4. tl; dr

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Dream

I don't usually feel old. But I just woke up from a dream that makes me feel really old.

In the dream I was riding around in a car with a bunch of people (after a storm?) and idly writing computer programs (?!). At the very end I was getting kind of excited about rediscovering clever things you could do in the second language I learned -- which was natural language so you could guess the syntax, for the most part. Just as I was waking up I thought, "Wait. I can use copies of the technical books I wrote about that language to remind myself of exactly what you can do."

But then I realized HyperCard wouldn't run on any of my current machines... then I remembered the Mac from the late '90s I have in storage, but that's doubtful, too. And I don't have a monitor for that machine (not really sure about this). I have one of the early Mac laptops from the early '90s, but the hard drive died on that machine years ago. I was regretting (again) not saving my original Mac, but even if I had, that wouldn't help unless I also had a hard drive to go with it. This got me thinking about just how primitive that first wonderful Macintosh computer really was and about Bill Atkinson -- one of the original Mac team who was also one of the co-creators of HyperCard. (See also HERE ) I met Atkinson and his wife, Sioux, at a Mac software event (at Cañada College) in (probably) 1987-8. He was really interesting to talk to and I had an immediate crush on her. I always hoped I'd run into them again but never did.

Then I remembered that she died recently.  Someone I only remember as a young woman from 30 years ago.

Music, old

In today's paper there was a column by a writer who is probably around my age (I'm guessing) about not knowing -- or putting on his iPod -- any music since 1980. I'm guessing he was exaggerating (writers do that) but this is something that bugs the hell out of me. I mean people my age who don't know more recent music. I've even written about this before in my other blogs.

But tonight I clicked on one of those playlists YouTube assembles for you based on things you've listened to in the past, and I couldn't help noticing that much of the music collected there was in fact old -- but covered, either by Glee or Sid & Susie. (Not sure where the Aurora songs came from, but I'm sure YouTube had its reasons.) Why is it better (in my eyes) when old music is covered than when you simply hear the original 40 or 50 year old versions? (There's another factor that I won't go into that could also explain this, having to do with something Glee -- or Santana -- and Sid & Susie -- well, Susie -- have in common, but that would be beneath me.) And this leads us to a discussion of...

Covers

Covers are recordings of previously recorded music. "Cover Girl" by Shawn Colvin is a wonderful example of covers and the three "Under the Covers" albums by Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs are my favorite examples of covers, though Glee takes the cake (odd term). 

Here's something I think a lot about but don't know what to think about: Are close covers (this is my terminology for covers that are very close to the original -- Naya Rivera excels at close covers) better than covers that emphasis the vocal characteristics of the cover-er -- Susanna Hoffs is the queen of this, in my biased view. Naya's version (or parts) of "We Found Love in a Hopeless Place" by Rihanna and Susanna's "Who Knows Where the Time Goes" are good examples of what I mean.

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