Hypotyposis on a Good Day

Proto-environmentalism in Uncle Vanya

One of the many stunningly arresting passages from David Mamet's adaptation of Chekhov's Uncle Vanya in which Astrov says (pp.16-17):

You understand? Yes, sometimes we cut wood out of necessity, but why be wanton? Why? Our forests fall before the ax. Billions of trees. All perishing. The homes of birds and beasts being laid waste. The level of the rivers falls, and they dry up. And sublime landscapes disappear, never to return, because man hasn't sense enough to bend down and pick fuel up from the ground. Isn't this so? What must man be, to destroy what he never can create? God's given man reason and power of thought, so that he may improve his lot. What have we used these powers for but waste? We have destroyed the forest, our rivers run dry, our wildlife is all but extinct, our climate ruined, and every day, every day, wherever one looks, our life is more hideous[....]I see. You think me amusing. These seem to you the thoughts of some poor eccentric. Perhaps, perhaps it's naive too on my part. Perhaps you think that, but I pass by the woods I've saved from the ax. I hear the forest sighing...I planted that forest. And I think: perhaps things may be in our power. You understand. Perhaps the climate itself is in our control. Why not? And if, in one thousand years, man is happy, I will have played a part in that happiness. A small part. I plant a birch tree. I watch it take root, it grows, it sways in the wind, and I feel such pride....

When I first heard Larry Pine deliver this magnificent proto-environmental monologue in Vanya on 42nd Street, I found it hard to believe that Chekhov's words, which resonate so well in contemporary ears, were written over 100 years ago in 1896 -- long before our current debates over global warming and SUVs.

What a good docent can do

This afternoon, I had a wonderful time at the SF Asian Art Museum with my friends Walt, Ginny, and Lily. Because I have a contributing level membership, I'm able to take up to 3 adults with me free of charge every time I go. The big plus of doing so is the companionship of friends who are interested in the museum and Asian art. One thing I haven't worked out though is how to keep myself from having to see the same pieces over and over again, or at least in the same cursory, overview fashion. Next time, I might go by myself in the morning and meet friends for lunch and an afternoon jaunt through the galleries.

Not that I can't benefit from such repeated surveys of the core collection -- as I learned today. When the four of us arrived at the upper floor where the suggested sequence begins, a docent by the name of Mabel was guiding a group of two museum visitors. Lily and I joined in, though we were a bit shy since it wasn't totally clear why the tour was for and who was included. I'm very glad that we fell in with the tour, as apparently were the dozens of folks who congregated along the way.

I learned quite a bit about every piece that Mabel talked us through -- and I was amazed that I could have missed such basic and interesting things in previous visits. I have been reading the tags, used the audio-video equipment, borrowed books to do background reading -- and have seen many of the pieces four, five, or six times already. But it wasn't until our enthusiastic, knowledgeable, engaging docent pointed what in retrospect seems to be obvious, that a lot of the pieces and connections among pieces came alive.

So the next time I visit the AAM, I'll tag along with a docent. I hope to find another tour led by Mabel or one of her equally qualified colleagues.

Annoying computer problems

I was all set for a nice relaxing evening away from my computer when I discovered tonight that my notebook computer is acting up. Thanks, Microsoft. I should learn to not stress about it but it's not so easy.

At any rate, I will turn it off and go to bed. I'll try to make sure that the very least, it doesn't ruin my night of sleep!

If it were only that simple

Buy me lunch and I'll give you a book or CD

I own so many books that I will never read but find it difficult to get rid of any of my books. I often think about what I'd actually miss if my house burned down. Another way to ask the question is what would I grab if my house were on fire. Simple: my computer (thankfully, a notebook computer), my wallet and passport, and maybe some pictures. All my books could burn without any long-term loss. In other words, the vast majority of my books sit around, gathering dust, weighing me down -- much like lugging around an extra ten pounds of fat all the time.

I resolved that I would start shedding my collection with my set of science books. On Sunday, as I was about to head off to church, I reached for the first such book I could find: From Physical Concept to Mathematical Structure: An Introduction to Theoretical Physics . Instead of steeling my resolve to simplify my life, alas, holding and paging through the book made me relive some of the longings that prompted the purchase of such books in the first place.

Various schemes have crossed my mind for getting rid of my books. I've toyed with selling them for money, to places like half.com. Maybe I would lend them all out. As Chris pointed out yesterday, there is even a Distributed Library Project that helps people in the SF Bay Area share their books and videos with each other. Perhaps, I would just give away the books, drop them off at locations I publicize so that others can find them (as in the bookcrossing model).

The latest idea that I've come up is this: if there is someone who could provide a good home for one of my books or CD and who would take me out for lunch to convince me of that fact, I would give that person the book or CD in question. I figure that the Berkeley campus is full of people who could be simultaneously appreciative recipients of my books and stimulating lunch companions. I'm not sure exactly how to pull this off though. Matching people to books is not going to be easy.

This process struck me as ideal. Sure, I can make some money from reselling books -- but I don't really want to manage the process, quite frankly. I want my books to circulate and I love great conversation with smart people. It is surprisingly difficult to meet people from different fields on the campus, however. I want to find some way to do so in a fun way.

BTW, this type of offer extends to my friends too! If you see a book that I own and can make a good case for why I should give it to you -- and if I'm ready to part with it -- then take me out for lunch and the book will be yours.

The straight and narrow

Guide it when it is yet a seedling --
And it will turn into a mighty oak,
Straight, tall, and upright.

Neglect the sapling when you
  had your chance
And you will rue the day
  of your folly.

It is never too late
Unless it is too late.
Grace and mercy
Abound

Forever?

Oh, the life of an independent scholar

It's 11:23 pm -- and I'm tired. I was hoping to write a piece about independent scholarship today. Instead, I will just point you to a piece I wrote three years ago: Christian Independen Scholars. I'm going to copy the piece over and drop it into my blog (a crass type of reuse):

The first time I ever came across the idea of independent scholarship was in high school, when I stumbled upon Ronald Gross' Independent Scholar's Handbook. Although I had every intention of becoming a professor of physics (an institutional scholar), I resonated with the book's image of men and women so committed to the act of learning and research that they would pursue scholarship even without pay. Several years later, as an undergraduate, I became a Christian believer. Since then, I have wrestled to bring together the life of the mind and the life of the spirit. (This challenge often goes under the name of "integrating faith and learning" in intellectual evangelical circles.)

Integrating faith and learning has been a challenge for me (and many fellow Christian scholars) partly because how marginalized the Christian voice has become in the modern university, dismissed as being irrelevant, anti-intellectual, and/or oppressive (See, for example, George Marsden's Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship.) At the University of California, Berkeley, I have known only a handful of professors and staff, and a small minority of graduate students who are professing Christians. Many of us struggle with understanding how to fit our understanding of the world together with the specifics of our fields of study. Indeed, we feel very much like independent scholars even in the midst of being at a university.

