And so into 2008.
You know, hoppin’ john makes for a pretty damn good risotto.
Years end in narcissmatics.
Blame this bout of self-indulgence on the recent run of comment-spam, which draped itself all over a run of 2007 posts in roughly chronological order. There I was, scraping barnacles off titles I hadn’t myself read in months, so why not? —January, then: let’s go with red, blue, and tippers, with an acknowledgement that red-state–blue-state games are an accident of history that’s been enshrined as conventional wisdom while no one was paying attention. (How else does wisdom become convention?) —And let’s throw in a bonus corollary, since February was so weak.
March was all about 300, of course, but also “Black Molly.” April? Mocking the truth-eaters. In May, I remembered to get in a critical apprehension (hearkening sidelong back to something I’d brought up much earlier), but I’d also like to remind you that Republicans only win by preventing as many people from voting as possible, and they lie lie lie to do it. —And June was, um, the sixth month of the year.
In July, our grand experiment turned 231, and I set out on a prospective series whose actual subject I’ve yet to mention. (I also digressed, briefly, on the subject of the magical honky.) August? August was better than February and June, but. At least I launched a meme. In September, my own grand experiment finally found something in common with Jack Benny; otherwise, all I managed was a bit of staircase-wit.
From there on out, well: October was a bit of a drive-by; in November, I mustered up a bit of snark; December, for some reasons beyond my control, became the month of Jonah. —Not my best year, 2007. I’d like to say I was busy elsewhere, but I wasn’t, so much. (Nor has a certain decision borne much fruit.) I should, perhaps, end on a resolution, but that’s for Tuesday; the year’s not done yet.
Still: 2008 can only be—ack! Jesus. Can’t believe I almost said that out loud.
And holding; and holding.
Then again—
I always was too hopeful for my own dam’ good. (Shorter 2007: so I was wrong about the year. —I wonder if it’s the one that’s aimed at my old house?)
A sobering reminder of the scale of our enterprise.
You bumble along, writing what you write, and you feel pretty good about your meagre slice of the Islets of Bloggerhans, and then a one-off joke from a video poker forum comes along and sextuples your daily traffic in a matter of hours.
(And I don’t even get the joke…)
You never forget your first.
An offhanded comment becomes a meme, suitable for bloggers of a Certain Age: when did you make your first “Christ, what a right-wing hack” post about Instapundit?
And in the comments over at Unfogged, a meme becomes, well, any of a number of things. I keep forgetting how vociferously active that joint is. Makes me wish I hung out in comments more. —But there’s a nice thick strand of how-did-you-end-up-in-blogging there, namechecking poliblogs of days of yore (and to realize that Body and Soul and Fafblog! now belong only to yore is icily sobering) and the folks who’ve been around long enough to remember what blogs were like before they became a corner soapbox in the marketplace of political ideas mention Rebecca’s Pocket and /usr/bin/girl to general befuddlement.
Me? The first thing-that-is-a-blog I read was David Chess’s, which is usually called The Curvature of the Earth is Obliterated by Local Noise, when it isn’t called David Chess’s blog. From him I found Textism, and Oblivio, and Anonymous Juice, and Anita Rowland, and Flutterby, and other, less reputable folks, and then I went and started my own. (Before all that, I’d spent a lot of time on Plastic, wondering why I couldn’t get an account on MetaFilter. Then I discovered I did have an account on MetaFilter, which I don’t remember having set up. But the password worked. I still haven’t used it. Since I have a blog and all. And anyway, I was never very good at the whole hipshot quicklink thing. —Though the mix-tape post that MeFi arguably started, and snarkout definitely perfected, is something I wouldn’t mind doing more of.)
LiveJournal came (much) later. (And all that that entails.)
Of course, if you’re not of a Certain Age, or’d rather not reflect on it, you could always celebrate the news we can finally announce: Dicebox is being made into a movie. (There’s even a novelization!)
Not sure how that happened.
It’s not like I meant to take the month of August off or anything.
Commutation.
I drive to work these days. Didn’t used to. —When I was freelancing, I’d drive to the occasional client’s office, and there was that month or so temping at Johnstone, and the couple of weeks writing a technical manual for PetSmart, and they’re both out by the airport. Oh, and the week or so at Rio, over the river in Vancouver, laying out cards that advertised the music pre-loaded on whatever MP3 player they’ve probably stopped making by now.
But I’ve almost always otherwise been able to bus or subway or walk to work, usually. For almost five years in this house with the job I’ve had I could walk downtown some mornings, four miles, an hour and a half.
The job moved; now I drive.
And on the one hand, so what? Most people in this country drive to work. Yeah, I say. That’s right. —And now I know why most people in this country are so blackly sullen and ashily angry, and maybe even why we elected Geo. W. Bush to the presidency. (The first time, if not the second.)
