psychodelicate girl (these pieces are broken)

[freckles_and_doubt]

OK, this is officially ridiculous. Lunch with the visiting-from-exile starmadeshadow yesterday, which was lovely, except that in our post-luncheon wander around the bookshop I managed to somehow slip or turn my ankle on the (dead level, non-slippery, unboobytrapped) floor and wipe out spectacularly, describing a graceful 90^o forward arc to measure my length on the floor. I have a sprained left ankle, bizarrely bruised right toe and extremely battered knees, as well as a random assortment of other bruises at odd spots all over my front elevation, and am hobbling like a Pratchett crone. I feel very silly. I've also lost count of the number of times I've done this sort of thing; I'm not sure if it's a good or bad thing that I seem to be evenly distributing the nadgered limbs (in order over the last fifteen years, left knee dislocation, left elbow break, right foot sprain, right wrist sprain, coccyx bruise, epic butt bruise, and now right knee bruising and left foot sprain. I'm seeing a pattern here. Still missing: right elbow, left wrist and, for a final encore, presumably the neck. I may have to put the whole thing to a catchy banjo backing and sing it).

I have no idea why I suddenly slip on a dead level floor: my current theory is an invisible iron bar, à la Wizard of Oz. Also, what's with the (generally very sweet) impulse of people to dash over and help you up the instant you hit the ground? I was in enough pain and shock that all I could do was lie there for a couple of minutes until my vision cleared and I was capable of coherent thought, but I was vaguely conscious that my gasps and vague mumblings were causing concern in the stratosphere directly above the circle of feet.

Good news from wolverine_nun: the small pneumatic child is doing a lot better, and the doctor is talking about releasing her from hospital early in the week. In a not unrelated effect, my washing line has suddenly become inutterably cute lately, and rather given over to uncharacteristic pink:



The whole helping-w-n-out-with-laundry thing would have been a lot more effective if it hadn't decided to rain buckets overnight.

In the Department of Random Linkery: Henry Jenkins, my favourite media guru, reproduces an anonymous student's thoughts on Anonymous. It's an interesting historical outline, suggesting that Anonymous wised up very fast about direct and illegal threats or attacks on scientology, and are morphing rapidly into a media awareness gadfly rather than a bunch of destructive hackers.

Last Night I Dreamed: as an unhappy child in a boarding school somewhere (presumably this comes from reading Libba Bray for two days) I climbed out the window, pursued by a cabal of nasty bullies, and went for a fly. Drifting around in the upper atmosphere I was pleased to see that the young African prince, also an unhappy school inmate, was out in his flying Cadillac: we presumably escaped together.

Comments

[strawberryfrog.livejournal.com]

re anonymous: Proof again that if there ever was a distinction between "online" and "real life", it's gone now.

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

Yup, the spillover of virtual into actual, and the rather fun literal embodiment of 'net memes, is amusing me no end. Memo to self, must add few comments on Anonymous to my internet lectures...

[strawberryfrog.livejournal.com]

It goes both ways; this conversation could be regarded as "spillover of actual into virtual".

Anyway I don't see what's not actual about it, it's actual communication, using actual electricity, as much as a telephone call.

[egadfly.livejournal.com]

Zackly.

I think calling online activity "virtual" is just historical bias. For generations we saw words printed on paper but what makes them more real than words on a screen?

The same goes for even the most basic media like voice or touch. Clearly a person could exist, and still be fundamentally who they are, if they lost the ability to vocalise or hear or feel. These senses may be integral to our bodies but they're add-ons to our selves. Books, letters, mobile phones, or a global network of computers - these are add-ons too, each one giving us a richer range of opportunities to connect our selves to other selves, with all the wonderfulness and ghastliness that comes with that. It's the connecting itself that is essential to us as social animals, not any particular mode of doing it.

We'd be significantly different without the ability to speak, but we'd be significantly different without the ability to organise online campaigns, too. A few months ago extemporanea posted about how students who aren't aware of online culture are impoverished, and that resonated for me. It's a bit like not having a sense of smell, because you didn't realise you had a nose.

Perhaps a more helpful definition of "virtual" would be the extent to which we pretend when we communicate. The internet makes pretending easier, but we forget how much pretence features in more traditional forms of communication. Is Shakespeare on a stage any less virtual than World of Warcraft? That'd make pretty much every way we connect a blend of real and virtual.

