“You see, I keep thinking that what we need is a new language. Some kind of language between people that is a new kind of poetry… and I think that in order to create that language, you’re going to have to learn how you can go through a looking glass into another kind of perception, where you have that sense of being united to all things… and suddenly you understand everything.”
Charges dropped!
4 February: the below is wrong. The charges haven’t officially been dropped. MSNBC, screw you for the misinformation. Everyone else, I’m sorry for spreading it further.
Here, watch this. Turner’s apologized to citizenry; they’re in negotiations as to $1M that they’re purportedly wishing to pay out (nice of them to cover costs and a little more), and the charges against Sean and Peter have been dropped. “Now,” the news anchor said (I’m paraphrasing), “all that’s left is for Boston to apologize to its citizenry for overreacting.”
I especially love the way the anchor talks about Philadelphia, where 56 of these things have been delighting audiences for “two weeks.” Ever so slight hint at “I can’t believe this is even a news story.”
Yay!!
Update on Sean and Peter.
They’re released on bail. The judge reportedly (I didn’t get there until the arraignment was just over) seemed to think the whole thing is ridiculous. There’s a whole bunch of media coverage, so I’ll let y’all google, but I can’t resist one link. Best. press conference. EVER.
(I mean, really, this wasn’t about the young men not taking things seriously. It’s about the pushy bunch of media assholes who don’t seem to be able to accept “we can’t talk about this case” for an answer.)
We wait until March 7th to know what happens next. I hope someone Turner-related steps up in their defense, but am not exactly holding my breath.
Device update: I was wrong.
They’re not AA batteries, they’re D batteries. And there’s a photosensitivity sensor, too. And it might not be possible to actually see through the circuit boards.
This information brought to you by eBay.
Artists arrested in Boston for LED “bomb” scare.
Did you hear about the Boston “bomb” scare?
Here’s a CNN article that tells about it. BBC has reported on it, too. Lots of coverage.
They were art pieces advertising Aqua Teen Hunger Force. They were put up by a member of the Glitch Crew video art collective, who was contracted to do so by Turner Broadcasting. Some people thought they were bombs; bomb squads went berserk.
A good friend of mine, also a member of Glitch, was helping Peter put them up. He’s in jail too, with a $100,000 bail on his head. Arraignment is tomorrow morning, and I hope they’ll just be let go.
They got arrested after Turner owned up. As far as I know, Turner is letting them spend the night in jail. Which, as far as I’m concerned, may be easier but is… a bit assinine on the part of one of the richest media companies in the U.S.
I’ll post again after I know what happens at the arraignment. Meanwhile, here’s a link to a Grand Text Auto post that mentions other instances in which artists have gotten in trouble because we’re now scared of EVERYTHING.
Edited to add: no, wait. I’m taking issue with some stuff in the CNN article. (I’m sure other news sources are no better, by the way, just picking up on their wording.)
Peter Berdovsky, 27, a freelance video artist from Arlington, Massachusetts, was facing charges of placing a hoax device in a way that results in panic, as well as one count of disorderly conduct, said Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley. The charge is a felony, she said.
According to his Web site, Berdovsky is a graduate of the Massachusetts College of Art and a founding member of a video artists group called Glitch who goes by the nickname “Zebbler” and sings in a band called “Superfiction.”
Authorities believe Berdovsky was “in the employ of other individuals” as part of the marketing campaign, Coakley said. “How exactly this was executed, we are still investigating.” Berdovsky is scheduled for arraignment at 9 a.m. Thursday in Charlestown District Court.
“In the employ of other individuals”? YES, YOU DIPSHITS, HE WAS IN THE EMPLOY OF TURNER. And also, stop calling them “suspicious packages.” They’re not packages. They’re CIRCUIT BOARDS WITH LIGHTS AND THREE AA BATTERIES IN THEM. If you hold them up, you can see through the holes in them. Nothing was ever hidden from view in them. So stop fucking scaremongering now that you know what they are.
Gah. News media.
Edited again: Oh, good. Now CNN has updated the article to include “Sean Stevens, 28” in the two-name list of the people arrested. Now I don’t feel quite as weird about talking about Sean by name.
Also, ha! NOBODY IS SAFE. CNN again: “Turner Broadcasting said the devices had been in place for two to three weeks in Boston; New York; Los Angeles, California; Chicago, Illinois; Atlanta, Georgia; Seattle, Washington; Portland, Oregon; Austin, Texas; San Francisco, California; and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.”
Excerpted tidbit.
Just because I feel like sharing. It’s a big ol’ world, and we’re not.
Internet usage worldwide varies more or less in direct proportion to national per capita income. According to the Google Gapminder World project (last accessed 28 January 2007, currently in beta), internet users per 1000 people are as low as 0.78 (Tajikistan). India and China, the two most populous countries, hover near the middle of the GNP/GNI range but count only 32 and 73 internet users per 1000 inhabitants, respectively.
(me, yesterday, in chapter draft)
Edited to add: the “children born per woman (fertility rate)” chart makes it pretty evident that the rapidly approaching overpopulation bogeyman is just that. Replacement rate (for a stable population numbers-wise) is 2.1. India may be above that, but China and a hefty portion of the rest of the world are below. Not only that, but since 1975 (use the nifty animation feature!) worldwide fertility rates have been on the decline.
In addition, the most rapidly growing populations (top left region of the chart) tend to be dark-blue, which means Africa, which means horrid infant mortality rate. (The mortality rate is another one of the charts available.)
Anxiety and timing(s).
