And just to clarify my stance on terrorism, about which I've received some nasty, unsolicited, and unintelligible emails of late, here you go.
inumerable
wrongs
don't
make
right.
In case that's not clear enough, I'm against terrorism and genocide of all kinds. If you don't like it, take me off your blogroll.
April 13, 2002
April 12, 2002
microblogging
Some bloggers like most to talk about the global, the big picture, the world, its conflicts, its leaders and losers. Some are very good at it. Others are annoying. Still others are mere copies of what we hear on cable news and talk radio, which, in my mind, is a waste of good blog space.
As for global issues, I will leave it to the bloggers who are good at it. There are more opinions out there on current events than you can shake a laptop at.
The blogs I like to read are the personal, those individual portraits of the human heart, blogs about lives and losses, realizations, aspirations, fears; bloggers who open their closets, skeletons and all. That's where I learn things. I come here to escape the macro, the global, the things I cannot solve, the pieces of the world that others control and seek to dominate. Big secret #1: You have no control of what's happening; it is in the hands of governments, and governments, like corporations, are not human. Only those caught in their in the machinery are human. That is the tragedy.
What I CAN change is me. That's it. That's all I can change. And that's all you can change.
Mirror to face,
Blogging for grace.
I challenge you today to put your heart on the line. Take it past the easy blog fuel--who killed whom today, what could happen next. Go for premium. Get personal. Tell me about you. Who fucked with you today? What happened to you that you are the way you are, the person you are? What brought you to blogging? Not the outside stuff. The *inside* stuff.
I dare you.
As for global issues, I will leave it to the bloggers who are good at it. There are more opinions out there on current events than you can shake a laptop at.
The blogs I like to read are the personal, those individual portraits of the human heart, blogs about lives and losses, realizations, aspirations, fears; bloggers who open their closets, skeletons and all. That's where I learn things. I come here to escape the macro, the global, the things I cannot solve, the pieces of the world that others control and seek to dominate. Big secret #1: You have no control of what's happening; it is in the hands of governments, and governments, like corporations, are not human. Only those caught in their in the machinery are human. That is the tragedy.
What I CAN change is me. That's it. That's all I can change. And that's all you can change.
Mirror to face,
Blogging for grace.
I challenge you today to put your heart on the line. Take it past the easy blog fuel--who killed whom today, what could happen next. Go for premium. Get personal. Tell me about you. Who fucked with you today? What happened to you that you are the way you are, the person you are? What brought you to blogging? Not the outside stuff. The *inside* stuff.
I dare you.
April 09, 2002
panic remembered
The past has a way of protecting you. Sometimes for a long time. Until it’s way way in the past. Yesterday, I remembered suddenly the circumstances around my first panic attack. I used to think they started in high school. The doctors would ask: "When did you start having panic attacks?" I'd try to think back, but, caught in the grips of anxiety, it seemed like always would have been the most accurate reply.
Until yesterday, though, I thought I had it nailed down to my tough times in 10th grade. Those are the ones I remember best. Under siege by what ifs and terrorized by possibilities ranging from the very real to the really absurd, grappling with hour-long bouts that were very painful, and very physical, and made me certain that I was going completely out of my mind and could not take it another split second, the days when a minute seemed like three years and the thought of three years led to the next wave of terror.
But last week I remembered. I didn’t just remember; I was there. In the fourth seat of the first row from the door, Mr. Connor’s 6th grade science class, trying to pay attention even as I was fixated, as always, on his bald head and his wrestling coach walk, and the rumor I had heard from the other kids that his wife had just died.
His question to the class is what started this wave of panic, which ripped up my spine to flush my cheeks, which made me want to run from class to the bathroom where I could throw up. I was sure I would faint, and if I didn’t I was sure I would die. It was perhaps the hardest question I had ever been asked and is even still:
“What does your father do for a living?”
Followed by, “Let’s go around the room.”
