BurningbirdJust writing
Allan heard my whining and undignified pleading and created another installment in the Dizzy the Cat saga: Dizzy goes pub crawling.
Among the tidbits Allan provides:
The chef, a tough tattooed ex-Hell’s Angel, soon got tired of requests for a “special extra bit for Dizzy”, but it didn’t take long for Dizzy to realise it paid to go to the source.
I just finished the final pre-review draft of my chapters for O’Reilly’s weblogging book, Essential Blogging.
Once the chapters from all the authors have been gently messaged by the wonderous editing talents of Nat Torkington (first rule of thumb — always suck up to the editors until the book is in production), the book is going online, hopefully sometime this week, for public review at the O’Reilly Network.
During the review, I’m pushing to finish Unix Power Tools 3rd edition. To help in this effort — UPT is an extremely large book — we just added a new author: Steven Champeon. If you’re a fan of DHTML, CSS, JavaScript, and so on you’ll most likely recognize Steven’s name.
I’m particularly glad Steven’s come onboard because he shares my interest and excitement about Apple’s incorporation of Unix (Darwin) into Mac OS X. A key difference between the third edition of UPT and the previous two editions is the new coverage of personal computer-based Unix flavors such as Linux, FreeBSD, and Darwin.
If I’m good, meaning I don’t spend too much time with this weblog, I should be finished with the rest of my writing for UPT by end of May and can then concentrate on finishing my beloved RDF book — Practical RDF. The review draft for this book should be completed by end of June.
I’m adding new material to Practical RDF specifically related to my weblogging experiences. In particular, I take on the Google Weblogging Effect, as well as syndication with RSS. I’ll have to send an autographed copy of the book to Dave, see what he thinks 😉
To test out the book code and examples, I’m incorporating material from it into my management of this weblog as well as my other web sites. Fun stuff, though the sites might get a bit hacked in the next month or so as I play around.
Three books for O’Reilly this year. Not bad. And with half a year to go, maybe I can add a couple more.
Recovered from the Wayback Machine.
I love reading about everyday things.
Allan talks about a new Sushi restaurant opening in town that uses trolleys to deliver the food. I’m still trying to figure out how this system of food delivery is going to work. I’m visualizing this little trolley racing by, and having to grab food out of it, quickly, before it goes out of reach. However, we’re talking about food — sushi — that doesn’t necessarily grab that easily. In my mind I see nori and rice as well as bits of fish flying hither and yon.
Justin takes a sentimental journey through town and through memory as he prepares for a move. Speaking as one who has lived all over this country, it’s the small things — our barbers, favorite restaurants, and walks — you miss most when you move.
Everyday things.
My interest in reading about everyday things is especially heightened after I read one of Jonathon’s posts about Japanese women’s writing — books by eleventh century women authors. Today he writes about how women’s writing was considered inferior, joryu bungaku:
I would not understand until years later that, consciously or not, Rimer was following a long tradition in Japanese literary criticism which—using terms such as “joryu sakka” (woman writer) and “joryu bungaku” (women’s literature)—places most women writers in a separate (and implicitly inferior) category
A low opinion of women’s writing wasn’t limited to the Japanese; Western civilization also considered women’s writing to be inferior. For instance, Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote:
“American is now wholly given over to a d____d mob of scribbling women, and I have no chance of success while the public taste is occupied with their trash — and should be ashamed of myself if I did succeed.”
Though Western women didn’t write in a separate language, as the Japanese women did long ago, they wrote of subjects considered of “lesser importance” — of life and love and everyday things. An indirect reference to this is made in Jury of her Peers, by Susan Glaspell. She wrote:
Nothing here but kitchen things,” he said, with a little laugh for the insignificance of kitchen things.”
Introducing my new weblog tag line: Nothing here but kitchen things…
We’ve been given the go ahead from O’Reilly, the “…FRIENDLIEST and most WONDERFUL publisher we’ve ever dealt with” (sorry, a little editor tease there), to announce a new book on weblogging!
Among the authors is yours truly, writing the chapters on Blogger. I’m joined by Mena and Ben Trott writing about Movable Type, Scott Johnson who’s been dropping hints about the book, Rael Dornfest from O’Reilly, and Cory Doctorow of Boing Boing fame. Nathan Torkington is the editor that has to manage this wild and wooly crowd.
The book should be out in September. Start saving your pennies now.
The name of the book will either be Weblogging Essentials or Practical Weblogging. My preference of course is for the latter since I’m also writing Practical RDF.
Normally I don’t insert my body into the ranks of the weblogging intelligentsia when AKMA, Searls, Weinberger, Himmer, and so on become deeply engaged in cross-blogging about particularly heavy and philosophical topics. I’m usually happy to just sit back and watch the flow — brain pushups.
However, when the topic is “content” and the by-play between participants is so interesting, why I just have to jump in. My only worry is that the gang will take one look at my efforts and throw me back. My eyes are clear, and my scales are firm, so we can hope.
The thread root seems to be a posting that Doc made, in which he says:
That’s why it’s no coincidence that when Big Media (and .com wannabe Big Media) saw the Web, they took everything we used to call “art,” “editorial,” “music,” and “news” — and recharacterized it all as “content.” Because “content” is something you ship, something you distribute. It’s not necessarily something you share.
Doc has a very good point — is the use of the word “content” a way of demeaning what we write? Instead of literature, we create content. Instead of art, we create content?
Weinberger continues on this theme when he states:
Links not only literally make the Web a web, but the nature of those links determines almost everything that is interesting and important about it. Content is to the Web as zombies are to human culture.
Beautifully said. Powerful. And Halley responds in agreement, stating “People who use the word ‘content’ make my words into whores.”
Chris fearlessly drenches his feathers by jumping in, cannon ball style with:
Shuffling, whether off the mortal coil, or into the spotlight, it’s the motion, not the meat, mama. The medium ain’t worth a rat’s posterior. The eye is drawn to motion – ‘don’t move or he’ll see us’ is whispered child’s-voice breathlessly in a technicolour dream of Monsters Under The Bed.
When Wonder Chicken turns demented owl, there is no better read on the web.
AKMA, my favorite man of the cloth used the dastardly word and paid the ultimate price. However, he saves the theological bacon with a lovely posting, containing among other things:
If we distinguish web “content” from any other aspect of online textuality–MIDI background music (argh), Flash animations, “blink” tags, Java-scripted moving buttons, whatever–we deny the meaningfulness of auditory, graphical, kinetic stiumuli, a pretty mess into which I wish I hadn’t stepped.
By the way, AKMA, how’s the term DylanBoy for Mike Golby, who also added his thoughts to the fray with “stuff happens”.
If each of these postings was a unique note, this symphony would be a keeper.
Being the curious sort, I did a Thesaurus search on content. Following is a summarized view of the results:
Of well-being and affections
Existence in space, being both the dissenter and the noncomformist
Averse acquiescence, uncontradicted
Cordial and cheery to the marrow, from the bone
These dainty comforts, scraps from the album
Odd, but when you look at “content” this way, I don’t mind being a content creator.