da Scriffles

According to Project Gutenberg, the works of Edgar Allan Poe are not copyrighted in the country of his birth the United States of America.
So you can download the works of Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) for free.

This is the creator of the detective genre - he wrote detective mysteries before Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote Sherlock Holmes before Agatha Christie put pen to paper.
His work contributed to the development of the sci-fi genre.
Alas, he was not beloved by his generation or generations to come, as Dr Spock or Captain Kirk creator Gene Roddenberry.

The grim view of life in the works of this Gothic writer didn't fit with the ethos of his time:
"Poe, too, showed an alternative to the optimism and complacency and materialism of his age, a dream of beauty and primal unity which always contained the probability of terror and darkness. Few people at the time heeded him, but since his death, and particularly in the twentieth century, his voice has been widely heard and recognised, like the meaningful shape from the past so beloved of Gothic writers." _ John S Whitley, School of English and American Studies, University of Sussex (Introduction to Tales of Mystery and the Imagination)

The reason I'm sharing this with you is because I read it and thought it interesting and relevant - feel free to disagree on any points.

When I read his stories I'm struck by his keen eye for human failings - they are after all as much a part of our nature as our virtues. But I understand why his work offended polite society.
I'm all for a polite society but I'd like to believe that it's possible to be polite, honest and forthright.
As long as we champion our right to freedom of speech, we should allow people to disagree.

Sadly the big stick that's used to curb our right to an opinion is the right to exercise freedom of association - or not, to be more precise.
Basically, if I disagree I'll unfollow you. Polite society does ostracization quite well normally.
And it seems the online community is hell bent on tailoring personal realities to fit narrow perspectives in an effort to maintain maximum stability and minimize discomfort and maximize sales.

If it's so comfy and warm online, is offline reality too much for people to bear?
This mental disconnect may be causing the problems developing in our "real shared reality" where the society is no longer so polite.
So this great online questing for connection between mind, body and spirit and such may all be for nought in the end.
What if it creates "impatience", "rudeness", "bullying" and downright "mean-spiritedness" - maybe even "murder".
Where does the greatest benefit to humanity lie? To lie or not to lie - online or offline? And people think Hamlet is confusing.

Someone said to me last week: "People used to provide good service without talking about it and now all they seem to do is talk about it but they fail to provide good service."
That's the problem!
I adore the sharing aspect of social media but it's only really good when its genuine - you recognize the "spark" when it's there even if its centuries old, even if it's thrown together in a pique of inspiration by a no one-in-particular, an individual with something to share for the sake of it.

Poe opens his short story The Man of the Crowd with a quote: "This great evil, not to be able to be alone."
The protagonist in this short story follows a man through the city who is always in a crowd - he's lost, always lost even in a crowd.
It could be the first ever description of a social media fiend. People want to be individuals but they NEED to be part of the crowd.

I use the word fiend for humour.
Real fiends relish fiend-dom so I doubt they'd be offended. I don't really want to hurt anyone's feelings.
But I know doctors and researchers are concerned about the effect this addiction or obsession is having on the development of the brain in young people - this need to be connected to multiple platforms, this need to be stimulated all the time.
Apparently, boys are boys until at least the age of 24 and often never grow up - so where this leaves them is anyone's guess. ;)

I've started wondering about something else. I've started wondering about the need to be influential - the need to have power over other people's opinions without actually contributing anything to the conversation apart from RT. Most anyone is capable of communication but there's the great fear of "having nothing to contribute" or "saying the wrong thing" or "being vulnerable".

Fiends often go on and on about the power of social media and how great it is for freedom of expression and sharing - but in the next breath they lay down the rules by Tweeting out lists about social media #failure.
For example they scorn someone who claims to be published when they are only self-published.
So to be cool you need to have a publishing deal with the "old media".
Edgar Allan Poe was paid only $9 for the work which made him a household name, The Raven.
He self-published a lot of work as the editor of various publications.