Hence, I think that many of the challenges that face independent scholars (who are can be marginalized from the academy) are the very ones that face Christian scholars today (who, because of their beliefs, are often on the margins of the academy). Of course, Christians are not unique -- many others are also on the margins -- but being a Christian, I have a special interest in that community.

My hope, therefore, is that this online community will be useful to Christian scholars, especially as we discuss issues of particular interest to them. My hope is also that all participants, whether professing Christians or not, will be able to helpful and respectful to each other as we learn together.

I stayed up late -- so I will cheat the blog clock

While I was updating my work blog, the clock ticked past midnight before I had a chance to write my daily entry for Monday, August 25, 2003. I will yield to the temptation to adjust the timestamp for this entry so that the piece will land on Monday. (I worked hard enough, I deserve it, no one will ever notice. Oh forget it.)

Today was one those extremely rich and fulfilling days that gave me surprisingly little time to write. And as a blogger, I get frustrated. Can't I have days that are full of life away from the computer and on the computer all in the same day? Apparently no for me -- at least not regularly. I have already drifted way past my scheduled bedtime to write more. It's quiet and I'm drawn to write more. I'm tired, though, and am liable to write drivel.

But let me share one piece of exciting news which I'll elaborate tomorrow. Ronald Gross, the author of The Independent Scholar's Handbook, found me through my Independent Scholars site that I had set up three years ago (but abandoned). More tomorrow....

Do friends let their friends skim?

I struggle with the question of how much time to put into any given piece of writing I come across on the Web. Blogging has helped me to focus my mind. I've managed to accumulate huge lists of interesting references; over time though, these lists become more of a burden than a blessing, something I sometimes feel compelled to organize rather than to just throw away.

Now, before I throw a book or article on my "interesting list", I try to force myself to annotate the item by squeezing out an answer to questions like "Why do I care about this piece? What do I expect to get out of this? What do I hope to accomplish by keeping it on my list?" At the very least, the connections and context I'm forcing myself to build around the item will make it easier to tie the article in with everything else that I care about.

So last night, as I did a google news search on Bach in one of many moments of distraction, I came across the piece to which I referred on my blog. I skimmed the piece and reflected quickly on what I cared about. My little speed-writing exercise produced a little blurb that I found sufficiently satisfying to share on my blog.

When I read Lloyd's reaction to the article this morning, I was 1) glad that I had made the effort to share the reference because 2) Lloyd, in actually reading the piece more closely than I, found something that I just totally missed -- a priceless line about "slump in amateur singing throughout the world with the glorious exception of the Philippines and some Hispanic countries..." If those words had actually registered on my mind, I would surely have commented on them. So thanks, Lloyd, for bringing them to our attention and enriching our collective understanding and enjoyment of our reading.

Nextbus on wireless phones

Krista's second post on Nextbus inspired me to check out the new service -- slick. She wrote, "Well, anyway, I'm getting more curious to see how well it works--now and in the future. Maybe I should sit on the street corner some day and time how often it comes."

Perhaps my comment here will prompt her to start a blog on "the problem of ccomputer-dependency in our culture, and to advocate for solutions and alternatives", but it occurred to me that my trusty wireless phone/web browser Treo 300 could be used to access the info through the wireless access functionality of Nextbus. I tried it out and it seems to work. (Actually, this is quite cool because Nextbus will be immensely useful through a wireless device.)

Let's see when Nextbus makes it to the AC transit routes I actually use....

I can entertain myself with my computer

When whiling my time looking for articles on Bach in Google news, I came across The trouble of entertaining ourselves. The author put into words something I've been pondering for a while. I love listening to Bach recordings and attending all sorts of performances in which the singers and dancers interpret the pieces with much greater fluency and skill than I ever can. So as I consider jumping into the fray with my own voice or body, I hesitate. I dance and sing so in the privacy of my own room and shower, but to share that with others, except as an act of farce, intimidates me to no end.

Pet Peeve: automated dialing by telemarketers

I don't want to turn this blog into a venting forum (so what I just add a "Rants" category, you might ask) -- but let me rant a bit about one of my favorite whipping boy -- telemarketers. This morning, I picked up our house phone to be greeted by "Please hold the line for a moment while we maximize our calling throughput and eventually get our chance to rile you". I thought about just hanging up on the spot -- I really dislike automated dialing systems that call a whole bunch of people to throw them in a queue. Now I know there is the off-chance that the message I will be getting is worth being put on hold for a few seconds so that I can do my part to make the organization more efficient. But what's the likelihood of that?

Still, I thought that I would hang on so that I could vent my frustration when the caller came on the line. Again, does this serve any useful purpose? I've gone back and forth on whether to complain to the front-line of telemarketers, who are not powerless but who are, in some ways, following orders from those up above (who are shielded from the vents of irate recipients of calls.) But I decided that I would politely express my complaint about automated dialing.

When the caller finally came on, it did seem like a legitimate item of business directed at my fellow housemate. After taking down the number, I then said that automated dialing systems were obnoxious to the those on the receiving end. The caller, who didn't seem to pick up my frustration, proceeded to explain the mechanics of the system and how it increases their efficiency. Fortunately for me, I wasn't as irate as I normally could be in this type of situation; I calmly and courteously did get my point across. The caller told me that a lot of others have been complaining too, which I hope means that the company will get the message to be more considerate.

Now I wanted to dignify my rant by weaving in appropriate references from around the Web to bolster my argument and place the rant into a larger community context. However, I should better things to do than to construct such a tightly-woven narrative. So I just list a bunch of links that I found to be interesting as I looked for greater context on the Web:

1. Confessions of an ex-telemarketer: "Like most telemarketing firms, we used a computerized and automated dialing system. It would speed-dial hundreds of phone numbers a minute, wait for a line to pick up, and shunt the call to the first-available operator... except for when all of the operators were already on other calls, in which case it would leave the person there saying "Hello? Hello? Hellooooooooooo?" into dead air and make them wait for their turn to be REALLY annoyed."
2. I used the term "whipping boy" in my description above though I could probably find a better phrase. I went looking for definitions of "whipping boy" to understand exactly what I'd be implying by using the term. From The Phrase Finder: It used to be the practise in some cultures that the nobility could not be touched and when they committed a crime that warranted physical punishment it was delegated to an unfortunate victim - the whipping boy. The OED says: "A boy educated together with a young prince or royal personage, and flogged in his stead when he committed a fault that was considered to deserve flogging." There is a similar defintion in the hyperdictionary. (I didn't even know about the wiktionary before this serendipitous search.) By using the term "whipping boy" then, I seem to suggest that telemarketers are only scapegoats, undeservingly bearing the sins of someone else. Maybe there is something to that....
3. Hang up on telemarketers -- for good. "Telemarketers have long violated federal law by using automatic dialing systems to ring more victims than they have operators to handle. Now the FTC finally seems determined to kill this practice with tougher enforcement so you won’t have to “wait to be annoyed,” as Catlett put it." [via telemarketer blocking]

Bach hype to end a work week

As I try to put more of my writing energy today and tomorrow into writing a paper, bit by bit, I resort to copying to this blog quotations that have stuck in my mind -- for reasons that I may explain at some point. Loyal and gentle readers will know that I can't go too long without mentioning Bach. So I must oblige, taking the following excerpt from Jan Swafford's Vintage Guide to Classical Music (p. 81):

In 1850 the Bach Gesellschaft (Bach Society) was founded to collect and publish what survived of this work. In the modern complete edition, that amounts to sixty volumes. It can be argued that those volumes constitute the most profound and magnificent body of work by a single mind, in any field, in the long human chronicle.

