Facebook & the library

(...)it has become clear that Google is recovery, just like the great library it was built to be. You don’t walk in a library and get handed books by librarian. You go to a section and find what you are looking for.

A comment on a great blog post that stuck in my mind. The social web is all about discovery, not recovery. The media were all over the 'battle' between Facebook and Google when for the first time ever, Facebook had more hits than Google. But the distinction that is so well put in those few words above, shows that these giants are not up against each other as they represent different things. You go to the (Google) library, define your search word (section) and find what you are looking for.

Now go to your Facebook homepage (assuming you have a friend list that mirrors your everyday life/work/interests) and discover. During the time you were away, friends have handed you all kinds of information: links to websites, videos, pictures. But they've also handed you emotions and experiences, whether you asked for them or not.

And there's more! They've let you know they liked the video you put up earlier and have given you an update on a link you posted. This makes you feel good. Makes you feel like a librarian just handed you a book, knowing you'd be interested. It's all about caring.

Libraries have been struggling long and hard to resist Google but most of them have incorporated it into their everyday work now. It's all about recovery, right? Question is whether we want the 'caring' part of information distribution too.

For me, Facebook has become an aggregation device of sorts. I know it makes me neglect my Netvibes pages just because it is more personal, more interactive, more real time. It serves as a big inhale of what's going on right now among the people and issues I care for. I think the best thing it has taught me is that most of the time information doesn't have to be exhaustive to be satisfying. When it does, I will still have Google (the library).

Now read that great blog post: How Internet Content Distribution & Discovery Are Changing

TMC Requiem: Ben Frost - Forgetting You Is Like Breathing Water

Inspiration comes in the the most peculiar ways. I was listening to Iceland-via-Australia artist and producer Ben Frost, who is playing the highly anticipated Big Ears Festival next weekend in Knoxville, and I ran across a comment from a young woman named Sybilla Poortman on Last.fm for the track "Forgetting You Is Like Breathing Water" from his 2006 album Theory of Machines. She said of the song, "I want this played at my funeral, awesome stuff." That gave me an idea. Try out a new feature about songs you would want played at your funeral. I had Sybilla try out for the first cut to see if this peculiar inspiration could actually work as an interesting topic of conversation and I think she did a magnificent job. I present you with the first edition of TMC Requiem for Ben Frost's "Forgetting You Is Like Breathing Water".

Danny Perkins wrote this as an introduction to my post as a guest contributor on his music site 'The Milk Carton'. Here's what I penned down:

It’s all about intensity, whether I listen to Verdi or Muhly, Joni or Jónsi, Swans or Joy Division. I’d like to thank Danny for giving me the opportunity to write on music once again, as it’s been years since I penned my last review for an underground music mag called Fake. I had the privilege to interview musicians like Jim O’Rourke, Oren Ambarchi, AMM & Felix Kubin – all of them still among the best in their field.

I’ve seen Ben Frost perform live twice and was quite literally blown away by the sheer intensity and power of his music. It invades all senses simultaneously and is not for the faint-hearted. Sounds that will resonate inside your ears, your mind, your body. Taking nothing for granted, Frost is always engaged (as well as engaging), questioning and pushing boundaries.

This kind of music is sometimes referred to as noise and that’s fine with me. Noise to me means hearing music in everyday sounds and enhancing it. Appreciating it is a gift of the senses, like being able to distinguish new, meaningful forms in things that have been broken, torn apart, or crammed together. It’s discovering new meanings in ideas that have been rejected or misunderstood.

Why would these sounds be fitting for a funeral, my funeral? There are two sides to that question. Of course you would pick music that meant a lot to you for your own funeral (if you get the chance to pick it). But on the other hand, you wouldn’t be around to enjoy it, would you? So choosing that particular music is a message to the ones you leave behind as well. And the last thing you want is to send them away screaming in terror because of the auditory onslaught you condemned them to suffer.

‘Forgetting You is Like Breathing Water’ grants us the best of both worlds. It combines a ‘noise ethic’ with a wonderful ear for gorgeous sounds. It’s everything the title implies: “I would choke & drown when I try to forget you”. The elements and nature in all its raw and unsurpassed beauty are very important in Frost’s oeuvre, as is the notion of breathing, in nature and through the elements. Breathing air means life, breathing water means death. Breathing fire means creation. Ashes are beginning as well as end. The cycles of nature should run their course so that we will never forget.

The piece enfolds like a procession march, unrelentingly building up through sustained rich drones that solemnly ascend in slow motion (an acquaintance of mine who teaches music at UCLA recalled Stravinsky’s Orpheus upon hearing it). There’s chiming electronics at first, with a heartbeat drum pulsating throughout. Then the heartbeat fades and gives way to grief as acoustic strings take over, surrendering to a majestic, thankful kind of grace that urges us to remember - and move on.

Posted first on The Milk Carton

Ending one thing to master another

I have abandoned my 'old' blog, which was in Dutch and primarily about my work at the library. I am now looking forward to using this new blog to its full potential, not just for my master course.

Ideally, there will be a mix of information/education related things (think media literacy, digital & mobile learning) and cultural issues (music, literature, art, language) with perhaps a family story thrown in for good measure. And I always love to mix issues that at first don't seem connected. Be surprised as I surprise myself!

Must admit that I thought about changing the name as 'Mastering Things' was clearly chosen because of my master course. But then again, this is the story of my life: I strive to master the things I like doing. So 'Mastering Things' it is.

Will you bear with me?