So-called "writers" think that they will be able to make money from writing online - it's an interesting concept since writers and artists have always struggled to make a living off their craft - perhaps social media will change this eventually. I don't count self-help books.
They are not cultural heritage - most of them describe a process, or someone else's philosophies from a personal perspective.
Do they add value to cultural identity? Do they contribute to the development of new ideas? Are romance novels cultural heritage? (I'm expressing an opinion - it's just MY opinion and I'd be interested in your opinion)

I'm probably wrong here because I haven't done any research but the writers making money online are well-established names, people who write great copy (as in advertorial), marketing & PR types, or they sell self-help advice - published by a publishing house or self-published.
I'm sure there are probably a few savvy writers making money. Perhaps Australian crime writer Gabriel Lord who is currently enthralling young readers with her series Conspiracy 365.
She's got teacher-librarians on her side. Now there's power!

The Asia Pacific Triennial closed on the Easter weekend at Queensland's Gallery of Modern Art = GoMA.

Yes, it's my second visit I've blogged about it here once before.

But this time I'm just using one of the artworks the PixCell-Deer by Japanese artist Kohei Nawa to illustrate a cautionary tale for you - beware Spellcheck!

For some reason Nawa's covered a real stuffed deer with plastic or glass bubbles.
Why? Why would he? Because he's an artist. Because he can. My apologies for the Photoshopped artwork - the original looks more like the one below.
I don't know. We'd need to ask him. There's beauty and then there's - Spellcheck!

Imagine you sent out thousands of emails this afternoon to your clients and instead of sending just one email per customer your new program sent out 13 emails to some 40 customers - blood boiling on both sides of the internet.

So you need to "apologize for the inconvenience" of 13 copies of the same email in your in-box.

But then someone emails back "apologize for your incontinence"? "We apologize for your incontinence".

Might as well be looking at a deer blowing bubbles.

Another Spellcheck victim. My friend may never use the word "inconvenience" in an email again.

She never uses the word "solemnize" in emails any more for the same reason. Now every time this marriage celebrant even thinks about writing "solemnize" she writes "legally married" instead to sneak past Spellcheck without disturbing the dear.
Do you know how Spellcheck spells "solemnize"?

What goes with Gommorah?
MY DEER me! Hee-hee. It's kinda beautiful in a horrific way don't you think?

 

Define your fear.

Is it frightening because it's extraordinary?

Too... too .... too ...

There are things to fear besides petty feelings of being belittled by something extraordinary.

Does it crush you like a empty can?

Why are you empty?

Spit it out.

Ah, so it makes you want more?

Be more, or want more?

Take what's not yours and cripple your soul.

Yes go on and own it cripple!

Run with the devil at your heels.

Own or be owned.

Love what you fear.

 

★★★★★

A perfect pikelet. It's just flour, water and salt. No sugar.

It's the consistency of the mix that makes it perfect or not.

I caught the end of a documentary on Walt Whitman just now and this is the end of it actually.

The last stanza of this poem - it had me in tears. The things he's sensitive too are nothing like what people of today are sensitive about.

But more than being able to notice these things, he was able to express them in words.

He bequeathed his anthology (35 years of work) to anyone who would have it apparently.

Unbelievable! It's one very long poem. Dare you to read it through: Here

Page 43...

 

The first buzzard sat on the pony's head. Jody plunged into the circle like a cat.

The black brotherhood arose in a cloud, but the big one on the pony's head was too late.

As it hopped along to take off, Jody caught its wing tip and pulled it down.

It was nearly as big as he was. The free wing crashed into his face with the force of a club, but he hung on.

The claws fastened on his leg and the wing elbows battered his head on either side. Jody groped blindly with his free hand. His fingers found the neck of the struggling bird.

The red eyes looked into his face, clam and fearless and fierce; the naked head turned from side to side. Jody brought up his knee and fell on the great bird. He held the neck to the ground with one hand while his other found a piece of sharp white quartz. 

The red fearless eyes still looked at him, impersonal and unafraid and detached. He struck again and again, until the buzzard was dead.

