From Dictatorship to Democracy, by Gene Sharp

Interesting reading: 4th ed. in pdf.
Related story: Gene Sharp: Author of the nonviolent revolution rulebook By Ruaridh Arrow

• Albert Einstein wrote the foreword to his first book - Gandhi Wields the Weapon of Moral Power: Three Case Histories - published in 1960
• His 1968 Oxford University D Phil, The Politics of Nonviolent Action, formed the basis of a book with the same title, published in 1973
• Founded the Albert Einstein Institution in 1983, a non-profit organisation advancing the use of non-violent action in conflict around the world

Ruaridh Arrow's film, Gene Sharp: How to Start a Revolution, will be released in spring 2011 - keep an eye out for it!

Tourism in Philadelphia

Yesterday I turned the wrong direction when exiting the Reading Terminal Market after lunch (12th Street Cantina - a cold salad of spicy chicken chunks with plaintain & red bell peppers) & ended up at the Quaker Books/FGC/Friends Journal building at Arch St. & 13th. I had been asked to get a copy of Faith & Practice from the Philly Meeting, so I went in--took advantage of the 10% off sale, which covered sales tax, & got it for under $10. Outwardly, I was calm & friendly. Inwardly I felt awed & giggly--look--real Quakers who do Friendly work for a living!

From there, I hiked to the Free Quaker Meeting House Museum ("them are fighting words" - they were Quakers who were "read out of" meeting (dismembershipped) for fighting in the Revolution; also Betsy Ross joined them after being "read out" for "marrying out"). Passed by the Christ Church Burial Ground, wherein lies Benjamin Franklin, & went into the Arch Street Friends Meeting House. I was surprised by how large it is. I sat in silence for a few minutes before viewing the exhibits, which are miniature-diorama like. Visited the Betsy Ross house, Elfreth's Alley, and viewed the Liberty Bell (ordered by the Pennsylvania Assembly in 1751 to commemorate the 50-year anniversary of William Penn's 1701 Charter of Privileges, Pennsylvania's original Constitution) from outside its building. There is Security. I had my backpack.

More on eating at Reading Market--my favorite bakery is Beiler's, from which I've eaten cherry & blueberry pies & a cinnamon roll for breakfast, & took away an apple pie for tomorrow's brekkie. Next door to them is the Dutch Eating Place, where I consumed a large & utterly delicious hot apple dumping this morning. Around the corner is Miller's Twist, which features hot, soft, buttery pretzels--okay, I ate these for lunch every day except yesterday's Mexican. The Pennsylvania General Store includes Hope's cookies & Hank's rootbeer. There are lots of other stalls but these are the ones I patronized.

I enjoyed seeing & hearing Peter Richard Conte at the Wanamaker Organ in the Grand Court at Macy's last night. I went with an organist, who patiently answered my questions about the 6 keyboards, hundreds of color-coded stops, bizillions of pipes, etc.

This morning I visited the National Constitution Center to satisfy my former gov-docs-librarian self. Yes, I studied the Constitution & Bill of Rights, etc., in high school, but the exhibits also delineated the many struggles for rights of those who, oddly enough, were not included in "We the People," in The Centuries of Citizenship: A Constitutional Timeline. The full-size bronze statues of the signers of the Constitution are also impressive.

Tonight is the MLA Big Band concert at the reception prior to the banquet. Tomorrow I'll attend meeting for worship at Arch Street, then fly home. Homesickness has been a constant pressure here.

Music Library Association conference 2

In Plenary II on Licensing, we heard from a couple of copyright lawyers, Corynne McSherry & Kevin L. Smith, who believe that more often we will be licensees, not owners, of informational materials, & thus, that first-sale doctrine doesn't apply. Corynne advocated for librarians to follow the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) blog. Kevin explained that there are 3 relevant issues:

1. digital-only release (e.g., Dudamel + LA Philharmonic's recordings) prevents (re)sale, (archival) back-up, ownership, etc.
2. physical release with license restrictions on first-sale
3. digital bundles (e.g., Naxos) prevents us from exercising professional quality control on collection development.

