Dave Kearns

Surprised by how you react to something. I’ve never been a big Larry Lessig fan (e.g., see Death of the Internet ). We rarely agree about things, particularly in the area of intellectual property. So when all the buzz on the web, the blogosphere, the tweetzone and even the Facebook hustings were filled with encomiums to Professor Lessig’s address to the Italian parliament, I was pre-disposed to: 1) not listen to the recording, and 2) construct arguments to what I supposed would be his theme.

At a certain point, though, it became necessary to listen simply so that I could (I thought) refute whatever sound-byte arguments would be coming my way. So, this morning, I listened.

All I can say is – listen to this recording. While I don’t agree with everything Larry says – I’m not sure anyone could – this is am important address. It sets a marker along the road to the internet age. It points the path and shows what needs to be done and – perhaps more importantly – what shouldn’t be done.

Listen, learn and understand.

Saw the premiere of the musical version of “Daddy Long Legs” from Theaterworks last night. The book (by John Caird) and the music (by Paul Gordon) were delightful. This is a two character play, told mostly (except for the opening few minutes and the final five or so) through letters. While that sounds like it could be a real snorer, having both characters on stage at all times, yet having each set in their own setting (mostly) allows for a lovey give-and-take between them of which neither is aware.

Megan McGinnis steals the show, and our hearts, from the opening minutes when she  (as Jerusha Abbott) sings “The Oldest Orphan in the John Grier Home.”

Robert Adleman Hancock, as JervisPendleton, does a very good job with a somewhat trying role as the nameless benefactor (whom Jerusha calls “Daddy Long Legs”) as well as the ardent suitor (well, “ardent” by 1910 standards!) of Ms. Abbott.

The pace is quite good, the conflicts are very believable and the ending is satisfactory. What more can you ask? Plus, the music, while nothing memorable, is done in the style of light operetta which, of course, was the precursor to musical comedy and was having it’s heyday at the turn of the 20th century.

All in all this was a highly entertaining evening reflecting well on all involved. See it if you can.

With all the talk about Leno’s new “old” gig at NBC (move Leno to 11:30-12:05) and the possibilities for Conan (move to 12:05 – 1:05), Fox (with their offer to Conan) could really steal late night.

Fox stations tend to do local news from 10 – 11. So put Conan on from 11 – 12. Steal the viewers from NBC & CBS stations’ local news, then hold them during Leno and first half hour of Letterman.

If Conan goes along with NBC, he risks losing even more of his audience. Switching to Fox couldn’t possible be worse, especially with an 11 PM start time.

Growing up I often watched Dick Clark’s “American Bandstand” after school. One of my favorite segments was a “rate the record” bit where the kids would listen to a new tune and give it a rating. The highest praise, of course, was that it “had a good beat. You can dance to it.” I never remember anyone talking about the deep meaning of the lyrics.  I was reminded of the need to ignore the lyrics just recently when a local radio station played (once an hour, at least) Ashley Tisdale’s recording of the George Michael song Last Christmas. Have you ever listened to it?

Last Christmas, I gave you my heart

I don’t think it’s about organ transplants so this must be a eupemism for “my love” or, perhaps, “my virtue”

But the very next day, You gave it away

How does that work? If I “give you my love” can you pass it on to someone else? Worse, if it’s sex we’re talking about did you start pimping me around???

This year, to save me from tears
I’ll give it to someone special

So, when you gave it to me last year, didn’t you consider me to be “special”? And what makes you think you’re a better judge of character this year?

It’s a catchy tune. It’s got a good beat. You can dance to it. But don’t try to make sense of it!

Just back from a week in Berlin (for TEC 2009) – our first visit to Germany’s newest, and oldest, capital. What can you say about a place whose culinary claim to fame is “Currywurst” (there’s even a museum!) and Berliner potato soup (BERLINER KARTOFFELSUPPE) made with potatoes and pickles! It’s said to have been Kaiser Wilhelm’s favorite food!

The city itself has been rebuilt remarkably with few remnants of the World War II bombings. In fact, rebuilding seems to be the major business of the city. Unfortunately, the architecture is some of the worst “sharp angle” designs I’ve seen. Still, it’s clean, friendly, relatively safe and with some historic interest. Worth a couple of days on a stopover, not worth the day trip from cruise ships docking in Wernemunde, though (see this account of the whirlwind tour).

plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose:

“A statesman in these days has a difficult task. He has to pursue the policy he deems advantageous to his country, but he has at the same time to recognize the force of popular feeling. Popular feeling is very often sentimental, muddleheaded, and eminently unsound, but it cannot be disregarded for all that.” Hercule Poirot in “The Incredible Theft” by Agatha Christie (1931).

There is no “wisdom” in the crowd, there never was. The mob sinks to its lowest common denominator and drags us all down with it.

Google today unveiled new images to use with iGoogle. The post announcing this said, in part, “At its core, iGoogle is about personal expression.” But if that were really true I could use my own photos in the header, wouldn’t you think?