And one by one, the answers came from the other kids, fast and furious, a restaurant manager, a construction worker, a teacher—like you Mr. Connor!—a writer, he works at Xerox, he delivers the mail, until he hit the row before mine. I turned around to Susan, who sat behind me. She lived on my street… one of the few who knew I didn’t have a father, that he was dead—“What do I SAY?” She shrugged her shoulders. “mmmm mm mmmm.”
As a kid, when your father dies before anyone else’s in what you know to be the entire world, that makes you really different. A freak. And in 1969, if he died of cancer, that made you a leper. I was about to become a leper if I didn’t think fast. Really fast.
And as he pointed at me, I said it. Well almost:
“My mother works.”
“Oh. ……………….. What does she do?”
“She shows apartments.”
And he moved on.
But I never did.
Until yesterday, though, I thought I had it nailed down to my tough times in 10th grade. Those are the ones I remember best. Under siege by what ifs and terrorized by possibilities ranging from the very real to the really absurd, grappling with hour-long bouts that were very painful, and very physical, and made me certain that I was going completely out of my mind and could not take it another split second, the days when a minute seemed like three years and the thought of three years led to the next wave of terror.
But last week I remembered. I didn’t just remember; I was there. In the fourth seat of the first row from the door, Mr. Connor’s 6th grade science class, trying to pay attention even as I was fixated, as always, on his bald head and his wrestling coach walk, and the rumor I had heard from the other kids that his wife had just died.
His question to the class is what started this wave of panic, which ripped up my spine to flush my cheeks, which made me want to run from class to the bathroom where I could throw up. I was sure I would faint, and if I didn’t I was sure I would die. It was perhaps the hardest question I had ever been asked and is even still:
“What does your father do for a living?”
Followed by, “Let’s go around the room.”
And one by one, the answers came from the other kids, fast and furious, a restaurant manager, a construction worker, a teacher—like you Mr. Connor!—a writer, he works at Xerox, he delivers the mail, until he hit the row before mine. I turned around to Susan, who sat behind me. She lived on my street… one of the few who knew I didn’t have a father, that he was dead—“What do I SAY?” She shrugged her shoulders. “mmmm mm mmmm.”
As a kid, when your father dies before anyone else’s in what you know to be the entire world, that makes you really different. A freak. And in 1969, if he died of cancer, that made you a leper. I was about to become a leper if I didn’t think fast. Really fast.
And as he pointed at me, I said it. Well almost:
“My mother works.”
“Oh. ……………….. What does she do?”
“She shows apartments.”
And he moved on.
But I never did.
And for Halley
For Halley, who lost her father today, "Passage" below seems a fitting poem for her too. Our thoughts are with you, Halley. Much pain in blogland today.
April 08, 2002
Passage
(for george)
It’s the going
the going
the going
the going,
It’s the deadly
sharpness
of without.
It’s the
not having,
the space
every place
I look
where
you aren’t.
Unsettled
dreaming of
the absence of
things.
It’s the trick
of the eye
turning is
into was
and was
into wasn’t
ever so.
It’s life with
the music off,
the soundlessness
and then
the shrill smack
of the high end
set loose on me.
It’s the first day
without you.
It’s the going
the going
the going
the going,
It’s the deadly
sharpness
of without.
It’s the
not having,
the space
every place
I look
where
you aren’t.
Unsettled
dreaming of
the absence of
things.
It’s the trick
of the eye
turning is
into was
and was
into wasn’t
ever so.
It’s life with
the music off,
the soundlessness
and then
the shrill smack
of the high end
set loose on me.
It’s the first day
without you.
April 07, 2002
The Revelation
so, I'm thinking about doing some writing stuff--you know, outside the blogging realm and the 8,000 client deliverables I'm writing all the time. I don't know. It's not fully formed. But I have this start, or middle, or end that came to me just now. Not sure where it's going. Feedback welcome. -j.
--------------------------------
She has been afraid of bugs for as long as she can remember. More than the typical aversion, hers is the kind of fear that jolts, base of spine to tip, a panic that reaches a crescendo in the time it takes the brain to process what the eye has seen. And for her, beetles are the worst.
