I became insane with long intervals of horrible sanity.
Edgar Allen Poe

The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.
- H. L. Mencken

Many people would sooner die than think; In fact, they do so
-Bertrand Russell

What I have been telling you, from alpha to omega, what is the one great thing the sigil taught me — that everything in life is miraculous. For the sigil taught me that it rests within the power of each of us to awaken at will from a dragging nightmare of life made up of unimportant tasks and tedious useless little habits, to see life as it really is, and to rejoice in its exquisite wonderfulness. If the sigil were proved to be the top of a tomato-can, it would not alter that big fact, nor my fixed faith. No Harrowby, the common names we call things by do not matter — except to show how very dull we are ...
-James Branch Cabell

August 18, 2013 - 10:45 a.m.

In the Form of a Question

I keep putting off something I want to write and might do so again. We can will what we do but we can't will what we will

Something spooky in a good way happened this morning. Some digestive issues had me up very early and I couldn't go back till sleep till things settled down. At 8 AM John Platt's Sunday breakfast came on and I decided to see if I could fall asleep to his liquid silk voice. I was working on statistical study before then which through a series of steps to thinking about Aoife O'Donovan. Second after I thought of her John started to play her on the radio. I had to figure out if I was dreaming or not. It just seemed too perfect. I wasn't dreaming.

I did something yesterday I used to do often but hardly every do anymore, I just hung out with a friend, Katherine. We didn't do anything special, got coffee talked hung around went to dinner. Oh and I had quality time with Bella, her dog. I love dogs. Not that way though,. When my mouth was open, yes it's me so that happens a lot, she caught me by surprise and I got a tongue kiss. EWWWWW Dog germs! Other than that it was just petting, not heavy petting. Dogs give you self esteem. We all know that dogs are better judges of character than people and dogs love us. Well they love me. I don't know about you. But if they don't I'm better than you. Thus the self-esteem.

I knew that wouldn't give a lot to write about. Sitting around and talking is a lot of fun to do but doesn't give me much to write about.

So I'll put off important things for a bit more and geekify. Every weekday morning I play the WfUV Question of the Day. The listeners write in with songs that answer that day's question. Suzanne started a FB group for the players and I started posting the questions there and staring discussions. Eventually the station caught up to us and posting them on the blog but before that if you didn't hear Claudia, the morning DJ then, announce it you couldn't play. And of course there was no place to talk about it. Corny has the morning slot now.

I'm the group curmudgeon. Yes me. I complain about the questions. I hate "Name a song by an artist" or even worse the ones that are just "Play a song you want to hear." I like having to think about the question and come up with songs that fit. A good one was "Songs about darkness."

I also complain about the answers. I view it as a way to get the station to play music they don't ordinarly play and people rarely hear. But it struck me that most of what is requested and most of what is played was songs that were hits when the baby boomers were in high school and maybe college. It's basically classic rock. Now I love classic rock but I've heard it all a million times and I still hear it in restaurants and sporting events and sound tracks. I have a rule, no classic rock, unless it fits the question perfectly.

I often chide the players with lines like "You know there have been songs written since you were in high school." But was I being fare. Is that what is really played or am I noticing what I don't like. I'm me, so I did one of my favorite things, a statistical study. I went back on the group and sometimes the blog and started a spreadsheet with the release year of every song played. I've gone back as far the question from July 1. It isn't that easy as I have to research the release year. I installed the allmusic add on to my browser to speed up looking things up. When I found the year I put it into bins five years long and made a frequency graph. If I were right and people requested songs from high school you'd see the peak in the 60s and early 70s. The audience is not young. So this is what the histogram looks like.


It looks very much as I expected except for that anomalous peak from 93-97. I did not record the songs from those years to see what they are, My feeling is that they weren't what WFUV was playing then, what I consider the golden age of the station. But people aren't requesting Dar and Shindell and company. My friends do but not many others and they are rarely played. The whole thing reminds me of a classic rock song. This is perfect so it's the exception to the rule.


I signed the Pro-Truth Pledge:
please hold me accountable.





Memories: Not that Horrid Song - May 29, 2018
Wise Madness is Now In Session - May 28, 2018
The NFL and the First Amendment - May 27, 2018
On The Road Again - May 26, 2018
Oliver the Three-Eyed Crow - May 25, 2018



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Horvendile August 18, 2013
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