receive them. My catalogs will make sense of what
you receive, and will make individual pieces easy to find in your
stack of pages.
It turned out to be 2960 total pages. In retrospect, it's not
surprising that it came out less than my estimate of 3175 pages.
I was using the thickness of a fresh, new packet of paper as a
gauge (1 inch = 250 pages). You wouldn't expect the paper to
pack as tightly after it's been copied and handled, of course.
So, I will mail a $43 refund (3175 - 2960 = 215 pages x $.20 =
$43)
My web page will be called
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/7049/lcgtr.htm
Try that address in a few days even if I don't have a link to it
from my main page. It will have 2 separate catalogs; one for
American editions, one for European. (I packed your music with
the European editions first.)
The music will be in the same order as shown in the indexes,
except for unintentional glitches and one other exception. That
is that I have separated out some of the most prolific arrangers.
For example, I keep Jacobs in his own hanging folder - not among
all the other J's. You would look for Jacobs after all the other
J's (the last one here being Jung.) The arrangers who have been
separated out are:
Ku"ffner (euro)
Bickford
Hayden
Holland
Jacobs
Janon
Santisteban
Trinkaus
There is a fleetingly small chance that some of the Bickford
editions are not yet public domain. I figured that they will be
soon enough, and I know that one of her editions from the late
1920s, a collection of Negro spirituals, did not have its
copyright renewed for a second term. Because of that, I'm
guessing that copyright has expired on her other editions, too.
I hope you like the copy quality. The machine I used for your
2nd generation copies did a good job, I think. My biggest
disappointment is very minor. The toughest problem for copy
machines - even the best of them - is edges and margins. The
machine shifted the image about a millimeter to the left, making
that margin generally smaller than the right. (The margins were
not always perfect on my masters, and here and there I messed up
noticeably.) I can't imagine that this is of concern to you, but
I mention it because you might actually use it to your advantage.
If you ever do any extensive copying of the music using a machine
with an automatic feeder, it, too, will probably shift the image
a little one way or the other. You can load your pages so that
the effect is canceled, more or less.
Copying the music is not rocket science, of course, but I do have
a knack for goofing things up when distracted. Let me know if
you find any discrepancy between what you receive and what my
catalogs show. Also, please let me know if you ever find any
penciled notes on the back of the music. That would indicate my
master copies.
I really envy you receiving such an exciting package in the mail.
Have fun! - and make pile of money while you're at it. No
biggie, but if you publish any of these pieces, I wouldn't object
to a little mention somewhere down in the fine print. Thanks.
THEE: Re: it's in the mail
I wait with bated breath! Thanks again, I'll be in touch.
ME: Went up to Baltimore yesterday. Helped out with summer camp
today. This is the beginning of the 2nd 3-week session. I'll
miss it when it's over. For instance, today I helped K-2 kids
Keila, Ashley and Taylor with reading and math. They're all
live-wires. I played a game of scrabble with Miss Agnes. We've
been mentioning it for years, now. I gave a few more chess
lessons to Arthur, Kyal and Marie. I played racquetball with
Marie, Keila and Victoria. Discovered that one of the church's
roofs makes the most incredible roofball court. Is that living
or what?
Any chance we can hear all of those Edison recordings on the LC
American Memories site? At least the opera and other serious
music ones. Also, I have to hear Zez Confrey doing his own
Kitten On The Keys. Looks like the web has finally made used
record stores obsolete.
I got my 3000 pages of LC guitar music copied and mailed off to
Hself New York. It took 3 trips from the car to the copy shop
and I forgot to feed the meter even though I had filled my pocket
with coins. They got me in about 10 minutes. I remembered the
meter in about 20. Grrrr....
Went to a concert at Carter Baron on Friday night. A classical
guitar friend is in a Persian rock band, and he invited me out.
Another group played St. James Infirmary blues, known to Dylan
fans as Blind Willie McTell.
THEE: Subject: Hinder!
Thanks for the Roofball link! All this good clean fun sounds
suspicious to an old curmudgeon like myself but keep up the good
work.
One element missing from your rules, is what happens when the
occupant of the structure under the roof, opens a window and
screams, "Hey, you lousy kids, stop making such a gawdawful
racket!"
Also, I need to mention a typo: "HISTORY: Whose we?" That
should be "Who's we?"
My cold lingers but it's fading fast. I hope to actually go
running with the pooch tomorrow morning. I seem to have
developed tennis elbow from playing fetch with him. Ah, the
ravages of time!
THEE: Re: guitar music catalogs
It arrived! The copy quality is excellent. I'm sure I'll use your
site in the near future. This is going to be tons of fun. Thanks
again! Hope to meet someday...
ME: Subject: "who's we?"
Actually, shouldn't that be "who're we?" Now there's a word
that's been covered up too long.
Thanks for proofreading my page. I need the help as I can't see
my own goofs. Just two nights ago I discovered that I had an
unpaired italics HTML tag in an old page. This made the last 2/3
of the page italicized (ooof). My web browser doesn't show
italics at all.
Here's your next assignment:
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/7049/lcgtr.htm
Just kidding, but try out the last link, way at the bottom, just
before the boilerplate stuff. All that music you see listed in
the page arrived safely in Queens, NY, and boy is Hself thrilled.
It's got to be one of the most exciting surprise packages anybody
has ever received, if I do say so myself. Wish I were in his
shoes.
I figure the best way to get at "truth" is to average the
extremes. Low-key Mark Lewisohn says, "Appearing on the BBC 1
programme Dee Time, Jane Asher announces that her engagement and
long affair with Paul McCartney is over, although she declines to
say why."
Sensationalist Peter Brown/Steven Gaines says, "Although Paul and
Jane were seen together once or twice after that [when Jane
unexpectedly dropped in on Paul and Francie]... they were
finished. A month later the public learned of this when Jane
casually mentioned on the BBC's Simon Dee Show that their
engagement had been broken - by Paul."
Score card:
announces vs. casually mentioned
Dee Time vs. Simon Dee Show
she declines to say why vs. broken by Paul
If we believe Brown (what's the tape say?), Paul couldn't have
been *too* surprised to learn about the break-up.