There’s a luxury to going to work under someone else’s power. (Or on your own feet, but that’s a luxury of a different order.) —Twenty minutes or so yet to read, doze, listen to the iPod, people-watch, think, write, pretend to think or write while actually people-watching. Driving, I may be master of my fate and captain of my soul, but I must be paying attention, all of it, for the half-hour to forty-five minutes (to an hour, to an hour and a bloody half with the Burnside closed and a stall on I-5 northbound backing up traffic over the Marquam and the regular line of people trying to get on the Sunset snarling the 405). No dozing. No reading. No writing. Barely any thinking, because what the fuck are you trying to do would you get over and let me Jesus! —And the people-watching sucks.
At least I can hook up the iPod to the stereo. (The joys of autonomy!)
The next-to-last straight stretch of I-5 between Bridgeport Village and Wilsonville is as-yet undeveloped; the 205 is the only interchange. Otherwise it’s trees and trees and sixty-five-mile-an-hour speed-limit signs. The median’s a wide strip of dusty yellow grass (this time of year) with a low wire fence running right down the middle. —And then you hit the last straight stretch, lined with hesitant office parks and anemic car dealerships, whose hinterlands are marked by the Garlic Onion restaurant in the basement of a Holiday Inn, its iconic sign spearing up past the overpass as you come around a bend out of the trees.
This morning, running down those next-to-last two miles of tree-lined highway, I spotted a work crew in the median, laying out safety cones and orange lights and white barricades. The barricades they were leaning up against the low wire fence, and every other one had a sign on it. The signs all said NO PARKING.
Okay. Easily enough done—
I’ve mentioned it elsewhere and otherwise, but I might as well note it here, too, seeing as how and all: The “Prolegomenon” of City of Roses has been published in the Summer issue of Coyote Wild. If you haven’t read it, go, read it, if you like; if you have, well, go read it again, why not; either way, go, enjoy some beerly free speculative fiction.
A pier appears.
—courtesy of the Spouse
Footnote to a prior conversation.
Dread by its nature anticipates; therefore, “anticipatory dread” is something of a redundancy. —Apologies.
We only sing about it once in every twenty years.
Everybody’s linking up the “4th of July,” but the only X song for me today is “See How We Are.” And the best post for seeing just that today is Rick Perlstein’s.
What’s the argument? That conservatives’ tragic misunderstanding of freedom has produced exactly what Goldwater feared most: stifling the energy and talent of the individual, crushing creative differences, forcing conformity—and, yes, even leading us to despotism (and I’m not talking about habeus corpus or NSA spying). By methodically undermining the public’s will and ability to underwrite the public good, systematically accelerating economic inequality, and making turning oneself into a commodity—“selling out”—the only possible route for young people who wish a reasonably secure middle class existence, conservatives killed liberty. The canary in the coal mine is the death of young people’s “freedom to live adult lives typified by choice rather than economic compulsion.”
I think I made a decision at some point in the past few days of McCloud Madness; I think I’ll be the better for having done so, soon enough. We’ll see. —Further bulletins as events warrant.
I’m pretty sure there’s a Mountain Goats song about this. I’m equally sure it doesn’t apply.
Last night was the second night of the Spouse’s sleep study; last night was the second night in as many weeks that my plan to spread out across the whole queen-sized bed was thwarted by Beezel, frantically burrowing under the sheets, looking for the other human who just had to be here somewhere. —And this morning I once more made a full dam’ pot of coffee before remembering I was by myself and couldn’t possibly drink it all.
Chivalry, being dead—
The scene: it’s 1965. Travis McGee, that amiable skeptic, that waterfront gypsy, thinking man’s Robin Hood, killer of small fish, ruggedly sexy boat bum, that big, loose chaser of rainbows, that freelance knight in slightly tarnished armor, Travis McGee has picked up an old friend, Nora Gardino, who puts on a deep shade of wool, not exactly a wine shade, perhaps a cream sherry shade, a fur wrap, her blue-black hair glossy, her heels tall, purse in hand, mouth shaped red, her eyes sparkling with holiday for their date. He takes her out to the Mile O’Beach for steaks and cocktails in the Captain’s Room and when dinner’s over and the old-times talk is just about spent he tells her why he’s called her for the first time in a year or so to take her out to dinner: Sam Taggart, the man who left her hard and bad and stupid as hell three years before and lit out for parts unknown is coming back, and it turns out he is still carrying a torch, as big as the one she’s got in her own hands.
So Nora’s pole-axed, wheels around, drops her head between her knees. Trav motions the maitre’d over to bring some smelling salts. Out in the parking lot, she leans against a little tree and pukes up the steak. He takes her home in his electric blue Rolls Royce pickup truck to his place, his houseboat, the Busted Flush, Slip F-18, Bahia Mar, Fort Lauderdale, where he turns up the heat (it’s February, hence the fur in Florida) and makes her a mild drink and they settle down to talk about how maybe Sam let her catch him in bed with her shop assistant a month before the wedding because maybe he’s the sort of guy who’s afraid of being tied down, how a real live complete woman can be a scary thing, how even if maybe she thinks she came on too strong she has to be what she is, and how Trav heard from him and knows he’s coming back, and how he’ll set it up so she gets to see him again. And as the talk winds down again, he says,
“Don’t plan anything. Play it by ear, Nora. Don’t try to force any kind of reaction. It’s the only thing you can do.”
