NYTimes: Facebook Exodus

From The New York Times:

THE MEDIUM: Facebook Exodus

Why some Facebook members are moving on.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/30/magazine/30FOB-medium-t.html

Get The New York Times on your iPhone for free by visiting http://itunes.com/apps/nytimes

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Cynthia Wang's iPhone
cynthiawang@nyu.edu

Sony doesn't like me

In line with the discussions of copyright I've been having with my friends (who are still, thankfully, my friends), I just found that my cover of Brandi Carlile's song, "Josephine", had been taken down from YouTube by Sony. If these copyright laws applied to Shakespeare, no Shakespeare play would be allowed to be performed anywhere without express permission from whoever owns the rights...meaning, whoever had money to track down whoever owns the rights. So, it's too bad for all of you (private companies, schools, etc) who don't have money and resources to track down copyright owners - you just will have to make-do with a Shakespeare-less culture.

There's a lot more to the issue than this, but it's all I have time for right now. More information in Lawrence Lessig's book, "Free Culture", and why copyright law as it exists now is ridiculous. My view? Sure, there should be copyright, but it shouldn't be as restrictive as it is now - I mean, restricting covers of songs even AFTER attributing credit to the original artist? Come on! Pressing project for the near future: Put all my songs on a Creative Commons license.

Good intentions

Watching Imagine Me and You again. What's so brilliantly beautiful
about about this story is that every single character in it has the
best of intentions. The three main characters find themselves
completely helpless in a love triangle. And for us, the audience, we
feel helpless too. It's so hard to take sides.

Matthew goode is heartbreakingly adorable in this film.

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Cynthia Wang's iPhone
cynthiawang@nyu.edu

Quality? What quality?

I just finished my last show for a while (at least, my last one in LA till Christmas). After playing two shows in LA with very little rehearsal after two months without so much as two strings to differentiate tunes on (that was a bad homage on "without two dimes to rub together"), I'm realizing that good shows don't necessarily need to be flawless. Maybe like all things in life, good things don't always have to be flawless.

Show #1 was the Cat Club on the Sunset Strip. Granted, I did prepare more for this show than I did the one tonight, simply because it was a *show* - so I had a set list and all. The set list went completely out the window upon arriving at the Cat Club because the group after me canceled. I had to fill nearly an hour. Thankfully, Sue Jin had her keyboard with her, and played two songs during my set (yay! it took a bit of convincing - she's so darn modest, that girl, but she eventually gave in and shared her music with us) but I forgot half the lyrics to Jewel's "Meant for Me", forcing me to give it up in the middle - surprising because I've played it SO many times before, and left out half a verse for my new song, "Can I?" As I told my mom, though, it's ok, because everyone there was a friend or a friend of a friend, so they'd still have to like me, even if I suck.

Show #2 was at Mai's Cafe tonight, where more people than I expected showed up. Helen and her mom, unexpectedly! My mom apparently had called their house, and Helen's dad told her that they had gone to see my show, and my mom was left wondering, "What show?!" And many of the people there were folks I didn't know. Tonight, though, was definitely the night of forgotten lyrics. I must have prefaced every single number I did with, "Uhh...ok, I hope I remember the lyrics to this one." So much that for every cover song I did, Jerry was there with his Blackberry following along and mouthing words to me from where he was sitting, and people I didn't even know were helping out. Season's friend was shouting out lyrics to "Meant for Me" (which I just HAD to do to prove I didn't completely forget it) while the random guys at the bar yelled out encouragement, and later Season herself requested my signature Deathcab cover, to which I did not remember the lyrics at all. I got to give a shout out to Lauren and Beccah and COPE before doing "Atheist's Prayer," which is conveniently named "The Little Church" for purposes of performing for St. John's events. We closed the night out with an incomplete, and totally karaoked version of "American Pie" with everyone singing the chorus.

