This is a bit of a meta post, apologies. And on that front, have been not blogging much, but I have been thinking a bit, so hopefully will have some stuff to say when I have the time to say it. And on precisely that front:

I have an area I would like to start publishing online about.

• This isn't an expert area, where I will be publishing at length and authoritatively on areas I definitely know about.
• Rather, it will be an area where I will be learning as I go, as I write.
• However, I don't want it just to be a series of unconnected short posts, that aren't connected in any way - a stream of consciousness.
• Part of the reason for this is that I want this to be organisable and to allow contributions by others.
• However, I equally don't want it to take the form of a wiki, with content pieces falling into place anonymously and losing any kind of authorial voice.
• I dimly envisage writing an entry - perhaps just a paragraph - that encapsulates my thoughts or questions about an area, say "fly fishing". I might get some feedback or challenges on this, which should be encoded cleanly. And at some point, I might go back and say: Ah. Given all that, and some thinking I've been doing, perhaps THIS? and follow up with a further entry. And I'm doing this too for other areas, like then I do an entry on "fur trapping" etc.

I can see a dozen ways in which this can work:
Editing in links from one post to another to create an audit trail.
Using specific tags on a topic.
Reediting the original post to add a second section, clearly demarcated.

I'm interested if any particularly elegant approaches reveal themselves to you. Here's the one that comes to my mind (mainly through organising my thoughts here):

I'm wondering if I could take the tagging route, together with a default site look composed of multiple columns that present posts on the most recently used tags, so column 1 would show the new "fur trapping" entry, followed by the other fur posts falling vertically below it, whereas column 2 would show the fly fishing stuff - but if I was to post about "metal detecting" then the fly fishing column would be replaced by the info about metal detecting. So the front page continually presents the ongoing thought process behind the most recent entries...

I'm particularly interested in:
1. How doable do you reckon this suggested implementation is, as a web designer/hoster
2. How user-friendly do you see this as a web user? I suspect I might need to make sure there were easy and obvious archive/date links to ensure people can track back into move conventional blog viewing. But would this default view seem intuitive, or arcane and pointless?
3. Aside from this, are there other ways you can see of handling this kind of content?

As always, thanks for any tips!

My bud and family (married to my wicked cousin michelle) Simon, aka Schlomo just made an announcement:

I’m really pleased to announce that I’m going on an expedition to the Arctic with Cape Farewell. They are a charity working to create a cultural response to climate change. They are taking a 40 strong crew of musicians, artists and scientists on a 12 day trip to Disko Bay on the West coast of Greenland.

Some of the artists on board include Laurie Anderson, Vanessa Carlton, Jarvis Cocker, Feist, Robyn Hitchcock, Ryuichi Sakamoto, KT Tunstall, Martha Wainwright, Marcus Brigstocke and Lemn Sissay.

So, this is essentially

Doing a good deed, by
going to the freaking artic, in the form of
a celebrity snow boat cruise, composed of
people who are talented and cool

so a pretty great trip!

What would you do on this trip, or say to the people involved? I'll pass on the best answer to Simon when I see him next.

The last few months I've been working my way through season 1 of the Wire for the second time, to prepare the way for me to push forward through the series (major catch up in progress). I just watched Episode 10: The Cost.

Ah.

Just had a fab weekend at the Green Man festival in Wales, but too tired to catch you up on it. Luckily, the efforts of Tom A together with those of Tom P mean I don't have to.

And, honestly, I'm about to shuttle off to Edinburgh for the Fringe. Looks like I will have a fairly busy schedule but if you have any recommendations do pass them on.

To start off:
http://andrewrilstone.blogspot.com/2008/07/48-and-49-silence-in-library-and-forest.html

I was thinking that as a birthday present, probably from myself, I would like to get some webspace. I use the web a lot, I like to be a creator rather than a consumer where possible, I'd like to have the 'space' to play around with fairly freely, and I have some thoughts about long-term stuff that I want to set the foundations for. However, I really don't know much about this, so I thought I'd canvas my savvy mates.