It occurred to me reading my Fabulous Phonograph book how bad
those cylinders by the "Father of bootlegging" Mapleson must
have been. (He's not mentioned in the book.) In that time
frame, about 1903, and until the mid 1920s, singers still had to
shout right into the recording horn. What could Mapleson get
way up on a catwalk?
About the church's "incredible" roofball roof, there is a small
asterisk. It has a casing around an exhaust fan, which may trap
the ball. That's where mine is right now.
Let me know about the feasibility of getting old recordings off
the LC site. We have to get good at this.
THEE: Subject: Who who--Townshend, '78
Of course, "who're we" would be grammatic (--Harrison, '69), I
guess. But "who's we" conveys that tough heck-fer-leather
roofball attitude. I'll read that other page you linked me to in
a bit and report back.
Oh to hear the Mapleson cylinders again! I only listened to
bits of them on a cold day in early 1994. I better check eBay
for that Mapleson box set, eh? They did sound pretty darn bad.
Thanks for all the reportage on the Jane Asher-Mac split.
History is ALWAYS deceptive. For example, I'm reading an
excellent biography of George Orwell now. I liked a passage I
read today concerning Eric Blair's choice of nom de plume: "Why
he chose George is anybody's guess." That may not be inciteful,
but at least the author didn't make up something. (On the other
hand, the author stuck his neck out and noted that the River
Orwell flowed only 35 miles from Blair's parents' house.)
I know nuttin about sound files from the L of C. You better come
over. How about next Wednesday? I could use your help in a big
way, too. As I try to sell things on eBay, I'm reluctantly
trying to post photos. Getting the pictures themselves is no
trouble--Hself has a digital camera. But I need to have a place
on the web to post photos. Erols says they'll give me one meg of
web space. So I'll try to get it. What do I do then? Mayhaps
you can show me.
THEE: Subject: Neat stuff
I have been trying for a while to get the Mudarra tab printed
out. I have a PC at work and they don't mind if I tinker around
on the web a bit. Can you talk to me about how to tweak this
printer to print out a good copy of the Mudarra?
It was very nice of you to transcribe it into modern tab and put
it out there for all to use. I am an artist and I have been
wanting to play the vihuela for years, but didn't know where to
find material to play etc. Then I started to seek out folks who
knew about the vihuela and met some pretty interesting
characters. Buying a vihuela was too costly for me as I had just
bought a Flamenco guitar by Chris Burkov last year. There was a
lot of peanut butter sandwich eating to save up for that one, so
I decided to build a vihuela myself. Mel Wong a local instrument
maker has helped me with it and I must say it is really nice for
a first instrument. We are going to fret it and string it up soon
and I look forward to learning to play it. I'm interested in
talking to others who are playing the vihuela or building them.
ME: Subject: my vote smart data
I don't see that the information Project Vote Smart requested
from me has been added to the web site. I hope you can give a
link to my web page which explains my presidential stance:
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/7049/prez.htm
If I'm ever asked to fill in that standardized questionnaire
asking my position on all the issues, I hope there's a way I can
answer "whatever the majority wants" to every question. Y and N
won't do.
ME: beatle significa game
Do you have a handle on the legality of selling Beatles
merchandise. Nobody tells me nothin. When Hself says it's ok
to sell them now at Beatlefest, is that because a portion of the
dealer's fee goes to Apple (via Sony) as a sort of royalty? If
so, does it work the same at other Beatles conventions?
ME: Subject: mudarra tab
Glad you like the tab. Wish I could help with printing it out,
but I'm not completely up-to-date computer-wise. If you had a
good, old dot matrix printer, you couldn't print it out wrong! In
my printing tips web page, David Norton explains how to do it
from Claris works. Don't know if that helps. (Coincidentally,
you two signed my guest book back to back.)
Congratulations on the vihuela! Sounds exciting. The way I get
an "ancient" sound is to string up a modern guitar with terz
guitar strings. Saves me the trouble of switching fingerboard
sizes and shapes.
ME: Subject: persuavise percussion
Don't know if I can be of any help getting photos on the web.
This has stymied me completely so far. Even your statement that
getting the pictures is "no trouble" is inconceivable to me.
(Hard for me to imagine that the raw files from the camera don't
need to be "processed" into desirable JPEG files somehow.) But
I'd be glad to "help"...
Went to a Duke Ellington tribute at Carter Baron last night.
Treated to Don't Get Around Much Anymore.
I've been making a few faltering steps at replacing my receiver.
The Post has changed something so that now I can't see their
classifieds on-line. I hate negative progress.
Q: How many of your overcoats have you autographed?
Q 2: How many fewer would John [who hated his middle name]
Lennon been apt to autograph?
What the American Heritage dictionary says about the sewing
machine:
Howe, Elias. 1819-67. Amer. inventor (sewing machine) and
manufacturer.
Singer, Isaac Merritt. 1811-75. Amer. inventor (sewing machine)
and manufacturer.
Interesting that both of them popped up recently in Today in Pop.
I've forgotten, in what format did you hear the Mapleson
recordings? Cylinder?
Finished "The Fabulous Phonograph 1877-1977" (again.) Did you
know that Parlophone gained world-wide esteem starting in 1919
with uncut recordings of symphonic literature?
That "in the early 1920s [Deutsche Gramophone Gesellschaft]
exported unauthorized bargain-price pressings of [Victor] Red
Seal recordings" in Europe and the U.S.?
That the change-over to stereo was accelerated by *years* when
Audio Fidelity, Inc. put a stereo record on the market - before
there was any cartridge available to play it!?
That SPLHCB was recorded using "sophisticated" multi-track
recording equipment?
THEE: Subject: Going global
I concede that Wednesday could be frustrating. Trying to create
a web page is something about which I know absolutely nothing.
Erol's told me that they have a web page that will walk me
through it. It could be a long walk but I suspect you know a
lot.
We need not worry about digital photos. Hself's camera converts
them to JPEG format. I already have two ready to go.
The Mapleson recorings I heard were on long-playing albums, LPs
(it's the same thing in English) in a deluxe box set, which
included recordings he made of his children at home. I wonder if
my note's still on line. I could give you the footnote.
