Year: 2007

A letter from César Díaz

Some years ago, I got an email which surprised me, to say the least. It bore the title “Dylan with no harp!”, probably in response to something I had written about that, and was from a certain César Díaz. Not something that happens every day, to be sure, that I’m contacted by one of Dylan’s former guitar players.

He wrote:

When I was his tech before I joined the band, I always made sure that there would be plenty of harmonicas for him to use, in minor keys, sharps and flats — you name it I had it.

After I left to have my liver transplant, the new tech never bothered to ask me how I handled Bob. Consequently he began giving Bob the same old harmonicas even though some would already be blown. I had a harmonica tester made by Hohner — a very simple device, but I could then tell if any of them were bad or defective. I heard around ’97 that Bob was throwing the harmonicas at the new tech — no need to wonder why!

I doubt that any back injury would prevent Dylan from ever using the harmonica again, to my knowledge it seems more a ”lack” of trust. Bob’s a creature of habits, and once he falls into a ”groove” he rarely changes, unless of course the same bad thing would happen time after time …

I only allowed a set of 7 harmonicas to remain for only three shows at the most! After that … I would always be concerned and would lay 7 new ones on the platter. He never complained to me about having a bad harmonica… It takes one to know one!

Thank you, César Díaz ®©
http://www.cesardiaz.com

I wrote back to him, asking him for permission to publish his mail — given that he had sent it to someone who ran a Dylan website, I assumed that might have been what he had in mind. I also hinted at the rumours that there should be some kind of contract preventing people in Dylan’s vicinity from saying too much in public. He answered:

Thanks Eyolf: As long as it is printed with your very same introduction, I cannot see anything wrong with it.

I don’t have anything against Bob and grew to like him quite a lot, it’s a shame that other musicians and people who, for a period of time, however lengthily, cannot tell when the gleam is gone. We all have jobs and relations that for any number of reasons can end at any moment, heck life’s that way, here today and gone this afternoon…

I for one never signed any contract with Dylan’s management concerning interviews or my own career. Bob of all people knows that the company you keep says a lot about you; he left home and came east to find his hero and quickly associated himself with a legend very much so as I did. I struggled with my pride and ability as a musician and sacrificed precious time for the likes of Stevie Ray Vaughan, Bob and many others. I knew it was my time to leave and that I was dying — I left without any kind of compensation except for clothes and guitars, hats and things that I could use. I was even told by his current manager that I was ‘not what he would call record company material’ — this coming from a person that could not play his way out of a paper bag, let alone be able to humble himself to become ‘the bag carrier’ as Victor Maymudes did.

Many of the people who have worked for Dylan in the past have a notion that they will return someday and that if they don’t say anything about their experience then they will have a better chance because they have kept their lips sealed, ‘loose lips sink ships’ they say… but I am no longer on that ship… I was given a new lease on life which cost $375,000.00. I had to sell many things I truly would have loved to keep, many came from Bob. To me his generosity in both allowing me to play in his Band and the gifts I’ve received throughout the years has been enourmous and I am very sure he appreciates the fact that I didn’t lean on him for any help. He called me right before I was to be operated and offered me his prayers. Things like that mean a lot to me.

We played the song ‘Oxford Town’ for the only time ever, in Oxford Mississippi. I am a man of color and that to me was the greatest honor. I speak the truth to the best of my recollection — some things have become hazy but for the most part I have no ill feelings concerning the way I was treated or what the press may have said, like ‘roadie turned guitarist’, ‘Dylan’s Puerto Rican roadie’ — maybe being Hispanic makes me a better tech — ‘A Ragtag Band that even included a member of the Crew’ … A lot has been said that I don’t much appreciate but people are entitled to have their opinions… I have mine.

More certain than death itself is the fact that I will never go back, not under the same circumstances. That moment was captured and frozen in time. I look ahead and like Dylan… I ‘Don’t look back’.

César Díaz

A short while later, César Díaz died, and I didn’t know what to do with his mails. They do contain some interesting details which may not shatter anyone’s foundations or change the world in any way, but hey, we’re all addicts, aren’t we — any little tidbit is interesting. And despite the slightly self-indulgent tone, I have grown fond of ‘Dylan’s Puerto Rican roadie’.

As I was cleaning up my desk today, I found my old printouts, and I figured it was time to pass them on. Raise a glass to César, and play Oxford Town one more time.

One Laptop Per Child

When I first heard about the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project I thought, “Dream on. Nice idea, perhaps a tad imperialistic despite its good intentions, but more than a tad unrealistic — it’ll never happen anyway, so not to worry. Nice dream, but dream on.”

