Manuel Marino, Music and Thoughts » Culture

Social Networking and the Left Coast Eisteddfod 2009

Manuel Marino — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 18:16:35 +0000

Ceri Shaw is a Web Designer and freelance writer. If you remember, he wrote What is Anglo-Welsh Literature and why Should Anyone Care?. Ceri is a former college lecturer from Cardiff, South Wales. He wrote this article for us.

Social Networking and the Left Coast Eisteddfod 2009

There is an art to constructing social networks. Anyone can join Facebook, start a group, give it a catchy title and invite everyone on their contacts list. But building a true online “community” involves a lot more than that. My preferred tool for this job is the “Ning” platform.

One such project that I am involved in at the moment is Americymru. The site itself is an American Welsh heritage site and it welcomes members from anywhere in the world who are either Welsh, of Welsh ancestry or who have a love of Wales ( Cymruphiles? ) for whatever reason. The site has proved highly popular and is rapidly approaching the 1000 member mark.

The question is, of course, what purpose should such a site serve? Should we all vie with one another in forum discussions for the distinction of being the most enthusiastic supporter of Welsh culture? Should we all devote ourselves to learning the Welsh language? ( not a bad idea ) Or perhaps we should all exchange holiday snaps of our most recent visits to Snowdonia? Of course Americymru is a social network and so it is used for all of the above purposes and a host more besides.

How much better though to put these networks to a novel and creative purpose. In Wales the “Eisteddfod” tradition ( which is basically a talent competition ) dates back to the 12th century. Here is how the Wikipedia defines it:-

‘An eisteddfod is a Welsh festival of literature, music and performance. The tradition of such a meeting of Welsh artists dates back to at least the 12th century, when a festival of poetry and music was held by Rhys ap Gruffydd of Deheubarth at his court in Cardigan in 1176 but, with the decline of the bardic tradition, it fell into abeyance. The present-day format owes much to an eighteenth-century revival arising out of a number of informal eisteddfodau. The word eisteddfod is derived from the Welsh word eistedd, meaning “sit”.’

We decided to use Americymru to organise an international “online” Eisteddfod.

We have departed from the traditional formula in several significant respects. There are Welsh Pirate Lookalike and Tom Jones Impersonators competitions along side the standard literary and poetic categories. We feel that these features will enhance the appeal of the “event” and give it a more contemporary feel

All the competitions are open to everyone. Neither Americymru membership nor Welsh origin are requirements.

The poetry and short story competitions are already starting to attract some talented entrants and judges Lloyd Jones ( short stories ) and Peter Thabit Jones and John Good ( poetry ) will have some hard choices to make.

The online Eisteddfod will culminate in a live event in Portland in August 2009. It is here that winners will be announced and prizes awarded. It is also our intention to hold a series of concerts featuring major Welsh and American Welsh artists and performers. In short the “Left Coast Eisteddfod” will be a celebration of all things Welsh and in particular of the American Welsh heritage which has so enriched the history of the American nation. It will also introduce this tradition to a whole new audience and seek to involve the widest possible participation.

It is also possible to build a “constellation” of supporting blogs around your social networking “event”. In our own case we have been fortunate to enjoy the support of artists such as David Western who is probably the worlds finest carver of traditional Welsh lovespoons. He explains the reasons and the means of his supoport for the event in the following quote from his “David Western’s Portland Eisteddfod Lovespoon” blog:-

“To support the development of the Left Coast Eisteddfod next year, I am donating a handcrafted, one-of-a-kind Welsh lovespoon which Americymru will raffle off to help raise needed funds.

I’m proud to be able to contribute to the creation of the Eisteddfod and to help highlight Welsh people and their culture here in North America. Everyone knows the Scottish and Irish and it is through events like the Eisteddfod that people will come to know the Welsh.”

David’s blog has already encouraged others to try their hands at this ancient craft and his work in general is vital in order to ensure that this art form continues and thrives into the 21st century.

It is my belief that the potential for social networks to drive artistic creation and collaboration is immense and I am very excited to be a part of a project which is exploring this potential.

In closing I would urge you check out the online Eisteddfod ( linked and accessible from the home page of Americymru ), consider entering one of the competitions and above all, think of novel ways to utilise your own social networks so that they can become a real spur to human creativity and not merely glorified “chat” rooms.

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Sounds like music and networking

Manuel Marino — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 15:01:57 +0000

Wizzit Magazine interviewed me about Blogging and Social Networking. I have to thank Matti Mattila, the reviewer and open networker. If you remember, Matti wrote A musician story. Here is a short excerpt from the magazine article that you can download here in pdf format.

Sounds like music and networking

Matti Mattila: About blogging, you have an active blog, when did you start writing it?

Manuel Marino: I started ManuelMarino.com in October 2007.