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

aargh. Both of you are going "they're the same!" when I think you possibly mean "they're equally real, powerful and important." I agree with the latter, but not with the former. I don't think you can collapse online communication and real-world, in-the-flesh communication into a category where they're the same, because they aren't: they're equally real, powerful and important, but they work differently as a result of the way in which their power resides in either the flesh or the whizzing around of electrons. For me, "virtual" as a label means "not connected to bodily reality". The problem with labels such as "real" or "actual" to describe communication connected to bodily reality is that both terms have abstract as well as literal implications, and the abstract ones certainly apply to online communication. But I would have thought it would have been fairly clear from context that I mean the distinction between "actual" and "virtual" to apply to their different constructions rather than their abstract implications. You guys just like to nit-pick :>.

[egadfly.livejournal.com]

Nitpicking can be fun, but it's not what I'm up to; I think there's an interesting point here. You and strawberryfrog have got me thinking, and now I'm exploring my ideas by bouncing them back to you.

Clearly online communication isn't identical to face-to-face, but apart from the media involved (with their different communication capabilities), I don't see a categorical difference. Computers are connected to bodily reality - we type with our fingers and read with our eyes. Computers, and all their data, exist in the physical world. That data may need to be interpreted (by computers and by our imaginations) before it is useful, but other sensory data is electrically and chemically manipulated and interpreted in our bodies too.

We habitually speak about a "real" and a "virtual" world and I think that's an interesting model, but not a very sound one. If you hold to that distintion, where would you locate paper letters and telephone calls in it, and why?

the way in which their power resides

Surely the power of both online and offline communication resides ultimately in our imaginations? To the extent that we imagine they're different, perhaps they are, but when you look at what actually constitutes the communication, how is the real/unreal categorisation justified?

The problem with the words "real" and "virtual" is that they imply "real" and "virtual" when all I can see them referring to is "offline" and "online" (or maybe "analogue" and "digital", though there are problems with that too). I think it's a case of inaccurate labelling.

[strawberryfrog.livejournal.com]

Is Shakespeare on a stage any less virtual than World of Warcraft?

Heh. I've seen music videos and other acted fiction done in WoW. Google "wow machinima", or look at this.

The internet is for pr0n!

[egadfly.livejournal.com]

Delightful :D (I haven't actually seen Avenue Q, in part due to a general aversion to musicals - though if I were to start it'd probably be there.)

Re: The internet is for pr0n!

[strawberryfrog.livejournal.com]

Oh, Avenue Q is worth seeing. You don't need to like musicals, just haver a sense of humour.

[(Anonymous)]

Sorry to hear about your tumble, but you're not alone. You probably read about Ken's fall on Friday...but I haven't yet posted about twisting my own ankle yesterday (and not the same ankle I sprained in January!).

As a result, it will be a quiet birthday here, which is just fine. :-)

Hugs,
Dayle/Rhieinwen

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

I did read about Ken's fall on Friday, and now that you remind me of it, I think "Comrade!" I am both sorry to hear that you have also succumbed to the ankle-twisting meme, and slightly relieved that it's apparently a cosmic conjunction rather than excessive klutziness on my part.

happy birthday! and enjoy the quietness. It's a not insignificant pleasure.

[bronchitikat.livejournal.com]

Sorry to hear about your tumble. Get well soon. May be time to give up the David Bowie look alike platform shoes? ;)

Glad to hear the small offspring is recovering too. That wasing line - what is it about small clothes? You do realise there are oodleplexes of oodleplexes of knitting patterns for small people? Some of them really well designed, & suitable for your climate. Ok, maybe not the buckets of rain, but the rest. For when you have the time & students are few & far between, or maybe for when you're laid up recovering from tumbles?

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

Hey! I'll have you know you're addressing a lady who, for powerful ideological reasons, is firmly committed to flat shoes at all times. David Bowie fixations notwithstanding, I don't wear heels, or anything that lifts me more than a centimetre or so above the floor. My feet, apparently, simply hallucinate that I do from time to time.

I still also remain firm in my intention not to knit for anyone but me. That way lies pressure, madness, broken promises and guilt. I'll revisit the policy in about five years when I can actually knit, as opposed to the embryonic dabbling which is really the only legitimate label for my current activities.

[bronchitikat.livejournal.com]

*Apologises*

I don't do heels, or soles, in any form either. Partly cos I can manage to fall off flat sandals, but mainly cos, at 6', I'm plenty tall enough already. Though when my son & nephews get together I begin to feel a tad on the short side - they're all around 6'2-4"!

Good plan with the knitting, btw. Though hope you manage beginner to ninja in fewer than five years!