The idea was this: a laptop, designed to be simple, rough, directly usable, under any conditions, even in areas with no reliable power supply, and so cheap that it could be sold in underdeveloped countries and finally let them in on the digital revolution, and powerful enough not to be simply a toy. The precondition was that enough orders were placed, so initially 1 million laptops per order (i.e. per country) was the minimum. This, in turn, would bring the price down to $100. So for a measly sum of 100 million dollars — hardly a week’s worth of mortgage to banks in the West, I assume — a whole population would be given all the chances that a computer can offer.

And there was more: the mesh networking on which the laptop is based allows any laptop to be connected to any other OLPC laptop in the area. So with just one laptop connected in, say, Zaire, the whole million of other OLPC kids would be online, in a gigantic, organic network, covering and connecting countries, continents, heck, the whole world.

OK. Nice dream, but dream on.

Or so I thought. But with increasing, incredulous astonishment I’ve gradually been led to believe that it may not be just a dream.

Every time I read a report on the progress of the project or a review of the product, my hair rises in excitement. Literally. I think “This is too good to be true.” “This is mind-boggling in its implications, it couldn’t happen, but it does!”

Several countries have already signed up. The fourth beta version has brought the speed up (which was a major objection in earlier versions). Most reviews are overwhelmingly positive (including the one written by someone in the target group, a 12-year-old).

The laptop will not cost $100 but $200, but what they have managed to put together at that price seems incredible. But true. Up to twelve hours battery life, supplemented by a mechanical generator and a solar cell panel; the mesh network; a case which must appeal to kids (perhaps even to some adults); a sound selection of Linux-based software; a one-button peek into the internals of software where the user can make changes directly (and restore them if something goes wrong) in order to stimulate the understanding of the internals of computers — I want a laptop like that! And had I been living in North America I could have, through the Give 1 Get 1 program.

What’s most fantastic about the OLPC program is that . . .

No, wait — what’s most fantastic is probably that millions of children in underdeveloped countries will be given a chance they didn’t have before, opening up opportunities to get a better life.

But other than that, what’s most fantastic about the OLPC program is that it shows that it is still possible to be visionary, to get a wildly unrealistic idea and follow it through to realization, and — if it works out like it seems to — to change the world for the better.

Adam in Bama

or

Myanmar and The Fine Art of Political Correctnessing

What do you call that country in South East Asia where the streets are filled with monks in red, protesting 45 years of military rule?

Do you call it “Burma” and reveal yourself as a post-colonial, pseudo-imperialist aggressor who deep down thinks that it would have been better if the Brits had been allowed to stay in power, but since they weren’t, the least we can do is use their name: “Burma” it is.

Or do you say “Myanmar”, to demonstrate your respect for the peoples of the world, acknowledging that naming something is to exert power over it, and that it should be every people’s right to be their own “Adams” and name themselves: “Myanmar” it is.

The development in the newspapers over the past few weeks has been interesting: in the beginning, it was “Burma” — of course: that’s the name we all know. Eventually, there were more and more “Myanmar”s. At first, I thought it was a major city or something, but then I realised that it was actually the “correct” name of the country. By saying “Burma”, I would actually reveal myself as an imperialist pig. OK, so I translate it mentally to “Myanmar”, and everytyhing is fine.

Or is it? Whose Adam’s right to name is it that I’m acknowledging? Not that I’m an expert in South-East Asian politics, but here’s what I’ve gathered:

  • “Burma” is the westernized version of “Bama Pyi” (Pyi = country), the everyday word for the country, now and in the past.
  • “Myanmar” is the short form of “Myanmar Naingngandaw”, the etymology of which is uncertain, but which has been used as an official name in elevated style since the twelfth century.
  • In everyday language, the difference between the two is smaller than the written names might indicate: “bama” v.s “myama”.
  • The military see themselves as heirs of the empires of the three great Burmese warrior kingdoms: in the eleventh, the sixteenth, and the eighteenth centuries.
  • It was the military government who in 1989 changed the official name to the more lofty Myanmar.
  • The opposition has never acknowledged the new name, since they don’t recognize the military as rightful rulers, and hence not their right to rename the country.

So we can ask again: what are we actually doing by succumbing to PC-ness and translate to Myanmar? Who are we actually showing respect?


Sources: Genesis 2. 19–20; Wikipedia.org: Burma (redirects to “Myanmar”); weekendavisen.dk

KDE help — give me a break!

I use KDE, the most usable Linux desktop environment. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I love KDE, but I couldn’t live without it either.

Except on those certain days, that is. When I want to look up something in a help file. This is one of those days.

Frankly, and no offense, but the help system in KDE is disastrous. I should have known by now — I’ve virtually stopped even considering pressing Shift-F1 a long time ago. Mainly because it annoys me no end.