June Bugs some call them. They swarm on hot summer evenings, the color of night, knocking against windows, working their way inside screens. June bugs struggle with a single purpose: to burrow before the sun rises. Daylight is their death sentence.
She was 30 before she realized the source of her phobia. It came to her one spring, after a hard rain, the kind that washes worms onto pavement and subsides before they can wind their way back to the earth. She stared at the carnage this day, stunned by the asymmetrical beauty of the worm carcasses, spread out just so, some making a perfect “s”, others coiled tightly. Her eyes played games. Block out the solid, stare at the space, and suddenly the worms were canvas, the pavement paint. She was overcome by the deathly beauty taking place in her own driveway, a place she’d seen a thousand times but never like this.
Until she saw a single worm struggling, alive.
The familiar fear rose, pushing her backwards, the primal instinct to flee more than she could suppress. One step back. It’s okay. It’s just a worm. How ugly. How disgusting. I’m far enough away now. Look how it slithers, only half the body responding to a nervous system that says, “Move, Now!”
There’s no telling how long she stared. That wasn’t the point of the moment. The revelation came after she got into her car and began the drive to work, a revelation that, when it came, took control of her car and pulled it to the side of the road where images surreal were waiting.
You are afraid of bugs because
they ate the skin and flesh
from your father’s corpse,
in and out of his eye sockets,
between his fingers
on the hand you once held tight,
is the wedding ring still there?
And they will eat
you too one day.
That is what bugs do,
consume the dead.
She wasn’t sure how long she sat at the side of the road thinking these thoughts. There were no tears, just the revelation that landed like a thud on a soul hardened to injury.
She was just six when he died, and had wondered plenty of times since exactly what happened to his body inside that casket. How does he look now? Sometimes the urge to dig him up was so palpable her fingertips itched. She dreams of hollow earth, of things underneath the surface. It is a compulsion to understand the dead, and perhaps, in that understanding, to undo death. It’s a desire so intense it shades everything that comes after.
In biology class, when the rest of the class saw a skeleton, she saw her father’s bones. When the life-size model of the human body was unveiled, she saw his organs. When the rest of the class dissected frogs, she was cutting into him.
Step aside, give me the scalpel, let me explore and see if I can’t cut out this disease. “Inoperable?” Urge born from loss, she whishes she had been in the operating room that day, because she is sure she would have taken the time to cut the cancer out, to put him back together just right. Surgeons who don’t love their patients cannot cure them. Daughters should heal fathers. Fathers should fix daughters. We are one, have the same sicknesses, know where they hide, how far the tentacles reach and where. “God,” she implored, “just give me the chance.”
But she would never have the chance. Death once done can’t be undone. And that is the reality she has battled all of her life, the unchangeable “is” that would color her world, give birth to her voice, and become the platform from which she would speak.
And she is me.
--------------------------------
She has been afraid of bugs for as long as she can remember. More than the typical aversion, hers is the kind of fear that jolts, base of spine to tip, a panic that reaches a crescendo in the time it takes the brain to process what the eye has seen. And for her, beetles are the worst.
June Bugs some call them. They swarm on hot summer evenings, the color of night, knocking against windows, working their way inside screens. June bugs struggle with a single purpose: to burrow before the sun rises. Daylight is their death sentence.
She was 30 before she realized the source of her phobia. It came to her one spring, after a hard rain, the kind that washes worms onto pavement and subsides before they can wind their way back to the earth. She stared at the carnage this day, stunned by the asymmetrical beauty of the worm carcasses, spread out just so, some making a perfect “s”, others coiled tightly. Her eyes played games. Block out the solid, stare at the space, and suddenly the worms were canvas, the pavement paint. She was overcome by the deathly beauty taking place in her own driveway, a place she’d seen a thousand times but never like this.
Until she saw a single worm struggling, alive.
The familiar fear rose, pushing her backwards, the primal instinct to flee more than she could suppress. One step back. It’s okay. It’s just a worm. How ugly. How disgusting. I’m far enough away now. Look how it slithers, only half the body responding to a nervous system that says, “Move, Now!”