“I guess,” she said. She gave me a shamefaced look. “This is idiotic, but I’m absolutely ravenous.”
“Nora, honey, you know exactly where everything is, including the drawer where you’ll find an apron.”
“Eggs? Bacon? Toast?”
“All there. All for you. I’ll settle for one cold Tuborg. Bottom shelf. No glass, thanks.”
Evil is conquered and the blade’s work done.
“Then share this, as well,” said Dallben, who had been listening closely and now held out the heavy, leather-bound volume he had kept under his arm.
“The Book of Three?” Taran said, looking wonderingly and questioningly at the enchanter. “I dare not…”
“Take it, my boy,” Dallben said. “It will not blister your fingers, as once it did with an over-curious Assistant Pig-Keeper. All its pages are open to you. The Book of Three no longer foretells what is to come, only what has been. But now can be set down the words of its last page.”
The enchanter took a quill from the table, opened the book, and in it wrote with a bold, firm hand:
“And thus did an Assistant Pig-Keeper become High King of Prydain.”
The long creamy spill (and fall).
I suppose it should come as no surprise—Dad loved ’em, Mom’s folks had ’em by the shelf-load, those cheaply designed but nonetheless beautiful Fawcett Gold Medal paperbacks, each with the color and the iconic figure of a “girl” rendered variously by Divers Hands, I was reading ’em long before I could make sense of the drearily complicated business shenanigans or relate to the paternalistically didactic sexual politics, they’re bred in the dam’ bone, for all I haven’t read one in twenty years—it shouldn’t, but still, it surprises the hell out of me to find the bass line I’ve been playing in the metaphoric pop band of my style is a lifted hook; that the characteristic stink I can’t scrub away whiffs so redolently of John D. MacDonald.
Three foggy mornings and one rainy day.
It was a while ago that Chris Bertram announced he’d finally pulled down Junius, his old Bloggered blog. So it was a while ago I sighed and went and searched the pier for whatever links I’d made to Junius, way back when. —Turned out there was only the one, to a write-up on three-sided football, but a rotten link is a rotten link. I copied the old href, brought up the Wayback Machine, and thumbed through the archives for an appropriate copy of Chris’ old page, then copied that href and replaced the rotten link in my entry with the internet archived deal.
Then I checked the other links in that entry, just in case, and found that Tales of the Legion: the Origin of the Legion had also rotted away. Ditto and so forth.
It’s becoming more and more of a chore, this scraping the hull for linkrot. And though the pier’s been a mostly going concern for five years now, it’s only got (checks) about a thousand entries with, I dunno, three or four outbound links per, on average? There’s no way an actual jumping joint like Eschaton or Crooked Timber could even begin to think of keeping up. (Not that I’m keeping up myself. I just check when I’m specifically reminded of something. Like the tickle in the back of the brain that says hey, I think maybe once you linked to Junius, back in the day. Depsite the constant bloggering it suffered.)
—About the same time as Chris was pulling Junius down, John Holbo was trying to figure out how to avoid linkrot upfront, maybe by using WebCite® right off the bat? But that links to WebCite®’s archived copy from the get-go and not the cited site itself, mucking with traffic and googlejuice and whatnot, and anyway WebCite® only wants scholarly papers to use their service, and even if it’s free I hitch at people so profligate in their use of marcæ registradæ®.
(Also of idle note: the various Bad Actors, over the ages. It’ll be a cold day indeed before I ever again link to a Yahoo news article, or anyone’s AP piece, or the Washington goddamn Post, let me tell you. —Plus, yes, there’s the linkrot I’m responsible for, Bad Actor myself, having once used an old Movable Type link-numbering scheme that I can’t easily mask to the new, sane, easily replicable link-naming scheme. I still get hits on those old pages, from time to time. No clue what they pointed to, without Waybacking myself. I wince a little every time I see one in the logs.)
Anyway, here’s what I want, oh plugin developers, oh API jockeys, oh Web 3.0 entrepreneurs agleam in someone’s eye: I want something that will spider through my site on a regular basis, testing outgoing links in all my various entries. Anything that returns a 404 gets automagically plugged into the Wayback Machine, and the href of the archived version closest in time to the date of the entry in question is returned and replaced in the rotten link. Once a week a report is generated: here’s what was found and fixed, so I can go through myself and re-correct any overly zealous corrections. If needed.
Lazyweb powers activate! Thunderbleg explodes into action NOW!