THEE: Subject: Help!
This comes from today's "Dr. Gridlock" column in "The Washington
Post." Best I could do was a fire truck.
Learn a Little German
Here's the answer to our last license plate riddle. We asked what
kind of car has the plate R PFERD. The R is for Our and PFERD is
German for horse. The plate appeared on a Ford Mustang.
Ready for a new one? What kind of vehicle has the license plate
PENNY LN?
Hint: It's not a Volkswagen.
THEE: Re: beatles significa
The Virginia beach Beatles fest is to be run by the guy who has
the museum. McKee's Beatles Museum. Its a nice place. He has a
lot of signed items there. He has a web site
www.Beatlesmuseum.com. He suppose to have as guest Pete Best and
of course Louis Harrison, who is at all the Beatles fest.
THEE: Subject: free beatle books
30. FUNGUS THE BOGEYMAN. Raymond Briggs. Inspired McCartney song,
Bogey Music
THANK YOU
ME: Subject: kids...
Somebody was thrilled to buy a copy of all the music I got from
the Library of Congress - to the tune of $600. Now all I need is
999 more orders...
I mentioned the summer camp. Tried to get up a Greek Dodge game
the other day. Kids didn't know Greek Dodge. I did a web search
to see if anyone put the rules out there. Found a handful of
hits on "greek dodge", but no rules. One page warmed my heart.
Also reminds me of you.
Be a kid again ...
Give yourself a gold star for everything you do today... Go climb
a tree up really high... Dot all your "i"'s with smiley faces...
Sing into your hairbrush... Grow a milk mustache... Smile back at
the man in the moon... Read the funnies Throw the rest of the
paper away... Dunk your cookies... Ask somebody if their
refrigerator is running...
ME: Subject: need to blow my nose, bad...
Not much new to report. R PFERD stinks, as it combines hillbilly
and German. Who is Jorge Luis Borges? Never mentioned that I
had the condenser in my frig replaced (under warranty). Most
bearable noise level from my frig in 18.5 years here. Never
mentioned, I don't think, that I gave a lesson in making my
favorite string figures at summer camp. My roofball is caught
back up on the roof as of today. What did the Lennon overcoat go
for? Came out garbled in my email.
THEE: Subject: Button up your overcoat
I've already gotten a bid on the Who flag/bandana. It's holding
at 75 cents.
Jorge Luis Borges was a South American writer of some
renown. He happened to speak at F and M shortly before he died.
He was very old and blind. I have a memory of his translator
announcing the answers to questions from audience members. "Mr.
Borges, he say..."
Johnny's jacket went for a measly L4,000 (about $6,400).
ME: Subject: my world is crumbling
Bad, bad, bad news when I logged onto the Cleveland Freenet this
morning. "The Cleveland Free-net, a remarkable achievement for
its time, has been made obsolete by new technologies... The
Free-net will be discontinued on September 30, 1999."
Saturday night I had my worst-ever cassette disaster. It was on
a boombox where I was dogsitting. It happened at one of my most
favorite spots on one of my most favorite tapes. The machine
ingested *yards*-worth of tape and made it all curly and crinkly
- *and* broke it in *3* places! I spent hours Sunday night
trying to get it all back together. It runs through my machine
properly now, but without sound I can't be sure I got the pieces
back in the right order and right direction. (Unn-e-on, rubmun.)
Had a fun time with the 1870-1897 catalog up in the Copyright
office on Friday. The cards are all handwritten, and the
cataloging system is kind of funny. I'm hoping to track down
some 19th C. guitar music out at Landover that never made it into
the LC music division collection.
I spent some time coming up with a system for mass producing
hexaflexagons. I think the summer campers will get a big kick
out of them. This is the last week of summer camp.
Anybody know where I can buy a hankie cheap? Found one on the
web (didn't care much for the design, though) but somebody with
apparently *very* deep pockets outbid me. [Joke about the Who
flag/bandanna.]
THEE: Subject: beatle book
I owe you a big apology. I've decided to stop giving away the
Beatle-related books. There are too many reasons to go into
here, but it hasn't been a good experience. Sorry about leaving
the page up. I had stopped thinking about it. Your request was
probably the first in about a year. I'll send a little present,
though. Once again, I apologize.
THEE: Subject: Cleveland!
What does Cleveland mean by pulling its plug on you? That's an
outrage! Do you have any other freebie options out there?
Have you seen where my forlorn little bandanna is now? It's at
$5.50!
Shoot! Bandana is an alternate spelling but not the preferred
spelling. I just discovered that!
ME: Subject: a brainstorm
Played through the music yet (ha ha)? Actually, I haven't quite
made it myself. I have about a third of those Strauss waltzes to
work over yet - and still loving 'em.
I haven't forgotten about the $43 dollars I owe you, but I've had
a brainstorm. How about I dig up another 215 pages or so of
music in the same vein of what you received and send that in lieu
of the change I owe? It would mean more fun for me, and you
could trick your brain into thinking that anything else you
receive is free music falling out of the sky. Win-win?
I've embarked on something I'm sure no one else ever has. I'm
trying to dig up pieces that are not in the LC music division
collection, but stored by copyright number out in the storage
facility in Maryland. I saw a lot of interesting titles on the
cover pages that were not in the LC boxes - and I've been through
all the boxes where they *could* be (in theory.) Since they're
not, a search of the copyright deposits is in order. Don't know
how successful this will be. The 1870-1897 copyright card
catalog is a real hoot.
ME: Subject: *most* preferred spelling: hankie
I am in awe of your ability to enjoy life. The weekend you
describe would have killed me 6 time over, at least - 1 car
breakdown, 2 long trips, 3 screaming girls... Actually, Chrissie
Hynde is A-ok in my book - excellent voice and some excellent
songs.
How can the Cleveland Freenet call itself "obsolete" when there
are 51 users on it right now???
I went right to the "Tricky Dicky" song in my collection. It's
on my "Star-Club Show" album, by the Mindbenders, just before
that other great one, "Peanut Butter" by the Eyes. I forget, did
Hself conclude that this was *his* Eyes, or just *some* Eyes?
Pretty good kickball game at camp today.