There’s no telling how long she stared. That wasn’t the point of the moment. The revelation came after she got into her car and began the drive to work, a revelation that, when it came, took control of her car and pulled it to the side of the road where images surreal were waiting.
You are afraid of bugs because
they ate the skin and flesh
from your father’s corpse,
in and out of his eye sockets,
between his fingers
on the hand you once held tight,
is the wedding ring still there?
And they will eat
you too one day.
That is what bugs do,
consume the dead.
She wasn’t sure how long she sat at the side of the road thinking these thoughts. There were no tears, just the revelation that landed like a thud on a soul hardened to injury.
She was just six when he died, and had wondered plenty of times since exactly what happened to his body inside that casket. How does he look now? Sometimes the urge to dig him up was so palpable her fingertips itched. She dreams of hollow earth, of things underneath the surface. It is a compulsion to understand the dead, and perhaps, in that understanding, to undo death. It’s a desire so intense it shades everything that comes after.
In biology class, when the rest of the class saw a skeleton, she saw her father’s bones. When the life-size model of the human body was unveiled, she saw his organs. When the rest of the class dissected frogs, she was cutting into him.
Step aside, give me the scalpel, let me explore and see if I can’t cut out this disease. “Inoperable?” Urge born from loss, she whishes she had been in the operating room that day, because she is sure she would have taken the time to cut the cancer out, to put him back together just right. Surgeons who don’t love their patients cannot cure them. Daughters should heal fathers. Fathers should fix daughters. We are one, have the same sicknesses, know where they hide, how far the tentacles reach and where. “God,” she implored, “just give me the chance.”
But she would never have the chance. Death once done can’t be undone. And that is the reality she has battled all of her life, the unchangeable “is” that would color her world, give birth to her voice, and become the platform from which she would speak.
And she is me.
April 05, 2002
Give Piece a Chance
I haven't finished my copy of SPLJ yet, but I am proud to be a small piece. Something I read over on Burning Bird yesterday got me thinking. Shelley is tired of hearing about Weinberger's book and wants to hear more from the loosely joined pieces themselves. I can relate to her wanting for new, authentic voices, because I've been feeling that way--where are all the new folks that were supposed to become overnight bloggers thanks to all the recent press on weblogs?
Still, some of the comments on the book in response to Shelley's post--part and parcel of the short attention span that is the net--made me say, "Wait a second. I haven't even finished reading it yet. You can't say we're done talking about it. I haven't even had my turn."
So, in support of the continued conversation on the parts and the paste of the net, I proudly display my piece-hood:
Thanks to Gary, always a partner in crime.
Still, some of the comments on the book in response to Shelley's post--part and parcel of the short attention span that is the net--made me say, "Wait a second. I haven't even finished reading it yet. You can't say we're done talking about it. I haven't even had my turn."
So, in support of the continued conversation on the parts and the paste of the net, I proudly display my piece-hood:
Thanks to Gary, always a partner in crime.
April 04, 2002
the ying and yang of blogging
I love this blogging shit. I mean I really love it again. How is that possible. Just a few days ago I was hating it, ready to chuck it all in. Waste of my time. No one there. Not helping me feel better. blah blah blah. A couple days pass, and I'm all over the place, posting here, posting there, commenting wherever I can find an open comment box. How is this possible?
Blogging is opening the door.
It's nice to close the door sometimes, to hide within walls you can see and touch. But as the hours, days pass, you find yourself looking at that door, staring at the knob, wondering what would happen if you unlocked it. You wonder, is it hot out or cold? Who's driving by? Did I get any mail? Well, maybe I'll just peek out the door and see. Stick a finger out there, find out what the weather's like. That's all. Then I'll come back in.
No sooner is the door open than you're running through the grass with your shoes off, half naked, grabbing leaves from the trees and flowers from the earth, celebrating the unending expanse that is the blog universe. See me? Hear Me? I'm here!
