sundries

[rm]

1 week until Patty returns!

I am, if you can't tell, still completely discombobulated from my trip. I'm tired, stressed, and can't keep track of the day and time. It is getting better, but I'm working from a deficit.

Kali and I had a writing meeting last night wherein we Solve Lots of Shit and actually found a structure that Feels Like a Novel to someone other than us. On the other hand, this fucker is so intricate, that I fear it's going to take five years to write. Here's the thing though: I don't actually care. It's very, very good, and we will make it happen.

Meanwhile though, fuck five years -- we've got two weeks on Dogboy & Justine. And in that time need to raise $1,670 $1,360. Can we do this? Yes we can. Erica and I are both doing a lot of off-line, or at least off-LJ outreach. But the fact is, it's do or die time.

I'll write more about the show later -- I owe you lots of thoughts about theater, about dominatrixes, about what we're trying to do and why. And here's the thing -- I know some of you are sick of hearing about this. It's not everyone's cup of tea, and even if it is, it's not in everyone's interest or ability to contribute to the cause. And you know what, that's fine. No, really. I expect not a thing from any particular individual. I merely expect that collectively, Erica and I and a lot of people we know will be able to pull this off. This isn't about guilt or hard feelings or thinking I deserve something other people don't -- and yeah, we've heard all of it and a lot of it that I'm sparing you.

Among other things, this project is about the fact that I want to do something because of the way my rich fantasy life -- and my insistence on bringing it into this world -- makes me ache. And I don't want to wait for permission that doesn't exist or an act of being chosen that's an adolescent daydream I've come to accept I'll never entirely outgrow (hey, I have a long commute, it happens). Art changes small worlds. Books saved my life. For years only imaginary people held my hand when the plane took off. Maybe this is something that matters. Maybe it's hubris. Probably, it's both. I won't ask forgiveness for it though; if people didn't think too much of themselves sometimes, nothing, nothing would ever get done.

Figment is a platform for young people to engage in social networking through and about fiction. Like this has never happened before ;)

If you're reading this journal, you already know this is true: bullies go digital.

Interesting and offensive editorial on the changing demographics of the supposed US culture war.

The circus will not be coming to Manhattan this spring. Because of the way animals are treated in circuses, this is probably a good thing. But as someone who once saw elephants parade through the streets of New York, at midnight, in the snow, and felt it was a symbol of a number of oddly nearly-achieved since and still in progress dreams, I'm really sad.

Sharing the Dakota with John Lennon. Someone I grew up with lived in the Dakota and heard the shot that killed him; we were in fifth grade.

1 borough, 5 generations.

My alma mater gets co-ed dorm rooms.

Please keep adding your stuff to the shopping post. Sales and donations have already been made because of it.

Sam responds to an email making the rounds about choosing how to donate your charity dollars. It is worth a read.

For those of you who followed along with the Sherlobster thing yesterday, ladyofthelog animated the lobsters. It makes my life even more awesome than it already is.

Comments

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

The "bullies go digital" issue is at least two years old, I thought - someone's already written a monograph on it.

And that was a salutary message from Sam, I thought. Definitely worth reading.

[redstapler.livejournal.com]

I read the articles about cyberbullying with a morbid horror. If there's anything I have that could be something resembling a "trigger," it's stuff like that. Not because it ever happened to me, but because it would have, and that's a dread fear that I don't know I'll ever lose.

When I got online in 1995, I was one of the early adopters. By 1998, it was pretty much everyone, but nothing, nothing like it is today.

We were talking about this sort of thing with my sister over Christmas, and she said, "I can't block my kids from Facebook. Everything they do is through there. It's how they communicate with their friends, it's how they get school assignments, everything. There's no way I can do that without crippling them socially and academically."

Yikes.

[malle-babbe.livejournal.com]

What gets me is the fact that the kid targeted in the article was not even on Facebook; someone set up a fake account in his name and used to to talk shit about classmates, leaving the kid to face the fallout.

It really isn't a character building experience to be subjected to Hitchcock-level gaslighting in your teens. All I learned was that a majority of adults were idiots and that I was seen as expendable.