Growing up playing classical music, where one wrong note can lead to week-long agonizing, doing the whole singer/songwriter thing was very liberating. What do you mean, I don't have to be perfect? If I mess up, or change the lyrics, no one is the wiser. And sometimes, it's even more fun when you admit it and then crack jokes about it. You can't help feeling, though, that you're a bit self-centered on stage, and that the jokes you make are funniest only to you. And people who don't know you are like, "Who's that fool on stage who can't remember her own lyrics?" But hey, you're the one with the mic, right?

So, tonight's gig. Flawed? Absolutely. Worthwhile? I hope so. Fun? Hell yea.

Love from HK

Mama and me on Skype with Daddy last night - Daddy had given Mama a "wishlist" of stuff he wanted her to bring to HK:

Me: Anything else you want us to pack?
Daddy: Yourselves.

Aww. :) For the record, Mama's going to HK for 3 weeks, and I'm stuck at home with Sabi (who just pooped in the upstairs bedroom - I dunno, maybe something about the scent of Ray made her want to poop in there).

...and we're surprised about gender roles?

Two posts about gender roles in a row! WTF? But I thought this thought was worth sharing.

I was at Toys R Us with my mom today, looking for a gift for a 4 year old girl. Naturally, we wanted to pick something that would noodle the brain a little, and opted for Legos or K-nex or something like that. When we got to the Legos section, I wanted to look for something a little bit more girly - or at least something that didn't look so blatantly...tractor-ish. You know, the "let's build a tractor!" type of toy. They also had sci-fi stuff like Star Wars, medieval castle/war-type themes going on too. Of course, look at what I'm saying - I'm totally playing into the gender roles too by assuming that girls and tractors don't mix.

Herein lies the problem though - the general public (for whom "pink" and "makeup" = girls and "construction" and "cars/vehicles/science fiction" = boys) is going to go straight for the pink toys if they are looking to buy something for a girl. And what's in what I term the "pink" section? Dress-up dolls, housewife, cooking-type toys, putting makeup and accessories on dolls and figurines... in short, nothing that really involves building, creating, putting things together, etc. What message is that sending to young kids?

Female Politician's last names

Just an exchange between Melissa A and myself that had been bouncing today on Twitter:

dandybanditI've thought about this a lot & I'm glad someone's writing about it - what's wrong with female politicians' last names? http://bit.ly/T1qtO

cyndaminthia@dandybandit media ploy to reinforce the image of women as warm and fuzzy and, hence, powerless.

dandybandit@cyndaminthia and their campaign managers'?

I figure I have a short response, but probably longer than a tweet would take. Keep in mind, most of this is coming out of my rather mushy brain... My response:

Of COURSE campaign managers. It's all about manufactured consent, right? (ding ding, my favorite phrase) So, the use of first names provides a familiarity, a femininity (or an anti-masculinity - AKA more warm and fuzzy - calling people by their last names is a manly thing to do) to the image and feel of these women politicians. That's what the public is familiar with - these gender roles being maintained in the media. And of course campaign managers would then want to play into those stereotypes to keep the public happy and content with that aspect of their portrayals of their candidates - because the public is more comfortable with this portrayal - it's not new, it 's something they know. It's harder swallowing the idea that women are equal to men on the political playing field, and hence need to be referred to by their last names in a very manly, non-feminine sporty-type way.

I realize this view is pretty reductionist and simplistic with a huge dollop of overgeneralization and gender stereotyping within it with the usage of words like "masculine" and "feminine", but hopefully you get my drift.

Around the world and lying

I saw this in Reader's Digest today that just made me crack up:

"I am faithful to a woman when I love her. But when love slowly vanishes, lies make their comeback." ~Eric Majourel, 31, Boulogne-Billancourt, France

Oh, French men.

Looking for a Lost Friend

I might be insane. As a matter of fact, I'm convinced I am. But I'm doing it anyway.

