Category: Burningbird

Categories
Just Shelley

Sweet and Sour

f all of the posts haven’t given you a clue, I had little sleep last night. My posting rate is inversely proportional to my lack of sleep.

Today is a good day in that my film scanner is on the way and I should get it on Friday. Additionally, the overall design and table of contents for the new book is exciting. Well, I’m excited. My editor is excited.

I also received a nice long email from an old friend this morning, and have enjoyed it immensely. I am reminded that I need to send a letter – a letter, not email – to another old friend in Boston. It’s also a beautiful day today, sunny and warm and a perfect day for a hike. Therein lies today’s hitch.

Due to my not following doctor’s orders, my foot is now in pretty bad shape, very swollen with some massive bruising. Not only can I not hike, I can’t walk down the stairs, which is frustrating. I can access the computer in bed, but it’s hard to type laying against bunched up pillows. All of you people who work on your computers in bed: how do you do it?

Thankfully, I can play movies on my computer and I have a nice stash of books from the library. Since I can’t go exploring outside, I’ve watched several new movies instead, including Pirates of the Caribbean and Whale Rider.

I had mixed feelings about Whale Rider. I thought it was a beautifully directed and acted movie, and I appreciated the narration from the perspective of the young girl, her matter of fact recital. I also really enjoyed the introduction to the Maori, and the humor that kept the film from being too painfully dramatic. If I didn’t like anything, I think it was the pat ending – I think the film would have been better if it had been ended about 5 to 10 minutes earlier. At which point exactly I can’t say without giving away the movie details.

As for Pirates, I was amazed that a canned Disney movie based on a theme park attraction could be so entertaining but it was. However, I have a serious crush on Johnny Depp, so maybe this isn’t so surprising. That man is criminally sexy.

(Used crutch words. Damn.)

Categories
Writing

Actually, it’s awfully well written

I am wary of how to be a better writer guides, but the Ten Mistakes Writers Don’t See by Holt Uncensored is excellent. The sections covered are: repeats (crutch words), flat writing, empty adverds (avoid fat writing), phony dialog, no-good suffixes, the ‘to be’ words, lists (uh, well, ignore this one), show don’t tell, awkward phrasing, and commas.

I have five crutch words I am trying to break myself of. They are: actually, ultimately, that, however, and fuckthepresident.

However, in regards to the essay’s section on comma use, my problem with commas is that I tend to use too many rather than not enough. One of my favorite college computer teachers, who happened to have a PhD in English, used to tell me he wanted me to write comfortably without worry about punctuation, and then go through the work when I was finished and delete half the commas — adjusting the text accordingly. I still try to follow this today, but am not always successful.

As for flat writing, that’s the bane of technical writers. It’s very difficult to write actively when you’re talking about code. Something about code flattens written language. Still (is still a crutch word? Hmmm), flat, or passive writing, is a very effective tool to use when you’re involved in a sensitive written debate, such as in comments. The flat writings nollifies the bite of the words, making it less, uhm, flammable.

If you want your writing to be perceived more passively, write more passively.

All in all, an excellent essay.

Categories
Photography Writing

Duplicating Images

Something said to me in comments about Emily Dickinson sent me scrambling online for information, as well as to the library for several books focusing on her life. I expected to find that her life was interesting. I didn’t expect to find such an incredibly sad story.

Oh, not sad if you read this biographer or that, but it is if you read the letters: to her, from her, about her. Eventually I want to write about my impressions, but I have to sort them out into some form of coherency first. Additionally, I’d hoped to have photographs to annotate the story.

I am finding a growing dependency on my photos to fill in where words cannot. I’m not sure if this is a good thing or not: shouldn’t words be able to live independent of images? Or images without words?

I don’t know if it was the influence of W.G. Sebald’s books such as the Rings of Saturn or Austerlitz (or that of Emigrants and Vertigo, which I hope to add to my small collection someday) that led to my growing interest in annotating my writing with photos (or perhaps I’m annotating my photos with words). Few writers have impacted on me as much as he has, but I have no interest in duplicating his style of writing (as if I could anyway, it is so uniquely him). But his use of photos and other images in the stories – it was wonderful.

I do know that writing now, without the use of accompanying photos feels incomplete, lifeless. Probably a phase I’m going through. My Photo Period. Next year I’ll write only in stanzas, and you’ll scream for the pictures.

In fact, I don’t have a photo for this writing. How uncomfortable. I suppose I’ll have to find a copy of the one official photo of Emily and paste it at the bottom. Or perhaps I’ll include the newly discovered photo supposedly of Emily, discussed in How I Met and Dated Miss Emily Dickinson. (Ignore the overly cute title, the story is good.)

Eventually, I have a feeling that I will stop all writing without some accompanying image, and vice versa; including my technical writing, which should make it rather unique in form and format.

(I wonder what type of photo one would use to accompany pages of RDF/XML? Something cryptic and complex but rather Important, I’m sure. Giant squid photos come to mind.)