P.S. Make that 4 long trips.
THEE: Re: a brainstorm
Sure I'd love to get some more music. How about some de Fossa,
Zani Ferranti or L'hoyer first editions! That would be great. But
I'll leave that up to you.
I'm really enjoying this music. There are soooooo many waltzes!
Thanks again, I'm looking forward to another package of music.
THEE: Re: *most* preferred spelling: hankie
I never thanked you for getting the ball rolling on my hankie
auction. Now here's something weird: The high bidder, at $5.50
the last time I checked, is the infamous Hself--the guy who
crashed my wedding. He confessed this to me yesterday.
ME: Subject: goin' motown
Saw a Lilith Fair tee-shirt in the grocery store tonight. Came
in on the last few measures of a muzak "Off The Ground". Am
making hexaflexagons for all the campers. Does Hself need one?
Even better kickball game today. I did all the "pitching" which
helped keep things rolling. What percentage of the population
could have a guess - no matter how wild - at even one Steely Dan
member? I couldn't name a song. 55 users on the freenet right
now. Am in the process of joining the Detroit freenet. Need a
1-sentence bio of (Mary) Flannery O'Connor. Sounds sort of
familiar, except for the Mary part, and the very short life.
ME: Subject: never before has a boy asked for more...
Yes, there are lots of waltzes, eh? Luckily, most of them
*rock*! Was playing Holland's arr. of Arditi's Il Bacio today -
and I couldn't stop! Had to play it about 20 times.
Thanks for giving me the go-ahead for sending more music. Also
thanks for the free-rein. Don't know what I'll come up with.
Let me ramble.
First off, if left *solely* up to me, I would go with scrounging
up a few more pieces in same vein as the first 3000 pages (mostly
American arrangements, with a goodly number of exceptions.) But
it doesn't have to be that, and I aim to please.
There is an early (I don't know "firsts") edition of L'hoyer's
guitar quartet. There's a massive (1131 measures) Magic Flute
arrangement by L'hoyer for guitar violin and viola. Fun to play
the guitar part along with an opera record. Want either of
those?
More generally, are you interested in "guitar in chamber"? If
so, what combinations? If you're interested in guitar & piano, I
have 125 pieces ready to go. Check out my web page.
Interested in guitar duets? If so, I found a lot while copying
the solo arangements. I have approx 250 pages of miscellaneous
duo material in the same vein as the solo pieces. Half of these
are Justin Holland duos. If you're curious, I will tell you why
I think the Holland duos are so neat. Also have about 125 pages
of songs for voice and guitar by Justin Holland. (Can't vouch
for these.) You might notice I'm a Justin Holland fan.
So, any of that sound like something you've got to have right
now? Or would you rather wait to do "original for guitar" and
"guitar in chamber" up properly, and content yourself with a few
more good ol' American arrangements?
While we're gabbing, let me say I am *very* unclear on how much
19th C. European guitar music LC has. For a long time, I assumed
it was a *tremendous* amount. For example, LC has about
30% or 40% of all the known 19th C. European gtr & pn pieces.
That's amazing - to me at least. They must have about half of
Aguado's works in one big fat volume. I figured, perhaps
wishfully, that they have about the same percentage of *all* the
European guitar editions. But, if that's the case, where was it
all when I was going through the guitar arrangement classes???
There should have been a *ton* of opera arrangements alone.
Wayne the librarian explained that any European guitar editions
would have had to have been gifts or purchases - and buying the
stuff would not have been a priority, if it was considered at
all.
So, which is the norm - the loads of European pn & gtr and
Aguado, or the scarcity of European editions in the arrangement
boxes? Are the arrangements all bound? Or just not there? I'll
get to the bottom of this one day.
THEE: Subject: Agenda!
Flannery O'Connor was a southern writer of some repute. I can't
think of the titles of any novel she may have written but I
recall reading her short story "The Artificial Nigger" in
college.
THEE: Re: never before has a boy asked for more...
Thanks for your note. I'd love to see some of that guitar and
piano stuff. And the L'Hoyer quartet and Magic Flute Trio also
sounds great. That might finish my "balance". I'll certainly be
interested in more too, especially the guitar originals. But I do
understand your concern about starting that category before it's
time. Do you have any Justin Holland originals lying about?
I haven't, needless to say, gotten through the mother load but am
having a ball trying! I've found a bunch of goodies already. send
at will.
THEE: Re: never before has a boy asked for more...
I forgot to mention that I'd also like to see the Justin Holland
duos. I don't really mind too much if I end up with some
duplicates in the end. So if you would send those along too it
would be great. If it comes up to be more than my balance, just
let me know.
THEE: Have you stopped getting "Beatlefan"? There's a slightly
surreal interview with "Double Fantasy" producer Jack Douglas in
a recent issue that has to be read to be believed, or accurately
disbelieved.
THEE: Re: I wish I was in Dixie
Did you discover Justin Holland's "Dixie's Land with Variations"?
I don't think that it's possible for anything to be more fun to
play! Thanks again!
THEE: Subject: help!
I need help and I can't find a good classical forum to ask
questions in. I am trying to learn some renaissance pieces,
namely Fantasia Nr.10 by Alonso Mudarra. Above the staff are the
words Kapo II bund (did I mention that the sheet music is written
in a german collection?). I figure that simply means that the
capo is in the second fret. But, under the staff are the words
"=fis" preceded by a three with a cirlcle around it. I know that
means the third string, but what does "=fis" mean?
ME: Subject: fis
"fis" is German for F# (F sharp). Tune the 3rd string down a
half-step from G. This gives the same intervals as on the
Renaissance lute, and the vihuela.
ME: Subject: ups and downs
The summer day camp is over now, which is something of a letdown
for me. There was a closing presentation that the kids put on
for the parents on Friday afternoon. The camp director
recognized me as a "life saver."
Went up to Baltimore today. On my sister's computer, I put an
Ebay bid on a plush Alvin of the Chipmunks doll. My mom has
Theodore and wants to complete the set.
Nope, still don't get Beatlefan. That interview sounds scary.
