Women in Animation exploratory meeting

That was a great meeting. The community in Portland is pretty small, so most people were connected to each other one way or another, and the sheer talent at the table blew me away.

The outcome seems to be that everyone wants to do it- to form a local chapter and become more involved with each other, to build community and support, to share and mentor, and, for me of course, to host some kick-ass events.

For those who don't know, yes, of course men are allowed and invited to participate, but we also want to acknowledge that women have a lot to share with each other, and need different kinds of support and mentorship.

I'm really excited for this opportunity, but equally excited that I don't have to spear-head it and push it forward. :-)

Miscellany

The exploratory "who wants to do this" Women In Animation meeting is on the 29th. Kate's gotten a huge response- she's starting to worry if there's going to be enough room at the table for all of us. Wonderful!

I just got a notice from the library that Altered Carbon is due sooner than I thought it was, and I haven't made much progress on it due to being sidetracked by Don Quixote. I'm going to try to finish it this weekend- I don't have a lot on my plate, so I should be able to jam on it.

Interesting Portland is moving forward, and I'm bummed that I missed all the meetings- they've been in the morning, before/into my work hours, and I just can't hang with those times. However, the event itself should be pretty cool, and the tickets are already on sale at a steep discount for the adventurous who are willing to buy tickets before the agenda is announced. For more info, go here.

The final animation from Drinking and Drawing

Find more videos like this on ASIFA PDX


What I really like about this one is that people really maintained continuity- if you look at the one we made last year, it just morphs and morphs... this one has more of a sense of story.

Derrida- Rogues

At the moment of confiding it to you, I am myself torn or split in two.
On the one hand, this double question would require us to inflect otherwise the very word question. It would impose itself at the very beginning of the game, and that is why I spoke without delay of an injunction and of the greatest force, of a force that will have won out over everything, and first of all over me, in the figure of a violent question, the question in the sense of an inquisitional torture where one is not only put in question but put to the question.
On the other hand, this double question has returned to torment me. It has made a return, turning around me, turning and returning, turning around me and turning me upside down, upsetting me, as if I were locked up in a tower unable to get around, unable to perceive or conceive the workings or turnings of a circular machine that does not work or turn just right.

In the end, if we try to return to the origin, we do not yet know what democracy will have meant nor what democracy is. For democracy does not present itself; it has not yet presented itself, but that will come. In the meantime, let's not stop using a word whose heritage is undeniable even if its meaning is still obscured, obfuscated, reserved. Neither the word nor the thing 'democracy' is yet presentable. We do not yet know what we have inherited; we are the legatees of this Greek word and what it assigns to us, enjoins us, bequeaths or leaves us, indeed delegates or leaves over to us. We are undeniably the heirs or legatees, the delegates, of this word, and we are saying 'we' here as the very legatees or delegates of this word that has been sent to us, addressed to us for centuries, and that we are always sending or putting off until later. There are, to be sure, claims or allegations of democracy everywhere 'we' are; but we ourselves do not know the meaning of this legacy, the mission, emission, or commission of this word or the legitimacy of this claim or allegation.

In its constitutive autoimmunity, in its vocation for hospitality, democracy has always wanted by turns and at the same time two incompatible things: it has wanted, on the one hand, to welcome only men, and on the condition that they be citizens, brothers, and compeers, excluding all the others, in particular bad citizens, rogues, noncitizens, and all sorts of unlike and unrecognizable others, and, on the other hand, at the same time or by turns, it has wanted to open itself up, to offer hospitality, to all those excluded. ... Rogues or degenerates are sometimes brothers, citizens, compeers.

D. H. Lawrence- Snake

A snake came to my water-trough
On a hot, hot day, and I in pyjamas for the heat,
To drink there.

In the deep, strange-scented shade of the great dark carob-tree
I came down the steps with my pitcher
And must wait, must stand and wait, for there he was at the trough before
me.

He reached down from a fissure in the earth-wall in the gloom
And trailed his yellow-brown slackness soft-bellied down, over the edge of
the stone trough
And rested his throat upon the stone bottom,
i o And where the water had dripped from the tap, in a small clearness,
He sipped with his straight mouth,
Softly drank through his straight gums, into his slack long body,
Silently.