I have to say that this passage about the Judy dealing with her daughter's bullying of another student was useful in providing insights:

When her daughter’s grades improved, Judy bought her a puppy. “A lot of people will disagree with me,” Judy said, “but I thought, this is a way for her to be responsible for something other than herself, something that would be dependent on her for all its needs.”

The girl doted on the puppy. One day, Judy asked: “ ‘Would you want anyone to be mean to your dog? Throw rocks at Foxy?’ ”

Her daughter recoiled. Judy continued: “ ‘How do you think other parents feel when something mean happens to their children?’ Then she broke down crying. That’s when I think she finally understood what she had done.”

First off, Judy is way more forgiving than I would have been. Bullying is something of a rage button for me. The epiphany with the dog gives me some hope for the human race...

[redstapler.livejournal.com]

"Hitchcock-level gaslighting" sounds like my elementary school experience. I've blocked a lot of it, as I can't provide examples anymore, but there's got to be a reason I think back on that stretch of my life with a panicky fear.

I'm glad that little girl had the epiphany. Now we need to figure out how to reproduce that on a grand scale.

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

We were talking about this sort of thing with my sister over Christmas, and she said, "I can't block my kids from Facebook. Everything they do is through there. It's how they communicate with their friends, it's how they get school assignments, everything. There's no way I can do that without crippling them socially and academically."


Wow. Social life being Facebook-dependent I could see; the fact that it's also being used as a school communication tool was one thing I didn't know about, and that makes it double-tough if it's also a forum where kids are being bullied.

[redstapler.livejournal.com]

At least once a week, my sister's eldest posts on FB something to the effect of: "What was the assignment in Ms Teacher's class for third period tomorrow?"

[malle-babbe.livejournal.com]

Facebook is the online equivalent of 1980s kids hanging out at the mall. I don't mean this dismissively; it is a space where you begin to learn to negotiate social interactions on one's own, find out who you are, etc.

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

What, Ross Douthat write something offensive?

This is my surprised face. :-|

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I saw the byline when mousing over the link and thought, "oh, him."

[viedma.livejournal.com]

But as someone who once saw elephants parade through the streets of New York, at midnight, in the snow, and felt it was a symbol of a number of oddly nearly-achieved since and still in progress dreams, I'm really sad.

Bullying elephants to perform for your amusement is symbolic of your bucket list?

[rm.livejournal.com]

We are all flawed people.

I was acknowledging an inner conflict I have about an experience in my past that gave me pleasure, but that I know is not appropriate. I cannot edit my history or my emotions. I can, however, acknowledge them.

And I don't have a bucket list.

[51stcenturyfox.livejournal.com]

The Culture War article was interesting too. I find my hackles rising whenever I see that term, though... it seems to me it was invented by conservative pundits to sell books and demonize those damned innaleckshuls. Because if you can frame quote unquote "immorality" in terms of elitism, you get the lower middle class on your side and can sell them political ideas that shit on their wallets. Bonus!

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

I like watching the circus arrive, too. But it seems like it's just out of Manhattan temporarily.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Ah, I see. I just caught the bigger article. Hopefully we'll be able to fit Cirque in again at least.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Definitely!

[marzipan-pig.livejournal.com]

What I was a little weirded out about in the bullying article was that some of the moms were represented as not knowing how to text, or as if they're not on FB themselves - these people are in their 30's and 40's, they're US. Then again I might be used to people on an extreme and in a bit of a technological bubble - still, really?

[malle-babbe.livejournal.com]

That's what I was thinking as well. Surely these parents have jobs where they use email, spreadsheets, and word processing programs?

Then again, it seems to be a requirement that these articles have a line where a parent gets huffy about the "burden" of being "tech savvy"...

[rm.livejournal.com]

Not everyone has a white-collar job that involves using a computer. And lots of people only use email at work, haven't explored the wider net and wouldn't want to -- to them it's a "work thing". It's hard to grasp when our lives are super-wired, but I have acquaintances in grad school that only check email for that purpose, don't participate in any social networking sites and don't own mobile phones. They are in their 30s, well off, and NYC residents. So it's out there.