I'm playing a show on Wednesday, at the Lion and Unicorn on Gaisford Street at 7.30pm, followed by a free preview of one of my teachers' edinburgh show, "how to get almost anyone to sleep with you". come.

I'm also playing a minishow at the Cockpit Theatre, Marylebone, on Sunday at 7pm. Following this will be a full Maestro show from the level 2 people - those who have seen me previously probably caught me in this very enjoyable format. Come!

 ...it's the internet. Bringing you musical melodrama from the mind of Joss Whedon.

http://www.drhorrible.com/act_I.html

Act II up tomorrow!

In other news, I joined the library today, both because it's a good thing, and because our house is having its drains unclogged and I wanted to do the same for myself. They have a big graphic novel collection and a comic reading group. Colour me intrigued! Picked up two books.

Just finished reading: Y: The Last Man by Vaughan, Guerra and Mazan Jr. I like it so far, but I think my bar for comics is getting harder to meet. Writers in the genre tend to have a fairly firm handle on plot, living as they do within the geek culture of verisimilitude, continuity, and the simple joy of pulling things to pieces to seem smart. An unfortunate outcome of this is the tendency to overwrite, to make it clear that no, they didn't miss anything, don't you worry. Even when it's entirely unnecessary. I'll give a small example, but first, background:

Y is about life following a virus that wipes out all malekind. Yorick, the Y of the piece, somehow survives, and is being chaperoned across the country by a black government agent, 355. Y's been disguising himself with a gas mask, and queries why they are travelling by night rather than day.

355: This is Southie, Yorick. You might be able to look like a lady... but I can't look white.
Y: You seriously think that's still an issue?
355: Why, because this is the twenty-first century... or because all of the men are dead? Either way, my answer is yes.
Y: Fair enough.

Perhaps it's just me, but three of the four passes in that exchange seem totally redundant, and just there to hammer in already obvious points: Racism exists! Women can be racists! that are already carried perfectly well by the first statement. What's more, it's succeeding only in telling, not showing. If the idea that women could be racists does strike the author as contentious and requiring attention, then why not portray it rather than just assert this via a soggy piece of exposition?

 

The other book is The Walking Dead, about life following a zombie infestation. What is it with me and post-apocalypse at the moment? Ah well. I've heard very good things about this, and it's the title that the reading group is focusing on....watch this space?

In other, other news, I am performing tonight, as well as next week.
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=23107553571
Come along, why doncha!

I listened to this podcast while doing my ironing. I agree with much of it.

http://www.cbc.ca/ideas/media/science/episode-12-abram.ram

Hey

Proms are coming up. Could be fun! Overwhelming list here

so here's a few suggestions of things I for one could be up for....


Sunday 20th July - Folk Day (free)
Tuesday 12th August - Rachmaninov Vespers 
Tuesday 19th August Prom 45 - Electroacoustic Messiaen?
Thursday 28th August Gershwin and Stravinski? Piano? Yes please
Wednesday 3 September Have a Rattle at Brahms and Shostakovitch?
etc

So

Who's game?

Please spend the next ten minutes of your life on this.

Fleep

Yesterday I ran the lighting for an improvised theatre show. It was a preview of a format the group are taking up to Edinburgh, an interesting structure called Telltales involving a series of monologues from seemingly unconnected characters that gather up connections as the show plays on. My task was to manage the intro and outro music and ensure the lights need to come on at the start and off at the end.
 (  The only catch, of course, is that there is no 'end' )

What are you reading? Or, at least, what sits on your table half-read?

Too much, in my case.

Comics: Re-reading the first collection of Paul Chadwick's Concrete short stories in paperback format. This is a series I can read and read and read.

Poetry: I got half way through Ruth Padel's 52 Ways of Looking at a Poem but I really need to push back through. I haven't enjoyed every poem but there have been some fantastic jewels within it, and the accompanying commentary is really valuable for novices.