I had lent my brother and sister-in-law my "Big Daddy" album,
figuring they'd get a big kick out of it for sure. Hself's
review, "It's hideous!" put me down in the dumps. Don't know
why, since I've never not known that the purpose of human life on
earth is to squash the fun out of anything that gives you
pleasure.
Saw the Positive Vibrations Youth Steel Orchestra at the
Hirshhorn on Thursday. Part of the program was played by kids
who had only been playing for 3 weeks, and I'm still in complete
awe. They played 3 big long, fast, loud, complicated pieces, and
all from memory. And they could all play all of the different
pans in the steel drum family.
44 people on the freenet when I logged on.
THEE: Subject: Jack!
The Jack Douglas interview is scary. I told you about Elliott
Mintz, master thief, right? Douglas also defends Fred Seaman.
He loses a lot of credibility, however, when he reveals that when
Lennon heard about McCartney's Japan bust, he was already working
on "Double Fantasy," and stopped recording so that Yoko could
make phone calls to try and call in favors to help Paul out. The
interviewer points out that in fact, John was several months away
from recording when the bust happened. Ah, history.
ME: Subject: watch out!
I'll get your pack of mystery music in the mail today (Tuesday).
I won't say what it contains now, but, once again, prepare
thyself for merriment. You're a lucky guy!
About Holland originals - I'm unclear as to how many there may
be. The most recent Soundboard said "about 35". Trotter (1878)
said, "Holland has not aspired to distinction as an original
composer of music, although he has done something in that line."
Bone said, "Holland did not publish any original compositions."
I've mined most of the most likely places to find Holland at LC.
Still need to go through bound material, and the immense M1.A13 -
American editions between 1820 and 1860.
About Dixie's Land, no, I sure can't claim a discovery. In fact,
it was the Featured Facsimile in the summer 1989 Soundboard. One
of his arrangements that intrigues me is Nearer My God To Thee.
The variations just look like straightforward arpeggios, but they
remind me a bit of Pachelbel's Canon. [Surely coincidental.]
ME: Subject: what's the use
Elliot Mints as Master Thief has gone vague in my brain. Are we
talking literally?
Is the root word for pulik puli?
If your mechanic actually fixes problems, view the $900 as a very
good investment.
As always, I feel like I might as well be a ghost in this world,
for all my efforts pay off. Sent a nice note to the Cleveland
Freenet. Ans: "Sorry decision is final." Asked Hself if, since
Beatle Significa was "good to go" again, would he like to sell
his formerly No. 1 item. Ans: "Sorry, I just can't do it."
(Note extravagant use of comma.) Sent a friendly letter to Ebay
asking for 10 points. They waxed loquacious: "The two
requirements must be met. Unfortunately there is no way around
this nor will exceptions be made."
THEE: Subject: Burned
I'm sorry you're getting roasted by Cleveland Freenet, Mean Mr.
Hself, and good ol' eBay. Again, I'll be happy to host your
Dutch auction.
I picked up the car this evening. It doesn't seem any different.
We might drive 2,000 over the next week and a half, so I hope
they did something.
Tonight we're watching the final "Mystery Science Theatre 3000."
They were canceled after 10 years. I've taped two essential
clips for you so far, but it's all so sad!
THEE: Subject: CFN users: invitation from free systems Grex and M-net
Grex and M-net are two public access systems in Michigan which
would love to welcome Cleveland Free-net users who are looking
for a new home on the Internet. Grex and M-net are both Unix
systems running discussion forums and offering e-mail and real-
time chat. Both systems are funded by user donations, but their
services are offered for free.
Grex is dedicated to promoting free speech and free access on the
Internet. Grex offers a wide variety of conferences on topics
such as science, music, classical music, cooking, gardening,
computer hardware and software, men's and women's issues, poetry,
and alternative religious movements.
Grex has been running since 1991 and has between 12,000 and
28,000 users, depending on how you count them, from Michigan and
all over the world.
M-net is a similar system in Ann Arbor; it tends to be a little
more rough & tumble and rowdy. Try both systems and see which
one fits your tastes.
-----
If you find either Grex or M-net of interest to you, please help
distribute this information to other CFN users. Consider posting
it to your favorite SIG forums, if it has not already been posted
there. Thanks!
THEE: Re: watch out!
Thanks again! I'm really looking forward to reading the Holland
arrangements with a buddy. I read through the gtr. and piano
stuff with my wife, it's good solid musical entertainment.
Please let me know when you're starting a new category. I'll want
to be the first to buy the copies!
Thank you again for all of your hard work!
THEE: Re: can't see classified ads
Thank you for your letter. I am sorry for the difficulty. We
try our best to make areas accessible with low graphics pages but
we do not current support text-only browsers.
I am sorry for the inconvenience.
Customer Care Representative washingtonpost.com
THEE: Re: life after the Cleveland Freenet
Don. I don't have any ideas. But some people were discussing it
in comp.sys.atari.8bit, what might be done. We'll lose the e-mail
account, but any ISP should carry c.s.a.8, or you can use
www.dejanews.com to read usenet. Good luck. I'll miss CFN, like
you, I guess.
ME: Subject: 251 LM tunes, eh?
Well, the Beatles only recorded about 215 songs, including
about 24 covers and about 22 Harrison tunes and at least 2 group
efforts and 2 Ringo tunes, plus What Goes On.
You sure a borrowed book from the library wouldn't tell you the
few HTML tags you need? Does a writer of your stature need big,
giant letters in rainbow colors? Did Hemingway?
Interesting entry in my guestbook. It's from a guitarist of 29
years who lives about 2 blocks from me. The web is amazing.
If they didn't fix your car, maybe I'd better not hear about it.
Even somebody else's costly misfortunes with auto "repairmen"
could send me up the nearest bell tower with an ...
Finally went in to a Circuit City yesterday to see what's on the
market nowadays. The lousy junk just makes me sad and slightly
sick. Billion dollar surround-sound setups - and that's the
*best* of it.
Found pulik in my Am. Heritage dictionary. Pluralizing with a k
is a new one on me.
Why so fastidious about ebay's creative capitalization? I
thought you disliked that sort of silly game playing with the
language.
Elliot Mintz is a thief?