Today marks the 50th anniversary of the official start of the space age – the day in October, 1957, when the USSR launched Sputnik, the breadbox-sized (18″ in diameter) first artificial satellite in space.

This was the height of the cold war (we were still having air-raid drills in school) and this major win for the Russians could be foretelling their ultimate victory over the western capitalist societies. At least, that’s what our parents were talking about. To me and my contemporaries (I was in the 7th grade at the time) it was simply “neat-o” stuff. Our talk was about how we would all finally go into space someday. We would all be Buck Rogers, or Flash Gordon, or Commando Cody.

Four months later, the US launched Explorer I and the race to land on the moon was on in earnest.

We’ve come a very long way in 50 years. We’ve explored almost all of the planets in our own “backyard” and launched deep space probes which may only be relevant to our descendants. Watching Neil Armstrong land on the moon in 1969 was my biggest thrill (so far) of the space age, but the launch of Sputnik has to be #2 on the list.

There’s hope for the American musical theater after all. For those of us who feel that Andrew Lloyd Weber was, perhaps, the greatest disaster to strike musical theater, the recent premiere of Emma by the bay area’s venerable TheaterWorks organization, brings hope of good things to come. The style, tone and – most importantly – the writing falls somewhere at the intersection of Cole Porter, the Gershwins and Noel Coward, which is a very heady neighborhood to be in.

But don’t just take my word for it. This delightful loose adaptation from Jane Austen was uniformly praised by the Bay Area drama critics (something that rarely happens, in my experience):

“You may not be swept away or entirely convinced, but even the most skeptical audience member would have to work hard not to be gratified, impressed and entertained.” – Steve Winn, San Francisco Chronicle

“Paul Gordon’s music, lyrics and books are all perfect enhancements of Austen’s 2-century-old romantic comedy novel, and Robert Kelley should be anyone’s director of choice for staging a small-scale musical. But as cute little musicals come and go, the title song is Gordon’s most likely guarantee of staying power, and it’s difficult to sell a good song these days.“ -Colin Seymour, San Jose Mercury News [watch a short video of this song]

“As far as world premieres go, ‘Emma’ is in remarkably good shape. Gordon’s score — an easy-on-the-ears kind of chamber pop orchestrated for violin, cello, oboe/English horn and piano — hits all the right notes and captures both the silliness and earnest romance in Austen’s 1815 novel.” – Chad Jones, the Oakland Tribune

We went to see “Emma” last night, and were thoroughly entertained as was the entire audience. The music, the lyrics, the book, the direction and the performances were all spot-on. Each of the actors created characters that were both believable and enjoyable. Timothy Gulan (Mr. Knightly) gave the performance (a cross between Rex Harrison and Robert Goulet, in my mind) one would expect of so experienced an actor. But Lianne Marie Dobbs, in the title role, was a wonderful surprise. This actress is on stage for, easily, 99% of the show but she was always sparkling, engaging and entertaining with no sign of fatigue or “going through the paces.” I do hope to see more of her at TheaterWorks but fear this success will be just what she needs to send her east to the Great White Way.

Get tickets now, if you can. And, for the rest of the world outside the Bay area, watch for this gem to show up in your regional theater.

Marc Cantor and some others have created “A Bill of Rights for Users of the Social Web” which, while I can generally support in principle, is (as are most internet-based manifestos) remarkably flawed. For example, the BofR includes:

“users of the social web are entitled to certain fundamental rights, specifically…ownership of their own personal information, including…the activity stream of content they create.”

But the “activity stream” is actually compiled by the web site and includes much more than content. It’s that whole “attention” thing again. At least in the US, you are assumed to maintain ownership of the content you create – it’s called “copyright,” and it’s yours until you specifically forego it. So there’s really no need to restate that, is there?

The bigger problem is in the area of “relationships.”

In the words of the BofR: “Allow their users to syndicate their own profile data, their friends list…” But friend-ness is a relationship. A two-way relationship. I can claim to be your friend, but unless you reciprocate there is no “friend” relationship between us. Unfortunately, most social networking sites refuse to choose among differing degrees of relationship (friend, acquaintance, lover, parent, actor-that-I-admire-and-want-to-meet, etc.). Given the binary nature of most social networking sites you can choose either “friend” or “stranger” for a relationship equation and most people will be nice, and choose friend when they at least think they may have interacted with the claimant at least once. In the closed world of that particular social network, most understand that the term “friend” has a very loose meaning. But once you can take that list of “friends” elsewhere and install it – even on a site with a much more fine-grained sense of relationships – there is a great deal of risk to the “other parties” in the relationships. Worse, those “other parties” have no idea of (and no veto power over) the type of site to which their name and supposed relationship might be dragged! I might be OK with being associated with someone on the Manx kitty lovers network, but do I also want to be associated with that same person on Witches&Bitches.net?

Let’s revise the Bill of Rights to both acknowledge reality as well as to protect all users – the primary and all their “relations”.