A Puritan Contribution to a Complaints Choir Song

So, over Thanksgiving at my sister's, I watched some YouTube videos of Complaints Choirs (see November 8, 2007 post for info and links on Complaints Choirs.) Birmingham, England, wins hands down -- we were singing along with the chorus; the St. Petersburg, Russia, choir seems to have a lot of issues with love; the small island off/in British Columbia really doesn't like tourists; Penn State's choir probably cracks up those on campus, but doesn't do much for others (i.e., my sister and me;) the Helsinki choir's song was good, but nobody much seemed to smile; the Chicago choir was a trailer for a future video. Thanks to whoever did all the subtitles.

I thought of complaints choirs today when reading my transit book: Eve LaPlante's Salem Witch Judge: The Life and Repentance of Samuel Sewall (NY: HarperOne, 2007.) Sewall was one of the Salem witch trial judges, and the only one to repent of his role. His public repentenance is pictured in the mural in the Chamber of the House of Representatives in the Massachusetts State House, with the title "1697 Dawn of Tolerance in Massachusetts Public Repentance of Judge Samuel Sewall for his Action in the Witchcraft Trials."

Salem Witch Judge is a fascinating book, and it's making me realize how little I know about the trials. For instance, the persons who were executed were the ones who asserted their innocence; those who admitted witchcraft were not executed. (Read the book to find out why.) Giles Corey, who refused to answer any questions, or to enter any plea, remained silent to protect his property from confiscation. He was pressed to death in an unsuccessful attempt to obtain a plea. (Maybe waterboarding would have worked better?)

The complaints choir aspect came in with respect to Sewall's poem for the new century (the 18th): the first verse reads: Once More! Our God, vouchsafe to shine: Correct the coldness of our clime. Make Haste with Thy impartial light, And terminate this long dark night." (p. 231.) Even the Puritans could complain about winter.

Post-Salem trials, Sewall wrote the first anti-slavery tract in the colonies; he's considered the first poet to write about the American landscape as an American, rather than a displaced English citizen; and (I haven't read this far yet) he started to think of women as the equals of men. (What was the world coming to?)

Ever the teensiest, lady-like, bit of a complaint about this book: IT DOESN'T HAVE ANY FOOTNOTES! This drives me crazy. One example: at one point the author is quoting Perry Miller, a 20th-century author, about Samuel Sewall's writings. There is a bibliography in the book, but Miller has five entries. There is no way to tell from the titles which one would have the quote. I'd like to read a bit more about Sewall's writings and his position in colonial literature (about which I currently know nothing,) but I'm going to have to first find the books, then see if they deal with what I want. It would have been nice if the author could at least have included a date ("Perry, in [date] noted ....") or something like that. I'll bet Samuel Sewall gave his sources.

It's a small world someone taught to sing in perfect harmony

Today's (Nov 8th) Jon Carroll column in the San Francisco Chronicle (for some reason, I can't link to Carroll's site: go to http://www.sfgate.com/ and click on columnists, then on Carroll) reports on the international Complaints Choir movement, started by Finnish artists Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen.

First, form a choir of good singers. (Good, to forestall subsequent complaints about the singing, presumably.) Next, write a song full of complaints. Then videotape the choir singing the song and put the video on YouTube for all to appreciate. There's already about an hour's worth of songs from different choirs, per Carroll: search YouTube for complaints choir.

So far the choirs are from Finland, Germany, England, and Canada. Since he quotes from the Finnish one, it appears to be in English. One of its complaints: "In the public sauna they never ask if it's ok to throw water on the stones." That does it -- I'm scratching Finland from my list of courteous countries to visit.

I don't have a computer at home, and can't watch YouTube at work due to monitoring, plus I can't watch it at a Public Library due to noise, so now I'm really looking forward to visiting my sister over Thanksgiving: in addition to eating all the Thanksgiving foods our mother used to make, I can also listen to Complaint choirs on her (my sister's) computer.

(Title is a mash-up of that annoying "It's a small world" song from the Disneyland ride -- annoying because it remains with you for life -- and the line "I'd like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony" from the really old Coca Cola ad -- the song was so popular it was expanded and put out on vinyl or at least played on the radio.)

Paper Security Blankets

On October 28, 2007, my local newspaper printed a book review by Monica Hesse that originally appeared in the Washington Post. (No link as the Washington Post requires registration to use.) Ms. Hesse was noting/reviewing four new books aimed at helping people successfully use YouTube, Second Life, MySpace, and the iPhone. The last book wasn't mentioned in the review -- it was cut in my paper from the longer original -- but the cover is shown along with the other three covers in an accompanying illustration. The book is many times larger than the iPhone itself.

The review quotes Don Norman, author of "The Design of Future Things" as saying "Technologies really are being packaged in a way that's not intuitive or usable to the consumer." Ms. Hesse goes on to say "Call it the Case of the Missing Instruction Manual. New technologies have always needed some sort of user guide. In 1532, the hand plow was sold with one." (Who knew?)

On the one hand, it's reassuring to know that I'm not the only one that finds things on Web 2.0 (not to mention the rest of life) non-intuitive. (See previous posts about trying to figure out our new phones at work.) On the other hand, if I were interested in Second Life, or considering an iPhone, knowing that books have been published to explain how to use them just might reinforce my feeling that either or both are beyond me. And on what is now the third hand (I always think of the Hindu goddesses at this point, although they have an even number of arms/hands,) I can feel comfortable with my lack of interest in using any of the four items the books cover.

(Title of this post is from Ms. Hesse's review: "Though studies have shown we retain information learned online as well as that learned onpage, we still appreciate a paper security blanket.")

Yourtube, not Mytube

Others have said it better than I can:

From a tech colleague I have cited before: "YouTube -- the ultimate in channel flipping. ... YouTube let's you do it at your PC." Why do I feel this is more fun for males than females?

From a friend's email: "Pug bowling is fun to watch --- useless, but fun." (Well, it was something close to Pug bowling -- I no longer have the email.)

My library system (not SF Public Library) just installed Websense, the data protection and filtering application, on the staff computers, in part to address bandwidth problems, including increased usage of streaming audio and video. Maybe everyone was working on their 23 Things assignment at the same time?

I suppose YouTube could be used to show videos of library events, although the library pictures I noticed on Flickr tended to be fairly drab: who knows what the videos would be?

23 Things #20