What inspired you to first start blogging?

First of all the idea to freely surf and read everything about anything always fascinated me. I think this is why people love to have many blog feeds to read daily.

Next to this idea is the one to freely write interesting articles for the Internet community. Both gives a kind of freedom that I never felt before.

What is your blog about?

ManuelMarino.com is about music, arts, philosophy, poetry, independent artists, humanities and freedom. I invite experts and sincere professionals and artists to write articles.

I believe very much in freedom, honesty, sincerity and I’m able to feel these when I meet people. There are many good persons in the world, but sometimes we are too much obsessed by everyday life to understand this and find this.

How much time do you spend blogging every week?

Probably I spend too much. I love blogging, read other people’s blogs, surf and find interesting news.

What inspires you to write an entry to your blog?

Usually my ideas about news, culture and art, sometimes my intuition. We need more intuition, people tend to forget the importance of it and uses too much their left brain.

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E-commerce, a cultural fact?

Manuel Marino — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 20:40:38 +0000

E-commerce, online marketing, shopping, globalization, innovation are all linked together. It is becoming a real huge cultural fact, to be studied, to be understood to comprehend our world and where this world is going to in the near future.

E-commerce, a cultural fact?

Global E-Commerce and Online Marketing: Watching the Evolution By Nikhilesh Dholakia is a great book that explains all of this.

Specialists from business and academia present a meticulously researched, compelling examination of the effect that globalization, innovation, and relentless technological competition are having on the development of e-commerce and marketing. The editors offer practical managerial insights, important empirical findings, and new ways to comprehend the intricacies of the fast-morphing world of electronic business.

Another book that really catched me is Cyberpop: Digital Lifestyles and Commodity Culture by Sidney Eve Matrix.

Cyberpop: Digital Lifestyles and Commodity Culture is an analysis of cyberculture and its popular cultural productions. Each chapter focus on a particular cyberfiguration, including Hollywood films (GATTACA, The Matrix), popular literature (William Gibson’s Neuromancer, Scott Westerfeld’s Polymorph), advertising for digital products and services (AT&T’s “mLife” campaign), video games (Tomb Raider). Each close reading illustrates the ways in which representations of digital lifestyles and identities which typically fetishize computers and celebrate a “high tech” aesthetic encourage participation in digital capitalism and commodity cyberculture.

What I’m seeing on Internet and around me is an impressive and crazy explosion of virtual shops, like StreetWear-And-Red.com (also StreetWearAndRed.com). Goal of the shop is providing cool designs for the urban and street fashion along with elegant ideas for the modern gentlemen.

In the same explosion I can put my ebook and also my new CD with Rock and Metal Guitar Solos for Multimedia.

I’ve got just a fear, that all of this is going to result in a soap bubble in the future. How much will we be fascinated by the virtual world and how much can we stay far from reality? (Or virtuality is going to be our new reality?).

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My personal collection of book trade ephemera

Manuel Marino — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 09:11:53 +0000

Benjamin Clark is the Curator of Education for the Oklahoma Museum of History. Benjamin wrote this exclusive and very interesting article for us. He retains copyright of the first image and the text, of course. The second image is in the public domain.

My personal collection of book trade ephemera

My personal collection of book trade ephemera is *supposed* to focus on the book trades of the frontier. I have to remind myself of that every once in a while. But I’m almost always a sucker for beautiful typography. Am I the only collector who gets sucked down tangents? I doubt it.

I’ve had a business card for a while for one FR Aldrich, an agent for Advance Steam Printing Co. in Norman, Oklahoma Territory. The Aldrich card is one of my favorites, because of the frontier association and for the simple beauty of the typography.

Now, Norman was founded and occupied the night of the initial land run into the Unassigned Lands April 22, 1889. Oklahoma became a state in November 1907. That date range was the closest I could get to FR Aldrich and his business. An 18 year gap is a little too big for me for someone really not all that long ago or far away.

I tried Googling the name F.R. Aldrich, thinking Aldrich would be an uncommon enough name to locate easily. I did find lots of Fr. Aldriches, as in Father Aldrich, and I did find a couple FR Aldriches. One was a female college student in the 1940s on the east coast; others had too little info for a positive ID. But one suspect turned up in Kansas in 1913 and 1916 and was a school district superintendent. He (?) could be the same person. Not much difference in time and location, but a little bit of a career shift. Then again, I’ve already uncovered more than one barber/ bookseller. I could see how connections to publishing and printing could be useful as a school superintendent.

I turned my attention to identifying the font used for the main text. I hoped the font would help me date the card. Printers like to use new hip typefaces in their advertisements, an opportunity to show off new faces and technical capabilities. This was truer in the past than it is now. If I can get the actual name of the face, maybe I can track down a date and get closer to figuring out FR Aldrich’s story. Today, thanks to the charter member from Michigan of the American Book Trade Index, I found another example of this cool, odd font in a directory ad for a newspaper in Ann Arbor Michigan from 1892.