P.S. not to mention Maggie Mae.
ME: Subject: LC guitar musique
Glad you're having a good time with the music. I'm probably
sounding like a broken record, but when you "read" through the
Holland duos, don't hesitate to drop some inner and bass notes to
make them cook. It seems to me it would take a world-class
player to play some of them as written, for example the Faust
march.
If you're interested in another "clean sweep", remember I have
piano and guitar ready to go. That was all prepared "for
publication". Sounds like you had fun with some of the small
piano & guitar pieces. If you want the whole batch, we can
work up a deal. All of the pieces are listed in my web page
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/7049/gtrpn.htm
Went down to LC the other day to take a look at the M128
(arranged, collections) BOUND material. Looked through 4 carts-
worth and was disappointed and confused. Was expecting about a
third to be from the 19th century, but actually found none. And
I got all the way through the Cs. I hope they're all in M125, or
*somewhere*. Also expected to see familiar anthologies I cut my
teeth on, things like the Everybody's Favorite... and World's
Favorite, and Mel Bay's anthology (by Joe Castle), etc.. but saw
precious little of that, too. Wonder where they hide it?
Probably not worth mentioning, but found a '60s' edition of V. O.
Bickford's "Beethoven Album", so the 2 pieces I copied from that
are still protected (I think. If the renewal got it through
1978. Actually, I'm fuzzy on all this right now.)
The Cleveland Freenet is shutting down. That will cause me big
problems, but temporarily I hope. They call themselves
"obsolete" - but still get 7000 users per day. Some obsolete...
THEE: Subject: Mudarra
Sometime in the past year Mike Graham acquainted me and others
with your Internet posting of Tres Libros in guitar tablature.
Mike, as you may know, developed a visual basic program to
convert your ASCII tab into *.tab files to run through Wayne
Cripp's TAB program, which generates a handsome lute tablature in
PostScript. Still further (!), I, partly acting out my own
retentiveness, went over the TAB files Mike produced and added
carets, fermatas, time signatures, measure numbers and layout
adjustments.
Now--I wanted to do this editing simply to produce a nice
volume for myself, but I would like to share this fine music by
posting the TAB files on Wayne Cripp's lute archives Web page. I
would like to include your helpful notes on the pieces, with all
due credit noted, of course (to you and Mike Graham). All this
is free to the public; I get nothing from it but warm fuzzies.
BUT--before I post anything to the Web, I would like to have your
stamp of approval, since this is an extension of a project you
began, and thank you very much for it!
ME: Subject: Mudarra tab
Thanks for your enthusiasm. Sure, go for it! I'd be happy to
see the tablature distributed as far and wide as possible. I
like the sound of your improvements. As far as the explanatory
notes are concerned, please edit as you see fit. I'm not a
writer, and I'm always a little embarrassed by what I turn out.
I'm happy with a little credit somewhere down in the fine print.
Actually, I wouldn't lose sleep if some of the pieces got into
some hands without my name mentioned.
The Mudarra tab seems to have been warmly appreciated. I'm not
firmly plugged into the early music scene and I was wondering, if
I get around to cranking out more tab, is there some sort of
generally recognized wish list among the players? I mean, it
would make sense to not redo tab that is already widely
available. For instance, I copied a Milano book at the Library
of Congress, but I think I have seen a reference to a modern tab
edition of his complete works.
If I crank out more tab that is of potentially wide interest, it
would make much more sense, I'm sure, to provide you or Mike with
my raw input files. They should be very easy to convert into
input files for the TAB program. Mike sent me a sample of an
input file and, not too surprisingly, it was quite similar to
what I had come up with for my own tablature programs.
Good luck with your efforts, and thanks again.
THEE: Subject: Home and Dry
We had a great time in Maine, with lots of making of hikes.
Then things got sour last Thursday. I'll cut to the chase:
We're awaiting the results of a blood test, but I may have
brought back a case of Lyme Disease. That'll teach me to leave
the TV couch!
We visited the foremost pulik breeder/rescue coordinator in the
U.S. (I think) at the start of our trip. She lives in southern
Maine and she had helped us get Hself. It was the first time I'd
ever seen another puli live. Interestingly, Hself is much better
than all her dogs. No, really!
Eliot Mintz should be referred to as "the known felon"! I'll give
you the Beatlefan when I'm done with it, and since I'm on the
last page, you won't have too long a wait.
PS. Check out eBay (I'm bagged for that usage!) auction
151877521 (or search on Tammy Faye Bakker).
THEE: What can you tell me about Moxie soda?
THEE: Subject: ANNOUNCING: what just might be the last cfn picnic ever
>i figured that the most fitting site for the last cfn picnic
would be where dr. tom grundner held the first one, 12 years ago,
so here it is:
>WHERE: wallace lake, mill stream run reservation of metroparks,
adjacent to downtown berea. check a map. this one is simple.
>DATE: saturday, september 4th.
>WHEN: noon until whenever, but the park closes at 11:00 p.m.
praps we can figure out someplace to go after that.
>look for the old, familiar arrow signs with CFN inside the
arrow. if you have absolutely *no* clue on how to get there,
write me. i'm going to try to get the volleyball set back from
cougar, since it's been over a year that he hasn't had any
picnics for you.
>now for the commercial:
>recently, dave auston wrote a response to a user who emailed
him, asking why freenet was being shut down. dave admitted that
he knew nothing about freenet, so he researched the subject by
checking with raymond neff, head of case's INS. RAY NEFF IS THE
ONE WHO WANTS TO SHUT FREENET DOWN IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!
>if you think that maybe cfn just *might* be worth saving, write
letters to the president of case, the mayor of cleveland and the
governor of ohio. when the plain dealer article was picked up by
the associated press and posted on the msnbc website, it was
noted that 1) this is the oldest community computing system in
america; 2) cfn still gets 7000 hits per day.
>make those hits count by putting in writing your reasons for
wanting to keep cfn alive. some examples might be ease of
access; educational purposes; your age or financial situation
prohibit you from getting an isp connection; whatEVer. just
write them!!!
