Another Real Frank Zappa Book

[emdebe]

I have always wanted to write a book (THE book) about FZ, but I never could find the time for it. I still do, and I still don't...

Although every now and then I write an occasional paragraph or two, it might as well take another 10 to 20 years to complete the envisaged book...

Since I'm NOT in it for the money, I got this crazy idea: why not go public? This way maybe other people might get interested in contributing to it. Personally I think an "open source" book, co-written by the FZ community would be a COOL THING.

Could/should we start a new forum for this?

Are there any other (better) ways to do this?

Are there any other FZ afficionados crazy enough to go for it in the first place?

[SOFA]

Are there any other FZ afficionados crazy enough to go for it in the first place?

Yup; our own Chris Federico, for one - tho' his work is predominantly an analisys of FZ lyrical content, it's still a very tasty read...

[Barry]

Writing a collaborative book on FZ is, in my opinion, close to impossible.
It's my experience that each and every FZ fan has his/her own reason(s) for appreciating the man and the music, and more often than not, they differ greatly.

I've been toying with the idea of putting up a Frank Zappa Wiki though. Look for instance at the WikiPedia. The premise is: anyone gets to add information, and a bunch of admins watch over the accuracy of this information.

It's the information age kids! D'you think we might pull this off: an FZ centered Wiki? Given enough "yes yes"es and "hear hear"s I might give it a shot...

Thoughts?

[emdebe]

Writing a collaborative book on FZ is, in my opinion, close to impossible. It's my experience that each and every FZ fan has his/her own reason(s) for appreciating the man and the music, and more often than not, they differ greatly.

If all this sounds a bit too scary, let me soften it with a snippet of wisdom, attributed to Seneca (5 BC - 65 AD, Roman dramatist, Stoic philosopher, and politician): "It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that things look difficult"...

There are probably a lot of reasons for NOT doing it, but maybe we can find lots more to JUST DO IT!

OR... maybe I should start YAFZW (yet another FZ website)...

[emdebe]

I've been toying with the idea of putting up a Frank Zappa Wiki though.

As a matter of fact... there's already an FZ entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zappa

[emdebe]

It's my experience that each and every FZ fan has his/her own reason(s) for appreciating the man and the music, and more often than not, they differ greatly.

There are ze facts and ze interpretations. The book could be a mix of both...

By the way, I'm a lot crazier than you might have guessed: I'm thinking of 3 (!) volumes...

Frank Vincent Zappa was - like any other human being - born, and - although he was considered some sort of a God by some (anyway, to me he was more of a God than, say, Eric Clapton), he died as well. In chronological order, things happened on December 21, 1940 and December 4, 1993. In between, many more things happened… and that's precisely what Volume 1 should be all about.

Ever since the Grand Wazoo has left us, people have been trying to fill the immense void - which, of course, is an impossible thing to do, because the late great FZ was one of the foremost legendary composers / performers of the 20th Century. Some are in it for the fun, others are only in it for the money, and some are in it for no reason at all... Volume 2 should take a closer look at all the look-alikes, sound-alikes, and Ersatz Celebrity...

Finally, Volume 3 should be a detailed annotated index, sort of. A real ENCYCLOPEDIUM of useless information and stupid facts, gathered from obscure sources and given away to anyone subterranean enough to understand it... From Anusol to Zircon and beyond...

[Barry]

As a matter of fact... there's already an FZ entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zappa

Ah but I'm talking about a wiki with nothing but Zappa entries! An online "Frank Zappa Encyclopaedia"...

[emdebe]

Ah but I'm talking about a wiki with nothing but Zappa entries! An online "Frank Zappa Encyclopaedia"...

I got that: I may be crazy, but I'm not stupid!

Any way the wind blows: it seems that there's only US (two). Where's THEM? Where are all these other people that want to create the ULTIMATE TRIBUTE to the man and his music? Where are all the other Freaks & Motherf*#@%! when you need them?

It would probably be a good thing if more people would be interested to contribute. It would definitely be a good thing to have someone with a graphical eye: we don't want yet another messy website, do we? Good enough is not good enough anymore!

[UniMuta]

I'm all in favour of a zappa wacky wiki thing.

go for it.

i'm not saying that i'll contribute much, but I'll read it...

UniMuta

[Barry]

i'm not saying that i'll contribute much, but I'll read it...

... and there we have it: problemo Numero Uno...