Someone was before me at my water-trough,
And I, like a second comer, waiting.

He lifted his head from his drinking, as cattle do,
And looked at me vaguely, as drinking cattle do,
And flickered his two-forked tongue from his lips, and mused a moment,
And stooped and drank a little more,
Being earth-brown, earth-golden from the burning bowels of the earth
On the day of Sicilian July, with Etna smoking.
The voice of my education said to me
He must be killed,
For in Sicily the black, black snakes are innocent, the gold are venomous.

And voices in me said, If you were a man
You would take a stick and break him now, and finish him off.

But must I confess how I liked him,
How glad I was he had come like a guest in quiet, to drink at my water-trough
And depart peaceful, pacified, and thankless,
Into the burning bowels of this earth?

Was it cowardice, that I dared not kill him? Was it perversity, that I longed to talk to him? Was it humility, to feel so honoured?
I felt so honoured.

And yet those voices:
If you were not afraid, you would kill him!

And truly I was afraid, I was most afraid, But even so, honoured still more
That he should seek my hospitality
From out the dark door of the secret earth.

He drank enough
And lifted his head, dreamily, as one who has drunken,
And flickered his tongue like a forked night on the air, so black,
Seeming to lick his lips,
And looked around like a god, unseeing, into the air,
And slowly turned his head,
And slowly, very slowly, as if thrice adream,
Proceeded to draw his slow length curving round
And climb again the broken bank of my wall-face.

And as he put his head into that dreadful hole,
And as he slowly drew up, snake-easing his shoulders, and entered farther,
A sort of horror, a sort of protest against his withdrawing into that horrid black hole,
Deliberately going into the blackness, and slowly drawing himself after,
Overcame me now his back was turned.

I looked round, I put down my pitcher,
I picked up a clumsy log
And threw it at the water-trough with a clatter.

I think it did not hit him,
But suddenly that part of him that was left behind convulsed in undignified haste.
Writhed like lightning, and was gone
Into the black hole, the earth-lipped fissure in the wall-front,
At which, in the intense still noon, I stared with fascination.

And immediately I regretted it.
I thought how paltry, how vulgar, what a mean act!
I despised myself and the voices of my accursed human education.

And I thought of the albatross
And I wished he would come back, my snake.

For he seemed to me again like a king,
Like a king in exile, uncrowned in the underworld,
Now due to be crowned again.

And so, I missed my chance with one of the lords
Of life.
And I have something to expiate:
A pettiness.

Drinking and Drawing

Turnout wasn't as high as I had hoped, but everyone had a really good time. It's funny, because the group of people who ended up doing the bulk of the drawing really took ownership of the final product. I hadn't seen that happen before, but I think it's because at prior events there were so many people drawing that they only got to go once or twice.
I had a really good time and saw a lot of people I wanted to see, and finally met some people I had only met on Twitter.

My use of Twitter on this event was really interesting to me. I created a Twitter account for DrinknDrawPDX, and specifically sought out people on Twitter that I thought would be interested. Over time, DrinknDraw developed a social network that only slightly overlaps my own, and introduced me to people I wouldn't have met otherwise. And I'm still not sure that all those people know that I'm DrinknDraw and DrinknDraw is me. Funny.
So DrinknDraw developed a small social network on Twitter, and I spammed the hell out of everyone from my own Twitter account, and Facebook, and the Oregon Media Network, each of which had a slightly different result from a different but overlapping group of people.
The DrinknDraw account ended up being followed by some local art and media outlets, and had people volunteer to post press releases, as well as volunteer for the event itself.
That was pretty cool, actually- normally the process of getting volunteers for chapter events involves sending an email to a massive distribution list and then having interested people contact a coordinator who tries to coordinate them- in this instance, I called for volunteers from both Twitter accounts and within minutes I had one confirmed volunteer for each account. I love the speed and ease of tweeting those kinds of requests, and how quickly the community passed on the info. It's really cool.

At the event, someone I had never met before showed up and took the lovely photos posted here. Her name is Heather Zinger, and I think there's a wonderful artistic sensibility in her photography. And lo, she's interested in animation, so will show up to our WIA meeting.