We need a music digital archiving system like LOCKSS or electronic archiving service like Portico. Because contract law (which governs licenses) is state law, & copyright is federal law, we also need to ask for special library contracts & advocate for federal copyright law to trump non-negotiable end-user licenses. The Uniform Commercial Code governs the sale of goods & should apply to music.

What we librarians can do: work with our music faculty who are composers and performers to emphasize that if music is released only in digital format, it cannot be collected by libraries for use by their students or be used in their own teaching.

"Music Librarians & Emerging Technologies"
Jing allows you to show someone how to do a task online, record it with voice, & email the screencast. Although apparently you have to create an account at screencast.com too to edit & share the videocast or embed it in a website. It uses Flash as the output type. There is a limit of 5 minutes per screencast. You can add arrows, text, & save as a .png. Yahoo Pipes is another interesting mash-up creation tool but complicated. To ask Matthew: Is there an app like foursquare to use for mapping the exact shelf location of items by using their rfid tag?

Music Library Association conference

While this is a small conference, with about 500 attendees plus about 100 vendors, I am still at somewhat of a loss because I don't know anyone at anything more than an acquaintance level. However, that said, I am meeting a lot of people & learning quite a bit, so the conference comes at a "just in time" place of need. Here are some tidbits:

• InstantEncore is a repository for live classical music & recordings of concerts & recitals. Note: added to Music LibGuide.
• In the session "Born & Reincarnated Digital: One Course Management System-based Solution to Providing Copyright Compliant Streaming Audio Reserves," I learned that they use a CMS like Blackboard by creating a "Media.Reserves" instructor (who may add content but not access grades), & the librarian/CR staff use this to add listening modules to courses. They use mp3 files which are uploaded. They also use 2 different software programs to edit the metadata (PA Software ID3) and make it searchable (GEMM). Seems unnecessarily complicated, if ARES is working well enough for GVSU.
• In "Educating Music Librarians in the Digital Age," I realized that what I most need right now is:
  

1. instruction & exercises in using Grove via Oxford Music online to find music in our collected works,
   
2. help with acquisitions of non-book materials--when to use which vendor and why
3. what is a uniform title: tutorial from Indiana University
4. Why doesn't Naxos index the titles on their CD covers (I have to go downstairs & ask them)
5. to download Jing to use for screenshots
6. get a mentor to guide me in the above quests.
   

I also learned about:

• the Music Treasures Consortium, Performing Arts Encyclopedia from the Library of Congress - digital images of manuscripts (note: added to Music Guide)
  
• MILT: Music Information Literacy Tutorial from Cleveland Institute of Music.

I toured the Free Library of Philadelphia's reading room in the Music Department, the Edwin A. Fleisher Collection of Orchestral Music (the world's largest lending library of orchestral performance material), and the Rare Book department (saw treasures like 5000-year-old cuneiform and cuneiform seal, the first hymnals printed in this country, Beatrix Potter original paintings, illuminated medieval manuscripts). I've been all over Reading (pronounced "redding") Market (oh those soft, buttery, hot pretzels!), and saw City Hall (with the statue of William Penn atop it) and many sculptures & murals on the way to the Free Library. And I've successfully ridden the SEPTA train. It is sunny & very windy, but warmer than Michigan.

Silence in worship

Silence is a difficult discipline--the most difficult for me, anyway. There are various ways to approach "centering down" as Quakers say. I borrow from other traditions as needed.

One is to think of a saying, in "lectio divina" style: an example is the verse, "Be still and know that I am God." ... wait with it for a few moments. "Be still and know that I am." Wait.... "Be still and know." Wait.... "Be still." Wait.... "Be." Wait.... "Be still and know that I am God."

Or use a single word, whatever you feel you need most at the time.

Another is to observe your breathing--just pay attention to it.