Fiction: Miss Lonelyhearts - Nathanael West, most famous for Day of the Locust, lets rip with an unremittingly savage take on the modern human condition. The prose shivved punchy and left it groaning in the gutter, and the only reason I'm not reading it now is that it's too nasty to take in anything other than small doses.

Non-Fiction: The Sane Society by Erich Fromm. Apparently a classic of sociology. Written in the 50s, some of its arguments are less freshn than they would have once been, but it's provocative and nourishing reading nonetheless. It finds some funny parallels here and there with Mosley's Experience and Religion - which I also have yet to finish.

Non-Fic (work related): Howard Gardner's Five Minds for the Future. Gardener coined the term multiple intelligences and is a pre-eminent figure in educational methods, so far he's talked about failure to teach people how to think within a discipline, and one comment that resonates with me was the shortsightedness of treating all fields of knowledge as only navigable via the discipline of the scientific method. I should pick this up again; he also tackles other key ways we need to use our minds including the "Ethical Mind" and the "Respectful Mind".

That's my creaking shelf. What's on yours?

I'd now be an Operating Thetan.

That is, I was invited to the Level 3 group in my improv class yesterday, to play with the bigger girls n boys.

Exciting! There's only 5 in the class instead of 15, so tons more attention.

Scary! We have to do not one but 3 shows - and it's much more on our shoulders...

Level 3! Pretty happy about it.

Went to see Bruce Springsteen at Emirates Stadium yesterday. It rocked! I don't do stadiums often but when the act is right it's quite an experience, Bruce running up and down the stage, doing knee slides, accordionists careening around, sick spinning solos, lights, screens, crowd waving. Claps.

Let me talk about claps. Beginneth misery man Al: as a default, I hate crowd claps. They inevitably find their voice in a quiet song, a part of the set when people should sit and enjoy the contrast, rather than heft the noise back toward its previous levels, rendering the show a homogenous slop of loudness.

Moreover, people need to recognise that clapping the wrong rhythm makes the song sound shitter, regardless of how many people are clapping it. 9 times out of ten, that means your clap. clap. clap. clap. is going to make the song sound shitter. bumpata bumpata braka braka bumpata bumpata braka braka -> clap. clap. clap. clap. is the sound of the cistene chapel being re-covered in Dulux Chiffon White.

That said, this was the kind of gig where sometimes, sometimes, the mass clapping felt appropriate. I was good, I swallowed it.

I found it harder to swallow the booing.

Felt a bit ropey yesterday, went home slightly early. Had some food and felt a bit better, so launched myself to Impro Jam in London Bridge to see what turned out to be a fine show. The first half was troupe Dance Monkey Dance performing a set of scene series, each inspired by audience suggestion and then following on through interconnected scenes. They were damn good, quickly stepping up to grab each scene by the throat and make it about something. I was impressed, and jealous!

Part II drew on the audience - would-be volunteers put their names into a tombola, and were selected to perform a more structured scene with direction, partnered with a chosen actor from the first half. Also very good, especially to see so many novices have a good time on stage. My number didn't come up this time, shame! All in all, I'd go again.

One thing I like about Improv scenes is the way that can grab onto the absurd and turn it into a consistent feature of the world they portray. A gymn scene involved a quip about setting their running machine to "france and back' or some such, which extended into the straight-faced conceit that travelling simulators were a plausible alternative to true holidays ( 'no Asia trips during peak hours! A lot of people want to get on that machine!' ). There was another, similar one, but I forget; hey I was cold-y during the show. Scenes that do this well resonate with me, and at their best fill me with wonder, as if they are channelling a world very much like mine, but different and true.

I want to see these in a game sometime soon.

I like retro-futures. Maybe in Bleakworlds?

Blogging has been on hiatus, since... well, since the new job and house, I think*.  I'm not hugely less busy now, but figured that it's time to kick-start things.

Ka-ploff

OK, so here we go!



*Yes, look: http://farmerversusfox.blogspot.com/