There are people who come in and out of your life. Some you forget quickly, but there are some who make an impression, who you'll remember forever, even though you only really knew them for a short while. I have one such *impressive* friend from over a decade ago. I've completely lost touch with her since we parted ways over 11 years ago. Her name is Wesley Bender. At least, it was back then.

I think I'm insane because 1) this is so out of the blue, 2) this is a rather uncharacteristic thing to do (I feel like I tend to keep my feelings about and relationships with my friends and its specifics rather private - at the very least, I certainly don't broadcast them out to the world as I feel like I'm doing here...though I'm sure Clay Shirky would argue otherwise), and 3) who the hell would want to read what I write here - a personal search - anyway?

With the normalization of Internet use and social networking sites, we rely more and more on these new technologies and systems to keep us in touch with our friends. With Facebook, I never feel like I would ever be out of touch with any of my friends - that I could reach them with a quick search of my "friends" list and send them a message or write on their wall if I need to get a hold of them. Wesley is not on Facebook. At least, if she is, she's hidden from my searches (which I do as well). We have virtually no mutual friends that I still keep in touch with (except for Chia-Shing, but at last check, she didn't have Wesley's contact info), and a search on Google for "Wesley Bender" yields more irrelevant searches than for me to have much faith in that.

It's a bit like a scavenger hunt. To find my friend. And I'm going to document it (at the same time, wondering how many people will actually read this) - for fun, for the hell of it, for academic research purposes (I'm quite serious about this one actually - seeing how the Internet has changed and eased (?) how we get certain types of information), because it's summer and I have some time on my hands...or maybe with the possibility that this may connect me back with her somehow in some convoluted, indirect way. The latter one is probably a pipe dream, but what the hell.

I'm doing this because exploring how digital media and the Internet puts us in a field of greater connectivity and knowledge is really interesting to me, and I myself wonder what the avenues and resources I can use to achieve my goal. I think blogging all of this would be interesting. It'd be worthwhile. Also, I think it'll be amusing how stalkerish a lot of this is going to come out sounding...

On one hand, I'm doing this for academic interests - almost like a case study, but I'm also (mostly) doing this because I miss my friend. If it takes me the time of one post to find Wesley, I'd be more elated than if I come up with a great story to document here, and all the mishaps, miscommunications, and misunderstandings that will no doubt come with it.

Here's a bit of history and some more information:

Wesley and I met at a Piano Performance Workshop the summer of 1998 at UT Austin. We were both accepted into this intensive music summer program - a program with students from all over the country (and some from overseas too, I think). The two people to whom I was closest were Chia-Shing, my roommate (who made me Ramen for breakfast at least twice a week), and Wesley. Wesley and I bonded over marching band. Other than piano, she also plays cello and, I believe, the French horn. She was also a drum major. I still keep in touch with Chia-Shing (she's on Facebook, but we had kept in touch over email, IM, and other means for the last decade), but Wesley had completely disappeared from my scope of consciousness.

We spoke on the phone a few times after the Workshop, sent each other snail mail letters occasionally, exchanged senior pictures. I know she went on to study music at Texas Christian University (TCU). She's from Texas - San Angelo. That really was the last time I heard from her. I somewhat recall trying to get her on the phone sometime during college, and her having a hard time remembering who I was, which, you know, made me kinda sad, but that memory is REALLY hazy, and sometimes I wonder if that really happened at all.

Tonight, I found her piano professor, a Professor Harold Martina, who still teaches at the School of Music at TCU. Found that Professor Martina was her professor through a notification of her senior recital in 2004. And that came up as a result of googling "Wesley Bender TCU".

One more note - I also signed up for Classmates.com, and I think I signed up accidentally for the TCU network...because her Classmates.com site was one of the results on Google. Sent a private message, but I think there's a subscription cost involved if I actually want the message to get sent.

Will try emailing Professor Martina this week.

So here I go. Wish me luck. Suggestions and advice are welcome.