+73

“Fix the Web?” – Emdub

We’re ‘fixing the web’ at work. Finally. It’s great. Everyone will be so pleased.

And I’m not saying more than that, because the zeroth rule of Pottery Bloggers’ Club is, “Don’t lose your job because of Pottery Bloggers’ Club.” Yeah, I know — that jumps ahead of Rule 1: “You Don’t Talk About P.B.C.” and Rule 2: “We Make You Wade Through Hot Garbage To Get Go The Good Stuff”, and all the rest of them. But I like few things as much as starting a pattern (like, say, a counting system) and then breaking it (like, say, missing six). And retconning a Step 0 or Phase 0 into an existing ordered list is pretty much the ultimate in pattern breaking. I mean, it’s such a jerk move; “Yes, yes, my good people: I fully submit to this hierarchy you’ve created, and I applaud you for your skill and good judgement in prioritizing all these items. You’ve done some great work here. But I just need to add one little thing at the top. (Ahem… which will, of course, ripple down and change everything after it.) OK?”

5’jg

[Sorry. That extra “5’jg” was Pixel’s contribution to this writing effort. It’s like she’s three months old again, sitting on my lap while insistently sticking her fingers in my mouth; except that now she’s using them to randomly tap on the iPad keyboard, as payback for me not giving her my undivided attention. Guess it’s time for a writing break.]

Siracusa & Mann would call adding a Phase 0 at the very end of the process “popping the stack” — jumping up or over several levels to get at a problem from a more privileged place in a system. Sort of like ignoring the chain of command and going right to the Big Boss; or deciding that instead of finally repainting that wall in the dining room, you’re gonna go get the sledge and take the whole thing down to the studs instead.

Popping The Stack. Sounds so sophisticated. Good band name; if we ever reform the band. {Sigh. Yeah, that’s never gonna happen.}

Anyways, so yeah. ‘Fix the web’. Sounds so easy when you say it like that.

And speaking of people talking about things they don’t actually understand — and veering back to the topic of The Muse — it’s occurred to me that a temporary incarnation of a thing is not the thing itself. Like Plato’s cave or psychological projection or emotional transference or whatever, a thing is not its reflection. An idea is not its execution. A moment in time is not forever.

A temporary incarnation of a thing is not the thing itself. A temporary incarnation of a thing is not the thing itself. Repeat that a few more times, if you wish. I sure did.

But still; that said: even an incarnation of The OA is an order of magnitude more intense, or emotionally engaging, or, dare I say again, incandescent, than stubborn old reality. The mere shadow of a deity is way more noteworthy than the complete absence of one. Deus Absconditus. So even if what I’m seeing lately is just a shadow on the wall, a simulation of the Platonic ideal, a Matrix-style reality that I should be glad to be freed from… it’s still one hell of an appealing shadow.

“And the clouds are like headlines, on a new front page sky. Shiver me timbers, I’m a-sailin’ away.”