On a different note, I think I need to set aside Don Quixote for now- it's a huge time sink, and I have some library books I'm dying to get to. It's a strange book- I spent a long time expecting a Decameron/Canterbury Tales kind of thing, and then just when I had accepted that it was going to take on the novel form, it switched over and seems to have become that. Which makes it easier to set down, actually.

loss of momentum

So, somehow over the snow days and the holidays, a kind of inertia set in and I'm struggling to get out of it.

Correction, I'm not trying that hard to struggle out of it, because I am enjoying pulling inward a bit right now.

Rest assured, soon I'll arise and attack this animation festival and get my teeth into Bobbsey and forge ahead on Women in Animation and so on. Drinking and Drawing is next week and that will probably get me going.

So, because I'm not really acting on those things right now, and I'm deep in Don Quixote (which is really long and strange), I just don't have that much to blog about.

I'm still mentally wrestling a bit with issues of creativity and connection, but I don't feel like I have anything new to share. I'd still like to chat about it with anyone who wants to. :-)

T. S. Eliot

I know, I owe you an update- I got caught up in the snowpocalypse and the holidays and whatnot, and do have a few things to catch up on. However, I've been thinking about this poem a lot lately, so here it is. Real update to follow, but in the meantime read this amazing work.

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

S'io credesse che mia risposta fosse

A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,

Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.

Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo

Non torno vivo alcun, s'i'odo il vero,

Senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo.

Let us go then, you and I, When the evening is spread out against the sky Like a patient etherized upon a table; Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets, The muttering retreats Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells: Streets that follow like a tedious argument Of insidious intent To lead you to an overwhelming question ... Oh, do not ask, "What is it?" Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes, The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes, Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening, Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains, Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys, Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap, And seeing that it was a soft October night, Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time For the yellow smoke that slides along the street, Rubbing its back upon the window-panes; There will be time, there will be time To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet; There will be time to murder and create, And time for all the works and days of hands That lift and drop a question on your plate; Time for you and time for me, And time yet for a hundred indecisions, And for a hundred visions and revisions, Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time To wonder, "Do I dare?" and, "Do I dare?" Time to turn back and descend the stair, With a bald spot in the middle of my hair-- (They will say: "How his hair is growing thin!") My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin, My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin-- (They will say: "But how his arms and legs are thin!") Do I dare Disturb the universe? In a minute there is time For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all: Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, I have measured out my life with coffee spoons; I know the voices dying with a dying fall Beneath the music from a farther room.

So how should I presume? And I have known the eyes already, known them all-- The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase, And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin, When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall, Then how should I begin To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?

And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all-- Arms that are braceleted and white and bare (But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!) Is it perfume from a dress That makes me so digress? Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.

And should I then presume?

And how should I begin?

* * * *

Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? ...

I should have been a pair of ragged claws Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

* * * *

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully! Smoothed by long fingers, Asleep ... tired ... or it malingers, Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me. Should I, after tea and cakes and ices, Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis? But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed, Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter, I am no prophet--and here�s no great matter; I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker, And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker, And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all, After the cups, the marmalade, the tea, Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me, Would it have been worth while, To have bitten off the matter with a smile, To have squeezed the universe into a ball To roll it toward some overwhelming question, To say: "I am Lazarus, come from the dead, Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all"-- If one, settling a pillow by her head,

Should say: "That is not what I meant at all;

That is not it, at all."

And would it have been worth it, after all, Would it have been worth while, After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets, After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the

floor-- And this, and so much more?-- It is impossible to say just what I mean! But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen: Would it have been worth while If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl, And turning toward the window, should say:

"That is not it at all,

That is not what I meant, at all."

* * * *

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be; Am an attendant lord, one that will do To swell a progress, start a scene or two, Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool, Deferential, glad to be of use, Politic, cautious, and meticulous; Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse; At times, indeed, almost ridiculous-- Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old ... I grow old ... I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach? I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves Combing the white hair of the waves blown back When the wind blows the water white and black. We have lingered in the chambers of the sea By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

Layoffs at Laika

I worked from home today, so I was more plugged in than I generally am, and I recently joined Facebook. So at 11:30 I saw a Twitter from a Laika employee that they had been laid off, and a little while later I saw another on Facebook, and then another, and then I got a text message... 65 people total, the news said later.

