Skip to main content

It's All There

This is the time of the year I look for an old cassette tape of "alternative" Christmas music. I made the tape one Christmas Eve from a listener sponsored radio station in the Bay Area about 30 years ago. It's a wonder that the tape still plays, but it does if you stretch it out a bit by fast forwarding it up and back a few times. A good metaphor for me right now!
This year, I decided to forego my search for the cassette and went straight to the net. The tape contains all kinds of Christmas blues, gospel, country, bluegrass, music and a few things that defy categorization. So far my internet search has enabled me to find much of what's on that lost tape. There are all the great Charles Brown holiday classics, Elvis Presley's version of Christmastime in the City (pretty baby) Bill Monroe's Christmastime's a Comin' and wonderful spirituals by the Blind Boys of Alabama and Clara Ward. I found some Conjunto music with Flaco Jiminez and Freddie Fender as well. MyI top 10 alternative holiday music countdown can be found on my Facebook page if anyone wants to give a listen.
It still amazes me how easy it is to locate music, film and video on the internet. Time was when most folks, especially teachers, spent hours trying to find material for their classes. Used to be that you'd have to track down video material at libraries, through catalogs, word of mouth, or actually doing the legwork. If you wanted something rare or out of the ordinary, you paid. Being a fan of pop culture, I used to rent, buy or borrow short films, advertising clips, records, tapes, or other recordings to bring in the likes of blues artists, the voices of poets, films that were either labeled or thought to be dicey for use in high school classroom. So easy now. What used to be just another annoying ad is now a historical document:


Like everyone, I enjoy the technology. The beginning teachers I work with aren't particularly fond of my stories of how easy they have it when it comes to accessing supplementary material. I just hope they realize how difficult it is to type up a short story yo want to use, or how long it took to track down that out of print film clip, or an old TV ad that would really make the point you were driving at so vigorously.
Seems like not too long ago I marveled at having a recording of Woody Guthrie's "Jesus Christ" Today, when I looked on You Tube, I found three, not to mention a few cover versions.
I'd like to think that with all this exposure to previously difficult to find material we, as a culture, are going up the learning curve. Care to comment?

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

To a Tee

 I'm a sucker for a good t-shirt.  They are the foundational garment of my life.  My day starts with selecting a t-shirt and it ends with sleeping in one.  Once thought of as under garments, t-shirts are now original art and no doubt, a billion dollar business.   You can get a t-shirt with anybody's picture displayed.  You can commemorate an event, a birthday, a death, even a specular play in any sport.  Family reunions usually have a commemorative t-shirt.  Also, any organization that solicits your support in the form of a donation is likely to offer you a t-shirt. Where once I only had the basic white t-shirt, my drawers are filled with all manner of colorful choices.  Some recognize major events in my life, some, spectacular performances or plays I have witnessed, and some unforgettable places I have been.   I say I'm a sucker for a good t-shirt because I have taken the bait on what I perceived as a must-have only to be disappointed. ...

Illusory

What does it take to enrage you?  That moment when your words fly on pure emotion because enough is enough.  Is it a driver that cuts you off at high speed?  What about being an eyewitness to blatant racism or on the receiving end of some obvious injustice? I know some people who never express rage.  I admire them but know full well I am not capable of such distance from that which would bring about such a strong response. Another senseless shooting and 7 people die at the hands of a mentally ill gun owner.  The father of the 20 year old college student lets it fly and somehow millions feel a new sense of relief.  He calls the politicians bastards who do nothing, he wears his pain in public.  The news media responds but we all know that nothing is going to change.  We are the gun country.  We are the place where anybody, anytime, can be cut down just for being there when somebody else snaps. Usually the perpetrators are delusional. ...

Mr. Greene v. Mr. Brown

I want to tell you about something. Something I've carried inside myself for a number of years now. Perhaps if I were a different kind of person I wouldn't need to talk about it. I'm not. My need to tell it is stronger than your need to hear it. Because, however, there are a number of teachers and former students of mine who may read these meanderings from time to time, I need to tell this story all the more. About 7 or 8 years ago I was asked if I would allow a university PhD. candidate to observe an English class. At first I decided against it because I was scheduled to have a student teacher placed with me the second half of the semester in question. After some urging, however, at the request of a respected colleague, I agreed. Soon I was committing to extra meetings, signing documents and explaining to the class in question who the young woman who thoughtfully pounded away on a laptop in the rear of the classroom three times a week was. I knew that the topic of ...