(Edit: In fact, it’s so long ago that I’d forgotten it’s ctrl-F1. Shift happens, as they say.)

I will pass lightly over the fact that many programs don’t have proper documentation. Disclaimers such as “under construction”, “this part needs to be written. Volunteers?” and the like — I don’t mind them, it’s an honest matter that time is scarcer than ideas.

I will also merely mention that to find things in the “Khelpcenter” can be an ordeal in itself. Loads of categories to search through, some of which are ordered alphabetically. And I’ve never been able to search the help files en bloc. There is an option to build a search index of all the application manuals, but every time I’ve tried it, on several different systems (Ubuntu, Mepis, Archlinux, etc.) and with many different versions of KDE, I always get the error message “htdig failed”. A google search reveals that I’m not the only one, but it’s been unresolved for so long that I’ve stopped considering it.

But even when it’s there, it’s usually less than useful. They must have some kind of help file template at KDE central derived from a statistical analysis of most frequent entries in Windows help files. Pages upon pages of things like “File -> Open… (Ctrl+O): Search the file system to open an existing file.” OK, I suppose it needs to be there, but surely there are more important things to spend time and diskspace on?

This mass of trivialities becomes close to ridiculous when compared to the advice one can get elsewhere. I once had the pleasure of asking a non-trivial question at the mailing list of one of the KDE apps. I was greeted with the traditional RTFM (Read The F.\{3,6} Manual), and a list of eleven pointers to places in the manual where my question was answered. Only it wasn’t. Some of them were references to other, developer oriented KDE applications which could be used to accomplish the task in a roundabout manner, others were of the general, non-informative kind above, and others again were of the kind “write a script to do it”. (The whole answer — and the ensuing discussion — was soaked with sulky consternation that I had suggested a Windows program did this better and easier. Proof of point, if I ever needed one.)

In other words: what’s lacking is the middle ground between trivialities and programmers’ tricks. Here, there is something to learn from vim, the uber-geek editor par excellence. I once tried to make a syntax highlighting scheme for Kate, the advanced KDE editor. Nothing fancy, I just wanted to be able to start a line with “;” and make them appear in red to use them as headers in text files. I managed in the end, but it took me forever and a while. Compare it with vim, where it’s done with a couple of lines of easily understandable code.

That‘s user-friendly: it enables me to do what I want to and assumes I am smart enough to understand it, as long as I’m willing to follow some links in the manual and read some very precise but clear instructions. An average KDE help file doesn’t: it tells me what I already know (that I can open a file with ctrl-O), and some things I can’t really use (that this can be done if I’m a programmer), but I don’t get the steps in between, which is where most “users” will be, after all.

Phew. I just needed to get that off my chest. Feel much better now. Think I’ll go and make a syntax colouring scheme.

Browser stats, day #3

Can you tell me what is strange with this picture, which shows the browsers that have been used to view the pages on this site during the three days since I moved?

browser stats

If you say: “That Firefox has almost 50%, and more than IE”, you’re part right. On the other hand: it is not surprising, is it? After all my plugging for it here, one would really have to be a n00b to use IE, right?

It is not either that “Lynx” is represented, with a whopping 0.6%. Lynx is a text-based browser, quintessentially retro, which is fine for a site like this one and great for quick lookups, because it starts immediately — no need to wait for a modern browser to load all its bells and whistles if all you want to do is check for new updates at Things Twice, now, is there? (the only surprising thing is that it’s Lynx and not one of its more capable cousins, like Links or Elinks).

No, what’s really surprising here is the number at the bottom: that Opera is used by 0.3% only of my visitors — even less than Lynx! — that’s a surprise. I know these numbers are not statistically significant or anything, but nonetheless: Opera is the best browser of them all, really: 50% faster than Firefox and 100% faster than IE, according to recent studies; comes with an email program and a newsreader as well; is even more standards compliant than Firefox; works on all platforms, Linux, Mac, and Windows; and has some features that others don’t. The only reason I’m not using Opera is the Vimperator extension to Firefox, which I can’t live without, but if it wasn’t for that, I’d be on an Opera any day.

So, you might ask, if Opera is a such a damn good browser, how come nobody uses it?

Opera is one of the casualties of the Free/Open Software war where Firefox is the true winner. Opera actually used to be a program you’d have to pay for — fairly unthinkable today, and that didn’t last so long either: you could soon get it in a free version with a banner ad at the top which you couldn’t remove. Fair enough, it was still the fastest browser around, and the most configurable one, and banner ads are all over the place anyway, so one more or less . . .

