Category: Culture

Categories
Diversity History

What a wonderful treat

Monthly I get a fresh batch of downloads at eMusic. I don’t have the largest plan–the most I can download is 20 at a time. Usually this is enough for an album with maybe a few experimental downloads from unfamiliar groups. I think it will be years before I manage all the jazz downloads I want.

Last weekend when I went looking, I found an incredible collection: the complete works for Ella Fitzgerald when she was recording with the Decca label. The British label JSP is re-releasing a mix, and it includes probably some of her finest singing.

I’m not sure which is my favorite; probably “Baby, it’s Cold Outside”, with Louie Jordan. No, perhaps it’s “Black Coffee”. I can’t tell — it’s one good song after another. And quality, too. No scratches, good faithful reproductions.

I listened to it last weekend while I walked, and lost myself in another era–my favorite era. I softshoed past the cardinal, the titmouse, and the robins, while they looked on in seeming interest. No one else was about, of course. I’m only insane when I’m alone.

I would give anything to have been born in the 1920’s. Yes, there was the Depression, but whether it was because of the Depression or despite it, this was a time rich with exploration and strength–even for women. Especially for women.

Back in the 1920’s, 30’s, 40’s, a strong woman was someone to be looked up to and admired. Jean Harlow, Joan Crawford, Katherine Hepburn, Virginia Woolf, Elizabeth Taylor, Eleanor Roosevelt. You could be a feminist without having to carefully explain to the guys around you that it really didn’t mean you wanted to emasculate them. These women were honorary man feminists according to Lenore Levine. I don’t particularly agree with this designation, but I do like her description of today’s Nicey-Poo feminism:

Nicey-Poo Feminists have taken the sensible idea that women should be supportive of other women, and distorted it almost out of recognition. That is, Nicey-Poo Feminists believe that feminism means never saying anything controversial (at least in their own circles), and never saying anything about another woman that isn’t nice.

Nicey-Poo Feminism has been promoted by the new new Ms. (post-1990). This magazine is afraid to print anything which any segment of their audience might find offensive. After all, if they actually said anything mischievous or funny, their circulation might increase. (A fate they seem determined to avoid at all costs.)

The clothing of that long ago time reflected the personalities of the women. Many of the suits were tailored, severe, with padded shoulders and angular lines. The women who wore them seemed unbending in their resolve–determined and capable. Yet the gowns were fragile and light, and flowed behind the woman as she glided with exquisite grace and femininity across the dance floor. And the hats–I can only wish for a hat with a net dropping down to teasingly cover half my face; me peeping out through the netting in a move both coy and bold–we just can’t do this today. Butt cracks peeking out from pants too low is not the same.

During this time, women fought for and won the vote, admission to college, and demanded entry in fields normally restricted to the men. These were not quiet women, willing to demurely wait for someone else to pave the way. But they weren’t all of a kind–they couldn’t be classified as ‘feminist’ and ‘mother’, because many were both. And more. What extraordinary set of events happened to make women into what we were during this time? And what can we do now, to re-capture it?

If I was born in the 1920’s, I would have been in my late teens and early 20’s during World War II. I would like to think I would have volunteered to serve–as a pilot, surveyor, or radio person. Who knows? Maybe I would have been Rosie the Riveter.

Anyway, these were my thoughts while listening to Ella. It’s a rare collection of songs that can completely repaint your world.

Categories
Connecting Weblogging

Mix and Match

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I’ve been up working since 5 and it’s a beautiful day and should take a walk. Couple of things first.

In comments, Chris Heuer writes:

Funny how the ‘marketing people’ are still thought of like used car salesmen.

I’ve never considered marketing people equivalent to used car salesmen. I even admire marketing companies that come out with clever ads and interesting campaigns. There’s been many a commercial I’ve found more interesting than the show, and I’ve liked some enough that I’ve actually bought the product because of the intelligence of the advertising spot. So, I don’t not like marketers.

Thing is, before weblogging, I was rarely involved with marketers. In the companies I worked, most of my development was on internal applications; for the external apps, there was usually a level between me and the marketing department.

I’ve been exposed to plenty of market speak. In Boeing, we would go to these company-wide motivational meetings about 2-3 times a year. In the front of the room one or more people would have us do silly games, and the purpose of these exercises is that we would come back more team spirited or more motivated. The truth was that at the time, Boeing had too many middle managers, the threat of re-organization was always over our heads, as was the threat of layoffs. But the meetings were a way of some level of management somewhere reassuring some other level of management that they were working the problem–a problem that didn’t usually arise from the people having to attend the sessions.

