Autumn's metaphysical burlesque

Back in the early 1960s, Ma Bell had an informal employee jug band made up of (mostly) ladies from the (all manual) billing department. They didn't have anywhere to go during their lunch breaks, so one of them who happened to have a ukulele asked if the others wanted to play. One had a ukulele from her grandmother that she didn't know how to play, and another couple bought them, and then someone made a washtub bass, and pretty soon there were 10 of them jamming on the patio every day at lunch. They called themselves The Gut-Tub Banjo Ukulele Band.

They got to be pretty good, practicing every day like that. Eventually, when the company would throw parties for them when they did really well at work, they'd get booked to play. Ma Bell built them a small stage, and they'd play parties and coffee breaks. My Aunt Joann played the washboard. Many of them sang.

As the years went by, enough people transferred to different departments that they gave it up for a while. But then, people started to retire, and they had a lot of free time. That first woman with the ukulele called them up and asked it maybe they wanted to get together every couple of months and play. And so they did. And then, a friend asked to join, and then somebody's husband, and someone else's cousin. They got to be more than 20 people, alternating houses every other month to spend one day eating and talking and laughing and singing and playing songs on their strange and improvised instruments.

Most of them are in their 70s now. They have arthritis, and can't hold the frets on the banjo-ukulele so well anymore. My aunt has died, as have several others; still others are too sick to go. Those that do go don't sing so well anymore. But still, they stay connected, see each other and talk and laugh and keep up the energy of The Gut-Tub Banjo Ukulele Band.

A friend/co-worker and I went out to lunch today. We were talking about some of the cool things about our workplace culture, particularly how it is not sexist. Since we work in an operations department for a software company, that quality isn't necessarily a given.

One thing she pointed out that hadn't even really crossed my mind was that the new dev ops woman we just hired was introduced in an email with her name and picture, and mentioned that her hobbies are decorating and cooking - and that no one asked if she could code. Because, well, duh - that's what she was hired for. If she couldn't code, we wouldn't have hired her for that job.

This reminded me of another new hire email, a recent male hire for the support team who mentioned that his hobbies also include decorating and cooking - not hobbies a man could admit to in every workplace.

This is what diversity and professionalism is supposed to be like, and it's awesome. I hope more companies will join us.

If you have been following the debate over the Stop Online Piracy Act SOPA, you'll know that this proposed legislation would break the internet by allowing censorship of anything even vaguely kinda sorta resembling copyrighted material. It's extremely important for anyone who cares about art or technology or culture to oppose this.

I have been unimpressed with GoDaddy as a company for some time now, due to their sexist advertising and general douchebaggery. I didn't think it would happen, but they have reached a new low: they support SOPA.

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/godaddys_sopa_support_sparks_calls_for_boycotts_an.php

If you own domains that are registered with GoDaddy, I strongly urge you to move them. I have been meaning to move my domains for a while, and this just provided the kick in the pants necessary to overcome my laziness on the matter.

There are a number of domain registrars who hate SOPA and are excited to take GoDaddy's customers. The following Reddit thread contains information on other registrars who are offering discounts and promotions to GoDaddy customers who wish to move:

http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/nmnie/godaddy_supports_sopa_im_transferring_51_domains/

Edit: Win! Looks like they dropped their support for SOPA: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/12/victory-boycott-forces-godaddy-to-drop-its-support-for-sopa.ars

Let's make it clear, though - a sudden reversal of opinion when presented with angry customers is not enough. GoDaddy actually participated in writing SOPA. A single press release does not makes this OK.

I got this in email today, regarding my last post:

On behalf of the SFMTA Board of Directors, thank you for taking the time to write. Please know that this item is not proceeding at this time.

Thanks again,

Roberta Boomer
Secretary, SFMTA Board of Directors

***

Awesome.

People are dressing up at work tomorrow, and management has specifically asked my team to so they don't feel alone in their costumes. What should I wear?

I could wear the costume I just made, but I really don't want to explain 'self-transforming machine elf' to people at work. I could call it "being from another dimension." I dunno, it feels like it might be a little too weird for work.

Another choice is to go as a calavera, a Mexican Dia de los Muertos skeleton person. If I did that, I guess I'd just wear a big floofy dress and a skull mask, and maybe my pink Burning Man skeleton hat. Is that a cop out?

The real cop out costumes are gypsy or witch. Which is to say, normal clothes, though things I probably wouldn't wear to the office normally. Is "gypsy" an offensive costume now?

Bah. I am going to start making the three of us very good pirate costumes. Everyone needs a pirate costume, and it's simple and good to wear to work. Next year, piracy! This year... I dunno.

Advice welcome.

Edit: Because I know you're all dying to know, I went as a calavera. The machine elf costume is really amazingly awesome, but it just felt like opening too much of myself to work. I'm pretty open about who I am in general, but it felt ... vulnerable. I suppose it's worth considering why.

Well, that was brief. Google+ was totally perfect... except for the bullshit "real name" campaign that left out the marginalized and blocked identity experimentation. Fuck that. Shabby and broken as it is, I guess this is home again. I hate feeling dispossessed. Anyways, if you're just adding me from Google+, please comment. I enjoyed meeting lots of cool people there, I hope we can stay friends in venues without such asinine problems.

Edit: If you're interested, there is a pretty good discussion about this on G+. I am genuinely sad to see it go, because I had a lot of good discussions there. Sigh. "Ignominious uselessness" indeed. https://plus.google.com/103312810027078945406?tab=h#103312810027078945406/posts/Dc9MtB3Wc84

I posted this to Facebook, and it bears repeating here.

