18th
April
2008
Well in it’s own way the book I’ve just read attempts to answer this classic question. War is a force that gives us meaning is written by Chris Hedges, a long serving war correspondent for the New York Times. He draws on his own experiences in multiple co
nflicts including Iraq, Palestine and the Balkans as well as a range of literature through Homer and Shakespeare through to the present day to discuss the devestating allure of war and it’s addictive qualities for both individuals and societies. Hedges peels back the layers of myth and misinformation surrounding war, and exposes the complicity of journalists in perpetuating these myths, and that of the public in going along with it. War has little to do with heroism and it truth the vast majority of people would act in quite unheroic, selfish and often savage ways if thrust into that sort of environment. No-one escapes an experience of war unscathed – all bear the psychological scars of the victim or perpetrator (or often both). Hedges ultimately concludes that the only antidote to war is that of love, but the overall balance of this book is a pessimistic one, and love comes across as a weak flower standing in the onslaught of the hurricane of war.
This is a brilliant book – full of anecdotes and thus a flowing, easy read – and yet at the same time a harrowing, difficult read in view of the confronting nature of it’s topic. The sort of book it would do good for all of us to digest. It will be hard to look at the glamorous news stories or even those old war docos in the same light again. I’m not a journo but I would imagine this should be required reading for them – to examine their motives and their potential to succumb to the addictive naroctic nature of war. Hedges mentions the fate and admissions of several of his colleagues who almost seem driven towards death - an idea struck home to me last night when I heard a Reuter’s cameraman had been killed in Palestine yesterday.
Once in a while a book comes along that really makes you sit up and take notice and might even change the way you think – this is one of those sort of books. Read it.
[Hat tip to Fred aka the Slacktivist for suggesting this book on his blog, which is one of my favourites - check it out]
Tags : books, war
Categories : books |
18th
April
2008
A bittersweet look at ten years of MP3s
Excellent article here looking back on ten years since the first MP3 players were produced. The author mentions some of the good things about digital music, but also some of the things he misses such as borrowing and lending music, shopping for used music, album liner notes and artwork, and (my favourite) music as furniture.
I can relate to many of his points. I jumped on the MP3 bandwagon fairly early, using my dialup connection in the heyday of Napster to download hundreds of tracks. It was slow but fun in a way, and challenging -like trying to find that elusive final song you were missing from an album, or the rare album that few people had. And although it was anonymous there was still the pleasure of finding a user with similar music tastes and a huge collection of songs – even better if they had a fast internet connection to leech from. And there was the built in chat box that added at least a little bit of human interaction into the process. None of the P2P software I’ve used since has been quite the same, although I did use one called DC++ a few years back that came close. But by then we had broadband, which took some of that challenge out of the whole thing and gave us the ability to flood our hard drives with vast quantities of files that we were unlikely to ever seriously listen to. And after a while the whole downloading thing just lost it’s shine. Now we have bit-torrent which is easy and fast, but no fun.
Going back to the points in the article above I guess I’ve come the full circle as well. I now purchase more CDs than I ever have before. Admittedly it’s partly because I have more income than before, but it’s also because I like to have the CDs in my hand, reading the notes, looking to see what track is coming up next, and sitting on my shelf as a reminder of what I have and what I like, instead of being tucked away on a hard drive. I totally get the whole “music as furniture” appeal – a bit chunk of the wall in the room I’m sitting in is full of CDs (as you can see in the photo, taken from the couch I’m sitting on with my iSight camera)
. A related concept is the “books as furniture” one – few things make a room or house more inviting and appealing than shelves and shelves of books. If you’ve been to my house you’ll know I’m definitely a big adherent to this.
I love my iPod and having a collection of digital music at my fingertips, but it’s still just not the same as having something physical to hold, to collect, and to enjoy as part of the overall experience of the music. I’ve bought a few albums over iTunes but probably at least half of those I’ve then gone on to purchase the physical CD. Nowadays I don’t bother as much with the iTunes store unless I’m in a real hurry to get something or if I just want an individual track for some reason (like this Reindeer song I sang at our Christmas carols event last year). I did get one album on iTunes last month – Luka Bloom’s Before Sleep Comes (which is a brilliant mellow acoustic album) but I liked it so much I’ll definitely be getting the CD. I rarely acquire music now by less legitimate means, but even then it will usually now lead to a purchase. For example I’ve had the O Brother Where Art Thou? soundtrack languishing on my hard drive for years (I think I actually got it when I traded some MP3 CDs with a friend rather than downloading it myself) – never listened to it until a month or so ago, and when I finally did I immediately went out and bought the CD at the next opportunity.
So from my perspective at least the music industry need not fear the death of the CD just yet. For all it’s benefits digital music is still just not quite the same.
Tags : cd, mp3, music, p2p
Categories : Internet, Links, Personal, iPod, music |