Unfortunately, my photographs are being held up because a film scanner I ordered from B & H in New York didn’t work when I received it. Equally unfortunate, B & H is taking far too long to process the return. In the meantime, I have both slides and negatives I want to digitalize but can’t because of no scanner. I’d kick something in frustration, but this would most likely be inadvisable.

I guess I’ll just have to go out this week with my digital and see what new vistas I can find that don’t require a great deal of walking.

Categories
Just Shelley

Just a simple Sunday drive

Today was an odd day. It was cold, hovering in the low 20’s (that’s F for the C among us). It was also snowing but too cold and too dry for the snow to stick. Instead, light fluffy flakes of white were falling all day but the streets were bare. The sun would even pop out among the clouds every once in a while.

I decided to drive to my river spot to see how high the river was, forgetting that today is Sunday, and Watson Road–what used to be old Route 66–is always a mess on Sundays. Monday through Saturday, drivers will move right along at 45-50MPH, which is about 5-10 miles over the speed limit. Come Sunday, though, and traffic just crawls along. This has driven me crazy for the entire time I’ve been here in St. Louis. Every Sunday, sure as bugs in August, every driver on the road, but me, is moving at or below the speed limit.

However, I’ve finally figured out the reason for it. Church.

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You see most people in our area are Christians and go to church every Sunday morning. I figured the rest of the day, then, they’re in this state of godliness that, among other things, alters their normal behavior. If you go into a store on Sunday, you’ll be greeted with a benevolent smile by everyone you pass. If you go to the parks, adults and children play happily together with nary a squabble. Even the dogs running out with their humans seem on at their best, keeping to the business of running rather than marking every static item in their path.

The drivers, then, are just following this ambiance of godly goodness. This means no honking, no rude passing going at a higher speed, or running a light without even a hint of amber color. And especially, no breaking the speed limit.

Luckily everyone seems to be able to scrape off this godliness come Monday morning or I’d have to move to a more sinful city. Like Washington DC.

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At the park I sat with the window open and the cold air blowing in, watching the water flow past. Though not a walk, it was close enough to restore my equanimity disrupted by nefarious digital forces and various other Things that always seemed to come from my computer.

The river was fairly high and moving fast, but nothing that I hadn’t photographed before. However, the cliffs surrounding the park had small icicles hanging from every crack and crevice so I was able to get some photos.

Coming home I remembered this time to drive in the right lane not the left and thus avoid the pothole from Hell, otherwise known as Destroyer of Cars. Another side effect of the odd warm/cold weather that can occur in St. Louis in the winter is potholes that can seriously intimidate even SUVs. However, none are as bad as Destroyer and as you approach it, you’ll see car after car swerving to the right to avoid it.

If you forget though, and are driving along lost in revery, a bone crunching jar will be your reward. I really need to take my car in for it’s 30,000 mile service. It hit Destroyer twice last week, and hasn’t been normal since.

It was nice to get out today. Cold, though, and dry. I was glad to have my nice insulated nylon winter coat on when I walked from the car to the townhouse. It was also nice to open the door to the townhouse, to feel the warmth rush out. My cat, Zoe, also rushed up to greet me and I reached down to give her a stroke.

*ZAP!*

I’m sure Zoe will be just fine in an hour. Or two.

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Categories
Just Shelley

Necessity

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I was supposed to be on crutches this week, but couldn’t afford them so am using my hiking stick to lean on. I was supposed to not put weight on my one foot, but I have to get up and down the stairs to get food and water, so I don’t have a lot of choice.

I am not supposed to wear my shoes for a while, but I have to go to the store today. And maybe while I’m out I’ll even go to my favorite river spot, look at the water, and listen to music.

I am injured and therefore have certain rights, such as being able to stay in bed and have a loved one wait on me, bringing me soup, fluffing my pillow, and telling me ‘poor baby’ at frequent intervals. (Properly appalled looks at the bruising on the foot and leg are also appropriate behavior in said loved one.)

But I don’t have the luxury of a loved one to care for me in my injured state. Necessity is forcing me into assessing my injuries from the fall last week, deciding which pain really isn’t endurable, and which one can I live with. Doing so, I’m finding that taking away the state of ‘being injured’ takes away some – not all, but enough – of the effects of being injured. And I get by.

In a way, the hacker last night, with his deliberate attack on me – not generic blogger me, but me – was an injury, and my first reaction was to pull back and just say, no, not playing any more.

But if I really wasn’t playing anymore, I wouldn’t do anything differently today then what I did yesterday. Turning off comments this morning, was about equivalent to me staying in bed and getting lost in the nice purpleness of my foot. Being a victim.

So I’m turning comments back on. But I am taking no measure that I wasn’t going to take yesterday anyway before the attack. A little tweak here, a simple little tweak there. Some good precautions, but no extraordinary measures – that’s just as much a dancing to the tune of the beast as turning off the comments.

So comments back on – and if the crapflooder takes down the weblog, so be it. I’ll survive. You’ll survive. All god’s chillen will survive.

And maybe I’ll even bring back a photo from the river for you.