NYTimes.com: At 6:44 pm on Feb. 4, 1992, a little-known composer and playwright named Jonathan Larson hit “save” for the first time on a Microsoft Word file containing the lyrics to a half dozen songs loosely tied together with fragments of a story that over the next four years would grow into the mega-hit musical “Rent.”
Wednesday, February 01, 2012
Tale of the Floppy Disks: How Jonathan Larson Created 'Rent'
NYTimes.com: At 6:44 pm on Feb. 4, 1992, a little-known composer and playwright named Jonathan Larson hit “save” for the first time on a Microsoft Word file containing the lyrics to a half dozen songs loosely tied together with fragments of a story that over the next four years would grow into the mega-hit musical “Rent.”
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6 comments:
This article is troubling for me firstly because it seems like a violation of Mr. Larson's privacy, and secondly because I don't undertand quite what Mr. Reside is trying to accomplish. What question does looking through the files answer? Is Mr. Reside looking for specific information about Mr. Larson's process? And how will knowledge about the process leading up to the opening of Rent inform audience member's takeaway?
Rent arrived at its finished form for a reason, and I don't know why we're exploring files that were at one point very personal without a clear goal.
I am in complete agreement with Daniel. Why is Mr. Reside doing this? I might be able to see if he was trying to understand the computer forensic aspect of this, but in that case what does the show RENT have to do with anything? I feel that this most definately is a violation of Mr. Larson's privacy and if this was being done to me, I would be outraged. I would imagine that while writing such a personal work, there would be lots of extremely personal information contained in initial drafts that were later cut for one reason or another. And for whatever reason that may be, you need to respect the playwright's final product.
I actually disagree with Daniel and Tim-I think that as long as the Larson Estate (if there is one-I believe his archives are actually controlled by the Library of Congress) is alright with this talk, it would offer a lot of insight into a writer's editing process. It is in ways, not dissimilar to what Stephen Sondheim's "Finishing the Hat" and "Look I Made a Hat" accomplish-he outlines certain changes he made in the materials and why he made them. It is a shame that Mr. Larson isn't alive to explain these changes himself, but I am glad that we are able to learn about his life and writing style through this talk.
I guess I stand somewhere in the middle of this debate. As I read the article, I couldn't help thinking that it was a little creepy that Mr. Reside was able to find out so much personal information about a man who died 16 years ago. On the other hand, I do admire that Mr. Reside is doing so out of respect and admiration for Mr. Larson and a desire to learn about his process. I'm not exactly sure what information has been uncovered that Mr. Reside thinks people will learn from, but then again I am not an author and don't know much about how studying another author's process can help with your own. Aside from that debate, something I found interesting in this article was the problem of the loss of digital information. If we don't back up all of our files or print them out or keep converting them for use with the newest technology, we will undoubtedly lose them some day. There are definite advantages to archiving photos and thing digitally, but I think it's easier to keep a physical photo album safe from harm than it is to maintain a full, uncorrupted stock of digital photos.
I think this is really fascinating. I think that Mr. Reside is reading too much into everything and is somewhat conspiracy-theory-ish but the story he tells could be somewhat intriguing. Am i concerned about the privacy issue? No. It is text files for a internationally renowned musical - that is like saying Shakespeare's journals cant be read or Michaelangelos sketch book is off limits. The world is turing digital so as brainstorming moves to the computer so does our research. I cannot wait until dissecting files in this manner leads to some great revelation of the unknown behind a famous play or musical
Does anyone else think this is a pretty severe privacy violation? (Oh, I just read the other comments, I guess so).
I feel like things having to do with RENT, and his professional and artistic life, are *kind of* ok to share with the world. That's what artists want, after all. But going through his letters and receipts and electric bills is just creepy. Like a weird, creepy obsession with Jonathan Larson. And considering he's the first person to even look at these discs, and went as far to find a program that SHOWED HIM THE SAVED-OVER VERSIONS of some documents, I'm going to say that's a very plausible conclusion.
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