The 1892 date of the directory is spot on for the range I had established of 1889-1907. I’ve run through the resources of the Oklahoma Historical Society for FR Aldrich and the Advance Steam Printing Co. without any luck, although someone is chasing one last idea down. I ran the FR Aldrich card through What the Font , a website you can upload .jpg files and the website searches out the closest match for your font. The first time I ran the card through none of the “matches” were even close. Admittedly, the image of the card isn’t very sharp, and there just aren’t that many letters to work with, especially letters that would be totally unique to this type face. I ran the Ann Arbor Democrat ad through, and What the Font matched it very closely to a face called Trapeze Normal. Very cool. Almost.

The problem is that there are several computer fonts called Trapeze. That and computer fonts are not the same as printing typefaces. I can’t seem to find the historic typeface’s name it is based on. It’s a lead and perhaps one more piece of the puzzle. Maybe just a piece of a piece.

But, Emma E. Bower caught my eye. Now, it really was not uncommon for women to be editor/ publishers of newspapers in the U.S. In fact, women had been in charge of presses from the very earliest presses in North America in 1639. However, in many cases, these women were widows taking full control over the family printing business. They would often operate under their husband’s name, or under initials.

Googling Ms. Bower reveals some tempting tangents. First of all, she is Dr. Emma E. Bower, M.D., of Port Huron, St. Clair County, Michigan. Not only a Democrat, but a Delegate to Democratic National Convention from Michigan, in 1920. She served as Secretary of the Ladies of the Maccabees, an insurance/ fraternal organization for women only, from 1893 until at least 1919. The Knights of the Maccabees claim them as an auxiliary organization at least well into the 1920s. The Ladies of the Maccabees said they started out as such, but had become “wholly independent” after a couple short years. Her name also appears with some mentions of the suffrage and temperance movements, but I couldn’t find any specifics or print sources I could access for more info. She certainly sounds interesting!

So, from the Land Run in Oklahoma to a suffragette in Michigan. Stupid, wonderful tangents…

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Punk music in the late seventies

Manuel Marino — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 17:00:21 +0000

Wade Crawley said me “I propose to write an article about the influence of punk and indie music and culture on a young person (myself) coming of age in England in the late seventies and early eighties”.

I accepted, and Wade wrote this article! I must add also these more lines from him: “I’m quite excited at the prospect of having it published on your weblog because I was very impressed by the quality. It’s a very good weblog and an entertaining read.” Thank you Wade! And I’m sure our readers will appreciate very much your writing.

Punk music in the late seventies

I was still at school when I first heard of the Sex Pistols. The now infamous Bill Grundy interview was only shown on a London regional news programme, so only people in and around London got to see it. For those of us living outside of London, it was the outraged front pages of the tabloids the following day that first made us aware of the Sex Pistols and punk rock.

“The Filth and the Fury” screamed one tabloid’s front page and most of the others had similar outraged headlines on their front pages. The foul language of some of the band members in that interview had outraged people so much, that in one case a man had put his foot through his television screen, reported one newspaper.

Looking at that interview now on YouTube, it all seems rather tame by today’s standards, but it perfectly illustrates just how uptight our society was back then. As a schoolboy going through the obligatory teenage rebellion phase, I found it all very exciting. Even now, I don’t think a music video has ever captured the air of menace and defiance like the Sex Pistols’ Pretty Vacant. Anything that upset parents, teachers and the establishment that much, had to be good, was my attitude at the time.

BBC Radio One was pretty much the only radio station catering for young people at the time as this was before the rise of commercial radio. They tried to ignore punk as though it wasn’t happening. The BBC’s flagship weekly music television show, Top Of The Pops, was a show whose remit was to include the acts that were selling well in the charts and as punk at that time was dominating the charts, they couldn’t ignore it any longer. The show’s DJ’s and presenters, middle aged men like Tony Blackburn and Mike Read who had made no secret of their dislike of punk music, much to our amusement, had to smile through clenched teeth and show enthusiasm for bands they hated.

When God Save The Queen by the Pistols hit number one in the charts, the BBC decided that there was no number one that week and refused to play it. In all of the official chart listings, when you got to number one there was just a blank space! At that time, any criticism of the royal family was treated pretty much as blasphemy!

