Month: March 2003

Categories
Connecting

Broken Tongue

I received two emails addressed to a group of people today and with both I managed to antagonize someone; in the first by attempting a joke that seems to have bombed, and in the second by assuming the email that was sent was a joke and responding in kind.

As much as I love individual emails from people, and I truly do, I am finding that I would just as soon not receive group emails. It’s not that I don’t like being made part of the group, I do. It’s just that group emails trigger my evil twin, and that nasty babe loves to cause trouble.

I added comments in for a couple of posts, see how it goes.

Categories
Weblogging

Where in the world if Jeff Ward?

If you’re a fan of Jeff Ward, otherwise known as Visible Darkness, otherwise known as This Public Address, be aware that he had server problems, and he’s moved his weblog to a new domain and server at http://www.thispublicaddress.com/.

His old archives are temporarily lost in limbo at his old server, but you can find new postings in his new home. New look, too.

Change your link and go say hi to Jeff. Tell him you’re glad he came in from the digital cold.

Categories
Writing

Clashing Colors

update

I’ve pulled the link to Paths at this time, though the files are still on the server (for the moment, I’ll pull by end of April). I’m not happy with it, with the writing or the organization. The whole thing rather reminds me of a lemonade stand I tried once when I was a kid.

It was a useful exercise. I liked playing with the web page design, and it provided an excellent lesson in being honest with oneself.

I’ve added more essays/stories to Paths, including Bright Copper Pennies. If you liked Marbles you would probably like Pennies.

I’m finding that Paths: The Book of Colors is becoming a hodge podge of random entries, loosely linked on a common thread. Unfortunately, though, the thread is stretching to the point of invisibility. If one looks closely, one sees not one, not two, but three Books of Color all mixed together in a confusing mess of words.

There are the parables and fiction, such as the Mockingbird’s Wish and a Child’s Tale. These are mixed in with stories based on actual experiences, such as Marbles and Bright, Copper, Pennies. Alternating are the essays such as Reflections on Still Water and Held Captive. There’s even a poem of sorts with If the Sunset could Speak.

Regardles of their merit, or lack thereof, throwing all these different writings together can’t help but irritate the reader. There is no flow, no connection, not even a common method of writing between the lot. Basically, the colors, which should be distinct but not clashing, flow but not run, are blurring, becoming a muddy mess.

I could focus on the stories, and I have at least two more I want to add – The Inn at the Fork of the Road and My Moutain, Far and Near, but I’m not sure that’s the type of writing I want to do. I enjoy doing it, but I’m not sure that it’s the type of writing I want to do. Make sense?

I could focus on the stories loosely based on my experiences and others, but there are dark tales among the copper pennies and the marbles, and I’m not quite comfortable publishing these. However, it is just these stories that make the lighter stories worthwhile. They are the substance.

Then there’s the essays, and I do love writing essays. However, I was reminded yesterday when I started reading through the collection of Virginia Woolf essays I found online that this type of writing is the most difficult, requiring not only skill with words but also an unusual sense of perspective. You must be able to invoke feeling and images within your reader, but indirectly. You must be able to use sentiment without being maudlin. And you must be able to write passionately and compellingly, without dripping emotion over the nice clean page. The reader should be the one to clutch at their chest in exultation, not the author.

No worries about the one poem – that’s not my focus or strength or interest (as a writer), which should come as a relief to several poetry lovers in the crowd. I know just enough about poetry to know that it’s more than half sentences strung together with an occasional rhymed word. Brave wielding of ellipses does not a poet make.

Until I decide the direction Paths takes, I’ll continue to add my hodge podge of stories and essays and parables, each acting as placeholders for the real thing if nothing else. Someday I’ll decide what kind of writer I want to be when I grow up. I guess that’s the one constant in Paths –regardless of the style of writing and the popularity of the work and the reader reaction I may, or may not, receive, I will continue to write. Online, or off, I will continue to write.

But, it was easier just writing about cats, Tim Tams, and RDF.

cutezoe.jpg

Categories
Just Shelley

Powers clan

I’ve been asked if Chastity Powers at Wealth Bondage is one of the numerous Powers clan relations.

I checked the genealogy and I believe that she could be my Great-Grandfather’s brother’s wife’s cousin’s niece’s great-great grandaughter, making her my cousin, 7 times removed.