>when freenet was first cranked up in 1986, the mayor of
cleveland and the governor of ohio jumped all over the bandwagon,
touting cfn as computer access for the masses. the
administrations have changed, but praps not the sentiment. when
you write these letters, mention the utility, advantages,
availability or whatever reason[s] you personally consider
important enough to preserve and upgrade freenet, BUT DO IT
SOON!!!
>take care,
THEE: Subject: Family Feud board game
Do you know if MB is still making the board game Family Feud?
I've seen the electronic version but not the board version. My
girlfriend wants to find it and it's become my job now.
THEE: Subject: Beatles Game
If the offer is still open, I am interested in getting a card
version of the game. Could you let me know?? How much of a "tip"
do you generally receive for it??
ME: Subject: the usual
I finally moved everything over to your old computer. It was a
lot of work, but I was pretty pleased to finally get it done.
There are some bothersome little quirks, though. For instance,
tonight my mail reader has been getting hung up on me when I
return to it from editing a letter. Never used to happen.
By the way, there was about a ton of dust in the machine. How
could that be? Still, thanks a lot.
Was over my buddy Norm's. Visited the LC site on his computer.
He doesn't know how to print out just a page of music on a web
page. (He can print out the whole web page.) How do you do it?
He also thinks he needs to know what version of Windows you have.
My father has been a regular on Baltimore radio selling things.
Now they are starting flea market tv shows, of which he has
already been on one. They are taping another one tomorrow, and
the Agnew waste can is going on the block. What do you think, a
hunnerd bucks?
By the way, he called the first televised flea market a "complete
disaster". He only made $76 in 2 hours. He's used to making
hundreds in that amount of time.
Heard Squeezebox and God Only Knows in muzak at the grocery store
the other day. Prompted me to finally send a note to Muzak
asking why I can't get them on my radio.
Seems like a message was lost one way or the other. Did you get
the one below, sent early last Wednesday pm, I think? The
Beatles paragraph is in response to an item in "Today In Pop"
about 251 Lennon-McCartney songs in the Northern Song catalog.
ME: Subject: the usual
Sorry about the lyme disease - or whatever it was or still may
be. I had some moments of fright before I sorted out in my mind
that lyme disease is not rocky mountain spotted fever tick
disease. Hope it's all cured by now.
Got a polite and friendly, for a change, response from Muzak. I
tried to plant the bug that getting Muzak on radio is a winning
proposition for Muzak, the radio station, and radio
listeners/music lovers everywhere. Have to admit, though, their
statement, "We are only licensed to supply music for business
use", doesn't make sense to me. I'd have thought Muzak would be
the *licensor*. Can you explain this to me?
Yes, I discovered 2 games on your machine. It's quite a surprise
to me for them to come up in conversation. I've always been a
knocker of computer/electronic-type games, but I got a kick out
each of these. (I presume we're talking Gorilla and Nibbles.) I
took them over to Hself's computer to play with her kids. And
then I've had some fun playing them with some neighborhood kid
friends. Just goes to show...
Was shocked to see that Tammy Faye's album still hasn't cracked
the $75 barrier yet. What's with everybody?
Not familiar with the "I'm bagged for..." slang.
Don't know Moxie soda. Is that southern?
Yeah, I have accepted that Patti is the one who provided the
initial TM impetus. Don't know about John's "trousers" quote.
Does cable down here supply Baltimore stations? You could see my
father put up that Agnew waste can for sale on Sunday morning.
Need to ask violin and guitar friends, Flint natives, if they
remember Keith Moon's folly in 1968.
ME: Subject: family feud
Funny you should ask about the Family Feud home version. I was
in a Toys R Us a few months ago, and I remember seeing a new
version of Family Feud. It was with the board games, and I feel
sure it wasn't electronic in any way (but I can't swear to it.)
Anyhow, check a big toy store. Good luck. And throw away
whatever rules come with it.
THEE: Subject: The usual
I got word from the doc a little while ago that I do not have
lyme disease. He doesn't know what I have. The best he can say
is that it's a "smouldering sinus infection." Huh? So I'm to
continue taking the antibiotics he'd started me on on Monday.
Now, to your items:
Tammy Faye's pokiness at the block is irritating me, too.
I don't know what I was talking about when I said "I'm bagged
for..." Did I say it?
Moxie seems only to be available in New England. I found it in a
convenience store last week and I instantly recalled the last
time I drank it--about 20 years ago, on a visit to Lake
Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire. Everyone else with me last week
thought the stuff tasted ghastly. Ah, but what do they know?
Visit http://www.xensei.com/users/iraseski/.
I'm not the ultimate guy to ask about printing from web pages but
I have a suggestion or two. Is the page of music in text or is
it some sort of art such as a jpeg or gif? If it's text, I dunno
what to do. If it's art, you can stick yer mouse on it and right
click. One of the options that should pop up is View Image.
That will isolate the art on a white background, since the mouse
goes directly to where the image is stored. (I realized this
during our web-building.) Warning: This works for Netscape, and
I think it works for Microsoft Internet Explorer. It didn't used
to work for AOL.
I think I get a couple of Baltimore stations down here. What
channel is your dad going to be on?
I'm trying to build a REAL web page and it's not going so
smoothly. You'll be hearing from me!
THEE: Subject: The genius of Donald!
I said I'd take down my Doyle page once i got it working. Nah.
I'm too proud. You were absoluetly right. What I did was rename
my original .txt file as .html, then opened it in Netscape and
saved it as html. By avoiding Microsoft products, I kept
unwanted coding away. Thank you!
THEE: Re: LC guitar musique
Sorry I've been out of touch for a while. I'd love to get the
gtr. and piano duos. What do you think the whole shebang will
cost?
Thanks again!
ME: Subject: couldn't get this off yesterday
Went up to Baltimore Sunday. Thought I would get some yucks by
nudging my sister to your Tammy Faye record on Ebay. Turned out
to be a bust. First question was, "Which one do you want?"
(Must be 2 out there now.) And Mom says, "Oh, I have some
records or tapes by Tammy Faye Bakker." So I guess my family's
the wrong audience. Sorry.
Both parents turned in stellar performances on the premiere
episode of the Video Yard Sale, or whatever it's called. Mom
asked $150 for the 150-year-old opera glasses, fans and bag. She
pointed out, "That's only a dollar per year." Still, I can't
imagine too many more episodes, if any.
