he carries no sword

Straw Poll on blog output

Tue, 21 Oct 2008 23:15:30 GMT

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!

Jealous

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 20:14:28 GMT

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.

Grasped

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 23:46:15 GMT

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.

When I first viewed the close of this episode, I shuddered into a full-on crying fit for several minutes, something I had never experienced on the back of a television program. I had been watching the series avidly and intensely in the run-up, and had probably helped myself to one or two episodes that night before embarking on this one. The rising tensions and portents of the previous 8-odd hours of of story meet in this episode their terrible punctuation, and I was carried away by this.

This time around, my evening windows for watching stuff are far narrower: I am lucky to squeeze in even a single episode. And what with holidays and weekends away, I haven't been catching the series consistently day-to-day, or even week-to-week. I have been barely immersed in the show, experiencing the river by dipping in and out rather than surrendering to its flow.

As the credits rolled, the crying came in heaves.

I don't know what to make of this. Perhaps the scene triggers memory of the emotional freight it carried last time around, and I'm simply getting a sudden second dip of the madeleine. When I reflect on other experiences of crying at art, they do come with clockwork reliability at the same moment as the first. But this is only superficially persuasive, and it could just as well be qualities of the art itself in that instant which powerfully and reliably lead to catharsis. Right?

I began to write that these causes are impossible to untangle, but in doing so am spitting on a good four years of study: there's bound to be some principled way to tease out second-order mnemonic contributions from direct experience. Of course, I'm in no position to do so for this matter, and not sure it really matters.

If I skipped into the other room and stuck that final scene on again, from cold, would it crack me again? Perhaps. I'm not prepared to find out, honestly; it would transgress some fundamental lines to rip a sluice in something I consider art simply to suck out the intoxicating juices and have done with it. It doesn't sit right: even if I don't need the slow build to achieve the catharsis, I need the slow build to deserve the catharsis.

2 episodes to go, and then on to the new. As full of anticipation as I am, I might still need a holiday before I start season 2. Maybe some film watching. Recommendations?

Twixt Wales and Scotland, a brief night in!

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 23:19:05 GMT

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.

great writers online, pt 1

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 22:52:50 GMT

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

A question for the web-savvy.

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 20:32:05 GMT

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 need to buy web-space. Is size - ahem - all that matters? How does space interact with internet traffic? If I bought only enough space to write the bestest limerick ever made, and got 10 million hits a day, how is cost to the provider accounted for? I feel like I'm missing something obvious.

I may need to buy domain names. Is this totally independent to the space provider? How do I go about it?

A set of web-space can house as many independent sites as you can fit on it. Alexrocks.com, hairsandwich.net, and helpingthehelpless.org all under one provider. Right, or wrong? Anything more to it than that?

I need to populate the space with some stuff: i.e., build sites, blogs, etc. In the case of blogs, by bringing the hosting to 'my house', so to speak, am I creating a lot more work for myself? Or can I just create e.g., a Blogger blog and sit it on hairsandwich.net/blog just like that?

In terms of having my own site, would I need to build from scratch (e.g., Dreamweaver, html etc), and would I need to acquire software to do so? or is it trivial to find templates for fairly standard sites (imagine I wanted some photo pages, some text pages, and maybe some user input like a comment wall or bulletin board)?

What are the advantages of having webspace for personal use? ie what kind of content does this allow you to store and share that you couldn't through using free online services (flickr for photos, blogs for text etc etc). Is it just an accessibility/flexibility issue? Now, I'm being that annoying customer who clearly wants something but still needs to be sold on it before he buys it, but there is a point: how should I make the most out of this, rather than just being sunk funds whose benefits I never quite think through? Point me to the sweet things that excite me about your own sites!

Very late, very quick update

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 23:36:41 GMT

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!

La Dolce Vita

Sun, 20 Jul 2008 18:25:23 GMT

It's fun and it's free...

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 15:10:49 GMT

...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!

The Spell of the Sensuous

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 22:24:37 GMT

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

Gorbachev

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 16:04:51 GMT

For Duncan, mainly.