This would put her on the Boston-Catholic Powers side, rather than among us Heathen West Coast Powers. This could explain her working for WB, and the ropes; but it doesn’t explain the cleavage.

Categories
Weblogging

Two years of Weblogging

This week I’ve had a weblog for two years. Two years – not necessarily one of the old timers, but not one of the new babes, either. I’m a middle aged blogger. That’s a lowering thought.

I started with a Manila site that I had the hardest time trying to figure out because this weblogging format was so weird for a person who had been doing regular web sites for so long. Following Manila was Blogger, finally moving over to Movable Type. I’ve also played around with Graymatter, and Bloghorn, as well as Bloxsom.

Two years. My first year was relatively quiet except for a few technology squabbles with Dave Winer and John Robb. Most of my writing then was about technology. Rarely had any comments, but comments weren’t the norm for weblogs before 2002. Anonymous comments were never allowed; you had to register at Manila.

Weblogging was different that year – no one had heard of weblogs, and we were definitely under the radar of most of the world. I didn’t weblog consistently during the first year because I was working at a Dot Com for part of the year and had no life. When I wasn’t at the Dot Com, most of my energy was spent on my books and on my main web sites. Boy, those were the days.

I met Chris Locke relatively early in that first year, but managed to survive the experience. HaHa, just joking Chris. Life was a lot different for Chris then. He’s had some rough times between then and now. It’s good to see that he’s seeing the light now. Let’s hope it’s a real light and not a flashback.

Chris Locke introduced me to Sharon during that time, and it was Sharon and Chris Locke who talked me out of quitting when I shut the weblog down in November, 2001, I think it was. I have officially quit twice, and come back. Does this make me a weblogging junkie? A born again weblogger? A ghost?

I met other people in the first year including that sexy, noisy, passionate, angry, lovable, big bear of a person who I am proud to call ‘friend’: Stavros the Wonder Chicken. Stavros got his start in MeFi, but we still love him in spite of this. He used to write under Waeguk is Not Soup – isn’t that the name, Chris? He shared a difficult and profound experience with us last year: the loss of a close friend to terrorism. His writing was and is eloquent and sensitive, and so very real.

I also met Jonathon Delacour in my first year, meeting him over a phrase, no less – Doing a Dave. What a way to meet another person – over doing a Dave. I met Jonathon the first week he started his weblog, back when it was using the Radio stylesheet before he went black with tiny font. Always elegant, Jonathon’s an amazing writer, especially his Japanese posts, which are my favorite. He’s another good friend (well, when I don’t dump on him when I’m in a pissy mood).

Other people I met in that first year have quit weblogging. I still check their old sites from time to time.

I’ve been incredibly lucky to meet new friends in the second year, talking on the phone and via emails, not just in comments. People like AKMA and Margaret, Dorothea, Allan, and Loren. And then there’s the folks I met through Chris Locke like Gary and Jeneane and Halley and Doc and Steve and Denise and the Toms and Fishie Boy and Happy Tutor and Frank and Mike. Ruzz and Bumr and Rev and Monica, Kaf, Larry and Ryan, Dan, Karl and Doug, Shannon and Phil and Bill and Liz and … You, have all enriched my life. You’ve also been a pain in the butt sometimes. But then, so am I on rare occasions.

And weblogging – this second year, everything’s changed. Remember Dvorak and his comment on cats, about one year ago? He wrote:

Generally speaking, these postings are fascinating, since they often have serious elements of Hyde Park corner blather, besides blatant exhibitionism and obvious self-indulgence.
…
Whatever the reason for the Blog phenomenon, it’s not going to go away anytime soon. The main positive change: far fewer cat pictures.

Remember Tubby the Cat? The quizzes? Googlewhacking? Those were the days, weren’t they? All of a sudden now, weblogging is News. Capital ‘N’ news. Serious stuff.

For instance, NBC news just had a story tonight on warblogs. They did a Google search on the term ‘warblog’ and mentioned that over 300,000 entries show up. They showed the Google results, and PapaScott, you showed up in the results! Did you know you were on national US TV tonight?

Before it was cats. Now it’s war. I’m not sure this is an improvement. The intimate little party, the golden age when we could write unemcumbered by the real world is over. Knock, knock. The world wants in.

Anyway, two years doing this stuff. Rah.