Or hold people in the Light (a.k.a. praying for them, in whatever fashion works for you). Sometimes I start with the people in the circle, then expand it. When I get to the whole world, that's as centered as I get! If I get that far, and "come back to myself" that often seems to correspond to others' sense of a "gathered" or "covered" meeting -- when we are communally filled with the Spirit.

There are many books, pamphlets, & blog posts for those who want to read more.

Love as a discipline

These passages seem particularly relevant to me lately, speaking to my heart, especially in view of recent events. "Love must be a kind of discipline. If we love only with our feelings, we're sunk--we may feel love one day and something quite other the next. ... I realized I must learn to love with my will, not my feelings. ... And so I enjoyed the warm feelings, the stuff of the heart, when it was present between us, as it sometimes was, ... And when it wasn't, there was the will to love, something like...a generator kicking in, a backup. ... Wounded people use a lot of smoke and mirrors, they thrust the bitterness and rage out there like a shield. Then it becomes their banner, and finally, their weapon. But I stopped falling for the bitterness and rage. I didn't stop knowing it was there--and there for a very good reason--but I stopped taking the bullet for it. With God's help, I was able to start seeing through the smoke. ... It's all in increments.... Healing came as little drops of water, and never the mighty ocean when you need it.... There's no way to deal with their suffering, except through love. ... Trust that, believe that, as hard as it is to believe right now. Act as if it were true, it can change things. ... Go in where there's common ground. Do whatever you can to find common ground, and if you do nothing more, forgive...and pray.... Whenever she [substitute the other pronoun if needed] lashes out, whenever she draws away, pray and forgive, forgive and pray." Karon, Jan. In the Company of Others. NY: Viking, 2010. 239-241.

Bring your whole self to Meeting:

If you are struggling with anger, bring that to Friends meeting for worship, and engage with your issues and God while surrounded by Friends. What safer place to do so? Since one of the qualities we value is integrity, we feel that one can be angry and still be Quaker. I'm certainly angry fairly often...and who fails to be in an unjust world, surrounded by narcissism and greed? If you feel unworthy, bring that too. We also value equality--God values all of us, and so do we also try to love our neighbors as ourselves. Who feels worthy, or deserving? (oh, those previously-mentioned narcissists!) Yet we are all equally worthy of God's love and the love of our neighbors. Bring your whole self to Friends meeting for worship.

Birds, music, and misc 2010

Nov. 29th, 2010

Galveston Island, TX birding

Today we saw dunlins, killdeers, spotted sandpipers, great-tailed grackles, oyster catchers, storks (flocks), snowy egrets, great white egrets, reddish egrets, great blue herons, white pelicans, an osprey, and one roseate spoonbill. Also a yellowish crab about 4" big. The sea, the sea was very foamy, big surf. The marshes were flat & filled with birds. Everywhere were the egrets stalking.

Nov. 27th, 2010

Houston birding

Today we went to High Island, Texas, and saw the following:
neotropic cormorants (in their rookery!)
white ibis
black vultures & turkey vultures
loggerhead shrike
great egrets
catbird
orange-crowned warbler (Western) and maybe an Eastern but uncertain
pine warbler
western palm warbler
several alligators
a slider turtle

Gorgeous! Followed by a nice lunch at Macho's Restaurant in Millie, TX.

Nov. 3rd, 2010

Rachel Barton Pine & Ars Antigua concert

This noon I went to the concert by Rachel & Ars Antigua, in which they played the entire Four Seasons by Vivaldi on period instruments--fantastic! I first heard Rachel when she played at the Stulberg Competition in Kalamazoo.

 

Nov. 1st, 2010

Ann Arbor trip

We went to A2 this past weekend (by way of Bath and Dearborn). Our evening stop was at the Mardigian Library at U-M Dearborn to see the exhibition honoring Little House on the Prairie, by Laura Ingalls Wilder, called Laura’s enduring tale: Celebrating the 75th Anniversary of Little House on the Prairie . Bill Anderson (her biographer) gave a talk and answered questions, and it was all very fun. I loved seeing things like a hay twist, burned for fuel during the Long Winter, and a replica of Ma's china shepherdess, the notebooks Laura wrote her books in, letters between her and Rose about editing the books.... We came away with 3 new books about Laura by Anderson.