The trick to re-engaging is to read some new blogs. Not the popular ones. Not the Daypop toppers. The other ones. The "updated recentlys" and the blogs that show up on the later pages of a google or daypop search. These quieter voices are magic, and before you know it, you engage, and your mind ignites, and the only thing you know to do, the only thing you can do, is start writing again. Join the conversation. Feed the conversation.
And once the flood gates open, even if you didn't want it to be so, the spark of joy is there.
My voice.
Hear myself,
Heal myself.
Gosh it's good to be back.
Blogging is opening the door.
It's nice to close the door sometimes, to hide within walls you can see and touch. But as the hours, days pass, you find yourself looking at that door, staring at the knob, wondering what would happen if you unlocked it. You wonder, is it hot out or cold? Who's driving by? Did I get any mail? Well, maybe I'll just peek out the door and see. Stick a finger out there, find out what the weather's like. That's all. Then I'll come back in.
No sooner is the door open than you're running through the grass with your shoes off, half naked, grabbing leaves from the trees and flowers from the earth, celebrating the unending expanse that is the blog universe. See me? Hear Me? I'm here!
The trick to re-engaging is to read some new blogs. Not the popular ones. Not the Daypop toppers. The other ones. The "updated recentlys" and the blogs that show up on the later pages of a google or daypop search. These quieter voices are magic, and before you know it, you engage, and your mind ignites, and the only thing you know to do, the only thing you can do, is start writing again. Join the conversation. Feed the conversation.
And once the flood gates open, even if you didn't want it to be so, the spark of joy is there.
My voice.
Hear myself,
Heal myself.
Gosh it's good to be back.
April 03, 2002
Fishrush to broker peace deal in mideast...
Methinks the new Fishrush healthy lifestyle gizmo has much potential for convincing waring parties to lower their stress level and relax as they learn to replace the word "revenge" with the word "fishrush."
The Web, My Sky
stavrosthewonderchicken draws a parallel between the web and the sea, that great expanse where he feels at home after all of his years of sailing, his blog like the ship's log, his ports of call fascinating.
I was outside before I came in and read his blog just now, staring up at the moon like I've done since I was 12, with the same degree of awe I have every single time I look, thinking how many people so far away from me see this same thing, might even be staring at just that same moment even when day is night and night is day. Arafat, same moon. Sharon, same moon. Spread across this floating orb, earth, each of us shares a single sky, from different vantage points, with many and varied planets and stars in our focus, every time we look up, look out.
Let your eye hyperlink from star to star, cloud to cloud, or star to cloud, moon to star. Take it in, draw the emotions from it that you need at that very moment. To me, that is the web, and that is blogging.
So wonderchicken, you are water, I am sky. And somehow, that works. Sail on.
I was outside before I came in and read his blog just now, staring up at the moon like I've done since I was 12, with the same degree of awe I have every single time I look, thinking how many people so far away from me see this same thing, might even be staring at just that same moment even when day is night and night is day. Arafat, same moon. Sharon, same moon. Spread across this floating orb, earth, each of us shares a single sky, from different vantage points, with many and varied planets and stars in our focus, every time we look up, look out.
Let your eye hyperlink from star to star, cloud to cloud, or star to cloud, moon to star. Take it in, draw the emotions from it that you need at that very moment. To me, that is the web, and that is blogging.
So wonderchicken, you are water, I am sky. And somehow, that works. Sail on.
digital earth tones
I really like this. An interesting project blog on gardening, just getting started. This is the type blog journal that I would read more than once. Some online diarists--those whose interesting observations sound someting like, "today I called my boyfriend and can you believe what he said," I don't have the stomach for. But the gardening journal, I dig it.
And isn't it so nice to bring the earth into the digital realm, to see those little seedlings sprouting up from your screen, knowing that someone you're reading is taking care of them? Maybe we can all get a tomato out of this or something.
Anyway, just another good use for blogging, as chronicle for a project, archiving of activities that you can revisit when your petunias give you problems. Journalism? No. How-To Guide? Yes.