 

Phenomenal book!

 

When does a puppy know whether its bum is over the pee mat before it drops its doo-doo or takes a piss? When it has good judgement? When you holler louder? When you throw it into the winter night? When you break it's neck?

I found the word "cripple" falling from my lips when explaining to a child what a buggy was doing driving down the middle of the airport corridor.

"It transports cripples and old people" - I blurted as we hurtled towards the Gate 19 - still under my own steam at this point thank-you very much, not riding the buggy yet.

I expected to be pulled up for being politically incorrect but I was wrong.

"What's crippled?" - was the child's response.

Well, there you go! - a little voice in my head exclaimed - Social engineering actually works.

The word "cripple" makes people cringe - it's so poignant and emotionally charged.

Well, not to this generation of little people. All those years of struggle to weed the word out of the vocabulary has actually worked.

And yes, the Oxford Dictionary says the term is no long acceptable as a noun referring to a person. 

Disabled person is usually used instead. 

I remember schoolyard bullies and jokers taunting kids with the word "cripple".

I'm betting the existence of golliwogs that this kind of behaviour still goes on today.

Has the extermination of "cripple" really changed society's perceptions? 

A leopard doesn't change its spots and human beings aren't born gracious.

Can social engineering actually change the human race - not just the vocabulary?

Well, shortly after (as we wait for the plane) the kids are stretching their lips tight across their faces and laughing.

Offensive behaviour - racist behaviour - they were making fun of the shape of African people's lips.

A UNICEF poster featuring two African children was pasted on a bin - the poster was about poverty, the kids were on about appearances.

Social engineering can't breed out comparativism - the human race learns about itself and the world by comparing itself to everything.

(( And yes comparativism is a word - as is *antidisestablishmentarianism*. 

I learned this word from the kids who explained that their friend found it in an advanced dictionary. ))

Civilization governs us with laws - it tries to cripple the basest qualities of human nature.

Reminds me of There Will Be Blood - starring Daniel Day-Lewis.

 

But you have to believe in something beyond the law when it comes to walking the walk : character is revealed in what we do when no one's watching.

Spirituality requires us to over-ride instinct it seems - and apparently people today apparently are hungry for spirituality. I'm not so sure about that either.

The Chambers Dictionary of Etymology dates the "noun" back to about 1200 as "crupel... related to cryppan to crook, bend.

It became a verb "to lame or disable" in 1694.

So it took us 810 years to decide that the word cripple causes hurt, discrimination and alienation - not people.

Interesting. Don't you think? 

On Twitter I heard that there are more than 23 million mobile phones being used in Australia. How marvelous! We are so advanced.

That's 23 million in a country of 20 million people - the population figure includes babies, toddlers, and some Depression Era oldies who throw their hands up in horror at the thought of a mobile phone.

Blame the Gen Ys and the Baby Boomers - because LORD KNOWS no one counts the forgotten Gen Xers now.

Knit one, pearl one, drop one ... 

Has anyone noticed how these days you only ever hear about Gen Y and Baby Boomers?

Where exactly did Gen X go?

The Baby Boomers have reaped their rewards, had their good times, continue their good times while Gen Y whoop it up, spend it up while living at home, pushing up inflation, pushing up interest rates.

Meanwhile: Eyesight deteriorates, hair falls out, teeth yellow, spine curls - hey presto! There we are!

Some of us just drifted into Bunnings for a House & Garden outing and never emerged.

 

The duplicitous nature of physics becomes terrifyingly apparent when applied to mobile phones, weight gain and aging.

Incident report:

        5pm on a bus somewhere in Brisbane a snotty-nosed Gen Y talks into her phone.

"Hi-i! Hey, I forgot to feed the goldfish this morning. Can you feed it? Great. See ya."

I do not kid you. ETA less than 20 minutes and she calls someone at home to feed her goldfish.

You know, I may be happy to fade out of this picture.

