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Jose Maria
Feb-21-2013, 17:53 GMT
Spain


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THE DREAMER OF MUSIC WEBSITE GOODBYE: PERSONAL REASONS, SOME DISAFFECTION AND CENSORSHIP

Next March of this year 2013 "The Dreamer Of Music" website would have celebrated its 10 years of existence, after having expanded it and redesigned it several times from 2003, but definitively says goodbye. Here are the reasons for this offline.

REASON 1: SITE FORMAT AND ITS ACCEPTATION

We believe that TDOM role has been fulfilled, and that nowadays people seek online information in the way of breaking news or they like to participate actively on discussions. The demand for websites with databases is scarce and they languish, as it also happens with blogs, being replaced in the users interest by twitter or Facebook. Hence the humble and mean statistics of the site, about 82,000 visits in 10 years.

Also personal reasons, maybe the most important, and some disaffection towards Simon and his surroundings explain this goodbye.

REASON 2: PERSONAL

In these last ten years the authors of this site have had to face a few hard personal blows all which has left its mark in our mood and affected to our power to continue serving as the "The Dreamer Of Music" project deserves.

REASON 3: SOME DISAFFECTION FROM JOSE MARIA

The seeming Paul Simon proximity to Goldman Sachs senior executives (he attended to their party last year) while a tremendous economic crisis (where Goldman Sachs has its role) devastates the planet, and especially our own country has disappointed Jose Maria very much. So J.M. interest in Simon as person has decreased a lot (but not on his music, of course). It is, quoting Paul’s lyrics, like if one would guess whose side he is on in this crisis. It is just a very personal point of view. Sorry.

On the other hand José Maria’s interest to Paul Simon´s last albums is very limited, though not for José Luis who loves them enthusiastically.

REASON 4: OTHER PROJECTS

We also want to undertake other projects where we can use our time and life in a more comforting and useful ways. Jose Luis is busy with literature, poetry and the exploration of other musics and musicians, but without forgetting Paul Simon. Jose Maria wants to write a book about sculpture and to become involved in the support of democracy and social justice, both them so threatened today in our country, Spain. He also wants to devote more time to the music of Mark Knopfler that currently excites him more than Simon’s.

That is why our power, hope and illusions to continue with the TDOM project were low.

REASON 5: HARPER SIMON REQUESTS US TO REMOVE SOME PARTS OF TDOM

And then suddenly it came the last drop: last January 28, 2013 we received an e-mail from Harper Simon’s worldwide representative agent requesting us, in the name of Harper himself, to remove from TDOM site all the pages and information about Harper Simon and his mother and to cease all information regarding them as soon as possible.

This has meant the last nail on the coffin of this website.

Honestly we don´t know what content can have disturbed this person, as in the TDOM website there was nothing offensive, disrespectful or critical in this regard. Of course there was no opinion about those people, just data and news (OK you know, there was a very positive and enthusiastic review of Harper’s first album). Anyway we apologize any disturbance that the site would have caused to these persons in an unaware and unwilling way.

REASON 6: WE DON´T ACCEPT TO MAIM THE SITE NEITHER CENSORSHIP

Anyhow taking the trouble to retouch the website to eliminate any trace of these two people became very unpleasant for us and sincerely, given the personal circumstances that we have mentioned above, we don’t feel like it. We decided we have no desire to spend hours tweaking the page to bring it to a ridiculous format because of no kind of mentions to the Paul Simon’s eldest son neither to his first wife were allowed.

Of course when you don’t feel free to do something and you have the feeling of being watched by a censoring eye or when what you do with love is considered offensive, your best choice is to leave it if you don’t want problems. One wonders if freedom of information on the Internet, even if it is covered very respectfully, is possible.

On the other hand this should serve as a “notice for navigators” who run other Simon-related sites.

So, that email from H. S. representative (really it is a personal request from Harper himself) has helped us make the decision that from time to time we were considering and finally we have removed the whole "The Dreamer Of Music" site forever.

Such peace they take as they leave.

THANKS

Our sincere thanks to everyone who have visited this site in its ten years of existence, to those who have sent us their recognition for our work and also to those who have sent us their criticism. We have always tried to do our best and to correct our errors. And to share with everyone, but without being fanatical, crazy or freakies, just good enthusiast to wonderful Paul Simon’s music, but retaining our own opinions and critical sense.

We stay in contact through Bodo´s forum from time to time. Thanks to Bodo for his kindness.

PS.: Our relationship with the Paul Simon surroundings during these 10 years has been very rare and indirect and there has never been any approach from us to them. But on the contrary we received two requests from the surroundings of Simon. The first one was a request to use some stuff from "The Dreamer Of Music" on the first own Simon’s official website, to which we responded positively. The second request was more stuff (from our private files) for the booklet that was included on the reissue of the album "Bridge Over Troubled Water" for its 40th Anniversary, which we did not respond when we guessed the dismissive position that they had on all fans websites, summarized in the phrase "live and let live" that we got.

mog
Feb-21-2013, 20:25 GMT
Canada


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Muchas gracias por el mensaje. Muy informativo.

