Category: Burningbird

Categories
Weblogging Writing

Shadow Talk

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I have a shadow, created by no form of mine. It follows me everywhere, but always arrives first, and lingers long after I’m gone.

The more light I shine on it, the stronger it gets. So I hide it among my other shadows, in hopes that one day, it will fade away.

 

I was tickled, tickled I say, to see that Jonathon is continuing the discussion Steve started about weblogging and (l)iterature. Not only is he continuing it, he ups the ante in bold, relieved defiance of weblogging protocol:

That’s it: where my own interests lie. In other words, hardly anything to do with telling the literal truth; and everything to do with fashioning an authentic persona from bits of alibis and consistent lies.

…bits of alibis and consistent lies. Jonathon is truly a rebel in our midst – threatening to bring a story teller’s narrative into this land of raw id and Venerated Truth. A year ago, I would have been appalled. In fact, a year ago I was appalled – it was one year ago when the infamous Oblivio Duck Sign incident happened, and Jonathon first brought up the concept that not all of this is as it seems:

Yet, even though I don’t regard Oblivio as a weblog, others might. I suppose it could be mistaken for a weblog, just as Michael Barrish could be mistaken for a real person. He probably is a real person since he also uses the website to solicit web development work (though he maintains separate sites for each purpose, for reasons he explains in the story Motherfucker ). But Barrish is also a character who appears in his own stories. As does Rachel, his girlfriend. Whether she really exists and whether she’s his girlfriend is impossible to determine, without knowing Michael Barrish. Even then, the real-life Rachel may bear only a fleeting resemblance to the Rachel in the stories. (Just like the women in some of my stories.)

At the time my response was:

Of all possible outcomes of yesterday’s writing, what I didn’t expect is that the story that originated my passion might be allegorical rather than experience. I am left wondering whether I am a sophisticated patron of the arts or an incredibly gullible fool. And that’s the inherent danger of mixing the art of creation within the context of experiential recounting.

In this day of weblogger meetups and get-togethers, and discussions of digital identity and authentication, the thought that a weblogger would write as a narrator, crafting stories and putting him or herself into them must seem almost blasphemy. But whoever said that authentic and true were one and the same?

I rejoice in Jonathon and Steve and their defiance and most of all their literature. The writer has been too long superceded by the journalist, the gossip, and the community node.

Categories
Writing

When useful talk fails

I re-read my last post and wasn’t overly happy with it. I think I missed the points I wanted to make, or I should say buried them. However, it might have some use as a unifying document – either all sides will hate it or they’ll all be equally confused about what I’m trying to say. The thing is full of verbal switchbacks.

I am running out of useful things to say about the situation in Iraq and must now resort to gibberish. However, I take some comfort in knowing that I’m in highly placed company in this regard.

Categories
Just Shelley

Long Week

Too hot tonight. My bedroom’s under the attic and once the heat soaks in, it wants to linger awhile. However, as warm as it is, it’s way too early for the air conditioner.

I obliquely (there’s that word again) mentioned a job interview and contract offer this last week. I haven’t said yay or nay on it yet, but will most likely say nay. First, there’s the hourly rate 30% lower than my minimum hourly rate. And when the group decides not to fill a ‘lower paying’ job and have me do it in addition to the duties of the job I interview for, but don’t put this burden on the guy going for the same position (with less experience), well, I just don’t know if I’m hungry enough for the job. I once mentioned I was worried about finding a job, and here one is. But there is some shit I will not eat.

One good thing about this experience though is that it’s forced me to make some decisions I’ve been putting off. One was a financial one, and the other has to do with profession.

The computer technology field has one of the highest burnout rates of any profession. At some point, you just get tired of punching in the code, or learning yet another new technology, yet another new language, or specification, or tool, or model, or whatever.

In the last 20 years I’ve worked on 14 computer books, written I don’t know how many articles, spoken at conferences and worked at companies like Nike, Intel, Boeing, Harvard, and so on—actual work building big systems and small. I’ve worked with 20 different programming languages, on most major operating systems, against most databases. Yet after all this, when I interview for a senior developer’s position, and interview well, I’m still given what amounts to tasks that are normally assigned to project assistants. This wouldn’t be terribly significant if the guy I interviewed with shared in the tasks, but such is not the case.

Was the reason for the discrepancy because of gender bias? Because I haven’t worked in a position for a year? Because I was too easy going in the interview, and not arrogant enough? I don’t know. But I think the real reason why is that I’m burnt out on the profession, and it shows.

I read Sam Ruby’s weblog and Mark Pilgrim’s and Danny Ayers and I see this wonderful interest and enthusiasm for the technology they write about. At one time, I would have joined in, but lately, there just isn’t anything there. Between one moment and the next, it was gone.

Oh, I still like to tinker, and I have a fun and whimsical article on RDF and poetry and photographs I’ve been working on — but my days of typing code into a computer from within a cube are gone.

The odd thing is, rather than being sad about what is the end of a 20 year career, I actually feel relieved. More than relieved. Sometimes you just have to face the fact that you need a change. That maybe you would be happier building furniture, even if you make less money.

Of course, this means I also have to face some tough financial facts, too, which I also did this week. My creditors will be paid, just much more slowly. I still have to find work, but the focus of the work will be changing. For instance. one job I am looking seriously at is teaching English in South Korea, work I’m exploring with the expert help of Stavros the Wonder Chicken.

I’m also exploring the option of returning to school, but I’m not sure what I would study. My interests are, in order: writing, photography, history, politics, cooking, marine biology, and astrophysics. And I’m lousy at math so we see how far I would get in astrophysics. Let’s face it, cooking’s about the only interest guaranteed to get me a job in this lot. Maybe I should run for office? Would you all vote for me? Are you in my district? If I studied writing, I can find out my writing errors. Same with my photography. Photo Journalist, perhaps? Lot’s of call for them I bet.