Works for me.
And isn't it so nice to bring the earth into the digital realm, to see those little seedlings sprouting up from your screen, knowing that someone you're reading is taking care of them? Maybe we can all get a tomato out of this or something.
Anyway, just another good use for blogging, as chronicle for a project, archiving of activities that you can revisit when your petunias give you problems. Journalism? No. How-To Guide? Yes.
Works for me.
April 02, 2002
I've attempted to stay silent
...on the current middle east killing spree. I don't see an end. I see bad guys everywhere I look. I see two men whose hatred for one another is so deep, so long standing, and so impenetrable that an entire region--and perhaps an entire world--could be leveled because of them. I don't deny Israel has a right to self defense against a group of people that loathe its existence. The suicide bombings deserve reprisal--but how, and at whom? A culture without weapons of mass destruction has alternatively grown its own crop of home-grown weapons in the bodies and minds of young people who are rewarded in eternity for becoming human bombs.
Where will it end and what is the answer? Kill Arafat? Worse news for us all. Let him stay? Too late for that. Exile him? He won't go, and if he did, worse still.
Looking at my own country's actions of "self defense," I wonder if there is a line that, once stepped across, transforms defense to offense, almost in an nanosecond. You blink and you miss it. And the lure of crossing it is maybe just too hard to ignore. The line is blurry yet critically important. Step over it and all the answers are erased with the sand kicked aside. The line is gone. The answer is gone.
This, the latest from the war zone.
"In New York, the Committee to Protect Journalists issued a protest letter to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon saying Israel had an obligation to allow journalists to work freely in the West Bank. 'Attempting to prevent journalists from witnessing events on the ground is a flagrant act of censorship,' the letter said. The group also expressed alarm at 'several incidents in which Israeli troops have fired on working journalists.' "
Where will it end and what is the answer? Kill Arafat? Worse news for us all. Let him stay? Too late for that. Exile him? He won't go, and if he did, worse still.
Looking at my own country's actions of "self defense," I wonder if there is a line that, once stepped across, transforms defense to offense, almost in an nanosecond. You blink and you miss it. And the lure of crossing it is maybe just too hard to ignore. The line is blurry yet critically important. Step over it and all the answers are erased with the sand kicked aside. The line is gone. The answer is gone.
This, the latest from the war zone.
"In New York, the Committee to Protect Journalists issued a protest letter to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon saying Israel had an obligation to allow journalists to work freely in the West Bank. 'Attempting to prevent journalists from witnessing events on the ground is a flagrant act of censorship,' the letter said. The group also expressed alarm at 'several incidents in which Israeli troops have fired on working journalists.' "
sheesh, maybe i was onto something
I guess the comments to my previous blog-hating post hit some nerves, because the comments are numerous and great. Seems like several of us hit bottom at the same time. It's a mixed beast this blogging thing. Maybe we are at the bottom of the check-mark, and we're going to start shooting up the other side.
Just yesterday, I started rumbling with something again. Ideas on women and voice and the net, of repression and release and the shere erotic energy of it all, of voice rape and recovery, all of which I think is going on, right now, especially for women bloggers, as we type into these now-somewhat-monotonous little windows that used to seem so cool. I find that to renew my energy, I jump between the blogs I participate in--gonzo engaged, blog sisters, allied, and as soon as I finish the book, the Loosely Joined team blog. Seems like when I peter out on one, I find renewed energy on another and stay there for a while.
Odd, isn't it? All of it? Very odd. I've made an incredible wishlist for myself on Amazon of women writers--historic to post-modern. I'd love suggestions especially as they relate to women and voice, release. I'm going to tackle this beast from one angle or another. I think I'm finding my angle.
And on another note, right now a talented guitarist from Senegal is in my kitchen teaching my daughter French.
Is there anything better than that?