Three months left to finish the dissertation, get comments on it, fix the dissertation as per comments, and defend it. The urge to panic is great.
Support, though, is abundant – and I’m grateful for it. From all sides: family, friends, colleagues, relative strangers.
It’s not that I don’t think I can do it. I can… I think. It’ll help to have comments from my thesis readers (who will hopefully get two chapters and all of the interface from me Wednesday or Thursday), so that at least I’ll know more or less what they’re thinking. Part of me is worried that they’ll be disgruntled, because I’ve veered away from (and so haven’t addressed) some things that were suggested at my prelims. But another part of me knows that this is par for the course: dissertations change direction, and this isn’t even that radical a change. It’s “just” a shift in emphasis. But there’re three months left, so – panic.
Anxiety, more like. I’m told (and also know) that it won’t go away, so it helps to let it flow through me instead of dwelling on it and making it whirlpool somewhere near my solar plexus. Sometimes the flowing works, sometimes it doesn’t, but it’s nice to have some agency over it.
This topic is overwhelming. It’s so poorly explored; there’s so much to do. Most importantly, it’s so interdisciplinary, and I feel like the ultimate dilettante. That’s a-ok with me, but what about the rest of the world? You know, potential employers and such?
One of RolandHT‘s early premises was that acquiring knowledge can be done in two ways. You can take in (read, listen to, whatever) large chunks of information, one by one, each of them in its entirety, and analyze each as a whole and in context of the others you’ve taken in so far. Like learning literature by reading novel after novel. Or, you can dabble here and there, follow thematic threads that interest you, and slowly build up a more or less cohesive picture of the world, or a world. The Roland project is the latter; it acquaints you with the archetype(s) by letting you jump around centuries and media and locations. I do this because I think that this is how we learn almost everything we know: building up a worldview by observation, by living and paying attention.
That works very well inside my head; finding words to make it coherent is another thing. Words are coming, slowly but surely. It’ll get there.
The best dissertation is a done dissertation. Yes.
RolandHT, and ask the internets.
I’ve put up the latest version of RolandHT. It can only be viewed with (freely available) Mozilla/Firefox, or another XSLT-aware browser. I don’t know of any besides Firefox, so if you do, please let me know the browser and the operating system(s) on which you’ve used it.
The site definitely needs a help section, and some more intuitive navigation. For now, a few usage notes:
– The links up top don’t do anything yet.
– Pick an excerpt from the list on the left. Mouseover themes/characters/imagery that show up over the sword, and see what happens. Then click on a theme or character or image, and see what happens now.
– Click on the red “reset” at top right to return to initial state.
– For three other nifty features, find the excerpt named “Missionary Work.” Click on the “i” beside the name of the work; click on the quill in the second stanza; mouseover any underlined word.
– Check out also the excerpt, near the very bottom, titled “Battle Near Saragossa.” Click on the image.
– If something seems aesthetically or functionally wrong, it would be lovely if you emailed me to let me know.
– This is a work in progress. If you see the word “check” where you expect information, I’m working on it.
In other news, a couple of questions for the internet. The first, in two parts, is Roland-related – I’d like to know more about two geographical locations. One is Terra Major:
“Could one achieve that Rollant’s life was lost,
Charle’s right arm were from his body torn;
Though there remained his marvellous great host,
He’ld not again assemble in such force;
Terra Major would languish in repose.”
Is TM a region? Is it in Europe? If not, what is it (another name for Charlemagne’s Holy Roman Empire?)?
The other place is a bit more mysterious, partly because it’s in Middle English:
Roulond rod furthe—he wold not rest, I wene—
he sawe wher a Sairsin seche hym wold,
kinge was of Criklond, croun[y]d with gold.
What, pray tell, is Criklond?
And finally, a non-Roland-related query: what’s your favorite slow-cooker recipe? Things I’m trying to stay away from: large chunks of boiled onions (I’ve disliked them since forever), and really heavy dishes like mac and cheese. Meat is great, veggies are great, seafood that’s sturdy enough to survive a slow cooker is great, wacky but tasty ingredients totally get bonus points. Non-desserts is what I’m after.
Rewards, or maybe CRACK.
My beloved bought Guitar Hero II. Note the time stamp on this post. And I’m not even into video games much.
It is crack. Also, it’s hell on my left arm, all the way from the forearm to the shoulder.
But oh, the sweet sweet reward for having gotten work done. Dissertation, we have a PLAN.
Practical writing advice sought.
The kind of information I’m looking for, there’s a lot of it on the internets. But somehow it carries more weight when it comes from people I know personally, even if only through the blogosphere.
Say, hypothetically, you’re writing a dissertation (a book, any kind of long writing project). You were all set to dive into work, but life’s been uncooperative, and now that you can think straight again you’re dealing with fear, anxiety and vague waves of unattached guilt. How do you get from there to producing stuff of a quality at least good enough to propel you along?
Strategies I’m familiar with: freewriting, timed and non-; reward systems (I get to play videogames/have some ice cream/take a 15-minute walk for every X amount of work done); timed work schedules (must write 10-noon and not one minute more, every day); buddy systems; changing work venue every once in a while.
Freewriting works to a point, if I don’t let little things slow me down. Rewards work on a very limited scale. Timed work schedule works when I can stick to it and don’t have internet access. Buddy systems… well, they’re nice in theory but in practice there’s nobody I can do this with. Online venues like PhinisheD don’t really work for me either. Changing work venue actually works most of the time. But, although it helps deal with wanting to hide under the covers, it doesn’t help with the fear or anxiety. Or guilt.
So: aside from the above, what do you do?
