The Place For My Writers Notes

Original Posting 5 July 2009

I was remembering. And went digging through the files, to find this.

Happy (if a bit belated) Fourth of July! Hope you enjoyed fireworks, family, friends, and food... and probably a few things that don't start with "f"?

tink

Firewords and Revolutions
3 July 1995

[welcome, one and all...before I get down to drudgery, let me invoke a bit of the magic of words, just for fun.  I'll try to avoid grinding salt or dipping water, though... :-]

Hi.  Glad you could make it.  Why don't you sit down, and we can talk a little about this place.

[that chair?  well, okay, it's not an ordinary chair.  a little electricity, a few pixels, and a dash of imagination.  Not bad, eh?]

By the way, what do you think of the place?

Oh, no, that's okay.  I can understand that you might want to hear some of my ideas about it first.  Let's see...

I suppose I might call it a bar apres les workshop, a theater mostly absurd, a mere reflection in the midst of the cyberspatial jungle--almost any of those might be a place to start.  But they're not quite right, are they?

[back to basics?]

I guess at one level it's just a mailing list.  You send your message to WRITERS@mit.edu, it bounces around in the gears, and copies are sent to at least 450 [now over 1000!] places.  Simple.  Just like a hundred other lists.

[She could have posted to any other list, but she posted to mine...sorry, that's another story]

At another level, it's a kind of community.  Many lists form such a group, with some well-known characters pontificating on anything and everything that strikes their interest.  In some places newcomers are bashed and beaten severely if they dare to express something different from the prevailing blasts of hot air--and that is a shame, because such groups all too easily become sour and strange beds of inbred stagnation, no matter how loudly they proclaim their doctrines.

[be ye a star-bellied sneetch or be ye not?  declare yourself, so that we may smite you if you be different...]

So, what do you think about those?

Oh, sure, well, yes.  trite, but true.  So...

You're right, the list really isn't a thing or an object.  It's more like a way--kind of a path.  Today, maybe, there's a pile of animal excrement that you have to shovel out of your way, looking for anything that might be buried in the muck.  Then another day revels with displays of fine worked words and braids of great artistry and talent.  And, of course, there are all the days in the muddle, with some gems, some flames, and a great deal of chatter and patter...so you walk along, watching where you step, and enjoy the scenery, eh?

[walk this sway, my star?  and swing low croons of delight, fantasy?...]

On the Fourth of July--Independence Day in the United States--I suppose I could appeal to firewords, patriots bleeding on oaks, and such.  Take a stand on the flag, and see who salutes it?

[oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave?  over the land of the free and the home of the brave...Play BALL!]

Okay, you've been patient.  Listen, lean over here and I'll tell you the truth.
I'll just whisper it in your ear, just between you and I, okay?

Writers is...

[hey, is someone else listening?  get out of here, this is just between my buddy and me, okay?  private, you know?

sorry about that.  I hate eavesdroppers, don't you?  so, let me see...oh, yeah, writers...]

well, it's real simple.  the truth is writers is whatever you make of it.

So write soon--and write here on your list.

and you thought it was going to be a surprise, didn't you?  thought I'd have the magic hidden truth of the ages locked in my grimy little keyboard?

actually, you do.

let it out.

[O say, can you see, by your login's early light,
What so proudly we posted at our screens' last gleaming?
Those broad jokes and bright tears, thro' the cyberspatial night,
on the terminals we watch'd, were so constantly streaming?...]

Put your words where your fingers are, and I'm willing to bet we can make a revolution happen--or at least get someone to read between the lines...

Viva Writers!

The unending revolutionary party!

[you say you want a revolution,
well, you know, it all begins with you...]

open a vein--blood!
one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration--sweat!
and
something is rotten in Denmark...a tragedy--tears!

(pass the vampires, skip the deodorant, and don't spare the tissues! full text ahead!)

if we don't write together, we shall assuredly rot separately!

It's your list--write on, writer!

[Your turn!]