Just yesterday, I started rumbling with something again. Ideas on women and voice and the net, of repression and release and the shere erotic energy of it all, of voice rape and recovery, all of which I think is going on, right now, especially for women bloggers, as we type into these now-somewhat-monotonous little windows that used to seem so cool. I find that to renew my energy, I jump between the blogs I participate in--gonzo engaged, blog sisters, allied, and as soon as I finish the book, the Loosely Joined team blog. Seems like when I peter out on one, I find renewed energy on another and stay there for a while.
Odd, isn't it? All of it? Very odd. I've made an incredible wishlist for myself on Amazon of women writers--historic to post-modern. I'd love suggestions especially as they relate to women and voice, release. I'm going to tackle this beast from one angle or another. I think I'm finding my angle.
And on another note, right now a talented guitarist from Senegal is in my kitchen teaching my daughter French.
Is there anything better than that?
March 30, 2002
What I hate about blogging
Idiots who flame in comments without leaving their email.
Feeling like I have to blog when I don't feel like it.
That the blog takes time away from my family.
That blogging doesn't pay.
Daypop's same old "which one are you" contests that always clog up the Top 40.
When all of blogland turns grey.
When no one comments.
That I have to blog so often.
That I can't blog all the time.
That no good memes have gone around in a long time.
Not finding any great new bloggers to read.
That Shelley's quit and other good bloggers are giving up.
That our secret's out.
That it's a lot of work.
That it makes work seem more like work because work is not as fun.
When bloggers go on vacation.
Clicking on a link and finding that the blogger's the most recent post is three weeks old.
That the apps for blogging aren't evolving fast enough.
...and you?
Feeling like I have to blog when I don't feel like it.
That the blog takes time away from my family.
That blogging doesn't pay.
Daypop's same old "which one are you" contests that always clog up the Top 40.
When all of blogland turns grey.
When no one comments.
That I have to blog so often.
That I can't blog all the time.
That no good memes have gone around in a long time.
Not finding any great new bloggers to read.
That Shelley's quit and other good bloggers are giving up.
That our secret's out.
That it's a lot of work.
That it makes work seem more like work because work is not as fun.
When bloggers go on vacation.
Clicking on a link and finding that the blogger's the most recent post is three weeks old.
That the apps for blogging aren't evolving fast enough.
...and you?
March 28, 2002
Valued Bleeders
Chris Locke took to the Internet airwaves on CNET Radio’s Online Tonight with David Lawrence.
Lawrence and Locke talked about this EGR send, where RageBoy apparently stole the keyboard from Locke and flamed valued readers everywhere. Later, Locke came as close as he ever has to “recanting” with another EGR apologizing for RageBoy’s nasty if not accurate rant earlier in the day.
Fortunately, Locke recanted his near recant on tonight’s radio show, explaining that we EGR subscribers actually enjoy being yelled at. And he even got a shot in at Dvorak. Cooool.
Ask yourself, if you're a RageBoy fan, have you done your part as a valued bleeder?
Lawrence and Locke talked about this EGR send, where RageBoy apparently stole the keyboard from Locke and flamed valued readers everywhere. Later, Locke came as close as he ever has to “recanting” with another EGR apologizing for RageBoy’s nasty if not accurate rant earlier in the day.
Fortunately, Locke recanted his near recant on tonight’s radio show, explaining that we EGR subscribers actually enjoy being yelled at. And he even got a shot in at Dvorak. Cooool.
Ask yourself, if you're a RageBoy fan, have you done your part as a valued bleeder?
March 27, 2002
Small Interview Loosely Joined
Marek interviews David Weinberger on his new book, Small Pieces Loosely Joined. The conversation is as interesting as the book. I wish they would have talked longer. It's kind of a "The Making Of" thing -- you know, like they do for movies, "The Making of Jurrasic Park." Fascinating in and of its own rite. Here's a tidbit from Sir David:
"As to the people who want us to get off the Web and get back to work, I'd say: Yes sir and/or madam! Immediately! I will unplug. And I will also stop talking because if you monitored what I say in a day, you, sir and/or madam, would be shocked -- shocked! -- at just how much time I waste! Why, just this morning I blew almost 2 minutes chatting with the security guard."