Words to a young adult son

In 1985, I told my parents that I would never move to the U.S. I had just returned home after spending four weeks at the Shad Valley Program at the University of Waterloo, where I had just made a lot of new friends who were a lot like me. We were going to be the vanguard of Canadian scientific and engineering entrepeneurs who going to our country prosperous. Key to doing so was not participating in the brain drain to the southern behemoth. I was determined not to sell out my country, which had given me my life and my education. Besides, I had just met these wonderful friends ("kindred spirits") with whom I would surely stay in touch forever.

My parents responded to me calmly. They told me that I should keep an open mind, and that one day, if the best opportunity meant moving to the U.S. that I should pursue it. They also added that although I felt that I had met my best friends that it was unlikely that our friendships would last. We were far apart and had spent so little time together That's the way the world works.

Right then, I felt my parents to be cruel and cynical. Today, thirteen years into my stay in the U.S.A., having lost touch (sadly and regretably) with all but one fellow Shad 85W alumna, I recall words spoken from parents to their eighteen year old son who still had a lot to learn.

Death Action Matrix

On the afternoon of Saturday, April 21, 2001, while hanging out at the bookstore of the San Damiano Retreat Center in Danville, I came across Wayne Muller's How, Then, Shall We Live?: Four Simple Questions That Reveal the Beauty and Meaning of Our Lives. For whatever reason, one question stood above the others, riveting my attention for the rest of my day-long retreat. That question was How shall I live, knowing I will die? The other three questions (Who am I? What do I love? What is my gift to the family on the earth?) are undoubtedly significant and weighty ones -- but they just didn't speak immediately to my situation. I suppose that I wasn't surprised by those questions whereas I had honestly never seriously asked myself How shall I live, knowing I will die?

Always a sucker for a good question, especially a profound and new one, I formulated a methodology for tackling How shall I live, knowing I will die? To make the question more concrete -- and therefore more susceptible to my type of analysis -- I supposed that I knew exactly how much time I had to live and asked how would I then live the rest of those days. I tried to be more specific and made that time period one of the following: a day, a week, a month, 6 months, a year, two years, 5 years, 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, 70 years. To help me think about what I was going to do given that I was going to live another day or another 20 years, I turned to the list of life roles I was carrying around in my head as a way of partitioning my life at any given time.

I thus converted the question How shall I live, knowing I will die? to a series of questions of the form "If I knew I had only X (time period) left, what would I do in life role Y?" Some examples were: "If I knew I had only a week left to live, what I would do as a son?" and "If I knew I had only two more years to live, what I would do as a board member of Westminster House?" I organized my questions into a two dimensional matrix (with time-to-death on one axis and my life roles on the other)-- a spreadsheet that I fondly called a "death action matrix".

The answers I came up with that day were dramatic, deep, and revealing -- and flowed directly out of the breakdown of the question. The prospect of death -- even hypothetical death -- turns out to be acidly clarifying. If I have little time left to live, most of what preoccupies me and seems so important would instantly be reduced to nothingness. I loveed my work profoundly, but when I asked myself the question "if I have a week to live, what would I do with my job?", I answered without hesitation that I wouldn't be spending any time on my favorite project. I would, however, want to say good-bye to my co-workers. Since I was quickly axing various roles I played for cases of a short life expectancy (it's easy to quit my beloved committees when I think I'm going to die in a month!), I was intrigued by the question "how much time do I assume to have in this life (implicitly, most likely) to make a certain activity "worth my time"? For example, how many years would I want to have left for me to consider getting married or having children? If I knew that death was impending for me, would I stop blogging?

As I looked at the answers on my death action matrix spreadsheet, a central theme emerged -- the most important thing in my life, in the face of death, was being at peace with the prospect of meeting my God, Judge, and Maker -- and letting my family and close friends know how much I loved them. I would add today that I also want to know how much I was loved. The question that raised by my matrix were "Do those close to me know how much I love them? And how do I let them know?"

In spite of the insights that came forth that day, I was too easily sidetracked by the realization that the central assumption of my exercise was merely hypothetical. Most of use do not know the exact day we will die. Furthermore, death is usually not like getting on a plane at a pre-assigned time, leaving us active to the very moment of departure. I kept pondering how I could sustain a life lived a daily intensity that I imagined that imminent death would prompt. Funny, how I don't wonder about that point any more.

Given my own analysis, I continued to wonder a lot about how others would answer the question How shall I live, knowing I will die? On that grim morning of September 11 -- five months later -- I got a partial answer when I learned about the many last-minute love-filled emails or phone calls to husbands, wives, children, friends, or mothers that poured forth from those who knew they were at their end. Few of those who died that day would have parsed the question of how to live into a two-dimensional matrix, but it seems that nearly all of us need to love and be loved as we confront our own death.

Wiki delight Take Two

True story. When I was showing Tom, the new programmer in my group, the Wikipedia (which I wrote about last week), I turned to the entry on Shania Twain (who went to the same high school as I did -- though I'm sure she doesn't remember me!) to demonstrate how anyone can edit a page on a wiki. I had fixed a link to connect the Twain article to the one on Timmins, Ontario (our hometown) and wanted to show Tom how random persons can improve an article. When I clicked on the Timmins, Ontario article, I was shocked to read at the end of the piece

Timmins natives include well-known country singer Shania Twain, b. 1965 and Raymond Yee, Ph.D., b. 1967, technology architect of the Interactive University Project at UC Berkeley. [archived version].

I burst out laughing with gleeful incredulity! I could not have found a better way to illustrate the power/splendor/weirdness of wikis. And no, I didn't write that sentence -- I'm not that egotistical. One of my readers had obviously followed my blog, pulled together various pieces of information about me, and assembled it all to place on the wikipedia! I jumped in the fray and edited the sentence to:

Timmins natives include well-known country singer Shania Twain (b. 1965) and the not-so-well-known-but-well-meaning Raymond Yee, Ph.D. (b. 1967), technology architect of the Interactive University Project at UC Berkeley.

I fully expect someone to clear the article of any references to me. No one is in Shania's league -- let alone someone like me! Actually, I'm surprised that Andreas Hörstemeier, who continues to clean up the Timmins page and who commented "(Fixed links - but is that Raymond Yee really known enough to be listed?)" didn't actually expunge my name from the annals of Timmins. (Let me go add a reference to this blog entry in the discussion page on Timmins.)