On the one hand, it is par for the course for the business. Most big studios go through rounds of layoffs periodically and then ramp up again, and people know that's how it goes. I do feel bad for those people who hoped to get in on the ground floor of a new studio, and help to shape it, share in it, who committed themselves to Laika and to Portland. And I'm sad that so many of them will leave, and our community will lose those wonderful creative experienced brains. And I'm annoyed that there are job postings on the Laika website right now.

As I've said in the past, while I didn't enjoy my job while I worked there, I really liked and respected the team they had put together. I was genuinely happy to see those people every day, and am proud to call them my friends. A lot of them have already dispersed around the globe, and now more of them will. I sincerely hope to see them again- that as my career progresses and moves forward, as I go to conferences or festivals, that I'll see those smiling faces and know that they are doing well and pursuing happiness.

Drinking and Drawing

Amazing animation

This one is pretty dark, with some wonderful camera work.

Watch Death Art Animation in Animation  |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com


And also, snow today!

End to my calendar woes?

Today on Twitter, @turoczy turned me on to Calagator, an open-source, totally awesome Portland Tech event calendar. It doesn't have all the events I'd like to see on it, but that's okay because I can add them. They're pretty flexible on how "tech" the events need to be, and I love the "export to google calendar" feature- it's pretty much just what I've been looking for.

Hopefully someday I can persuade them to make a widget for blogs, but in the meantime, head on over to Calagator and check it out.

PDX Animation Festival news

So, a few things are coming together, and I think this thing is really going to happen. Kate and I are going to try to start a local chapter of Women in Animation, and I think they'd be happy to act as the fiscal agent for the whole enterprise (assuming we make a chapter and the chapter wants to sponsor the event).

Also, a friend was talking with someone from the mayor's office at The Auteur after party (which I missed), and apparently she's interested and wants to hear from me. Sweet!

I wish we had a name for it, so I could tag these posts. I haven't talked with Marten about it, but I had been leaning toward Resolution Festival. It turns out that a bunch of New Years events in other cities are named that. It's too bad, because I think it would be a great name.

bric-a-brac

I overshot myself this week, and needed some down time to recover. I know that I can't commit to doing too much with my time, but have a hard time cutting it down when there's so much fun stuff happening.

So I got home from The Auteur premiere on Friday (it was a really fun movie- I highly recommend it. Equal parts sweet and sincere and funny- Melik was amazing!), to find my cat limping really severely. It was the third night in the week that I was out late, and I'd been hoping he would get better on his own. No such luck.

So I skipped Cyborg camp Saturday morning, although I really wanted to go, because I was tired and seeing him like that really makes me ache. But there weren't any vet appointments available Saturday anyway- I'll have to take him in the morning.

I'm mulling over a question that I've been trying to answer, talking with Adron and Fernando about what, exactly, this blog is about. Either I choose a topic for it and stick with that, or it becomes more like a journal (like this post is). I don't want to keep an online journal, because I think it's ridiculous, but when I come up with a topic, it's always something like "Things My Friends Don't Normally Talk About". As in, I have friends and colleagues and people to talk with about, say, animation, or my personal life, or technology, so I don't really need to blog about them. If I were in a book group, I probably wouldn't blog about what I'm reading (just kidding- I would, because book groups read sooooo slowly). But I don't know anyone who is into the Long Now stuff, or poetry, or... whatever else it is I ramble about on here. So when my mind is turning this stuff over, I generally end up blogging about it. I suppose, then, that it's more personal, more intimate, than I had hoped.

I imagine, because it's my first blog, that I'm still trying to find my voice, to find out what I can regularly contribute to the overwhelming mass of competing voices out there. And I imagine that will change over time, but bear with me.

Quickies: I finished Anathem and was disappointed- I felt as though the plot payoff was too small for how much time you spent with the book. I felt as though the aliens showed up and behaved in completely incomprehensible ways, just to act as a proof-of-concept for something the author was trying to explain to the reader. They never questioned the Mathic structure, even when they needed to (didn't anyone ever say, "Hey, it's a good idea to have all these young dumb kids around because they know how to get stuff done? All us hundreders can't communicate with outsiders any more", or "Hey, isn't it great to have all this technology that lets us share information quickly? Normally we'd have to wait years in order to talk to each other!") Finally, it's petty but it always annoys me when a character spends one or two pages with another, and then for the rest of the book, that person is the love of their life and they pine for them. It doesn't add emotional tension, or depth to the character- it just makes them look like an adolescent.

