God damn, Pubski. It's not even Wednesday for those of us on the West Coast. I feel filled with resentment these past couple of days. It could be this nasty cold/flu bullshit that's kept me out of just about everything this past week, or whatever week throat/gland issues are going on and having a lot of anxiety about getting imaging done to check it out, but I'm kind of angry. Resentful. I don't really enjoy music much anymore. Used to a lot. But there are a lot of things I've done and said that have taken the enjoyment away from me. A lot of things others have done and said that have assisted with taking that away from me. Living in a place where the scene is actually really lame and self-indulgent, and not wanting to go to Seattle every other week to catch a show, makes it hard to give a shit. And I miss giving a shit, just a little bit. Just enough to think about it too much. Feeling resentful expands past just this, I think, but that's the only part of it I really feel like sharing. Reclaiming Conversation is also making me freak-the-fuck-out about the way we interact with each other and hoooooooly shit does it make me even more aggravated at the way people try and make plans with each other. I'm getting better with calling people, trying to see them face-to-face. But it's a constant, uphill, sisyphean struggle when nobody else gives a shit about the way they interact with another human being.
I just summoned Reclaiming Conversation from library. Sounds like it should be required reading for everyone. Ironically I'm writing this in an online forum. But, Lil, it's Hubski- the haunted house of all your hopeful homies. I have to leave and go to another city and look people in the eye. But I'll check back into the pub later. I hope you kill that cold.
Yes, and you love bfx and hate to see him sinking into negativity. Yes, I know, but bfx is full of resentment and congestion today, and isn't finding joy in music.
Turkle doesn't have a whole lot of truck with places like Hubski. Life on the Screen, the 2nd in the trilogy, is all about identity play and how important it is to discovering self. Her primary beef is with the short-term, context-free missives one gets from places like Facebook, MySpace etc. Lil - you have the patience and the insight to enjoy the books in their publication order. The Second Self was written in '84 and revised in 2013. It largely deals with "huh. Computers are something new on this earth and we react to them differently." Life on the Screen is basically "we have created a new way to interact with each other and it is not like the way we have always interacted." Alone Together is basically "this new technology we created is a poor substitute for what we used to have but because of how it's designed, we use it as if it's just as good" while Reclaiming Conversation is basically "so the end is here, there's nothing we can do about it, except there sort of is, try this." EDIT: It occurs to me that you teach comp sci people to communicate for a living, meaning Turkle is someone you should be able to quote to me, not the other way 'round. She's basically made a career at MIT studying the basis for your career. She was one of the people behind Kismet, for example:
It occurs to me that you teach comp sci people to communicate for a living, meaning Turkle is someone you should be able to quote to me, not the other way 'round.
While perhaps I should be able to quote Turkle to you, I'm glad that, for now, it's the other way around. Thank you for the summary. I'm NYT Book Review familiar with the books, but haven't read them. I imagine there's a TED talk somewhere I should watch.
Thanks for your comment, lil. I think you'll enjoy that book quite a bit, Hubski avoids a lot of the issues brought up in it. Feeling a bit better spiritually and physically today. Funny that I make that initial comment and then get invited to a concert that's this weekend.