All this makes sense, and they are all very good reasons.

One of the things that I really liked with TDOM was your critical point of view. That is how I think as well. It is not because we are fans that we must put our brains to off in responding to Simon's output. You have never done that, despite the fact that you were huge fans.

Gracias otra vez y buena suerte para sus otros proyectos.

Jose Maria  
Feb-21-2013, 20:38 GMT
Spain


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Mi mog:
Thanks a lot for your kind words.
Tu español es realmente bueno

Bodo
Feb-21-2013, 20:45 GMT
Austria


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Thanks a lot for your explanation Jose.

I understand your reasons and - I believe I would have done the same.

I said it a few times last year, social communities like Facebook or Twitter also play their role in destroying the web now. I see the same on paul-simon.info , the forum - which was very lively from 2002-2009/10 is close to it's death. If there is less interest you also start to do less for the website, finally it will collapse and another page is gone.

I remember in the year 2000 we had a Paul Simon WEBRING, which had at least 12-15 member websites. All gone today.
Joey Berger had the best page
Nicolas had a webpage
Miriam had one
plenty more...

Of course, we can not blame Harper alone now, because you had many different reasons to close TDOM. But I can tell you : If there every will be any "serious" trouble, also paul-simon.info will close in a minute. You can only loose in those days, where big companies like Facebook have their own armada of lawyers. Hire a lawyer for a private fan website? No thanks.

Internet is business today.

The question is - will there be any paul simon fanpages after people lost interest in social communities? Will there be a way back? I don't think so. Internet will become more and more commercialized.

Jose Maria
Feb-21-2013, 20:58 GMT
Spain


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Hi Bodo: Once more gain thanks to for your grasp. I agree you absolutely about what is happening on internet. Well the neo-com greedy destroys everything. But human beings seem to be blind, as usual.
Well I have to confess that the main reasons have been Harper´s request (a polite way of mentioning it) and the Paul Simon seemingly links to Goldman-Sachs. I cannot admire as person someone with that background, though I like a lot his music.

Brenda
Feb-22-2013, 02:23 GMT
Australia


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I am glad Paul's management was not involved in the decision to close Dreamer of Music website. I would have been very disappointed to hear that. Regarding Harper requesting all info about him being removed from the site, it could well be he does not want to have a section on a Paul Simon website devoted to him. On a few occasions he has been somewhat annoyed previously when any reference is made to his father in interviews. Maybe he was feeling very low when he made the request.
Is this the occasion you are referring to Jose when Paul attended an event organised by Henry Cornell to raise funds for community groups in New York.It could well have just been that he supports New York charities and not necessarily Goldman Sachs.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-02-28/scene-
last-night-henry-cornell-robert-reffkin-fred-armis
en

I shall miss your great site. Thank you both so much for time and effort you put into it. Sad to end this way. Hope it never happens to Bodo's site.

Bodo
Feb-22-2013, 11:06 GMT
Austria


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btw. I must admit I totally missed the Goldmann Sachs story or any connection to Paul. I tried to google it now but I can not find any word on it

Anthony
Feb-22-2013, 17:02 GMT
USA - United Staates America


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I don't agree with any of this. I would have had the entire
site copied in a few days. I remember web rings too, and still
miss them. He could have said the site will be gone in a few
days and I would have had all the material. And anyone else
who wanted a printed copy.

Joey
Feb-22-2013, 18:01 GMT
Canada


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Presumably Paul was at that event because his close friend Lorne Michaels was being honoured...

Though I think he performed at a World Economic Forum or Bank or something thing a few years ago...

Scaaty
Feb-22-2013, 19:02 GMT
Ireland


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I hope this site does not go!! I find it a lot easier to check in and out of than Facebook. It was down for a couple of days - was that just here (Ireland) or was it global?

Bodo
Feb-23-2013, 11:19 GMT
Austria


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I guess the site was only not reachable in your area Scaaty. We had many forum postings the last days...

Michiel
Feb-25-2013, 09:27 GMT
Netherlands


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Well, I'm a big PS fan, people who know me know, but this is a strange confession I have to make.. I never visited TDOM. Just never did, did not know that site. Seems I've missed a lot, but it's also proof that ps.info always was sufficient for me as a PS website, so Bodo you can see that as a big compliment. I hope your site will not shut for a long time. Thanks

Anthony
Feb-26-2013, 23:10 GMT
USA - United Staates America


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You did miss a lot. I never got to see the entire site, but I
loved the dates of shows and information I never knew an I'm
sorry he did not say earlier the site was going down so that
I would have that copied. I don't go to Facebook for news on
Paul either or twitter whatever that is. I really liked So
Beautiful which I guess Jose did not. To have lost all that
information is terrible.

Brenda
Feb-26-2013, 23:35 GMT
Australia


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Anthony ,please explore this site as all the information you refer to {and more}is on here. Very easy to access it all!

Anthony
Mar-04-2013, 16:56 GMT
USA - United Staates America


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Thanks, but I was unable to find the pages.

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