Though some of us do insist on bright red lipstick, dyed dark short cuts with yellow streaks, dangly earrings, gaudy specs and very expensive shirts and shoes - proof of life, apparently.

Never say die when you can spend $300 on hair - not to mention perfume to reek so genteel people faint around you.

Never say die when you can buy a fast car and trade in the old ball-and-chain for a new, younger ball-and-chain - proof of life.

And when a conversation is struck? But oh, such a rare pleasure!

Hold a smile.  Appear interested. And listen.

Listen to each other's minds clicking over calculations: of age (as judged by the condition of teeth); of gaul (as judged by the twinkle of smugness in a young or self-deceived eye).

There it is. Your number's up and it's not Bingo!

There is of course an alternative: ignore each other entirely using the fade in, fade out reality edit. All this energy expended on mental warps.

 

Based on the law of energy conservation (basic physics), energy is never destroyed it is only converted into another state - converted into what in this case? 

I'm always suspicious of people who lose weight because there's a few kilos lurking around looking for a place to settle.

If you know someone who has lost weight redouble your vigilance - it's cheaper than any other aging=fading defiance.

People always think you're younger if you're agile in mind and body.

But seriously, the proliferation of mobile phones is actually much more terrifying than weight gain or aging. The more phones there are, the less actual communication happens.

I'm waiting for Apple to issue the iPhone T5 - the first phone which dispenses with the voice function. Text only. Ticketyboo.

Why can't I have a phone that can sort Optus out with a barrage of constant texts when there's a problem likely to suck up half a day of precious life force? MM-mm?!!

VanityFinance.com (2013 headline)  ::   Telecom-Apple dwarfs US economy 

• Killer Shop App tops the pop chart: It knows what you like and it has your credit card.

DOLLY COVER HEADLINE (2013)  ::   How to break up with your phone.

Your phone calls you: "I found the most darling pair of shoes! And they only cost $500!" 

You: "Tell me you didn't!"

Phone: "I did!"

You: "If you don't stop spending then I'll trade you in..."

NEW SCIENTIST HEADLINE (2013)  ::  Phone calls God. 

 Ticketyboo. 

 

WordPress is not a magic lamp

Have you set up your organic server (your brain) to parse English? Then this post may pass mustard - I mean muster ;)

I am going to assign a few values by creating a series of expressions - by jingo in English!

Control structures and syntax of the English language are many and useful also.

It seems like the WP Codex (manual) is full of parallel lines that branch off and it's not clear when they merge to form a complete picture! You say syntax and I say grammar.

No curly syntax here.  // *N.B. Curly Syntax involves curly brackets { }* //

"Me Golem. You Mister."

OMG! Shared meaning.  

Pause. Deep breathe. Ok. 

The only "loop" that a lost, weary traveler finds in a desperate search for points of reference in WP Codex is a continuous retracing of steps over and over and over the same pages to spot the double entendre - the meaning hidden in code on the page.

A simple and direct introductory statement would be nice. There's a few missing statements, a few values that aren't properly assigned.

Ima gonna give ya some examples:

Number 1. You call it "The Loop" and you talk about "The Index" but I can't find where you say that this super power called "The Loop" is in "The Index". Ah, my precious!

Number 2. Nothing works unless to tell it what to do in the "Functions" file. So this was made clear at a Brisbane WordPress Meet-Up this week. Ho-ho-ho! Merry Christmas!

I'm in the Codex creche.

So finally I gave up on copying and pasting code and getting by on a little of the lingo.

How hard can PHP be?

Well, after repeating the manual chapters out loud several times pieces fall into place.

I just want to know the difference between single and double quotes and why on this planet do the tags work sometimes but not always.

Patience my pretty.

Put on your galoshes. Head through the forest, down into the wolf's lair, push the rock aside at the back of the dark tunnel and ... wait for a response from your forum question. Another day passes.

Hitler does live on - as a server. I've been shot down so many times that I feel like Sebastian. 

You know that meaning doesn't exist unless it's assigned a value - so much for objectivity.