The Age of Assholes

Pardon the brief cross post. This was part of my response to an excellent bloggerino from Steve McLaughlin at Gonzo Engaged. He was responding to my response to a Chris Locke rant.

The canvas the Net gives us let’s go nuts about ourself and our viewpoints. I can sing myself electric to the entire bloody world. That’s exhilirating, although also delusional and egotistical. It changes the old equation where a handful of us were broadcasters and the rest of us were audience members. It’s no accident that the Age of Conformity came into existence as TV sets went into everyone’s home. It’s no accident that as Web access goes into everyone’s home we’re entering the Age of Assholes. And I mean that in the very best sense :)

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Story Tellers, Authors, Places

Pardon the rambling. Or better yet, straighten it out and tell me what I’m trying to say…

Before there were books and scribes, there were singers of stories. Every time Homer’s tale was told, it was different depending on the voice of the teller. Intonation, tune, rhythm, even content varied with each telling. What counted was the way the story was told that night.

Writing nailed the words to pages; the words became the Platonic form of the story. The words may be rendered differently by each edition — the new edition of a book may be set in a different typeface than the previous one — but the two editions are editions of the same book only if the words are the same. And with the fixing of words on paper, we also get “authors.” Authors own their words in a way that the previous generations of story tellers could not. Printing leads to “authorized” editions indeed.

On the Web we have authors and story tellers. But we have something else as well: places. For the first time, a place can constitute the “what-ness” of the discourse, not the story, not the author, not the words. The work can be the place where authors, tellers, stories, voices and words meet. It is the place that has permanence, it is the place that makes the discourse into a work. And the place isn’t owned the way authors own words, and it isn’t possessed the way a voice possesses a singer or teller. It is public, it is shared, it is ours.

“Ours” isn’t a possessive here. Books, embodying Platonic works, exist without us. Stories, on the other hand, need us as listeners to exist; a story untold is like a dance undanced. The Web’s new places combine the permanence of books with the needfulness of stories…

[Crap. I hate this type of writing. Nice words instead of real ideas. Shoot me before I write more.]

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Demographics Askew

Ah, just in time to close out the old year I get this brilliant bit of marketing from FHM, one of the burgeoning EBN (“Everything But Nipples”) men’s magazines:

You’ve been chosen as one of the select few to receive this exclusive invitation…

Why you? Because we’ve gotta pretty good hunch you’re just the kind of man we’re looking for.

Someone who loves beautiful women. Loves great clothes. Loves new gadgets. And loves getting the most out of life.

Hah! Why not come right out and say it: “Our research shows that you’re a serious masturbator.” There’s your target demo.

Sorry, pal, but if I want dirty pictures, I know a newsgroup or two that’ll pitch in for free.

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The Story of Ping

Gary Stock, who really should start his own
weblog, refers us to the first
review at Amazon of the children’s classic, The
Story of Ping:

“…As good as it is, The Story
About Ping is not without its faults. There is no
index, and though the ping(8) man pages cover the
command line options well enough, some review of them
seems to be in order. Likewise, in a book solely
about Ping, I would have expected a more detailed
overview of the ICMP packet
structure…”

Gary points out that the review is not only
helpful, it’s durn popular: “4412 of 4511 people
found the following review helpful…”

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Blue Hydrangea

Blue Hydrangea

Like the green that cakes in a pot of paint,
these leaves are dry, dull and rough
behind this billow of blooms whose blue
is not their own but reflected from far away
in a mirror dimmed by tears and vague,
as if it wished them to disappear again
the way, in old blue writing paper,
yellow shows, then violet and gray;

a washed-out color as in children’s clothes
which, no longer worn, no more can happen to:
how much it makes you feel a small life’s brevity.

But suddenly the blue shines quite renewed
within one cluster, and we can see
a touching blue rejoice before the green.

Rainer Maria Rilke
William H. Gass, trans.

The translator points out that the color of hydrangea blooms depends upon the acidity of the soil. Gass writes: “My grandmother buried nails near her hydrangea, and they bloomed as blue as jeans.” (Reading Rilke: Reflections on the Problems of Translation, p. 148.)

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