Then even that disappeared. Today’s Opera is totally free of such commercial bindings, and we’re back to the mystery again: why is the fastest and most able browser out there stuck at 0.3%? Well, in the meantime, Firefox had had its tremendous success and had more or less exhausted the field of “Alternatives to IE”. Besides, even though Opera is Free as in beer, it is still not Free as in speech — the source code is not open. For most people, that is completely irrelevant — who has ever looked at the source code of Firefox, other than geeks and software developers? — but ideologically, it apparently makes a difference.

But 0.3% . . . Let’s put it this way: if you’re looking for a blazingly fast, small browser with excellent functionality, I suggest you try it out.

Luciano

“Well I really wasn’t such a Johnny Ace fan,
But I felt bad all the same”

I don’t think any death in the classical world could have touched me as much as this one, without there being any specific reason for being touched, since I wasn’t really into this particular kind of popular hawling of opera into the marketplace. Strange.

Perhaps it’s just that he was a great singer with an obvious presence and something as old-fashioned as love for what he was doing.

Damn, he’s gone now. I miss him already.

Luciano Pavarotti, 1935–2007

A Norwegian Bestseller

“Agora: Journal for Metaphysical Speculation” — sounds exciting, right? If one is not thrilled by the prospects of 450 pages of metaphysical speculation, it may make it more interesting to know that well over 300 of them are about Bob Dylan. . .

Agora is a scholarly journal of philosophy, which in my early university days was a major source of inspiration. It was therefore a great honour to be asked to write an article for it for an upcoming special issue about Dylan. Now it’s out, and apparently it is sold out already, at least in the Oslo area.
I haven’t read the whole thing yet, but it looks good, with articles about the lyrical project in the Basement Tapes; about the borrowings from Ovid on *Modern Times*; Dylan’s relationship with various American poetic genres (blues, Allen Ginsberg); his voice; his meandering path around folk music; and about the reception of “his” tradition in Norway. There is also an article by Christopher Ricks in Norwegian translation, and translations of the Playboy interview from 1966 and of some song lyrics.

All in all a very nice collection of essays. The bias towards lyrical and “sociological”(-ish) analysis is somewhat balanced out by the article about “Dylan the Musician” by yours truly.

Thus, if you can read Norwegian and want something to lighten up the September evenings, this might be it.

If you can get hold of a copy, that is.

A New Home

The blog has been down for a while. How long, I don’t know, and that’s embarrassingly revealing of my recent neglect of the site. In any case, I decided to move the whole thing to my own webspace, and it seems that the transition has worked out nicely.
Not that I was dissatisfied with the former home. From the day that I registered dylanchords.com and left the old, catchy hem.passagen.se/obrecht/backpages/chords, and until I decided to take down the site, around Christmas 2005 because of the threats from the recording/publishing industry, the site has been hosted nicely from a secret location in Gothenburg — may thanks, Oskar! — and the blog remained there until today.
But since I already had this other domain, I figured I might as well use it.
A change of hosting and domain name doesn’t necessarily mean that the contents will have to change, but I do take it as an opportunity to be more general in what I write about. That was the original intention, but somehow I ended up writing mostly about Dylan anyhow. My intention is to go back to the original concept, of a blog about culture, music, opinion, and the political and human aspects of technology.
But not to worry: there will be some things here about Dylan too.

Modern times in Copenhagen

It was time to order tickets again, for yet another last Dylan show I’d ever go to. I usually do that, and probably will for as long as he stays on the road. Thinking that it’s the last time, adds a certain nostalgic undertone to the experience.
After the past few years of mediocrity, the expectations were low. I can’t say I was overly prepared either, but at least I knew that the band was the same as the one I’d seen a year and a half ago, and that didn’t bode well.
Then there was the new album… A good one, for sure — must be, since it could bring the old bard to the top of all the charts in the world. Some people had voiced misgivings about the legitimacy of the phrase “All songs written by Bob Dylan”, but hey, he’s a genius, right, so he must be right, right?

Continue reading Modern times in Copenhagen

LaTeX vs. Word vs. Writer

I’ve earlier performed a little test, comparing two files: one produced with MS Word, the other with OpenOffice.org Writer. The purpose then was to demonstrate that Word isn’t necessarily such a bad piece of software — it’s just not always used in a way which is likely to give nice results: most people don’t change the default settings of Times New Roman/Arial and ragged right margin, and they apply formatting manually for each new element, which is bound to lead to inconsistencies.

Now it’s time for the next round of tests, this time including another application in the comparison: the “typesetting environment” LaTeX. I will also go more in detail with the points of comparison, not just considering the crude parameters such as font size and page margins, but also taking into account the finer typographical details. In the former test, I had deliberately turned off hyphenation. That led to a discussion about various hyphenation algorithms, and this time, I have decided to turn on automatic hyphenation in all three programs, using the default settings.

Continue reading LaTeX vs. Word vs. Writer