Quickie two: Watched Secretary yesterday. I didn't like how tremendously unhealthy their relationship was. The movie shows how her self-harming is clearly tied to her relationship with her father, and the relationship with the boss only becomes eroticized when he becomes the instrument of pain. People can have healthy S&M relationships, but this movie takes two characters driven by tremendous self-loathing and then says they're "made for each other" and puts a romantic gloss over the whole thing.

Quickie three: Robert Frost. He's cool. Behold:

...

For, dear me, why abandon a belief
Merely because it ceases to be true.
Cling to it long enough, and not a doubt
It will turn true again, for so it goes.
Most of the change we think we see in life
Is due to truths being in and out of favor.
As I sit here, and oftentimes, I wish
I could be monarch of a desert land
I could devote and dedicate forever
To the truths we keep coming back and back to.
So desert it would have to be, so walled
By mountain ranges half in summer snow,
No one would covet it or think it worth
The pains of conquering to force change on.

Depopulation and childlessness

So, I'm listening to the Phillip Longman Long Now lecture on depopulation, and it has me buzzing a bit about childlessness.

For quick clarification, I don't believe he said anything that was remotely sexist. I do, however, have some feeling about the topic as being sexist. I hear and read all these (male) experts bemoaning that population isn't at replacement levels, and the subtext is the fact that all over the world, when women are given the opportunity to choose, they choose not to have children until later in life, which necessarily means that they have fewer children if they have any. I tend to feel an accusing finger pointed my way, as though I'm not doing my womanly duties, but maybe I'm just too sensitive.

Quick note: one of the major concerns in this conversation is the tremendous cost of caring for an elderly population. But it seems to me that isn't, in fact, long term thinking. It seems to me that forty or fifty years ago, a combination of industrialization (increase in food resources and wealth) and improvements in medical care created an unnatural population explosion that has traveled all over the globe. I think that we will be dealing with the consequences of that population explosion for the next forty or fifty years. I do, however, think that time will pass, and that world population will more or less settle out, and that fewer people on the planet means less competition for resources, as well as better educated children that can operate in a highly technical, mechanized workforce that has less need for raw labor. So this lecture seemed to me to be out-of-keeping with the spirit of the other Long Now talks in that sense- it was looking at a very narrow Now.

So let's come back to the touchier question, the one that seems to lie at the heart of this debate and pose a real problem for people. That issue is reproductive choice.

So why do women, given the choice, decide to delay childbearing, to have fewer children or none at all? The answers come pretty easily- having children is financially expensive, it takes a tremendous toll on a woman physically, it has negative consequences for her career... the short answer is that before a woman wants children, she generally seems to want to have established for herself a home, a career, and a stable relationship with a partner. Getting your life in order, in that sense, takes a long time- depending on how long she wants to spend on her education or starting her career, she may be in her late twenties to late thirties before she feels ready to enter that phase of her life.

Certainly that's a change from, say, an agricultural society, where one enters the work force in adolescence, and isn't looking ahead to build a career- she has, at 18, as much chance for financial stability as she ever will. She's also as sexy as she'll ever be- if she's going to get into a long-term stable relationship, she probably already knows all the likely partners in her community, and it's reasonable for her to make her choice and commit to it. Or to get knocked up and stick with it. But clearly many of us don't live in that world- women who want to be lawyers have as much reason to delay childbearing as women living in a war zone.

Phillip Longman suggests that society needs to offer financial incentives for people to have children, which makes sense. But I also don't think it speaks to the issue he perceives as a problem, because I don't believe that it's a problem at all. I think that children should be born deliberately, to people who really want them, at a time when the parents are prepared to undertake the physical, emotional, and financial responsibility. I think that often does mean that people will have children later in life, and have fewer of them overall.