The possibilities for the profession are endless. The possibilities for employment are less so, but change isn’t easy. If it was, chaos would be order and order would be chaos.

Joking aside, this was not a lightly arrived at decision. And, being honest, I’m more than a little nervous about it, and about my future. I need to work, I need to pay my bills, and I need to feel worthwhile. I just can’t code anymore.

Through these weblogs I’ve read about the experiences involved with changing professions from people such as Jonathon Delacour and Jeff Ward and Allan Moult. Others such as Dorothea Salo and Steve Himmer begin new adventures in academics, or move to new locales such as Stavros and Gary Turner. Even among those that stay in the same field and country, sometimes decisions that are difficult but necessary have to be made. Decisions not always aimed at putting money in one’s pocket.

Through their willingness to share their experiences with their writing I am both encouraged, as well as forewarned by frank discussions about the difficulties. Starting over again at 48 is both exciting and scary. If I can only figure out what I want to be when I grow up.

You know, all of this is just a long winded way of saying I don’t got code.

Categories
Writing

Someone to watch over me

There’s a somebody I’m longing to see
I hope that he turns out to be
Someone who’ll watch over me
I’m a little lamb who’s lost in the wood
I know I could always be good to
One who’ll watch over me.

Although he may not be the man some
Girls think of as handsome
To my heart he carries the key!

Won’t you tell him please to put on some speed?
Follow my lead, oh, how I need
Someone to watch over me!

George and Ira Gershwin “Someone to Watch over Me”

Frank Sinatra Snippet

rocksbypath2a.jpg

Categories
Writing

Obliquely yours

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I was tempted into intruding in a discussion I read about at Steve Himmer’s, about Weblog as Literature. Or should I say weblogging as small “l” literature. This is a topic of particular interest to me lately, especially after pulling Paths: The Book of Colors. However, it’s also too rich for one writing so, for the moment, I want to focus on one particular item Steve mentions: writing about oneself obliquely.

Steve describes what writing obliquely means to him:

I understand, I think, at least as far as any of us understands one another, what Jill was getting at: I, too, blog obliquely, dodging what I know is really on my mind behind something else. When I feel alienated and disconnected and lonely, I write about the extraordinary lengths I go to in order to receive an ordinary piece of mail, an ordinary link to the world. I could have written instead, ‘I feel alienated and disconnected and lonely today.’ Or I could have very quickly said, ‘Fed Ex threw a package on my roof today.’ Why didn’t I? I’d like to think it’s because, whether I’m conscious of the decision or not, I’m employing some craft in my telling of tales in this space. I’d like to think it’s because what I’m doing on this site is trying to write literature (please note that I spelled that with a small ‘L’; that stands for ‘less pretentious’). I’m not trying to tell you about my day, but about my life. There’s a big difference.

Steve’s remarks are based on a posting by Jill Walker, in which she writes:

When my partner tells me he’s unsure about our relationship I write about protesters rallying for peace. When I don’t know whether we’re partners or not I write that I’m tired. When he leaves me I write about civilian casualties and how untrustworthy and partial reports of a war can be.

The only way I can blog that he left me is obliquely.

Writing obliquely. This wouldn’t be the same as writing metaphorically, the technique Virginia Woolf uses in Death of a Moth, and I use in the parable Mockingbird’s Wish. No, to me oblique writing is such that the reader is given a hint, but only a hint, that all is not what it seems. They can then choose to pursue the tantalizing bits of what isn’t said, or, if they prefer, to leave it in mystery as part of the environment of the work.

Neither Steve nor Jill are using metaphors, but I’m not sure I understand their use of ‘oblique’. Mustn’t a hint remain of that which isn’t shown, to leave the reader wondering that they may not be hearing the complete story from the words given? Or do I understand this incorrectly?

Following from the examples that Jill and Steve gave, I, too, have an ‘untold story’ from this week. I and another person, a guy, successfully interviewed for long term contracts as senior analysts/developers with a local organization. However, there is a caveat to my contract offer: I would also assume other duties that would normally be given to a project assistant, another position the organization was seeking to fill. I am, according to the agent, “so talented I can do that work in addition to my own”.

I didn’t write about this offer. Instead, I wrote about the abuse of women in the military and the inequal treatment of women in technology. I wrote about the chaos in Iraq, and quoted the poem, “Expect nothing. Live frugally on surprise.”

According to Jill and Steve, this is oblique writing, which is feeling and experiencing one thing, talking about another. But I’m still left confused. By this approach, none of us is really talking about ourselves; we’re not providing the hint to underlying events that, to me, oblique writing would have.

Misdirection and sleigh of hand. Oblique writing is as much misdirection and sleigh of hand as what isn’t written. In regards to Steve and Jill’s writing, it isn’t the examples given to explain ‘oblique writing’ that are the true occurrences of oblique writing in their posts.

Jill uses as example of writing obliquely, her references to the war in Iraq as displacements for a troubled relationship and breakup. But with this, she introduces her pain into a weblog posting about something totally unrelated – weblog writing – without directly putting her emotions and reactions to the events into words. The reader can then engage or not as they will. For myself, I am pulled in much more strongly, and empathetically, then if she had bluntly stated, “We broke up. I am hurting”. I don’t even know her and I felt for her.

Steve does the same when he uses the FedEx story as example of oblique writing, but which, indirectly introduces us to the fact that he’s feeling alienated and disconnected. Again, it is up to the reader how much they choose to connect, or not.

So subtle, devious really, but without any negative intent – a way of allowing the reader to take on as much or as little of the feelings and the events as they wish, without being forced. Hiding secrets, in plain view.

Oblique writing. I’ll have to give it shot.