Anyone care to fess up here to being the author of this awesome little stunt?

A little psalm I wrote three years ago

In May 2000, during a retreat for the Session of my church, we were given the exercise of writing a psalm inspired by our reading of Ps 90. This following poem is what I wrote and read to my fellow retreatants. (I've been recently thinking about how little I read my old journals and how much good -- and not so inspiring -- stuff in those journals. There's also a lot of stuff I can "repurpose" for my blog so that I have material on days like this when I'm less than inspired....)

You are God, more infinite than infinite
We theorize about the curvature of the cosmos, the utter limits of observation
And yet you exceed our theories, our sightings, our vision, our ability even to accept

Instant communication is at hand,
myriad bits of information deluge our eyes,
Yet you are closer to us than our own heartbeat

I came into this world a babe
And will exit alone--lights out
But You were before me
And you will be after me
This is how it has always been
And this is how it shall always be.

Our lives should go on fine without you
We eat, sleep, love, work.
Day after day.
Moments of exquisite pleasure break up the monotony, even makes us have kids, be responsible citizens
It's a pain to be conscious
Why can't we be like robots?
Maybe we are robots after all.

I don't know why you would bother with us at all
Though we have made quite a few advances,
we still are puny little creatures in the grand scheme of things
Though we can fly to the moon, impress our image all over the world
boast our fugues to Martians -- we are a red button or a gas tank away from annihilation
A pathetic species we are, aspiring to the heavens one moment,
slitting each others' throats, violating a neighbor's wife the next.

What hope do I have in all this?

I see no answer emblazed in the sky, no buzz via viral marketing
That satisfies.
Yet I am glad for the still small voice that gently nags
and nags and nags
The voice of love that persists.
I thought that it would be easy to make you proud,
To be one who would never betray you
Everyone else was a fraud
And now, I too am found out.

But you still don't go away, do you?
I should be more grateful than I sound.

Are you a hedgehog or a fox?

I've been wanting to write about Isaiah Berlin's The Hedgehog and the Fox: An Essay on Tolstoy's View of History for a while, primarily because it can be the basis of a nice cocktail party question: "Are you a fox or a hedgehog?" Some select excerpts from Berlin's essay lay out the distinction that he makes between hedgehogs and foxes:

For there exists a great chasm between those, on one side, who relate everything to a single central vision, one system less or more coherent or articulate, in terms of which they understand, think and feel-a single, universal, organizing principle in terms of which alone all that they are and say has significance-and, on the other side, those who pursue many ends, often unrelated and even contradictory, connected, if at all, only in some de facto way, for some psychological or physiological cause, related by no moral or aesthetic principle; these last lead lives, perform acts, and entertain ideas that are centrifugal rather than centripetal, their thought is scattered or diffused, moving on many levels, seizing upon the essence of a vast variety of experiences and objects for what they are in themselves, without consciously or unconsciously, seeking to fit them into, or exclude them from, any one unchanging, all-embracing, sometimes self-contradictory and incomplete, at times fanatical, unitary inner vision. The first kind of intellectual and artistic personality belongs to the hedgehogs, the second to the foxes; and without insisting on a rigid classification, we may, without too much fear of contradiction, say that, in this sense, Dante belongs to the first category, Shakespeare to the second; Plato, Lucretius, Pascal, Hegel, Dostoevsky, Nietzsche, Ibsen, Proust are, in varying degrees, hedgehogs; Herodotus, Aristotle, Montaigne, Erasmus, Molière, Goethe, Pushkin, Balzak, Joyce are foxes.

Are you a fox or a hedgehog?

Why don't more people....?

In today's post, Lloyd provocatively asserts:

At great risk of coming across as a jerk in this matter, I gotta say: it baffles me to this day why no one else around here does what I see as such a simple, hyperlinking, act. Looking at the names on the links on the left [excluding the 'external' folks list], I see no one else who makes a routine practice of listlogging or annotated hyperlinking.

And I am left to wonder why that is... we have proven this weblogging sphere to be an incredibly deep and powerful medium for storytelling--shared or individually--that it astonishes me why we mostly choose not to share what we think about the lives of others who have taken the time to share themselves in their weblogs.

But I need to get down off this particular high horse, and acknowledge a simple fact. Perhaps the reason is this: it takes time to listen. And in addition, to really listen, with an ear to reflecting one's own thinking, takes work. And in the end, this kind of 'work' takes a very low priority in the larger scheme of your life.

I can live with that; but it disappoints, nevertheless. It seems so easy, but it evidently turns out to be quite hard.

It seems, Lloyd, that you more or less answered your own question. I want to affirm what many of us have taken for granted -- your facility, effort, and gift for connecting others to each other and drawing people out in the blogosphere. Speaking for myself (and probably for others), I'm in awe of the way you mentor as many folks (young and older) in "real life/face-to-face" and also in various virtual spaces -- partly because I have a sense of how much work it is to do and how faithfully you do this work. On a number of occasion, you have personally made a special welcome to me into your blogging community [1, 2] -- and I have also expressed my gratitude, which can definitely be in more evidence.

Having said this, I must admit a slight annoyance at Lloyd's "high horse" on this topic. What Lloyd has done is a wonderful service and is a lot of work. I would like to think that what I'm doing is not only hard work, but also of service to the community. I've had on my overflowing to-do list the task of improving my own blogroll, with the goal of better engaging with the many blogs and websites I do try to keep up with. One idea I told Chris about (but which I haven't been able to apply yet) is to have ways of indicating multiple levels of engagement. There are a lot of things I read that fall in the category of I-hear-you-sister-or-brother-but-don't-have-anything-to-say-right-now. I've struggled to find ways to "nod my head" or say "hmmm, yes" on a blog without having to write out too much (and spend too much effort doing so).

So improving my blogroll facility and my blog-reading technology are on my list of things to do to help me better engage in this community. But at the end of the day, as you said to me at lunch yesterday, our attention is limited and small. I wish I could do more, really -- and I feel terrible all the time for not doing more (yes, that's my problem). But I can't and I need to stop feeling bad about not being to do so.

(Let me add something that may or may address the issue at hand. Even though I've been blogging for over three years now, I feel that I'm still getting the hang of this new medium. There are periods in which my blog was really nothing more than links to a bunch of things I happen to be reading at that time. At other times, I'm trying to do close readings of other readings and responding to those readings. Recently, I've been focused a lot on what's going on in my own head and heart and life -- with less linking out in this medium. It doesn't mean that I've stopped listening to others. I do a lot of listening in "my real life". And it doesn't mean that I don't plan to do a lot of listening to others. At this moment in time, I'm choosing to listen to myself -- and share what I hear. That may sound grossly self-centered -- and maybe it is. So be it. But at the same time, I'm trying to find a way to put out there as much as I know about a lot of things so that others can take advantage of it. A lot of times, that's less about listening to a lot of individuals. (For example, there's an entire edublogging community of which I am nominally a part -- and I hope to do a lot of listening to others soon. But I'm not doing a lot of that right now....)