Then there’s the use of marketing words, such as 2006’s hot new term: agility. In the tech industry, we want agile applications. Who uses a term like agile for applications? Not techs, that’s for sure. It’s a stupid term to use for applications–agile at what? Meeting all needs? There is no application in the world that meets all needs. Agile at being able to scale? Then say, scale. Agile in that it can bend down and touch its toes? Better than me if it can.

As I said, I’ve been exposed to marketing, but not marketers. Not people who work in PR, or marketing, or who write motivational books, or anything of that nature. Until weblogging, that is. Now, I can’t seem to swing a dead cat without hitting a marketer.

The question, then, is: why is this bad? After all, we all market ourselves to some extent; we all have causes or software or something we believe in that we write about. In fact, if we really like something, such as a technology, shouldn’t we market it? If I write a tech book, shouldn’t I market it? If you’re looking for a job, shouldn’t you market yourself? Yes and yes and yes.

And no and no and no.

A month or so ago I was at the Orchid show here in St. Louis. I was taking pictures of flowers when a gentleman, about my age, came up and gave me a pretty good suggestion of something to try. He told me that he learned the trick from a photo class he takes at a local community college. In fact it was the college he worked at. He also asked if I had a photo lab, and he recommended one I’ve used in the past. I agreed that it was a good lab, and then he mentioned they were having some form of a special and open house, and I should check it out.

I remember that at some point in the conversation I went from enjoying it, to being really wary. It wasn’t anything specific that the man said, but the thought that entered my mind was: was he a buzz marketer? Was he one of those signed up from that company that sends people out to engage people in conversation, and drop in specific products or companies?

Now, St. Louis is not a marketing magnet, and I doubt this person had ever heard of buzz marketing or even weblogs for that matter. However, because of the nature of so many of my weblogging encounters this last year, I found that my growing wariness online was bleeding into my interactions offline.

It was a pity. It was also a shock.

I don’t mind marketing at all, but I want to see it coming. I want to know that when people respond to me, it’s really what they believe. I don’t want to spend time reading and writing and at the end the day, wonder how much of the interaction was real. I don’t want to be a part of the buzz. I’m too old to be part of the buzz. I was too old to be part of the buzz at least half a century ago. That’s a long time to be out of the buzz.

Conversely, I want people to know when I respond to them, positively or negatively, they know I mean it–that I’m not playing a game. I won’t say anything in an email that I’m not willing to say in my weblog; I won’t say anything in a comment I won’t say in my weblog. I’ve seen it happen too often–someone is sweetness and light in their weblogs, and then a complete asshole in email or comments. What they publish publicly rates right up there with creating agile software–its all words that don’t mean a damn thing.

Since, I’m wishing, I wish you all would stop blowing bubbles all the time; and speaking your lime green, yellow, and pink thoughts–but then I might as well wish for more angular corners; what you do on your own dime is your business. But when you step on my time, it’s mine.

So maybe what I want is: don’t sell me stuff all the time. Don’t sell me the next best future; don’t sell me the next greatest start-up that combines letters into a meaningless word. If you want to market, great, go for it. But if you want to have a ‘conversation’, then leave the market speak at home. Markets are conversations–please stop. I’m begging you.

I don’t even care if you’re completely truthful or 100% honest–a really beautiful lie works for me. All I care about is that you’re real. Don’t pull me into your marketing. I don’t want to be there.

Categories
Books Religion Writing

A story in parts

I’ve linked to 3 Quarks Daily before, and it has fast become one of my favorite sites. It’s up for a couple of different Koufax Awards: Best Group Weblog and Weblog Best Deserving of Wider Recognition. This quality site needs some votes, so take a few minutes and send an email with your vote for 3 Quarks Daily. In the meantime, check out the article on the melting of the polar ice, and the new beachfront property soon to be on sale in New Jersey.

 

…

Phil reviews the Brian Wilson album, “Smile”:

Smile would always have been a very strange album; now, it’s an extremely strange one. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a very beautiful album and probably a great one. I’d recommend it almost without reservation to anyone seriously interested in music: you won’t have heard anything quite like it, and you won’t forget it when you have heard it.

I checked out the album in iTunes, and from the 30 second examples, it’s not what I expected from a Brian Wilson album. I wish it was available at eMusic.

