jeudi 12 février 2004

Readers' letters and 'social software' An impudent, imprudent member of the Faithful 5 ¾ inquires "how your Wildcat saga ended - if indeed it ended at all." Patience! All, for now, is silence. And meanwhile, Dr F pursues her probing, a few more rusty locks broken each time as we travel down the most unexpected paths. As for "those limpid dark eyes", they too, for now, are many, many kilometres distant, summoned the other side of the Equator. I don't doubt I shall write of them again also, some day. I am busier now reading other people's blogs, ever exploring, while many in the city are wondering, like me, whether it just might be safe to think about coming out of hibernation soon. There are so many pairs of eyes, my friend, of a sudden at this odd, expectant time of year. All engaging, all enticing, all a risk. Saint Valentine has his fun on Saturday, it's all over the newspapers. And we are expected to choose? Sometimes I prefer messages in bottles, cast out on the tide, with no certainty as to where they might beach. This week's mailbag also included a note that I sometimes appear to have a more "direct line to (someone's) psyche than does my own conscious mind", which certainly isn't planned, and an invitation to Orkut. Replies will go on reply day. I thank both writers meantime. I thought Orkut was a river in Siberia, but that's Irkut. Orkut "attempts to collect a ton of data about you. The kind of demographic data that marketing folks drool over" (Jeremy Zawodny), has aroused the contempt of Apophenia (Zephoria - who's "making connections where none previously existed") and brought sudden thoughts of insecurity to Life With Alacrity. It was on January 22 that the news came that "Google tip-toed into the hot market of online social networks with the quiet launch of Orkut.com" (CNet News). "Being your friend is hard work," Aaron Kottke soon moaned. Tom Coates yesterday thought Flickr "much much better than Orkut" (plasticbag). I'm like Buzz and he, "like a lot of other people, (...) recently found myself simultaneously intrigued and repulsed by the brave new world of 'social software'." (Sci-Fi Hi-Fi). Xeni Jardin picked up on a Register story and wondered are the "Orkut TOS a déjà vu of controversial, discarded Microsoft TOS?" (Boing Boing). I reserve judgement, pending thought. 11:49:42 PM  link   your views? [] A song in the night ...and then there are the days to write off. The worst was hitting the button on one story and getting back with my lunch tray for a merited knuckle-rapping because it's true that "You don't put such crap on to the wires!" I'd supposedly subbed it, but my mind was elsewhere, like that of the usually good writer, and we let the Factory's clients have garbage. It's not that I was especially "tired", as suspected. I'm haunted. For four days, I've woken up early out of recurring dreams, involving a most gifted friend of my youth and long hot summers living in tents, with almost no money, on meat pasties, strong cheap "scrumpy" (Gunning) and roll-your-own cigarettes. The beer was so much better, but the cider cost next to nothing. Every year, we rented the same farmer's field at the top of a hill, long before a south Devon town became a yuppie yachting resort where it seems the visitors locally known as "grockels" now outnumber the townspeople 10 to one at the wrong time of year. My friend still lives there. The Kid, who made several long train journeys there with me when she was younger, will just love me for this nostalgia trip back to one of her first lessons in playing with sounds. That friend, Harry, is one of those few some of us are lucky enough to have when you can pick up the 'phone after years of silence and pick up the conversation where you left off as if it was yesterday. Time for another unpolished extract: The Estuary straddles ley-lines, dragon-paths, with its channels obeying the moon. The estuary’s changes reach into corners among hills once taken for women’s breasts when my part in this world was designed. In those years, friends made love under canvas & divided towns had no wailing walls; we pitched our tents for timeless days. But now, as Gaia has traversed infinity & rolls on through ages, her moonstruck nights crossing spaces beyond comprehension, I know that watching shooting stars above our heads, on our backs in the field - "There’s one !" "Missed it." "Too late." - was a game not of youths but of lovers. We deserved Gaia then & only growing up brought the untruths & thus little trust in redemption. The boys became men; the girls, women. I pay great attention to a man who stayed on there. When his saxophone comes out at night, my daughter will applaud far too loudly, to get herself thrown out of pubs with me. But she has understood, at six, what estuaries are about. That one was empty once & lost for words I felt my blood run cold, when every boat lay beached, abandoned, & even the birds seemed perturbed. "Listen, friend, when will they float ?" "Spring tides," he said. "When they come in. I have not often seen the sea so low." Later - late - he picked up a clarinet & the notes flew high to swim back below my belt. My testicles caught light again. "I can’t finish this," he groaned & laid down his instrument. That first mate is a player of music as well as a teacher. "Nice one," I told him. "Push no further." The window & the town beneath, an ugly church tower, claimed "Gaia abides." In that place, gain all or go, tides proclaim. We are forever, despite the church tower, its formidable grey. Leave it out ! A postcard does its part sometimes. If chosen well, it’s capable of saying an estuary seizes the heart. This weekend I must 'phone. Perhaps that way, I'll find out what it means, the message that's been surging up in my night mind nearly all week now. I won't post a picture of the view from that music room window, perched high in the town overlooking the estuary. The very thought of encouraging even more "grockels" to swarm to one of the most magical parts of the world is too appalling. As for the second picture, I couldn't resist. Even if the punishment during her brief visit this weekend is more very heavy metal indeed. 9:37:41 PM  link   your views? []

nick b. 2007 do share, don't steal, please credit under artistic licence terms; contributing friends (pix, other work) retain their rights.