Remind me to give you a live discourse on Cynthia's cartoons.
Are you familiar with them?
Who's Bowser?
Ever tell you how much I hate "Mack The Knife". I can tell true
hate for a song, as opposed to a mere psychological one, by how
much I hate all the various versions, including muzak.
Who is Holmes Sterling Morrison?
Don't forget to bring up My Sharona some time.
Stereo in 1881? Amazing. Reading a book now with a mention of a
family with a recorder in 1948. Yep, it scratched a groove in an
acetate disc.
The above book, by the way, was bought by the PG Library system
at my request, and I got first shot at it. Things like that
shouldn't happen, of course.
Will find out in a day or 2 if my email service cuts off at the
beginning of September, or whether that's one of the things the
Freenet will continue to the end of September. In the process of
applying for a Detroit Freenet account right now. Problem there
is that it looks like the newsgroup access is read-only. Also,
there are only ever 2 to 4 people logged on at a time, so why in
the world would they keep it operating?
I'm a bit bummed by a recent incident. On the way to work Hself
was forced into a car by two men, forced to direct them to her
bank and forced to withdraw all of her money and hand it over.
This was a couple days after the social security checks her sons
receive due to their father's death were automatically deposited,
and a few days before the rent is due. It's amazing the
catastrophes Hself goes through.
ME: Subject: surfing
Visited your website tonight. Looks great. Teach me the whys
and wherefores of ".zip" sometime. Did a search on "wonder puli"
to see if your page has been indexed yet. Nope, but got some
hits. Try Alta Vista.
THEE: Subject: Odds and ends
You've got questions, I've got answers!
I've seen our Cyn's cartoons in my British paperback of "A Twist
of Lennon." Please do elaborate.
Bowser was a member of Sha Na Na. I know I've seen him in an
unauthorized copy of the One to One video.
Holmes Sterling Morrison, who dropped the Holmes, played bass (or
maybe second guitar) for the Velvet Underground.
I didn't need your family's help with the Tammy Faye Bakker LP.
I sold it for $9.01, which was a lot higher than my Bangles EP
went for or are going for.
THEE: Re: frets and keys
I got through about a quarter of the Holland duos, yesterday with
a friend. A good time was had by all! I loved Norma. Editing is a
good idea. It'd also be fun to mix the parts so that the second
part gets a little more action when possible. (When no capo is
involved). What fun! I am very interested in the gtr. and piano
music. I'd like all of the editions, that is, even the duplicate
pieces. the 2100 page deal.
THANK YOU!
THEE:
From: 20k@free-pc.com (FreePC)
Subject: Your application has been approved for a Free-PC
Here is your personal link to Free-PC - print out this email and
keep it in a safe place!
Username: donaldsauter (case sensitive)
Password: 0hhf45zz (case sensitive)
It is my pleasure to inform you that you have been selected to
receive a Free-PC! Please respond quickly - the sooner you
complete these final steps, the sooner youll receive your Free-
PC!
There are a few steps to complete before you can receive your
computer. One of them is to enter into an agreement with us for
the use of the PC. This agreement spells out what you need to do
as part of the deal - such as using the computer at least ten
hours a month and avoiding doing things that would disable the
Free-PC desktop software. There are also requirements for us as
well, the most important of which is keeping the personal
information you provide us confidential.
Throughout your participation in the Free-PC program, we expect
you to behave responsibly with the valuable asset we are
providing you. However, we need a way to secure the Free-PCs
against the rare situation of improper use or fraud. To do that,
we will require you to provide us with a valid credit card
number. This information will be held in a secure database and
never revealed to anyone. But if you fail to abide by our
Customer Agreement and you do not return the PC to us when
requested, we will charge your credit card a termination fee.
If you can live with these simple but important requirements,
welcome! By clicking on this link https://ssl.free-
pc.com/p100agreement.cgi?u=91HKspaML4U91HKs you will be taken to
a spot on our Web site where you will accept our customer
agreement as well as fill out one final questionnaire about your
interests. The whole process will take about 15 minutes.
COMPUTERS WILL BEGIN SHIPPING IN OCTOBER. We will notify you
close to that time so you may plan accordingly.
Please note that this link will direct you to a secure server
(which is why the Web site address begins with the letters https
instead of the normal http). If you are using an older browser
(3.0 or prior versions of Netscape Navigator, Internet Explorer
or AOL), it will not recognize our site as secure. You must
download the newest versions of any of these browsers (they are
free) to complete the process and protect your personal
information. If you are not able to link directly from this
email to the Web site just by clicking on the above ID, please
use great care in copying the address into your browser. If at
all possible, use the Windows copy function (using the Windows
menu, highlight, copy and paste the personal ID) rather than
attempt to retype the entire number.
IMPORTANT This offer expires at 9 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time,
Monday, September 13, 1999. If you have not gone to our Web site
via the link above by that time, we will assume that you have
chosen to withdraw your name from consideration, and we will
select another recipient in your place.
Thanks again for being a part of a whole new movement in
computing. We look forward to having you as a member of the
Free-PC Network!
Sincerely,
Free-PC, Inc.
THEE: Subject: tired light theory
I am interested in this subject, but I do not have a computer.
Please contact me. I would like to send you an article I have on
this subject. Would you please send me your address?
Thank you
THEE: Subject: Newsletter
I'm trying to finish up the newsletter (I've been out of town)
and I was thinking of putting in The Galop Of The Goblins by
Walter Fay Lewis (it was among the several pieces you sent to me
previously). I thought it appropriate with Halloween coming up.
Would you like to write a brief something about the piece?
Hope all is well. Please get back to me ASAP.
Contact Donald Sauter: send an email; view guestbook; sign guestbook.
Back to Donald Sauter's main page.
Rather shop than think? Please visit My Little Shop of Rare and Precious Commodities.
Back to the top of this page.
Abbreviations: Hself = generic name, male or female (Himself, Herself). TM = transcendental meditation.
Parents, if you're considering tutoring or supplemental education for your child, you may be interested in my observations on Kumon.