I had a good walk Saturday morning along the Huron River near Barton & Brede, visited with my sister in Waterford to do xmas shopping for my nephews, and then had a marvelous dinner back in A2 at Ayse's Turkish Cafe. Excellent chocolate-figgy-walnut pudding, and olive & pomegranate salad.

On Sunday, did more winter preparation in terms of yard work--composting the bucket-tomatoes, raking, hauling brush, etc. I made a little fire in my stick burner, my 1st and last fire, as now I'm ready to send it to the junkyard or give it to anyone who wants it.

Oct. 28th, 2010

3 year old conductor/violinist

Oct. 15th, 2010

Birdwatching

The juncos are back, in various plumages!

Oct. 10th, 2010

weekend

Yesterday I took my camera out on the bicycle & took a few photos along the bike trail--great colors. After lunch we went to Crane Fest (passed thru Nashville, Bellevue, & other small towns new to me). I was disappointed by the crowd of non-birders who wondered what the whole thing was about (no field glasses, brought their dogs, expected a petting zoo apparently) but I thought the art displayed by vendors was fantastic. The beauty of the cranes flying in and out was breath-taking, although I could have skipped the guy, who though informative, talked for several hours via mega/microphone. Hasn't he ever heard of noise pollution? I think that next fall we'll go on a non-advertised day in October, when there will be fewer people but they will be folks who enjoy the birds for themselves.

Oct. 2nd, 2010

Bird migration

In the past couple of weeks, I've seen magnolia warblers in their fall plumage, a yellow-throated warber, and black-throated green warbler at Blandford Nature Center. Yesterday on Maynard Ave and at Millennium Park, we spotted a pair of Sandhill cranes, a great blue heron, a pair of double-crested cormorants, several red-necked grebes, a flock of mute swans, and a lot of kildeer. There is also a great white egret or a great blue in white phase, but I couldn't see the legs to make a positive ID.

 

Aug 27, 2010

beechnuts

In Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder, I remember that the family raked up beech leaves & nuts every fall and laid them in the barn for later sorting & peeling, and we have a large beech tree overhanging our deck. So I gathered the nuts & seed pods as they rained down around me last weekend. I found a couple of discussions on the web about them--hard to beat the squirrels, but I already had--best eaten fresh, so I tried one right away but it was too green! Other people said to wait until they turned a bit brown (but not too brown), so I left the others to ripen for a few days. There were notes about European beech nuts being much more bitter than American, which were supposed to be sweet. Several folks recommended roasting them--a coffee substitute can also be made from these or a fine oil with olive oil qualities may be pressed. The nuts are full of protein and other good thingies. So Amy kindly toasted them for me. Bitter! Bitter, I say! And sharp in the mouth!  I couldn't eat them. I put them out for the critters to eat, if they are so inclined.

Apr. 27th, 2010

The woods are overflowing

Today in Aman Park, these are the new bloomers: wood anemone, broadleaf toothwort (a new one for my "lifelist"), dogwood, wild lily-of-the-valley, star-flowered Solomon's seal, wild phlox, Virginia bluebells (at their peak), large-flowered bellwort, buttercups, wild parsnip, Jack-in-the-pulpit. The paw paw trees are almost ready to bloom.

In addition, these are still blooming: common violets, downy yellow violets, Canada white violets, spring beauties, squirrel corn, trillium (at its peak!), cut-leaved toothwort, false rue anemone, spring cress, wild geraniums, wild ginger, & blue cohosh (these last 2 are almost done).

Saw a little brown creeper & a large Hairy woodpecker.