…

Karl was a mite peeved about the new Red America weblog at Washingtonpost.com. I should say, old, new because the young man in question, a Ben someone or another, resigned after accusations of a) plagarism, b) making blatant racist statements, and c) accusing Coretta Scott King of being a commie.

I don’t follow the primarily political weblogs. Well, none other than Norm Jenson, but that’s because Norm has such a wicked sense of humor. Oh, and PZ Meyers, but that’s because we both like squid, and PZ is a terrific scientist…who also has a wicked sense of humor. Personally, I thought it was hilarious that the Washingtonpost.com had to pick a 24 year old plagarizing racist in order to staff it’s “conservative” weblog. Seriously — there wasn’t anyone better?

I would have had more respect for Atrios, and Josh Marshall, and others of the liberal persuasion if they had focused on what’s important: global warming, lack of universal health care, a growing move to criminalize illegal immigrants, not to mention a certain set of events happening over in the Middle East. Which is, to say, the reason I never read political weblogs anymore.

…

Loren met a poet who gave him a poem about owls in the Nisqually. The next day, he found the owl in the Nisqually. What a wonderful bit of serendipity–a moment of absolute delight. Yet another reason why I’m moving back to the Northwest.

…

Don from Hands in the Dirt had a wonderful post on Jane Austin. In one paragraph, he captured her essence.

She didn’t write about the emerging empire or the social issues of the day, or politics. She wrote about families, about domestic life, about parents and children, about dreamers and hard-hearted social climbers. It was how she made sense of her world.

Don also mentions in his comments about …feeling much but with little to say. That’s how I’ve felt lately. Sometimes, you want to sit quietly in a seat and let life flow over you, like butter on an artichoke.

…

Melinda at Sour Duck did a terrific writeup of the panels she attended at SxSW. She also pointed to the podcast site for the sessions for those interested. Of the “Women and Visibility panel” she had this to write:

While the panel outline had wings, it could never get off the ground because men’s part in keeping women invisible was the elephant in the room no one wanted to acknolwedge. The penalties for bringing this point up are pretty obvious: you can be accused of hating men; of blaming others when really you should get off your own butt and just “make it happen” (the “pull yourself up by your own bootstraps” argument that is so loved in America); you might even be accused of being a (man-hating) lesbian. (Oh wait. That’s already happened, despite the panel’s tippy-toey approach.)

In fact, the discussion progressed as if women were living in some vacuum completely sealed off from men. The irony, then, is that men as part of the problem of women’s visibility were completely invisible in that room. Instead, women were painted as the problem. All this had the cumulative effect of implying that women created their own difficulties. (For what? For kicks? As a hobby?)

I actually started writing a post on much of this that’s grown beyond being a weblog post and now I’m not sure what to do with it. At a minimum it’s a long essay; I’m even thinking of turning it into a book, but I’m already working on a book.

(Yes, I’m writing a new book for O’Reilly, working with my favorite editor, Simon St. Laurent. I’ll talk more on this when I reach the half way point. If I talk more on it now, I’ll jinx it.)

…

It’s interesting but I never noticed until recently how the people I read on a regular basis come from such different religious backgrounds. They (you) range from being atheist to Budhists to Jewish to Muslim to devoutly Christian, and variations inbetween. Oddly enough, I connect more with a person’s faith when they talk about every day things: taking care of their cats, their gardens, doing dishes, taking pictures of birds, delighting in Spring’s first rose. Sometimes I feel there’s a plate set at your tables, just for me — gives me hope that someday we’ll work this religion thing out.

Rob from UnSpace has been writing a story in parts: about his past, his Christian upbringing, and his reconciliation between his convervative faith with his friendship with Deb, a lesbian. I suggest starting in Part 1 and working forward.

In his next to last post he writes of being exposed to AIDS while working as a paramedic.

I had been a deacon for two terms in my church, and after the required year off, I wound up an elder. So it only seemed natural to get the church to pray for me. I asked the minister what the best way was to ask for that.

I’m still naive, no matter what I’ve seen as a medic, and I was no different then. The minister said something that, at the time was horrible. It’s still horrible, but he had to do it. He told me that I should not tell anyone in the church. He didn’t tell me why, and maybe if he had, it wouldn’t have hurt so much. At the time I thought that it was to avoid people fearing that I would expose them to HIV. That was part of it. But the minister also knew that people would suspect that I was gay. They would think the exposure a cover for a sinful hidden life. Whatever rejection would have come from fear of the disease would have been amplified a thousand times. I never thought of that aspect at the time. The idea that anyone might think I was gay never crossed my mind. If I were gay, I suspect I’d have noticed.

