The Association For Recorded Sound Collections is good for more than just discographies of obscure opera singers. From ARSC Journal Vol 39, No. 1 - Spring 2008:

pg 112 -- The Boy Scouts of America have introduced a Respect Copyrights badge, complete with curriculum (pdf) developed in collaboration with the MPAA. Will performing a skit about copyright protection effectively scare them into ratting out their friends and families? Or simply teach them savvy new ways to swap digital files?

pg 186 -- Meanwhile, the Girls Scouts have made Dolly Parton an honorary lifetime member. Cookies for everyone!

I just got a new (old) guitar, and I'm going to learn how to play it!

My husband and I have been guitar shopping for, well, most of the time we've been together. First we were searching for an electric guitar to replace the well-worn Fender Stratocaster he'd been playing since he was a kid. That journey lasted nearly two years during which we trolled fancy guitar stores stocked with dinged up vintage Telecaster Thinlines and shiny cherry burst Gibson 335s, crummy guitar stores crammed with cheap Fender Squiers and, usually, at least one classy Epiphone Zakk Wylde Les Paul Custom. It was fun, playing all those guitars!

So when I decided I was ready to take the plunge and get a small acoustic guitar of my own, we started the process again.

We already have a big, boomy Martin dreadnought, but it is better suited to bluegrass hootenannies and too unwieldy for me to learn on. I wanted something small, cheap enough that we'd feel okay tossing it in the backseat of a car or leaving it perched next to the couch. I wanted a guitar that sounded beautiful and would age well. Small, cheap, sounds good - a tall order.

We played parlor guitars, both vintage and new, but they fell short on sound, ringing with a boxiness that felt wimpy and closed-in.

We played cheap and mid-priced Taylors, Takemines and Alvarezes, but they were all too blahhh... mousy-haired wallflowers.

We were tempted, so tempted, by a stunning 1941 spruce top Kalamazoo with guts and mojo and soul. Oh, that Kalamazoo!

The winner? A Gibson B15 from early 1968, a tender, sweet little mahogany acoustic guitar that I like to think was strummed by an earnest young folksinger with long blond hair and a peasant blouse, in parks, university courtyards, at protests, around campfires.

And I love it!

I tend to misinterpret lyrics. I'm a glass-half-full kind of girl, so it's easy for me to ignore lyrical nuance and assume everything's about love and happiness.

For example, in the song Midnight Confessions, by the Grass Roots, I tend to skip over this bit:

There's another before me / I'm wasting my time / You'll never be mine...

In favor of:

When I tell all the world that I love you!

Apparently, I'm a minor offender. Take the wedding DJ. I've provided music for a few wedding myself, and I've fought with, ignored, scoffed at and cheered many wedding DJs, all of whom will whip out songs with decidedly unromantic lyrics just to fill the dance floor.

I once got a request for Marvin Gaye's I Heard It Through The Grapevine (not much longer would you be mine). Just this weekend, I danced to Human League's Don't You Want Me (...but now I think it's time I lived my life on my own....)

On the other hand, I raised an eyebrow at a request for The Book Of Love (is long and boring...) by the Magnetic Fields, and, upon closer reading of the lyrics, (I love it when you read to me... you can read me anything...) it is kind of romantic.

Maybe this is a lesson in preserving marital bliss. Don't look too closely at the lyrics. Sometimes, the beat that drives you to the dance floor is all you need.