April 30, GVSU ravines: mayapples

Apr. 17th, 2010

Even more wildflowers

mood: flowery

New additions spotted on my walk today in Blandford: squirrel corn, spring cress, wild geraniums, downy yellow violets, marsh marigolds, wild ginger, blue cohosh, and ground ivy. The ground is decorated!

Apr. 15th, 2010

Music discovered this week; new bike ordered

WASHBURN, Abigail: Abigail Washburn and The Sparrow Quartet.
She has a fantastic voice, & this cd includes both folk style songs--bright & quirky--& yodeling, a Chinese song, Appalachian songs, a Kazakz tune, lots of banjo & fiddle...

SCHULHOFF, E.: String Quartets Nos. 1 and 2; 5 Pieces. An early-20th-century Czech classical composer who used Eastern-European rhythms & tunes-- jazzy, syncopated, spirited.

Ingram Marshall: Evensongs / Entrada / In My Beginning is My End.  American classical composer of the late 20th-century, lyrical nature sounds and electronic music with traditional instruments--both minimalist & romantic.

Miguel Del Aguila: Clocks / Charango Capriccioso / Presto II / Salon Buenos Aires / Life is a Dream. Contemporary west-coast composer (2009 Composer of the Year). Well, I can't quite describe his music, so check it out for yourselves.

Listening to samples of Natalie Merchant's newest cd, Leave Your Sleep. What's to say? I still love her voice.

At the fitting yesterday, I discovered that my back won't tolerate the classical road-riding position any longer, so I am going to get a road/comfort bike from Giant, which I think might be the Cypress DX W (not sure, but it had 700 & 5 in it & it's red, upright with a comfy seat, 24-speed, with a decent derailleur). I get to see it Saturday.  

Apr. 13th, 2010

poetry reading

mood: inspired

Went to hear Siobhan Campbell, an Irish poet, read last night. As with most poetry, it was great live, especially with her comments. I talked to her afterward...went to the car and wrote myself some notes, then went back in to talk with her more. Her newest (3rd) book is focused on the theme of violence. The things that save it are her lyricism and imagery from nature. I asked about one poem and she said she is interested in how military personnel returned from war talk and express both the PTSD and the violence of their experiences in general. I had kept going back to the poem despite its violence and when she told me more about it, it made more sense. It's expressed in terms of a man beheading the flower blossoms of "weeds" (foxglove, a garden flower here but a weed in Ireland) with a hawthorn walking stick. I find her 2nd book to be more approachable. In some of her poetry, I heard echoes of Federico Garcia Lorca, Robert Frost, Mary Oliver.

Apr. 13th, 2010

April 10 wildflowers

Aman Park: all of the previous plus trillium, tons of trout lilies, cut-leaved toothwort, false rue anemone, carpets of spring beauties, bluebells budded. I spent an hour and 20 minutes trying to get some serious exercise but continually foiled by having to stop and take more photos of the flowers, testing my camera's limits. Flower macro, super macro, and super macro with LED. Flash on, off. Scene setting. Zoom limits. Very relaxing.

Apr. 5th, 2010

wildflowers spotted April 4

At Blandford Nature Center, I spotted both purple and white violets, spring beauties, Dutchman's breeches, bloodroots, and even a brave trout lily. Not spotted but I'm sure it has opened at Aman Park: the hepatica which was budded last week.

Other plants which I was interested to see were spotted waterleaf, ramps leeking all over, and bluebell leaves.

The neighborhood forsythia are amazingly full and bright.

Mar. 27th, 2010

Midori concert

Last night Amy took us to the GRSO concert with guest violinist Midori. We attended the pre-concert lecture, surprisingly by the conductor himself, with Midori stepping in to talk about the Walton concerto she was playing--a first for both of them to perform in public. So, that was fun to see her in ordinary clothing and talking extemporaneously. Then the concert was excellent--the empress insisted that we bring the little binocs--for which I was glad, when I could see Midori's expressions and movements "up close and personal" as it were. Amazing intonation, phrasing, sweet tone while passionate playing.... Awesome, well worth the price for the tickets.