I went to school in Whitehawk, a heavily working class area of Brighton, on England’s south coast, with a reputation for some of the worst social problems in the city. Many of the bands that were around back then such as Genesis, Led Zeppelin, Yes, Emerson, Lake and Palmer, etc, were all made up of middle class art students or music graduates with nothing for us to relate to at all. Now, all of a sudden, along came punk rock with bands made up of people of similar age and from similar backgrounds to us. They had songs that we could relate to and expressed how we felt at that time. They also proved that you didn’t have to be a music student who had studied an instrument for many years, to be in a band and write great songs.

In the few years leading up to that time, I had gone to the movies to see ‘Tommy’ by the Who and Led Zeppelin’s ‘Song Remains The Same’ because I liked both bands. However, the films were so self indulgent and pretentious that I came away thoroughly disillusioned. The arrogance of the band members in the live footage of Led Zeppelin in ‘Song Remains The Same’ and their condescending attitude towards their audience, coupled with the narcissistic ‘fantasy’ sequences, not only left me with a foul taste in my mouth but also ensured I never bought anything by them again. After all this, punk rock was like a breath of fresh air.

Britain in the late 70’s was a pretty grim place to be growing up in. Industrial unrest was rife, rubbish was piled high in the streets because there was a strike by the dustmen who had refused to collect it and the ultra right wing National Front were beginning to come to prominence. They were organizing marches all over the country involving large numbers of their union jack carrying skinhead supporters, through racially sensitive areas. Taking advantage of all this unrest, they were targeting working class areas and managing to get members elected to local councils. Many young people were being indoctrinated into their ideology but punk bands were openly coming out against this and using their influence to fight back against the racists.

Many punk bands when they played live had reggae bands supporting them and the Clash famously played at a Rock Against Racism concert at Victoria Park in London to over 80,000 people. When they sang ‘White Riot,’ Jimmy Pursey of Sham 69, a band with a large skinhead following, joined them on stage and this was an extremely significant gesture. This really did make a difference to a young and still very impressionable audience. I had friends who were skinheads, some of whom were planning to join a National Front march that was about to take place in Brighton. That Clash gig, along with various interviews with band members in the music press, were some of the main reasons why they thought again and decided not to go. Another factor that helped was the fanzine culture that had sprung up directly because of punk and the ‘do it yourself’ mentality. ‘Sniffing Glue’ was one of the first and more well known. They were magazines written and printed by fans and included interviews with bands, reviews of gigs and political articles expressing the opinions of the authors, many in support of the Anti Nazi League. They started off just crudely photocopied on A4 paper but the ones that became popular ended up being quite professionally printed and presented. They only cost a little pocket change too so anybody could afford them.

Another positive repercussion of punk was the rise of the independent record labels. There would be no ‘indie’ music scene if it wasn’t for punk. In fact, the music scene now would be very different if punk hadn’t happened.

I really believe punk has made a difference to how I think in general and that music really does have the power to change the world.

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A Beautiful Interview Ceri Shaw suggested me an interview from our friends at Americymru. So here's this beautiful interview with Dr. Karl Jenkins (I include also the link to their ticket giveaway competition for his performance at Carnegie Hall NY on March 6th 2010). A Beautiful Interview Dr. Karl Jenkins is Britain's greatest......
Travel Writer This is the beginning of the latest writing by Peter George Mackie. Please contact him if you want to know more about his works. The first chapter of his piece of travel writing "Flowers of Zagreb" can also be downloaded at www.authorsonline.co.uk. Travel Writer Dave was pondering over a map......

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Musical Instruments Bass When some people hear the word bass, they immediately think about the bass guitar, a popular instrument in many types of music today. However, there is actually a large number of different instruments that fall under the base category, and the bass guitar is only one of them. Bass instruments......
The Music Industry- Here Is What A Young Artist Needs To Know To Be A Star There are career development people and then there are agents, producers, music company executives and the rest that just do their job. The career development people are the ones who make stars. The others just play out their various roles in the scheme of things. Remember music may be......
Joe Jonas Says Band Is Getting 'Ramped Up' For Live Tour The Jonas Brothers will hit the road with special guest Demi Lovato beginning August 7.By Kara Warner Joe Jonas Photo: MTV News During a season that finds the Biebs, the cast of "Glee" and Gaga all on the road, concertgoers have plenty of choices when it comes to catching live......
eMedia Guitar Method v5 User Reviews Send this to a friend eMedia Guitar Method v5 Manufacturer: eMedia Customer Rating: List Price: $59.95 Sale Price: $46.99 Availibility: Usually ships in 24 hours Free Shipping Available Buy Now Product Description The latest version of the world's best-selling beginning guitar CD-ROM! 165 comprehensive full-screen lessons cover......
Acoustic Musical Instrument Glossary pt 3 Interval - An interval is described as a difference in pitch from one tone to another, and intervals are most commonly measured as the difference between the lower tone and the higher tone. Intonation - Intonation, in its most literal form, means either pitch or using pitch. One who speaks......