"As to the people who want us to get off the Web and get back to work, I'd say: Yes sir and/or madam! Immediately! I will unplug. And I will also stop talking because if you monitored what I say in a day, you, sir and/or madam, would be shocked -- shocked! -- at just how much time I waste! Why, just this morning I blew almost 2 minutes chatting with the security guard."
March 26, 2002
Just one
I'd like to get my mitts on just one parent who allows this, the latest hate group video game, in their house.
We can take turns on the rest.
Part of me wonders, though, might it not backfire for the gang at the wheel of this thing? How many blacks and jews does a kid have to blow away in this game before it gets boring? How many monkey sounds before he doesn't laugh anymore?
"The player (who can choose to dress in KKK robes or as a Skinhead) roams the streets and subways murdering 'predatory sub-humans' and their Jewish 'masters' thereby 'saving' the white world.
I guess I answered my own question.
We can take turns on the rest.
Part of me wonders, though, might it not backfire for the gang at the wheel of this thing? How many blacks and jews does a kid have to blow away in this game before it gets boring? How many monkey sounds before he doesn't laugh anymore?
"The player (who can choose to dress in KKK robes or as a Skinhead) roams the streets and subways murdering 'predatory sub-humans' and their Jewish 'masters' thereby 'saving' the white world.
I guess I answered my own question.
March 25, 2002
Identity Crisis
Eric Norlin takes the identity czars to task over on Digital ID World.
"These discussions over identity shouldn't begin with computer geeks acting like Zoroastrian missionaries -- zealous in their fight for the truth of their position. Rather, these conversations must begin by asking some fundamental questions: How are we to define the idea of a "digital identity" in the coming decades? Is it different than our physical, or non-digital, identity? Is it more valuable? More malleable? More diverse?
"These discussions over identity shouldn't begin with computer geeks acting like Zoroastrian missionaries -- zealous in their fight for the truth of their position. Rather, these conversations must begin by asking some fundamental questions: How are we to define the idea of a "digital identity" in the coming decades? Is it different than our physical, or non-digital, identity? Is it more valuable? More malleable? More diverse?
interesting links of the day
I'd like to attend this session, although I think I'm involved in the home-study-by-default course currently: "giving voice to the man in the woman and the woman in the man, the giant, the witch, the dictator, the victim, the hero, the lover, the elements, animals, demons and gods within us."
I'd like to understand more about this.
I'd like to read this book.
I think Joyce Carol Oates should blog: The human voice, and the ways in which the human being expresses him or herself in the theatrical setting, is very interesting to me. Often people standing in front of an audience say things and reveal things about themselves that they would never even dream of revealing in a more intimate situation. Nor would they think of these things if they were alone. There's some strange -- perhaps it's an atavistic -- response, maybe it's not understood at all.
I'd like to understand more about this.
I'd like to read this book.
I think Joyce Carol Oates should blog: The human voice, and the ways in which the human being expresses him or herself in the theatrical setting, is very interesting to me. Often people standing in front of an audience say things and reveal things about themselves that they would never even dream of revealing in a more intimate situation. Nor would they think of these things if they were alone. There's some strange -- perhaps it's an atavistic -- response, maybe it's not understood at all.
March 23, 2002
unspoken
a voice hushed
wrapped in chains
lock snapped tight
teeth clenched.
the wrath of words,
fire like hail,
rain down
on this family.
for appearance
we sacrifice
voice, soul
for appearence
we learn to believe
the lie.
Today I spoke.
Today I said
there is a problem,
Today my voice rang clear
for me the child
for my child.
Today I was seen
and heard.
Today,
nothing was left
unspoken.
wrapped in chains
lock snapped tight
teeth clenched.
the wrath of words,
fire like hail,
rain down
on this family.
for appearance
we sacrifice
voice, soul
for appearence
we learn to believe
the lie.
Today I spoke.
Today I said
there is a problem,
Today my voice rang clear
for me the child
for my child.
Today I was seen
and heard.
Today,
nothing was left
unspoken.
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