The question for people thinking about the future, then, is what does that mean? How do we develop technology that can accommodate a shrinking workforce? How do we manage the almost prohibitive cost of a college education, if it acts as a barrier to financial stability for prospective parents, and a financial disincentive to having children? How do we make sure that people accumulate enough resources during their work lives to be able to afford a long post-retirement life and extensive health care? Can we develop a plan now that accommodates not just urban growth, but urban decay as populations contract? Just something to think about...

Calendar Widget

So, the google calendar widget I had on here doesn't work any more. I'm also not sure that anyone used it except me, to keep track of what was happening when.

I'm open to suggestions for a calendar widget if anyone can think of one. I'd like it to be super easy to update, and ideally collaborative- it would be cool if other people could post events to it, or if I found a site that had calendars of all the stuff I'm interested in.

On that note, there is an adult night at OMSI next week- cocktails and science. It sounds like fun. Also, Cyborg Camp on the 6th, and The Auteur premiers on the 5th. Next week looks busy... fun!

I can't remember phone numbers any more

Just miscellany:

Finding new fun podcasts to listen to. I like picking up and dropping them periodically- see the sidebar for what I'm on right now.

I just listened to the Wasteland Speech. Really good speech, but kind of depressing. He's calling broadcasters to a higher standard of behavior, to serve the public good rather than just making money. It's a shame that such calls, however inspiring, don't seem to really affect behavior.

One of the things I kept thinking as I was discussing the Constitution during the interview above was the following poem, which I just couldn't bring myself to include there, but have to cite now:

Let America Be America Again- Langston Hughes

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean--
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home--
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."

The free?

Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay--
Except the dream that's almost dead today.

O, let America be America again--
The land that never has been yet--
And yet must be--the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME--
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose--
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath--
America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain--
All, all the stretch of these great green states--
And make America again!

Great Portland Interview Experiment

Started here, I participated with Adron Hall. I'll publish the results of my interview with Liz Grover when that's done. This has been really fun to do- great idea!

A: How goes the efforts for the animation festival?

R: Firstly, I'd like to have coffee with Steve Gehlen, because he has more experience putting such a thing together than I do, and I'll need some guidance. I really need a fiscal agent, and he's got one. Secondly, I'd like to put together a brainstorming meeting with people who are interested and see what we'd like the event to look like and what it should include. From there, Marten and I can create a tentative plan, and start working on logistics.


A: So Twitter, the speed at which news is relayed and information spread, how or do you ever feel a bit overwhelmed?

R: This is probably a bad week to ask me that question- I usually try to balance my life so that there is plenty of time for activity, but then also plenty of time for introspection/reflection. I've got a lot going on lately, and haven't had much time for mental processing, which can lead me to feel overwhelmed. I've also just crossed the line in Twitter where I follow so many people that I can't read all their tweets.

I am trying to have a relationship with information/communication where I consume it mindfully and with attention. Unlike, say, the TV, which once it's on just stays on for hours in the background, or a radio station. Video watched on-demand gets watched deliberately and with my attention. I do the same thing with social media- I only participate in a few sites, and try to do it well. And subscribe to podcasts, and then listen to them mindfully. So as I mentioned, I feel like I have all these things- books, movies, shows, podcasts, clamoring for my attention, and I don't have enough time to mindfully consume all this stuff. I feel like I should only follow enough people on Twitter as I can read and correspond with and give attention to- I don't like feeling like I'm "behind" all the time.

I think there is a tipping point- as I mentioned, I love how fast things happen on Twitter, and it is really fun for news and events. However, I'm bordering on either having to use it very differently than I have been, or trimming back the number of people I follow.


A: The value of Twitter, at least in my humble opinion, is the people that tweet & twit all day long. Have you ever thought about how the connections are made, and what draws people to follow each other on Twitter?

R: This dovetails nicely into the above question, because the issue really is the paradigm of using Twitter. I like following people who tweet real content- good blog posts or news articles, tweetups, events, knowledge. And I try to respond with thanks or commentary on that content, and not clog up the bandwidth with my own chatter.

