Over the past year, in this space, I've rewritten the early history of Dr. Dobb's to include an anachronistic 1976 podcast in the style of a 1950s Bob & Ray radio show, engaged in schmaltzy reminiscing about coding for a living in the 1970s, evoked the spirit and writing style of Charles Dickens to advise Steve Ballmer on how to do a press conference, riffed on awards and snakes, delivered a column sponsored by the letter K, shared my abortive experiment with wikihood, hustled for tips at Foo Bar, listened in on the Linux Ladies, rambled on about ancient computing devices and screwy ideas, mused about why some experts are taken seriously when they pontificate outside the areas of their expertise and others aren't, and interviewed a bird.
So in April, when I heard that virtually all of EMI's music would be available through iTunes without DRM copy protection but at higher sound quality for an extra charge per track, I immediately realized that I should address the issue in the form of a parody of Wallace Stevens's acclaimed poem, "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" (writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/stevens-13ways.html).
I
Among CEOs standing like snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the man in black.
II
I am of two minds,
Like an iPod
That can store DRM-free tunes at 256kbps or the old stuff at 128kbps.
III
"Blackbird singing in the dead of night..."
The unheard tunes of the Beatles were a part of the pantomime.
IV
A song and the open road
Are one.
A song and the open road and freedom
Are one twenty-nine.
V
The European Union asked for the jangle
Of shared chains.
Does it not prefer
The silence of none? asked the man in black.
VI
Icicles fill the window with frozen Video.
The sunlight of this announcement crosses it, to and fro.
The ice begins to melt.
VII
O thin men of the music industry,
Why do you imagine caged tunes?
Do you not see how EMI's act
Makes you look dull, dense, and greedy?
VIII
I hear noble accents
And crisper sound quality;
But I know, too,
That EMI and Apple stand to make a bundle on this deal.
IX
When this light shone out,
It emphasized the darkness
At Sony BMG, Warner, and Universal.
X
At the news of albums DRM-free at no extra cost,
Even the free-music choir
Would skip a beat.
XI
He rode over the music industry in a Jonathan Ive coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he misread his future in a black cube.
XII
The dinosaurs are moving.
The Indies say welcome.
XIII
It was morning all day.
The next day the EU threatened to sue Apple over pricing.
The man in black shifted uncomfortably in his catbird seat.
Michael Swaine
Editor-at-Large