Does that do justice to your post, Lloyd? I'm trying to listen here....

Birds and imagination in flight

After having lunch at Restaurant Raphael [review, discussion], Lloyd and I attended the matinee showing of Winged Migration, a lovely film about migratory birds. I will not attempt a review here but just to comment on the experience. (If you want discussion of the film read some reviews at RottenTomatoes!) Unfortunately, I was a bit tired and ended up zoning out at times. But that seemed okay with the spirit of the film, which was unhurried, moving at nature's pace in some sense (As Lloyd said, some of the scenes were rather dreamy -- so falling asleep on my part does not imply a fault with the film, but more about my not getting enough sleep to take in serious art!).

The most basic thing that the film did for me is to help to see birds in a new light -- and to not take for granted (to "problematize", if you will) long migratory patterns of birds. (How do birds individually and collectively decide it's time to fly? How do they end up at the same spots? Do young birds learn from old birds where to fly? We saw certain birds get stranded -- what happened to them? Why do some birds fly so much farther than others? Do birds just get tired and fall out of the sky? And so on....) Not to overintellectualize the film as I'm wont to do -- because the most amazing thing I saw was just seeing birds fly close up, in a way I would never see otherwise It's actually incredible and weird that birds would routinely fly thousands of miles. Is that type of migration really necessary or some crazy extravagence?

(I didn't realize that Lloyd was seeing the film for the second time until I posted my reaction! Read his first and second impressions.)

Oh it's those physicsist again...

From Duncan Watts' Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age (pp. 61-62):

Physicists, it turns out, are almost perfectly suited to invading other people's disciplines, being not only extremely clever but also generally much less fussy than most about the problems they chose to study. Physicists tend to see themselves as the lords of the academic jungle, loftily regarding their own methods as above the ken of anybody else and jealously guarding their own terrain. But their alter egos are closer to scavengers, happy to borrow ideas and techiques from anywhere if they seem like they might be useful, and delighted to stomp all over some else's problem. As irritating as this attitude can be to everybody else, the arrival of the physicists into a previously non-physics area of research often pressages a period of great discovery and excitement. Mathematicians do the same thing occasionally, but no one descends with such fury and in so great a number as a pack of hungry physicists, adrenalized by the scent of a new problem.

Duncan Watts "holds a Ph.D. in theoretical and applied mechanics and has published in leading physics and sociology journals" according to his book.

The blind leading the sighted

On CBC Radio One, I heard some very interesting advice from a blind man to those who are "light-dependent" in Ontario (say my family in Toronto) who need to make it through the night without electricity (and therefore light):

• keep doors open -- not half-open
• follow a wall with your hands
• clear your floor of obstacles
• grab the things you need for the evening to have close to you
• if you drop something on the floor, don't bend over to grab it. crouch carefully and use one hand to sweep the floor for the itme
• don't stick your hand out suddenly -- you might end up banging your fingers into an item; curl your hands before slowly lifting your hands

Pardon me, but what is a weblog?

In forwarding my blog entry from several days ago about the Web and the church to fellow church members, I wrote a sentence that began with the words "I blogged". When asked what I meant, I realized how I was using a vocabulary that is very foreign to most people. It's interesting how being immersed in blogging has made me think that everyone is doing it!

At any rate, in search of a way to explain blogging, I turned to the handy whatis site to come up with a reasonably good definition of weblogs.

The power outage in Toronto is worrying me

When I found out about the big power outage that has hit Toronto, New York, and a good number of other cities in the north-east, I immediately tried to reach my family in Toronto. I got through -- suprisingly -- and found out that they were sitting in the dark (both figuratively and literally). Kris, my brother-in-law, told me that they didn't know what was going on other than the fact the power was out. I read him a big chunk of the New York Times article about what is happening. I was glad that people seemed calm -- maybe calmer than I am! As I walked over to Evans Hall, I left messages for a friend in Washington, D.C. wondering about her. Later I realized that D.C. wasn't hit by power outages -- my geographic sense of that region is a bit shaky. At any rate, I hope that she appreciates the thought if not the substance of the concern.

Kurosawa's Macbeth

Personally, I'm pleased that Krista feels free to diverge from the transportation theme of her blog to write about Macbeth, for instance. I've not read Macbeth myself but my image of the story has literally been transformed by Akira Kurosawa's Throne of Blood. This film was the first Kurosawa flick I ever saw (the first of fifteen in two months, that is) and made an unexpectedly strong impression on me. I won't quickly forget the menacing fog, the mask-like faces, the blood-curdling shuffle of "Lady Macbeth's" kimono on the floor, the final volley of arrows that finally dispatches the main character. It was amazing, and I was won over to Kurosawa's art.

My wiki, meet Christian Stimming

Imagine my surprise this morning when I woke up to find that my wiki had been graced with some new pages written by Christian Stimming, my former housemate! Not only did he introduce himself but he also contributed to the running discussion between Krista and me on the joy of bicycling. Christian demonstrated concretely for me the power of many eyes. He read my quick page on my 1-year "sabbatical" from new committees and asked why I was still resting (since I had written the dates as 2002-2003); what I meant was 2003-2004. His comments got me to correct that piece.

If the Web will change everything, does that include my church?

Although I'm supposed to be on a personal sabbatical year, I have a hard time resisting joining committees, especially if they join two of my favorite things: the church and the web. On Sunday evening, I attended the first meeting of the Web Advisory Board (WAB) for my church, the First Presbyterian Church of Berkeley (FPCB), rationalizing my attendance as an opportunity to advise without having to do any work (a great thing for dreamers like me).

Fortunately for the WAB, the nitty-gritty of the church's new website seems to be well-in-hand, leaving us with some freedom to contemplate a strategic view of the church's web presence. That's when I got excited. Anyone who walks by the physical plant of FPCB will see the beginnings of a major building project. It is a huge undertaking that will lay the literal and figurative foundation for the church's ministry for decades to come. The upshot of the project should be much more physical space in whcih the community can come together to reach out to others.

However, as someone who believes the Web and the internet (generally) have only begun to makes their impact on society felt, I don't think that my church has made similar strides to build for ministry in a Web-immersed world. The resources the church devotes to the building our web presence is miniscule compared to the millions of dollars that will be spent on physical buildings. Now, I'm not complaining about the fine work that has already been done. For instance, the online sermons is already an excellent resource to the many out there who want to follow the sermons from FPCB without having now to buy tapes. Personally, though I have yet to write about the sermons, they have been speaking deeply to me -- and it won't be long until I weblog about the sermons. (I've already written copious notes from the last several weeks.)