[malle-babbe.livejournal.com]

That, and I just realized that computer lab class in the late 1980s - early 1990s was word processing, and that was about it. Everything I know about anti-virus programs, defragging, and so on was from looking things up online, and then, I knew I could look these things up online.

Still, the groaning about getting online bugs, especially since we are talking about kids getting stalked, harassed, and worse. Being a parent means dong things that are a PITA....

[hoyland54.livejournal.com]

If I've read these data (http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-10454133-94.html) correctly, it looks like something like 90% of US household internet connections are broadband (just over 30% don't have internet access, which is where the 2/3 of US households have broadband number comes from). This suggests, to me at least, that most adults with internet access at home use the internet for non-work purposes, otherwise why bother paying for broadband? (Of course, it strikes me as completely odd, but plausible, that someone could pay for broadband and only their children really use the internet.)

After thinking about this for a bit, I'm inclined to blame Facebook for this seeming outbreak of cyberbulling. None of the things described in the article (at least as much of it as I read) were things that couldn't have taken place (or at least a close analogue) when I was in junior high. I had email. I may or may not have had AIM. (I did in high school. It may have been still AOL-only in junior high.) But that information was closely held, so if someone wanted to harass me online, it had to have originated with a close friend. And why bother getting in with my friends (who they didn't like anyway) if they could find the house phone number in the school directory? But it's really hard to use Facebook without being publicly searchable, so unless you can disable messages from people who aren't friends, they can get you that way. (I quit Facebook.)

[browneyedgirl65.livejournal.com]

I was amazed at how dickish they were about verifying the kid's account, that's for sure. I see the article says they have since modified the process for challenging a faked account, but *still*. I can see where identity theft -- which is what this was -- still not being quite extended to online situations.

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

Never underestimate the power of people to not have any idea what they are doing. I worked a job that required significant computer use, from specialized software for our work to word processing to email to instant messaging. None of it was remotely new tech, and the job had used all these things for more than a decade. Many of my coworkers had been there for a decade, were holders of advanced degrees and could not do simple things like go to a webpage or open emails on their own. A lot of them had come up with workarounds (sometimes the most ass backwards and ridiculous ones possible) to do these things and never gave it a second thought. They knew they could open up a departmental webpage by clicking an icon someone put on their desktop, but the idea of opening a browser and going to a link in a list was too much for them.

[firefly124.livejournal.com]

I had a similar reaction in a different context the other day, in which someone on a career panel was talking about the frustration of having so many nurses on her staff who didn't know how to use computers beyond the very basics. Median age? 44. I sat there and scratched my head. Really? Women 2 years older than me are that befuddled by computers? That just blows my mind.

[marzipan-pig.livejournal.com]

To be fair, nursing skills and computer skills might not overlap a ton. I have noticed there's sort of a 45ish line where women seemingly only a little older than me have a sharp change in comfort level with computers - I think there must have been some kind of big development at a specific time and without school exposure (I didn't use computers in college yet!), social exposure, and/or cultural support as Something Women Are Good At, I can see it being a challenge.

Texting though and fb are pretty bite-sized in a lot of ways; I think that part of the article was a little fakey.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Also, I'm 38, and I find Facebook nearly impenetrable. I almost sort of know how to use it now, but I fuck up when trying to create new pages, can never find the content I'm looking for and am generally confused by it.

And I've been on the Internet since 1990.

[sihaya09.livejournal.com]

I have super limited internet right now... do you have a handy link for D&J donations? I just got a couple of orders that I'm sure were from your post, so I want to throw in some dough!

[rm.livejournal.com]

Thank you, that's very kind:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1604890644/dogboy-and-justine-workshop-production

[elusis.livejournal.com]

In case you (or others) are interested, a friend who works for the EFF passed along a link to a project soliciting writing about WikiLeaks: http://www.allthecitizensmen.com/

[browneyedgirl65.livejournal.com]

Oh, pretty cool, thanks for the heads up. I've passed it along as well...

[annlarimer.livejournal.com]

But as someone who once saw elephants parade through the streets of New York, at midnight, in the snow, and felt it was a symbol of a number of oddly nearly-achieved since and still in progress dreams, I'm really sad.

Torturing fewer animals completely invalidates your nostalgia.