I am really disgusted by people who would normally find it unacceptable to dismiss rape charges without trial but who suddenly think that's ok because it's their hero who stands accused. This article says it better than I can:

http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2010/12/07/julian_assange_rape_accuser_smeared/index.html

One thing that gets me is that people seem to see this as either exactly true OR politically motivated. It's entirely possible that it's both.

Here's a possible scenario: girl has a fucked up sexual encounter with Assange where she asks him to stop and he doesn't. She believes in his mission, fundraises for him. Even after this encounter, she still believes in what he's doing - but feels conflicted, violated. She stays quiet. Things heat up, and she is approached by others who ask her about the situation. Maybe they tell her they have ties to those who hate WL, maybe they don't. They show her the endless praise for Assange from certain segments, and it makes her sick. They convince her that her violation is more important than staying quiet.

Did it happen like that? No idea. I don't know either of them. But I have seen that situation happen before on a less international scale, and it's totally plausible. It really bothers me that people are so ready to dismiss this out of hand because the timing is convenient for certain world powers.

Whether or not the accusation is politically motivated has NO bearing on whether or not it's true. Anita Hill didn't say anything about having been harassed by Justice Thomas until his confirmation hearings, and I don't think that makes her testimony any less credible either.

The real question here is whether Assange and his accuser can get a fair trial at this point, and if so, where. It would deeply upset me if a politically-motivated false accusation were the means by which Assange was removed from the world stage, just as it would upset me if a true accusation were dismissed without fair trial either because of perceived heroism or because of suspicion of a setup.

http://ma-vie-en-rose7.livejournal.com/36748.html

...that's what she said. And she was totally right.

We went to see The Social Network tonight. At the start of the film, Zuckerberg logs into LJ to blog. My first reaction was to turn to Fox and Sierra and say, "wait, I don't think LJ had that interface yet!" The scene was dated mid-2003, and he was using the blue-and-white interface.

...yes, I'm from the internet.

Anyone happen to know when LJ moved from the old blue-orange-purple-white layout to the blue-and-white one? Did my nerd powers catch a historical inaccuracy, or am I wrong?

On another note, I must offer a bit of native Palo Alto pride that the disposable coffee cup on the law firm table towards the end of the film is from my favorite cafe, Coupa Cafe. It was a nice touch. If you're ever in the area, go there.

I recommend the film, too. As Sierra said, it's rare that we see a movie for which we are so completely in the target market. It's very strange to see a film on the big screen about people who are only a couple of degrees of separation away.

It's no surprise that the film was very well directed. The film was incredibly well cast. The back and forth time shifts between present and past were well executed. The score and use of sound was good too. Story-wise, I suspect it was perhaps a bit generous to Zuckerberg's character, but not enough to make it fail to ring true. On the whole, I suspect a number of things were glossed over, but not to the point of untruth. On the whole, a solid film.

It was really nice to see a piece of my personal cultural history on screen, and I hope it does well at the box office.

Edit: Mystery solved, by Sierra with the Wayback Machine. It seems as though the change was sometime in August or September 2003, making the movie scene accurate.

Last night, I was contacted during a dream by these sort of soul-priests. They told me that in order for a soul to be redeemed when passing between this life and the next, they must be offered unconditional compassion by a living person. They asked if the three of us would be willing to participate to redeem someone for them. We said yes.

We were in my car driving around Portland, OR when we turned down a street we had been down before. Instead of the normal end of the street, we came to a dead end with an old brick warehouse that had become a temple. Several people were standing out front as though waiting for us. They wore long robes with rope belts, like monks. They asked if we were ready. We parked the car and got out, and went into the temple.

Inside the temple, we stood waiting in turn to offer this gift of compassion. We were in a sort of church, standing on the altar facing the sacristy rather than where the congregation would be. There was a sort of balcony running around the edge of the altar. We stood before it, and in front of us by several yards was an enormous fish tank. When a person crossed into the world of the dead, we briefly saw their ghostly outline before they became one of a number of different kinds of goldfish.

The priest prepared a concoction to drink. By drinking this, he said, we would be offering redemption to one soul. We were being called upon to offer complete unconditional love to this soul, and through that it would be cleansed and ready for a new life.

Fox went first, and drank from the cup the priest offered. Then it was my turn. The drink was a sort of thick and frothy hot cappuccino, hot and bittersweet, full of grounds. It was hard to drink all of it, and the metaphysical sensation was indescribable. Tears rolled down my face, and do now as I vividly recall this to write it down so I won't forget.

When my turn was over, I waited with Fox while Sierra drank, and then we stayed silently sitting in chairs near the altar thinking about what we had done.

I asked the priests how this worked. They said they drew on random people they knew had enough love in them to do this. Like jury duty, they would call us up in dreams to offer the redemption that could only be granted by a living soul. Groups of us would flow through this place and others like it, each in turn cleansing one soul before it could move on. They said they called it Friday Gifts.

It is likely that, having done this once, we will be called again.

*****

I remember holding onto threads from this dream hoping to fix it in my (poor) memory. My alarm went off before it could slip away, and I immediately got the computer to write this down.

In the Christian religion, it is belief in Jesus that cleanses a soul for the next world. In other religions, it is usually judgment and punishment that redeems, or occasionally the unconditional compassion of a god. Not sure what to think about this, but I kind of like the idea that redemption might be granted by a single living person. If nothing else, what a blessing to live in a world of redeemers!

I'm still not very awake, and lost in ideas from this dream. So many spiritual practices seem to be about cleansing the soul, church as weekly soul-bath or something. Lots of the occult practices I am familiar with involve cleansing. Many are staunchly anti-materialist and view the physical world as inherently unclean. I'm not sure what I think about this, and I suspect I'll be thinking about it a lot for a while.