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

[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.