[Chris]

I'm all in favor of such a project and will be glad to contribute heavily to it, if you'll explain to me what "wiki" means.

-- Non-hip-to-Internet-lingo me

(lol wtf ttyl lmao brb smiley winky....um....Load "*",8:RUN)

[Barry]

I'm all in favor of such a project and will be glad to contribute heavily to it, if you'll explain to me what "wiki" means.

- Google: what is a wiki
- wiki.org - what is wiki

What's a wiki... best way I can explain is to show by example. Have a look at wikipedia.org which has grown to be the biggest, most complete user-built online encyclopaedia on the net.

What I find fascinating about wiki's is that basically anyone can contribute. True to the spirit of open source software, it has little to no hierarchic structure; instead relying heavily upon the goodwill and knowhow of its contributors. Herein (if you'll indulge my weekly urge to be pompous) lies both the strength and weakness of its concept.

The logic of a wiki goes something like this:
You, as a visitor can
* create new pages
* edit existing pages
* add to existing pages

Furthermore, the structure of a wiki is not hierarchic as in "Frank Zappa >> 1974 >> Roxy & Elsewhere >> Ruth Underwood". Wiki-based information lives in a linear structure where keywords - if defined as such - carry equal importance.

As an example, suppose I as a fz-wiki contributor create the following page:

"Roxy & Elsewhere was released in 1985 and had George Duke, Ruth Underwood and Steve Vai as its prime band members."

You, as visitor, would come surfing in, read the obviously erroneous information and be able to correct it as:

"Roxy & Elsewhere was released in September 1974 and had George Duke and Ruth Underwood as its prime band members."

You could go on and edit as follows:

"Roxy & Elsewhere was released in September 1974. The band's line-up was: George Duke (keyboards, vocals) Tom Fowler (bass) Ruth Underwood (percussion) Jeff Simmons (rhythm guitar, vocals) Don Preston (synthesizer) Bruce Fowler (trombone, dancing!) Walt Fowler (trumpet) Napoleon Murphy Brock (tenor sax, flute, vocals) Ralph Humphrey (drums) Chester Thompson (drums)"

Upon which someone else would pass by and add track titles, venue details... etc... etc...

The concept of a wiki relies almost exclusively on the goodwill of visitors to add content which they deem valuable - and on the involvement of editors who thoroughly know their subject. Hence, if the userbase is poor (not many contributors/editors; contributors/editors who don't know what they're editing, malignant trolls), this will reflect badly on the quality of the wiki.

Which is why I'm very carefully testing the waters here before plunging into the launch of a FZ-wiki...

[Chris]

Very cool. Thanks for the explanation. (One can't help but wonder what the origins of the term "Wiki" might be.) Maybe an easier-to-organize site would be something along the lines of Vladimir Sovetov's ARF site? I think visitors who wish to contribute simply add their text in something of a "suggestion box," and the webmaster pulls out their words verbatim and pastes them into the site itself. Just a thought, so we don't have different pages, formats, layouts, etc. flying about all willy-nilly under the same URL.

[Barry]

(One can't help but wonder what the origins of the term "Wiki" might be.)

Wiki is Hawaïan for "fast", if my memory serves me right

Maybe an easier-to-organize site would be something along the lines of Vladimir Sovetov's ARF site? I think visitors who wish to contribute simply add their text in something of a "suggestion box," and the webmaster pulls out their words verbatim and pastes them into the site itself.

That would mean we're back to square one: one webmaster in charge of editing/updating. User contribution at the mercy of one editor, no automated adding of information...

Just a thought, so we don't have different pages, formats, layouts, etc. flying about all willy-nilly under the same URL.

1) wiki's are designed to backup page "versions" - one could swap back and forth as needed.
2) Disconnect layout from content - it is an irrelevant issue, trust me

[emdebe]

Want to become a "Wikipedian"... it's (becoming) a way of life... http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,66814,00.html?tw=wn_2culthead...

If there are no alternatives (and I can't think of any right now), then maybe Wiki will be the way to go...

We could use this forum to discuss the book's content, structuring, layout...

We could/must restrict contributing to REGISTERED users...

And by the way, let us not forget: this discussion is NOT about "to Wiki or not to Wiki"... It's all about finding people (writers, editors, researchers, illustrators, ... whatever) who are motivated enough to spend a serious amount of their precious time to document the life and times of a single person... People who are willing to find a consensus about what to write and how to write it...