I do think that Twitter is evolving into a whole unique thing- people tweet as themselves (rather than creating handles and the personalities that go with them). People who interact on Twitter also generally interact in real life- again, this isn't some persona that is being created, and that prevents some common online drama, where, say, "WizardKing_027" is the most powerful poster on a game forum, which has it's own private set of memes and social hierarchy, etc. If I can't make a good impression on real people, I can't make a good impression on Twitter. What's also weird is that people go around at events with their Twitter IDs on their nametags, and the two are sort of interchangeable. Anyway, Twitter for me bridges the online social experience and the real world social experience in a totally unique way, and I think everyone is still figuring out how that's going to develop over time. Very soon, the community will be overrun with spammers and scammers and people's usage habits will change accordingly, and they'll either migrate to a different thing (like Shizzow, maybe), or the technology will evolve to somehow exclude those users/that type of content. It’s still changing, we’re still changing it.


A: Steampunk Fan? What's characteristics do you like about these story themes? What do you like about the ideology?

R: The easy answer is that in Steampunk, technology is beautiful and valuable, unique, and invented by the person who uses it. Currently, technology has really streamlined visuals, is mass-produced in plastic and aluminum, and is developed by someone else- you have to learn how to use it. Victorian technology belonged to everyone (of a certain social class); anyone could get a chemistry set or a telescope and proceed to make discoveries or do experiments- it wasn't the realm of specialists. Today, knowledge belongs to specialists who study something extensively, and they are viewed as being the only people who can make meaningful contributions to the body of knowledge on that subject.

Incidentally, I do think that's changing, and it's one thing I just freakin' love about open source software, and other... let's call it the democratization of the sciences.

Also, I generally like alternate histories. It isn't always done well, but that's true of every genre of literature. :-)


A: You appear per your blog to have read the Declaration of Independence. What is your opinion of the Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights, and Constitution? Any particular thoughts that stand out?

R: I'm going to be elitist here and say that I think the Constitution is the crowning achievement of the Enlightenment. It's an absolutely amazing document, written by brilliant men, emerging from an untested, unstructured, collaborative process. I could go on and on about the tremendous challenges of inventing a system of government that is cogent enough to work logically, and yet flexible enough to evolve over time, to meet the needs of the people over the course of centuries. It’s so difficult to think long-term, and the founding fathers could have just been reactionary- could have just invented something that redressed their grievances with the monarchy, but instead they invented something that went far beyond that.

The dream of America (all men are created equally, life liberty pursuit of happiness, government of the people by the people for the people) is never, of course, the reality of America. The reality of America is, just like everyone everywhere, the wealthy have tremendous political advantages, and a small number of people have control over the actual living conditions of everyone else... but the dream of America is real and tangible and worth living and fighting for. It’s such a compelling dream that we keep dreaming it, that we keep on striving, generation after generation, to make it true, to make it true for all of us, and then to make it true not just for us, but for everyone all over the world. It keeps speaking to us, calling to us, forcing us to take action.

And, of course, it makes me sick that we have political leaders who don’t believe in this dream, who undermine it and sabotage it, or say that this is a dream that only citizens get to have, who don’t GET it, what we’re doing here, what the experiment actually is that the Constitution set in motion and then entrusted to us.


A: You wrote "I've spent a lot of my life trying to get to this moment, to reach these goals, to be sitting here. And the past year or so I've been asking myself what comes next, what's the next goal?" Have you come up with some new goals, plans, or ideas of accomplishments you'd like to achieve?

R: Actually, I haven't. And I'm getting busy with Drinking and Drawing and all the various camps and this potential animation festival... I get mentally stimulated by these things, and that stimulation is part of what I am looking for. I need a certain level of challenge in my life, and so I like to feel like I'm working toward something. But I'm not sure right now what that "something" is.


A: You also wrote "Instead, I keep finding that when I'm ready, I become the master." What are your thoughts when you reach this level; alone, accomplished, scared, brave, brash?

R: Now I'm embarrassed to read that post- it sounds really narcissistic. What I meant is that when I go out there somewhere and struggle along, I'm fearful and unsure of myself. I wish there was support or guidance, and there never is- I just have to stumble along alone, feeling my way as I go. And invariably, after the fact, people ask me how I did that or learned that. That's what I mean by "becoming the master"- now people look to me for guidance and support.