All I knew was that I was in fear for my life and my wife. My church expected me to be there for it, but it could not be there for me. I tried to be a good Christian soldier and accept it. I tried, but inside it ate at me. I was angry.

Rob reads my weblog and I read his, and we don’t always agree and I know I’ll never find God in the way Rob’s found God. But that doesn’t matter as long as there’s understanding, tolerance, and, perhaps most importantly, a sense of humor, and of humanity. Rob’s writing doesn’t seek to sell, to convince, to preach, to excuse, or to change. What he does provide, is insight. And it’s insight we need if we do seek to make this religion thing work out.

God is dead! — Neitzsche
Neitzsche is dead. — God

Categories
Connecting

A pale moon’s shadow

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Jeneane writes about lazy aggregator people, and the loss of community because of RSS aggregators. Her solution is for everyone to bring back the blogroll. Ralph agrees, stating that feed aggregators reduce every site to a dull grey lowest common denominator…. Both talk about the disruption in conversation that reading feeds in aggregators can cause, and consequently the loss of community.

I don’t think community can withstand the vagaries of this environment. Differing experiences and interests over time will surely drive a wedge between both community and conversation much more quickly than the use of any technology. Consider a recent experience: Ralph and Jeneane had a chance to meet and chat at SxSW. This is an experience they shared others of us have not; there is now a virtual line through their community; there are now those who have physically met and those who have not.

Communities grow…apart as often as not.

I have resisted the full feed for long because it was important to me at one time to know people were out there and I was actually being read. I still believe that fullfeeds adversely impact on the discussions you have at your site.

I also put much effort into the design of my site, all of which is lost to an aggregator. I like my site design. I think it’s soothing and elegant, but has enough interesting bits to it to make it stand out. The photo changes every time you visit, though you won’t see this if you’re using IE. I worked very hard for this effect — that and the new shadow and the perfect choice of color. You won’t see any of this through an aggregator.

Now, it’s not as important to me if people visit the site or read my writing through an aggregator. Oh, I do mind my photos being republished in a feed because of the bandwidth; or my syndication feed being re-published at another site, especially one that features ads. For this reason, you’ll have to send me an email requesting access to the full feed I’m creating, as I’m password protecting it.

I’m also thinking of putting a line at the bottom of each post in the Atom feed, saying:

“Created especially for my friends. Does this mean you’re my friend? Good. I need a place to sleep, then. I’m no bother. Really. Well, aside from the insomnia. Oh, and I have 8 cats. Well, my boyfriend’s kind of scary, but the meds seem to help.”

Communities, friendships, a sense of companionship and sharing can’t be made or broken through the use of tools. If anything, when we become friends through our online associations, we have done something extraordinary–we have reached beyond the limits of technology and created something human, and real.

But it’s a fragile reality–like the shadow of a pale moon.

Categories
Diversity

Kicking was the operative word

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I hesitated to mention the “Whose Butt should we be kicking” panel at SxSW until I saw more detail on the session. Thankfully, Dru Blood provided a fairly detailed liveblogging of the event.

It was a mistake for SxSW to keep this session once the original panel broke up. There was a dynamic involved with the original participants that led to the subtitle: whose butt should we be kicking? I created the title of the panel, and saw this session to be controversial, provoking, and even a little confrontational. I, and I believe the original organizer of the panel, Dori Smith, saw this as a a true debate between strong willed women who disagree on the answer to the question: if we exist in equal numbers, why are we not seen?

It was never intended, at least from my viewpoint, to be a how-to. We have how-tos. We have them coming out of our asses and they aren’t making a difference. It was never about individuals, or how any one person could increase their visibility. Whose butt should we be kicking?–that’s not a how-to.

This is not a criticism of Blogher, because I got them involved in a replacement panel after the SxSW organizers expressed interest in it still continuing. The Blogher folks did a terrific job finding replacements, and the panel that was formed had a dynamic of its own–just not the same as that of the original group. This placed an unwelcome burden on the new panel members–ghosts of panel members past. Keeping the title was a mistake, because it implied debate, and the replacement panel didn’t have the dynamic for this particular debate.

Frankly, I’m not sure that this debate can ever happen. Not in weblogging. There isn’t enough marketing impetus to sustain a debate of this nature.