Prom(issory) Note

Sun, 06 Jul 2008 15:52:48 GMT

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?

ring ring

Sat, 05 Jul 2008 14:36:28 GMT

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

Fleep

A Step Up

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 11:00:46 GMT

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' - the lighting operator has to make the call on what would be a satisfying close to the show, identifying a crucial beat and then acting mercilessly to kill, kill, kill! Crikey. But, still, only one big decision to make. The other time I helped out with lighting the show was a snappier format, where every scene had to be ended. In that show the task was easier with a director there to cue me when he was struck by an obvious ending. But, wow! You're always on: every opening of a scene is just ticking in your head towards its close. You can get so hungry looking for an ending that you forget to see the scene.

As I was off-duty for most of this show, I got to play audience a lot more. Damn, it was really good, and it's a shame that improv is so much about the experience of being there and seeing things unfold, because I cant communicate it over. The neurotic Elephant Memory man who never forgot every embarrassing moment, killing his marriage - maybe? ; the high-profile divorce lawyer driven by John Hughes movies to crash, burn and arise from the ashes... really cool stuff, that I was privileged to be a part of.

This is a really good thing for me right now. I'm getting more and more involved in this art form, learning, doing, reflecting, discussing. Since moving up a level, I'm spending a lot of time with some really talented people, and I can feel it pulling me up. I gave some notes to the performers after the show, outlining the things I spotted and wanted to give feedback on. Most of it was probably pretty remedial, but I think I gave a few useful insights. I'm really starting to internalise components and priorities of the form which is vital for my progress, and of benefit to the people I perform with.

And it's all impetus to raise my game. I can see how good Improv can be, and I am starting to see how to get there. The pedestal of excellence isn't beyond reach. I'm A Step Up.

Another (good) pressure is the anticipation of performances. As I said below, I'll be doing three-odd performances as part of the course this term, and expected to heavily contribute to its format and delivery. Also, I may go up to Edinburgh this year. Some of you said you might be up for doing this too: let's talk! It would have to be somewhat mid-late August for me, given my birthday and that. If I go up, I should have opportunities to take part in some stuff, on or off-stage.

Also, I might just devise my own show. !!! Just a set of ill-germinated ideas at the moment.

Let me know what you think about this. Any questions, anything I have glossed over that you think is more interesting than I've given attention to. Once I have dates for the London shows I will let all of youse know...

Reading matters

Sat, 07 Jun 2008 16:42:55 GMT

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?

If Improv were Scientology...

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 12:50:39 GMT

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.

Springsteen. Boo!

Sun, 01 Jun 2008 14:39:01 GMT

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.

Seriously. Booing.

Every time the band had a gap in their set, or changed instruments, or appeared to be about to go off, or did go off before the encore, an audible contingent within the crowd booed. The sentiment, I assume, was "don't go". I can only imagine that they intended their boos to be taken in the light of "we really, really love you, and wish you to continue, only we are extremely socially broken, so can only find this manner in which to vocalise our needs! Sorry! Boo!"

Seriously. Booing.

They booed at the end, when the band were clearly going to go off for good.

It's as if they were trying to shame the band into playing more.

The band played for over 150 minutes, with virtually no breaks.

Shame on you!

Boo!

I'm a fat middle-aged man who paid some money, so I'm going to try and shame you.

Boo!

When my 9-year old daughter says her line in the school nativity play, and steps back so another kid can do their thing, I boo her too!

Boo!

I want more and you must cater to MY needs!

Are they hoping for boos when they finish their presentation to the marketing department?

I'd fucking give them some.

Improvisational Karaoke

Sat, 31 May 2008 15:29:13 GMT

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.

How it's going to be, from when it wasn't

Thu, 29 May 2008 13:09:55 GMT

I want to see these in a game sometime soon.

I like retro-futures. Maybe in Bleakworlds?

Back to blogging - I mean, elljaying, or something.

Wed, 21 May 2008 22:37:00 GMT

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/