Now We Can Do Big Things For Love

Edited 20080329 to correct doff to dopp.

Life teaches us that motivations other than getting paid aren't enough to add up to serious work.

And now we have to unlearn that lesson, because it is less true with each passing year. People now have access to myriad tools that let them share writing, images, video--any form of expressive content, in fact--and use that sharing as an anchor for community and cooperation. The twentieth century, with the spread of radio and television, was the broadcast century. The normal pattern for media was that they were created by a small group of professionals and then delivered to a large group of consumers. But media, in the word's literal sense as the middle layer between people, have always been a three-part affair. People like to consume media, of course, but they also like to produce it ("Look what I made!") and they like to share it ("Look what I found!"). Because we now have media that support both making and sharing, as well as consuming, those capabilities are reappearing, after a century mainly give over to consumption. We are used to a world where little things happen for love and big things happen for money. Love motivates people to bake a cake and money motivates people to make an encyclopedia. Now, though, we can do big things for love.

Clay Shirky, from Here Comes Everybody!, Chapter 4: Publish then Filter

Thomas has been promoting this book for several days, in several ways. I read a bit and talked to him for an hour and a half or so, in the middle of the day. Then I left for my father's house, in quest of, among other things, my dopp bag (which my mother assures me is simply another way of saying 'toiletries bag').

(If you should see a red leather dopp bag, somewhat frayed, do not approach it. Call the police immediately. It is suspected in the removal of myriad whiskers and three unobjectionable beards, as well as countless travel ablutions. It is to be considered armed [razor] and extremely dangerous.)

I read the above driving to Opelika and while loitering over chili in my mother's house. It's one of the more delightful things I've read, and I wished to share it with you; because I love you.

Wm. Temple:

Worship is the submission of all our nature to God. It is the quickening of conscience by his holiness; the nourishment of mind with his truth; the purifying of imagination by his beauty; the opening of the heart to his love; the surrender of will to his purpose--and all this gathered up in adoration, the most selfless emotion of which our nature is capable and therefore the chief remedy for that self-centeredness which is our original sin and the source of all actual sin.

Anniversary

Shake hands, we shall never be friends, all's over;
I only vex you the more I try.
All's wrong that ever I've done or said,
And nought to help it in this dull head:
Shake hands, here's luck, good-bye.

But if you come to a road where danger
Or guilt or anguish or shame's to share,
Be good to the lad that loves you true
And the soul that was born to die for you,
And whistle and I'll be there.

--

'Tis five years since, `An end,' said I;
`I'll march no further, time to die.
All's lost; no worse has heaven to give.'
Worse has it given, and yet I live.

I shall not die to-day, no fear:
I shall live yet for many a year,
And see worse ills and worse again,
And die of age and not of pain.

When God would rear from earth aloof
The blue height of the hollow roof,
He sought him pillars sure and strong,
And ere he found them sought them long.

The stark steel splintered from the thrust,
The basalt mountain sprang to dust,
The blazing pier of diamond flawed
In shards of rainbow all abroad.

What found he, that the heavens stand fast?
What pillar proven firm at last
Bears up so light that world-seen span?
The heart of man, the heart of man.

--

Bitter words from a better man,
the shadeling prince A. E. Housman

The Name Game

Responses welcome, especially playtest reports.

--
Pick a name.

But first, divide into at least 2 teams and choose one person to be Paragon.

Pick a name. It could be someone famous, or infamous. Someone rich, or powerful. Someone good, or great. Someone who exemplifies a virtue. Someone you know. Maybe even someone here.

Brainstorm, then vote. If tied after a runoff, Paper, Rock, Scissors for it.

Now make up as many words as you can, using only the letters in the chosen name.

Keep track of every one's contribution by writing down the words and initialing which came from who. You might need a recorder if the group is big enough. If so, just make columns for each person's contribution, recorder.

You might add tension by having a time limit--say three minutes?--to come up with as words as you can. The paragon should act as timekeeper if you've time limits.

Don't forget to keep track of how many words each person made. Each word you made counts as a point for you.


Now create a master word list with all the words made so far.

The paragon will now arrange the words in order of likeness to the chosen name.

In teams, in secret, arrange the words in like manner, attempting to mimic the paragon's choices.

You might add tension by having a time limit--say two minutes?--or even just when the paragon is finished--to arrange the words as close to the paragon's list as possible. The paragon should act as timekeeper if you've time limits.

Compare the lists. Two items in the same order made a sequence. Every sequence a team made that matches the paragon's list counts for n-1 points, where n is the number of terms in the sequence.

Sum up team points, and declare the winning team.

Sum up individual points and team points, and declare the winning individual(s).

The winning person chooses the next name. The winning team nominates the next paragon.

--
Example of Play

[Insert example of play here when you decide to become professional, Will.]

--
Description

Team and individual game, requires one moderator.
Play for points, in ~10 minute rounds.
Setup ~5 minutes per round.

--
Summary

Pick teams, paragon. Agree on time limits.

Pick name. Make words out of that name.

Make lists. Match sequences for team points.

Record winners of the round.

Kiwi!

High points:

0. Tuba music @ .02-1.22 = Marveloso!

1. Physics @ .31 = Yay for pulleys and friction.

2. ? @ .58 = Where does the hammer come from, again?