I guess what I first feel after I've accomplished something major is relief- I was bluffing along the whole time, and can't believe that it actually came true/worked out. I kept expecting someone to come along and stop me, and I'm always surprised when no one has. So I gather my breath for a while and take in the new view, and in that period there is a sense of being proud of myself. Then, of course, I get bored and set myself the next challenge.


A: So what are your ideas for a reorganization for a new superstruct?

R: Well, the superstruct was a device that the people running the game thought would be the thing that saves the world- collections of people with the same goals who bring their disparate experience to the table and work together. I suppose it's a legitimate theory- how else are we going to save the world? But I myself didn't start a superstruct, and barely participated in any. I wanted, like I always want, to bridge them together. I saw so many superstructs that were similar in goals or processes, and wanted them to connect and work together. I know that was part of the intent of the game, but I didn't see it happening much while I was playing.


A: I find you are one of the few people in the country who understands short selling, naked short selling, and even credit default swaps. Does it leave you ok with the idea of these moves in the market or do you believe they should be banned? If they are banned, how could they do so effectively? If they aren't banned, what would the reason be?

R: That's an interesting question. I think that if bankers remembered what their actual business was, then none of this would have happened. Bankers are supposed to make prudent, low risk investments, and protect their solvency at all costs. What happens, bizarrely enough, is that people look at a stock portfolio and think "I'm a millionaire!" rather than thinking "I own stocks that are worth a million dollars today, but might be valued differently tomorrow". Then, the next level of bizarre behavior, they don't start selling stocks to buy things, they start borrowing against the value of their stocks. I mean, they don't sell some stocks and buy a new car- they finance a new car against the value of the portfolio. Eventually they are sleeping in the car.

Do I think there's a legislative solution? Yes and no- firstly, there is a reason we have anti-monopoly laws designed to prevent a given company from dominating a market. People think that legislation is designed to protect the consumer from collusion and price fixing, and that's part of it. but the other reason (and the more important reason) is that in a free market economy, there is no such thing as a company that is "too big to fail". To have too much capital concentrated in too few companies means, literally, that if those companies fail, our economy fails. So, yes, we should much more stringently enforce anti-monopoly laws and encourage a business environment with a lot more real competition. Good lord, if people don't want to finance the auto companies by buying their products, we shouldn't have to finance them with taxpayer money. That's ridiculous. And there are a ton of tiny car companies out there, making alternative vehicles, that would gladly step in and sell cars in a competitive marketplace, and, given the opportunity, would probably be able to absorb a number of employees laid off by the Big 3.

As for banning credit default swaps, I don't think it's necessary. Bankers are learning that if they want insurance, they should buy insurance, not spread their bad debt around. They'll forget in another 50 or 70 years and need to be reminded, but... you know, it's like Enron (another company the government allowed to get too big, with a paper value that could evaporate overnight). If someone is out to find a sneaky loophole that allows them to rip off people, the rules and laws are convoluted enough that they will find a way. Making something illegal after the fact doesn't really solve anything, and just adds more complex legislation to an already insane business. Banning naked shortselling (which they did a few weeks ago) doesn't get rid of the people who want to make money unethically.

Events!

So, the date for Drinking and Drawing is set and I've just sent a message to everyone via everything. I'll spam it again next month when I have cool graphics and a press release. I have to admit I want it to be huge, so I'm open to suggestions of where to promote it.

In case you're wondering, the next steps are: design the fliers (Kalina will do that for me), write the announcement/press release (next week), borrow light tables (apparently Brian Larson will help with this), and then start recruiting volunteers to work the event itself. Next month I'll meet with the guys at the Someday Lounge and go over the details, and it will all be cool as long as a ton of people come and draw.

Ignite was really fun- a great crowd, great presentations, great all around. It was funny to see everyone going by their Twitter handles. Here's my favorite presentation:


Aaand tomorrow is cre8 camp- I'm really looking forward to it.

Comfortable with Uncertainty

A really good book, actually. I wish I had more time with it.

Everything in our lives has the power to wake us up or put us to sleep. Allowing it to awaken is up to us.

Marten is really serious about putting together an animation festival. I'm on board, but frankly intimidated by the idea. Help!