And it's this possibility of publicly engaging the sermons in ways that haven't been happening very often that is one of the many ways that the Web might change FPCB. At my church, it is not customary to have a Q&A after the sermon. However, it is not uncommon for the preacher to receive much email in response to a sermon. However, we as a congregation do not usually get to hear about the details of the email. Obviously, there are many cases in which that is appropriate; pastors often deal with very person, private matters. On the other hand, if the reaction does not need to be private, why not enable the wealth of insight and experience of an entire community be available to the entire community -- and the larger world? I have a lot of reactions to the sermons, some of which I care to share with others. I'd love to hear what others in my community have to say too.

Now I know that web-geeks like me care about the Web than most people in the society, including other people at my church. And yes, the case for how resources at the church should be allocated to build a proper integration of the Web into the ministry of FPCB remains to be made. (Remember the irrational exuberance behind the dot-com boom might be living in some of my thoughts....)

As I write this post, I have an odd feeling about what I'm doing, as though I'm exercising a voice and a platform that have so far liitle used in my community. Congregants speak at public meetings. Ordained leadership (both lay and clergy) weigh in at meetings of elders and deacons. (I had such a voice until just stepping down from a three-year term as a member of the "Session" (i.e., board) of FPCB.) I have the image of posting on my blog as scribbling something and taping it to the church santuary windows. Granted, it is a small piece of paper right now; a google search onf First Presbyterian Church Berkeley will not easily turn up my posts -- yet. But if I continue to write consistently about FPCB in this forum, I suspect that my blog commentary will become an increasingly prominent cyber-presence with respect to my church, at least on google, much out of proportion to my individual role at the church. Let's see what happens. If what I predict here does happen, what of it? Maybe nothing. Maybe something. At any rate, FPCB should look into the matter.

WikiWiki wow!

I've been running a public wiki for almost three weeks now. What, might you ask, is a wiki? Not having done a comprehensive search for a definition, I nevertheless recommend the following from wiki.org, which I will quote here:

Wiki is in Ward's [Ward Cunningham] original description:
The simplest online database that could possibly work.

Wiki is a piece of server software that allows users to freely create and edit Web page content using any Web browser. Wiki supports hyperlinks and has a simple text syntax for creating new pages and crosslinks between internal pages on the fly.

Wiki is unusual among group communication mechanisms in that it allows the organization of contributions to be edited in addition to the content itself.

Like many simple concepts, "open editing" has some profound and subtle effects on Wiki usage. Allowing everyday users to create and edit any page in a Web site is exciting in that it encourages democratic use of the Web and promotes content composition by nontechnical users.

You might then wonder what the big deal about a wiki is. I would answer that you have to try it to really believe it. Before I set up my own wiki, I tried editing the page on Johann Sebastian Bach on probably the world's grandest wiki: the Wikipedia. ("a multilingual project to create a complete and accurate open content encyclopedia") When I first encountered the page, it looked a bit like a version from Oct 2001, a very sparse beginning; I thought that the Wikipedia was, in principle, a good idea but it would would not be able to attract enough writing or editorial talent for the project to amount to much. I actually put more hope in Nupedia project, which was based on formal peer review, though I was sure that it would a very long time before either the Wikipedia or the Nupedia could rival commercial encyclopaedic efforts like the Britannica.

Now, about two years later, when I look at the current state of the J. S. Bach article, I have become more of a believer in the possibilities of the Wikipedia -- and wikis in general. The article is shaping up nicely, to the point that I have made a small edit in an attempt to improve the piece and consider making larger-scale additions, so that I could then proudly point to it as the best single introductory article on the subject. (I am intrigued by how being able to rewrite an article (as part of a collective effort) makes me more invested in the final product.)

But as I wrote above, you have to try a wiki to grok it. Read, for example, to the introductory page on the Wikipedia if you have a hankering for, editing the article on Shania Twain (Timmins-girl-made-it-big) -- I just did to make the proper link between Twain and Timmins. Try editing a page, either the Wikipedia:Sandbox or the sandbox on my wiki.

It was (and still is) a bit disconcerting to be hosting a wiki in which anyone can come edit the pages. I've worried about wiki security or the lack thereof. But the FAQ gets it right (IMHO): "In other words, the philosophy of wiki is one of dealing manually with the rare (exception) case of a saboteur, rather than designing in features and overhead (both in implementation and in usage) to avoid the damage caused by a saboteur." Not having to deal with passwords and letting anyone edit my wiki -- while monitoring my wiki for changes has worked so far. In fact, even if one invites a friend to contribute to my wiki, he or she won't necessarily know how without explicit guidance.

Besides being editable by anyone (by default), a wiki is made to enable new documents to be added easily. To create a link to a page in a wiki, one can, for example, write a WikiName, "a word that uses capitalized words" that automagically becomes a link. If the page doesn't yet exist, a person clicking on the link is invited to create that page. Note the subtle shift from tradition web authoring, where one has to create a link and also create the corresponding page -- else, we get a 404 error. In some sense, wikis don't have broken internal links; rather there are new opportunities to add to the wiki. Because it is so little work to create a new page (or to mark out a page to be filled out later on by one's self or another person), I have found my wiki to be a great place to do my braindumps, to accumulate my ideas and thoughts and for the connections to start snapping into place. After experiencing the thrill of a public wiki, I decided to install a local wiki accessible only to myself where I can work my own stuff in private. The question of whether to place content in my private vs public wiki or how I should migrate materials from my private to public space are ones I ponder these days. (And I certainly wonder about how to get group wikis running for projects to which I want to invite a limited number of people.)

There clearly is a lot more to learn concerning wikis. Anyone know how good is the book The Wiki Way: Collaboration and Sharing on the Internet? I would like to explore Ward Cunningham's famous wiki to get an understanding of how a body of work adds up in one person's wiki. A while back, McGee's Musings' useful summary of wikis helped me get oriented to the topic as well as David Mattison's gigantic piece on the topic. (Mattison's article points to discussions on the relationship between blogging and wikis that I would I like to dig more into -- I still love the chronological nature of blogging -- and the expectation that one largely freezes a piece of writing (after some time). In a wiki, the words are never finished (in general) but keep changing.

Wikis can be radically collaborative. Rick Beaubien and I have been drafting our paper on METS/IMS-CP interoperability in my wiki. I look forward to others collaborating on my wiki on related interests.

Growing up in the Timmins Public Library

I remember The Timmins Public Library as divided between two floors. The basement held the children's collection, but the top floor was the adult section. I started out as a child borrower with a library card that indicated such a status. One day, while still a kid, for some reason I can no longer remember, I was given adult borrowing privileges. It seemed that my avid reading habits advanced me prematurely into the top floor. A new world was open to me, one that beckoned to me every Saturday morning for years and years to come.

Of course, I did not immediately become an adult reader in the full sense. I still remember learning about Margaret Laurence's The Diviners, specifically the controversy about its handling of love and sex. Being the curious child that I was -- and perhaps bolder than I ever thought I would be -- I approached the reference librarian to ask about the book. I don't recall her exact words, but apparently, she found a gentle but effective way to ward off my request to get my hands on the book.

testing x,yz

hello

Is growing old in the eye of the beholder?