3. He has aviator goggles @ 2.05-2.10 = The goggles, they do nothing.

4. Wings @ 2.05-2.28? = The glory of futility.

5. Tears of joy @ 2.19

Goodnight, kiwi.

Lent 1 Saturday

The cock crowed again, and several of the Irishmen cried, 'Mac na h'Oighe slan.'

'What do the say?' asked Jack, tuning to Stephen.

‘Hail to the Virgin's Son,' said Stephen. ‘We say that in Ireland, when we hear the first cockcrow of the day, so that if we meet a sudden death before the day is out , we may also meet with grace.

(O'Brian, Patrick. The Fortune of War, Chapter Nine.)


I have loved the Aubrey-Maturin seafaring novels of Patrick O'Brian since our first acquiantance, which must have been these couple or three years now. I love the superstition above. If I might quibble regarding the self interested, ungenerous theology, the object of the hail at least is dear.

Crown Him the virgin's Son
The God incarnate born
Whose arm those crimson trophies won
Which now His brow adorn

As well, I have great affection for Crowm Him With Many Crowns, the hymn by Bridges, and later, Thring. I hadn't the foggiest notion before googling "Hail to the Virgin's Son" that one of the stanzas of the old hymn referenced the Mother of God, the Christbearer.

I do wonder what the crimson trophies are that his arm won,--is suffering a crown?

Crown Him the Son of God
Before the worlds began
And ye who tread where He hath trod
Crown Him the Son of man
Who every grief hath known
That wrings the human breast
And takes and bears them for His own
That all in Him may rest

The appeal to Jesus' dominion, to the coming of his kingdom, I rarely have heard so directly expressed. Perhaps I do not attend well. Like most hymns, I take more from reading it than singing it.

The "son of man." How absurdly evocative.

Best,

The Edge of the Pit

We are born, and we suffer until we go;
We live till we die, and that's all we know,
Neither what the purpose nor whose the game
To make us, break us, with pain and shame.
We are brought to a board where there's all we wish---
But the cook's gone mad and has fouled each dish;
We can plan and make; we can think and do---
But the prize is a husk, worm-eaten, too;
Our minds are a marvel, as all agree,
And our bodies as well, but the two don't gee,
So they live in a permanent tug of war,
To each the other a scab and a bore;
And we have two sexes, fashioned to mate
In the flesh so well, but their spirits hate,
So the joy of a body is no part
Of the soul's delight and dies in the heart
Of a gangrenous blight. Yet we plant the seed
For the force of our lust and callously breed
A brood to inherit our rotten lot
And to scorn and hate us, as why should they not
When we act the lunatic Judas goat
For the miserable get on whom we dote;
Though they are as silly and warped as we,
As doomed to despair and futility,
As bound to be robbed of whatever they crave,
As lucky in finally finding a grave.
But we blather to them what was blithered to us
And babble our praise of the barbarous,
So that they in turn can swindle their kith
With a pitiful, sniveling, coward's myth
Of the wisdom and plan behind it all;
"Sing praise and let the hosannas fall!"
Is the constant bellow of dupe to dupe,
The idiot maundering of the group,
All bleating their fables in coined belief---
But leave an adult to his knowledge and grief.

And so another quarter is past, and I must post. It is a law I find, that the more distraught I am the less diction I command, and yet--

The above is an excerpt from John Myers Myers excellent _Silverlock_. If you are unfamiliar, by all means, go read the book. Save catastrophe I'll wait until you're back.

Good. Now you know that although the above is marvelously pithy, it is by no means the common tone of the novel; in the words of the immortal Wm. Goldman, there is "Fencing. Fighting. Torture. Poison. True love. Hate. Revenge. Giants. Hunters. Bad men. Good men. Beautifulest ladies. Snakes. Spiders. Beasts of all natures and descriptions. Pain. Death. Brave men. Coward men. Strongest men. Chases. Escapes. Lies. Truths. Passion. Miracles." Although in truth there are rather more strongest men in the world in _The Princess Bride_, and rather more ennui, despair, selfishness, transformation, and the recovery of hope and promise in _Silverlock_. Also far more poetry. Some day I'll post on the excellence of the "Death Lay of Bowie Gizzardsbane," and track down all the allusions of "The River Runs South."

What occasions my theft of words is the last month having the longest succession of depressions of my life. I shall write as if explaining, though I do not intend that this should ever be seen by any but me: I have occasional weakness emotionally whereby if I become down, I can not get up to face the day(s), usually two or three. In this last month, I didn't report to my job or worship God for three weeks. I made it up enough not to soil myself and to eat every two or three days, but I could find no drive.

Edited 2008 Apr 16 Wednesday to note that this set of depressions lasted longer than any other in my life; if measure made sense in oblivion, I'd say it was worse than any other period of my life. That I've risen since Easter I can exemplify thus: a friend and I ate lunch today, and he didn't understand why I was so severely afflicted--I had explained some of my triggers to him previously, and so he suggested that I might hate myself due to latent pedophilia or homosexuality. I then laughed that off, which is my example of grace--thank God, I do not struggle in those ways; if I did, would I have the strength to write this? Would I still write at all? And my friend's point was not gaucherie or cruelty: there is hope enough for us all. Even for me. Even those who conflate sex and children, or who unlearn manhood and become as women, to men; or unlearn womanhood and become as men, to women.