Stop Children, What's That Sound?
We didn't need an act of Congress to proclaim 2003 to be The Year of the Blues. Just ask anyone. I find a guitar in my hands more and more often these days, and more often than not drifting off into variations of old blues tunes that laid pipe in the basement of my brain back in the sixties. I even sing sometimes, if no one is around--think of bagpipes on a hangover. But I feel a little better afterward, or maybe just feel a little, period, which would be the point, I guess.

Getting Sedimental

It's hard to dig anywhere in the North Country without engaging in archeology. In my war against the yard, I have uncovered all the dairy barn foundation and several generations of midden heaps. Below the plastic and aluminum is tin and glass. Further down is cast iron--factory made hardware, plowshares and bolts, a flatiron and a lamp bracket. Just at the bottom, the ironmongery is hand-forged--a doorlatch and hinges, homemade spikes from floor joists and rafters. As a boy, my favorite playgrounds were industrial ruins. The wreckage of the Pyrites Paper Mill was particularly splendid--enormous stone rollers for texturing the finished paper lay scattered about. Buildings that were walls with no roof or floor, and a sun-dappled glade of birches inside each room. It's hard to imagine what we will leave for posterity, and what will cover the PCB layer and the styrofoam layer and the action-figure layer and the thin layer composed entirely of dead hard drives.

For a Change

Too much to say for this space. So instead, take a little silence; breathe in, breathe out. For all who were lost two years ago, and all who were lost in the two years since, as chips fell where they may...

They say everything changed when the towers fell. If only that was true.

I Already Gave at the Pledge Page

Some new events in the tug-of-war over who pays for public broadcasting online, and how: BBC gets first prize in public service for articulating a policy that mandates free public access to all their online archive material. We call for NPR and other US public broadcasters to follow BBC's (and North Country Public Radio's) lead and make a similar commitment.

Microsoft has run afoul of the courts over the digital rights management software built into newer versions of the Windows Media Player. Losing this copyright infringement suit could result in the recall of current Windows Media Player versions, or the payment of ruinous fines and fees to the plaintiff company. It was precisely these management features that NPR cited when they chose to archive audio in Windows Media format, instead of a more universally-accessible format. Bummer.