In the middle of a meeting with a group of undergrads last year, the phrase "baby faces" occured to me as I looked at the students around me. This is odd, I thought -- when I was undergrad myself at the University of Toronto, I certainly didn't see myself and my peers as "kids". The guys, we were men, fellow sophisticates. And those attractive coeds who lived in the dorms next door -- they were the most beautiful women in the world at the prime of their lives.

Somehow in the 17 years that have since elapsed, I've become one of those old fogies who think of undergrads as kids (in spite of promising myself never to call university students kids). The students do get younger every year, don't they?

Not surprisingly then, my friends -- and I -- look basically the same way to me as they did the day I first met them. It takes hard photographic evidence to make me see that the receding hairlines, new wrinkles, rounder features that are invisible to me on a daily level.

If this is the way that I see others, then could it be that those older than I have the same self-centric way of gauging age? In other ways, when I see only weathered faces, gray or bald heads, tired eyes, do others see the reality of a past that still lives on? The present is only skin-deep.

Adam: The first metadata man

Re: Genesis 2:19-20. There are some days I'm rather impressed with Adam. I have a hard enough time coming up with categories for my blog.

Beach Blanket Babylon

A fine long day was topped of by dinner and a night out with friends to see the local institution Beach Blanket Babylon. BBB was fun, but would we have seen it if we hadn't been going out together?

The dream life of books

Each book on every shelf has a story to tell. Should I listen to the dozens of stories awaiting to be recounted? Or should I self off those books as quickly as half.com can snap them up?

I can't seem to let go of A Guide to Feynman Diagrams in the Many-Body Problem or Mass Customization: The New Frontier in Business Competition. Some books (such as a copy of The Best American Essays 1996 (Serial)) actually belong to friends with whom I've more or less lost touch. And in the desire to master both Mandarin and Cantonese Chinese (i.e., to Read and Write Chinese) in my copious free time, I purchased Concise English-Chinese Chinese-English Dictionary and Let's Talk Cantonese.

What Should I Do with My Life? My goal is still Creating a Life Worth Living. If only I could follow those simple formulae: Do What You Are and Live the Life You Love by Getting What You Came for .

I'd like to have it all, I suppose. I want to experience The Joy of Work that emanate from The Effective Executive leaders all around me. Love would be wonderful too. However, as one of those Singles at the Crossroads, struggling with Boundaries in Dating, I'm comforted that at least my would-be lovers are Caring Enough to Confront me by saying, "I Only Say This Because I Love You."

Maybe I don't need the love of a good woman. I just need to love humanity at large. All I have to do is to start Making Room in my heart, eating enough Bread for the Journey. But as it ought to say in The Activist's Handbook, we must work Peer-to-Peer to spread what must be My Only Comfort (or is that Wishful Thinking?), that the Good News About Injustice is that there will always be work for us do-gooders, regardless of attempts at any Bridge to Understanding.

In the end, Finding Faith in God and practicing our faith in the great God in the Dark will answer the cry of the heart, "Please Understand Me!" and that refrain, "Please Understand Me II!"

Don't forget How to Read Slowly. For you'll see that what started as an attempt to poetry ended up to be Something Like an Autobiography, full of Good Taste, Bad Taste, and Christian Taste.

What I wanted to show you tonight....

It's five minutes until 11 pm. I have been getting back into some Python programming for two reasons. First, I've always thought that I should keep my programming chops up even if I'm not doing heavy-duty programming. There are enough ideas that I want to play with that having the ability to whip up a Python script to represent the idea is terribly valuable.

The second, and more immediate, reason is that the little hobby project that I want to demonstrate has to do with Biblical verses. Since it is nearing my bedtime, I can't go into length about what I want to do. But suffice it to say that I've been intrigued by the possibilities opened up by the intersection of "second-generation web technologies" and the presentation/representation/dissemination of the Bible. See, for example, the discussion at blogos and The Journal. Observe that one can generate, for instance, a RSS 2.0 feed of that great Superbowl verse John 3:16.

More later....sleep is important.

As long as those of us who feel the joy of pushing our own bodies through this world express that joy, as Krista does in quotes such as the following, we'll be doing our part in inviting others to join us:

These are the things make me some days unable to stop smiling inside: When I pass a string of 30 young children all on bikes, orderly in a precarious but persistent way, all dutifully wearing helmets (and bookended at both ends and in the middle with a handful of brave adults), giving me shy hellos and smiles of recognition as a fellow bicyclist. When someone standing in front of their house, watering the lawn, or getting into their car, looks up and says "Good morning!"--and really means it.

Thanks, Lynn, for your very kind words about me:

I've been thinking about Raymond's drawer of dull knives. This proverb makes me sad, because it denigrates some of Raymond's true talents-- the ability to realize that there are connections between apparently unrelated things, and to pull together people who didn't know their work had anything to do with each other's. The ability to build tools to make these connections work.

Your response sparked all sorts of thoughts and feelings in me about interdisciplinarity, C. P. Snow, crossing community boundaries, wanting to be all things to all people, sadness about not fitting in the usual boxes, the desire to know that I'm doing ok....A more well-thought out response on my part to come.

Just to say that I'm keeping a close watch as Chris' stories unfold (with photos, no less). From a place to work, nothing fancy 080303 Galway [Christopher Ashley] (formerly "a place to write"):

The details and reasons aren't necessary. I only need say that the circumstances of my family have created in me a deep nostalgia for happy moments in my life. I often daydream very clear, specific, and powerful faraway memories.

Chris and I have both used BullFighter, the subject of a New York Times piece. Don't delay: Leverage your core competencies today in communications engineering, thus maximizing yourself in the value chain and the global competitive landscape.

Intermezzo

If I had the energy of a supernova, there would be no need to sleep. I would work all day and all night -- through the seasons of the year. The sun would rise, the snow would fall, the moon wax and wane -- but I would unceasingly, unfailingly produce.

Wouldn't it be wonderful? I could stop eating, no longer waylaid by urgent demands of body or heart. Six days and rest -- no, not for me -- that's for wimps.

And in the end, I would arrive at everything I ever wanted. My masterpiece, my magnum opus. No one else would appreciate it (or me) -- then again, who would give a damn? Would I?

I dream of a Bach Digital Library (part 2)

Yesterday, I wrote about the different representations I want to have available in the BDL. Perhaps a clearer statement of the BDL's scope is that everything of relevance to Bach should be either be directly contained by the BDL or would referable from the BDL. There is no way a BDL can subsume all the wonderful resources that others are developing about Bach. However, it would be great if the BDL could know about these other resouces and "interoperate" with them so that it would be easy for someone to make the best use of all these materials together.

Let me get concrete by giving examples about how I currently interact Bach related materials vs how I'd like to do so. As a Bach fanatic, I have slowly been working through the 153 CDs of the magnificent Bach 2000 collection. One question that I've been pondering is how to have any single part of the Bach oeuvre quickly available to me. In my current setup, I would have to rummage through my 200-CD case to find the exact CD (providing I know the BWV numbering of the piece) and stick it into my computer or CD player. This is not a great hassle if I am listening and studying a specific work; however, if I want to compare two or more parts of Bach's music, then shifting between CDs is a cumbersome and ultimately prohibitive process. (I find it interesting that I didn't get into ripping my CDs into mp3s until I gave a talk about Bach in which I wanted to jump between different pieces of music. Before that, I though to myself, "hey, the kids can have their mp3 but I like carrying around CDs, with their cover art and liner notes, much like I suspected that my elders liked their LPs even if CDs were more convenient."

Now, I'm trying to figure out a way to rip my entire Bach 2000 collection and organize the mp3s for optimal access. Now it is possible to forget about ripping CDs and buy a 200+ CD changer in which I can load all the CDs -- but such a setup is not portable. What if I want to have all-of-Bach-all-the-time, while walking to work or biking at the gym? Hence, I've been eyeing an iPod or a Nomad Jukebox Zen to hold the digitized Bach 2000. I've put off doing so because I've been wondering whether I really need another gadget -- and even if I got one whether it is really the answer to my problems.

OK, let's say that the set (and all the other CDs that I have) digitized and organized for quick access -- so what then? Speaking as a Bach amateur -- and not as a Bach scholar -- I'm very much in a naive-stumble-along-teach-myself mode when it comes to Bach. For example, when I come across a discussion of parody (in the sense of "the retexting of a vocal composition, and more generally the production of a new vocal work based on the music of another piece" (Malcolm Boyd et al. J. S. Bach, p. 356)), then I'd like to listen to examples of parody. "The concept [of parody] is important in Bach studies because so much of the composer's vocal music appears in more than one guise." As a computer and Bach geek, I'd be even more thrilled if the lists of parodies could come in an XML format that I could quickly convert into a playlist.

Once I am able to make those digital connections for myself, I would naturally like to share them with others. However, within current copyright constraints, I'd be hard-pressed to do so in the way that I would like to (and the way the technology makes natural.) For instance, last night, I wanted to enable my readers to listen to what was moving me that time (and over the last couple of weeks): BWV 881a, the Prelude No. 12 in F minor in The Well-Tempered Clavier Book II. Ideally, I would be able point or embed the particular recording to which I've been listening (by Jeno Jando) so that my readers could experience it for themselves. The best I can do (which is great) is to point to Bach scholar Yo Tomita's midi rendition of prelude, which he generously makes available on his own website. It is fortuitous that, in this case, I can reference specific pieces of audio to support my blogging; the bulk of the Bach works will have no audio representation available on the Web.

What I hope for in the BDL is access to at least one audio rendition of every Bach piece. On this point, I've said to friends that if I were wealthy, I'd be interested in approaching Teldec to buy the right to make the Bach 2000 collection available on the Web. Assuming that we could reach a deal, how much might it cost? My first naive thought was to say that I would buy the recordings outright by paying the total estimate revenue from the set. However, when I came across the statement that 3800 complete sets were sol within the first month of the set's release , I thought, "hmm...4000 sets x$1000/set = $4 million is too steep of a price to pay".

Instead of paying Teldec, I wonder whether there is a way to convince Teldec to host the CDs online as a way of making more money on the set than it would by selling the music in its current form. Is there a subscription model that hits different segments of the market? Public access for a low-quality or short sample of works? (low quality might put people off by giving them the wrong impression of the quality of the source recordings. On the other hand, it doesn't have to be extraordinarily high audio fidelity for certain purposes.) A monthly/annual subscription fee for the Bach die-hards who would fork over $X (where X is say, around $10-$30/month) so that they can have the convenience of the set without having to digitize it themselves. Any revenue model for selling parts of CDs or individual tracks at the $1/track level as Apple has been doing in its music store? Institutional subscriptions for universities that want to teach Bach and incorporate actual audio into the instruction? (I'm sure others have looked deeply into this issue -- I might learn more about it later.)

Part II is over -- I got to get out to get some sun and fun. In future postings on the BDL, I plan to describe how I'd like to relate musical scores and bibliographic information to the Bach oeuvre.

I dream of a Bach Digital Library (part 1)

Sometimes I don't know where my personal projects end and where my professional interests begin. (Is that a good or bad thing?) Take the case of one of the dream projects that I have recently been raving about to both friends and colleagues. I want to build the Bach Digital Library (BDL). When I proceed to describe what I mean by the BDL, I usually add the qualification that I don't have be the one to mastermind the BDL -- I wouldn't mind if it came into being because of the efforts of others. Yet's it clear that I'd be disappointed if I didn't get to have some input into a BDL since the fun for me is not only in the Bach-part but the digital library part.

So what is this Bach Digital Library that has me so intrigued? (I won't be able to fully describe my vision for the BDL tonight in this one blog entry, because there is a lot I have to say, though I have more questions than answers.) I imagine the BDL as an ultimate digital representation of the Bach oeuvre and the body of relevant interpretation. Obviously, it's hard to nail down what an ultimate representation is -- but let me throw out some possible characteristics without worrying (at first) about the practicality of the vision.

The BDL would contain the complete work of Bach available in multiple representations. One representation would be digital scans of the Bach autographs (or original scores) -- much like what is currently contained in the project that goes by the name of Bach Digital. A second representation would capture the musical notation of the Bach scores; I naturally think of how XML might be used to represent music notation, including such efforts as MusicXML. A third way to represent Bach's music that would be included would be performances of the work. In this area, I would lump materials such as the many MIDI recordings of Bach already on the Web [1, 2, 3, 4] as well as the great volume of phonographs and CDs of Bach's music. (For example, I have sitting before me the 153 CDs of the Bach 2000 set as I write this piece and think that wouldn't it be great if all it could be digitized and made publicly available in a BDL). Finally, I'd like to have a way of representing all the interpretive materials around Bach's music in the BDL; here I take interpret "interpretive materials" broadly and include everything from a conductor's notes on how he read a passage to books about Bach's life to Yo Yo Ma's series Inspired by Bach. And there's a lot of materials that should be in the BDL that doesn't fit the classification scheme that I just laid out here (You can, for instance, consult Bach Central Station, described as "the most extensive directory of J.S. Bach Resources on the Internet", for a more sophisticated classification of Bach-related resouces....) Basically, the BDL should somehow encompass the wide-range of Bach related materials out there.

So far I've described the range of materials that I hope to see in the BDL. Even getting all this range of materials together in one large corpus would be a demanding task. Every one of the representations would be useful, to our understanding and appreciation of the music of Bach. However, as I will hope to demonstrate the continuation of this blog entry, it is the combinatorial possibilities of the various representations that is the truly intriguing part of the BDL. (I will also attempt to address the issue of how one might build a BDL.)