So, I'm once again in the situation where a diary entry here documents
the day before. (This one documents Saturday night and Sunday.) That
happens because my software and policy say "only one entry per day",
so if it gets after midnight, an entry shows up the next day and I can't
write a new one for twenty-four hours. There are other possible
inconveniences, too. So this whole entry, one might things, should
be dated "May 27", and
the entry for May 27 should be dated
"May 26", etc.
But this entry is still being posted on May 28, just after midnight.
So that's where the naming thing comes in.
I had a remarkable dream Saturday night in which I was back living in Freeborn
and I had to leave a party somewhere else because I was supposed to go to a
concert back in Freeborn.
Supposedly I was going to sing in a chorus and they were going to perform a
classical piece I knew very well. I wasn't afraid and I didn't feel that
I had to rehearse because I knew it so well -- I thought the situation was
kind of like when I'd gone to that performance of the Messiah
where the audience was invited to join in. For some reason, I'd believed
that it was very informal.
As I went on my way, I saw posters put up on walls with my picture
and advertising that I was going to be a star of this upcoming concert,
and also that the piece of music was a different one by the same composer.
I felt worried.
Reaching the (somehow extremely large) lounge upstairs in Freeborn, I saw
all kinds of people gathered around, and no chorus, and a few instrumentalists.
I looked at a program and saw that I was supposed to be a soloist in a
piece that I had never even heard before. At this point, I got very upset,
because I remembered that I'd agreed to sing in this informal chorus
and all of a sudden these people were saying that I was this great baritone
giving this highly professional, highly formal performance which they
would even advertise on posters!
So I asked somebody in the audience "Hey, what's going on?" and she said
"Look, the members of that religious cult are putting on this performance,
and they insist that everyone should feel happy with everything. So
when you came to that first meeting -- don't you remember?". But I
didn't remember. So she reminded me (and ask she spoke I started to
remember it) how I had arrived and then I'd heard that the piece was a
different one and that they wanted soloists, and I'd said "No thanks"
and gotten up to leave. And at that point all of the members of the cult
who had been at the first meeting were very upset that I was unhappy with
their plans, and they said "Unhappiness is evil" or "Unhappiness is a sin"
or something, and I said "Look, I just don't want to be in your performance
because I don't know that piece and I'm not really an expert singer" and
they said "But bad things happen to people who are unhappy, they are
judged and punished" and I said that I disagreed.
And before I could leave, the people started to say things like "God,
show this person what happens when people are unhappy", and then I
couldn't remember anything after that but apparently a lightning bolt
had smashed through the window and hit me right in my intestines,
and I ended up in a hospital and there had been a newspaper article
about "Student hit by freak lightning strike" and I had become
mildly famous for this. Despite which, I hadn't remembered any of it
until the audience member told me, and I had thought that I was
still going to be a casual performer, while the cult had assumed that
I was going to be a star in a different piece, and had begun putting
up posters and sending out announcements about "Seth Schoen,
baritone" or something.
So as I remembered this, I became quite unhappy, and I started to say,
somewhat loudly, that I had to talk to an organizer of the concert
(in order to say that I couldn't do that solo). No organizer wanted
to talk to me, so I walked over to the pianist, who was trying to
concentrate on playing her music, and said "Hi, I need to talk to
somebody", and she said "About what?" and I started to tell the
story.
She said "You need to talk to that women over there!" and shrugged in
the direction of somebody.
So I found that woman and, as I started to talk to her, I looked out
into the audience and saw that about half of them were wearing huge
crosses which identified them as members of this cult (even though
the cult wasn't actually Christian, I think they liked the cultural
power or acceptance they could get by claiming to be an offshoot of
Christianity). I told her that I had remembered what happened and
that I didn't know this piece and couldn't perform it.
She said "You sound unhappy, and God send bad things to punish those
who are unhappy. Don't you know that? Do you want the people here
to see what God will do to unhappy people?".
At this, I stood up in the center of the stage and gave a speech to
the whole audience. This was a wonderful speech, and which I wish
I could quote. It ran something like
Members of the audience! Perhaps you have heard about the accident
which I suffered at the rehearsal for this concert, when lightning
struck me. And now some of you say that this is punishment for
having been unhappy with the concert program, and that if I persist
in my unhappiness, God will send another punishment like that
against me. I'm here to say that I am unhappy with what has happened
and with the efforts of these concert promoters to force me to
sing this piece for you, a piece I don't know and which I've never
practiced. I am unhappy. But I'm not afraid. I don't think that
God disapproves of my unhappiness, or that he's getting ready with
a lightning bolt to strike me for disapproving.
I don't think God wants me to be in pain. I don't think God wants
me to suspend my judgment. I love my body -- which God gave
me! I love my reason -- which God gave me! And I
can't understand why God gave me those things if not to use them
as my judgment sees best. For that reason, I am not afraid to
say that I have chosen not to perform this piece. I will perform
something else instead and God will see how he approves it.
Whereupon the cult members seemed to begin to pray for more
lightning bolts to strike me (and I was a little bit
afraid), but none did. I rode up and down
the escalators (yeah, that's right, somehow there were even
escalators inside a little upstairs lounge in Freeborn!)
and I improvised my own piece, and the musicians accompanied
me, and the audience loved it.
The author's second book, Superdistribution: Objects as Property on
the Electronic Frontier (Addison Wesley 1996) bought this observation
into focus by pointing out that historical frontiers were typically
tamed by displacing property-averse, communitarian, indigenous tribes
(such as the American Indians and the Open Source movement) by
property-conscious, capitalistic newcomers. Although the displacement
of primitive economic systems is devastating to those displaced, the
advanced economic order that follows is ultimately far more productive
and capable than the primitive economic system that preceded it.
(Brad Cox, mybank.dom)
Gee, I know I always like to promote my business plans by comparing
them to genocide...
Today I remembered a cartoon that my Greek class in high school drew for
our Greek teacher when she and my Latin teacher were in a car accident
in 1997. It showed three men, who were represented as stick figures. They
were identified with captions: ho Achilleus, ho Ioannes, and ho Dikaiopolis.
The things they carried were a sword, a bottle of water, and a plow;
these were captioned "to ksiphos", "to hudor", and "to aratron", and
all three were smiling, except for Achilles, whose frown was captioned
"he menis". John also had a halo over his head, which I think was not
captioned. This cartoon is probably the funniest thing I have ever
helped draw, except it's not very funny if you haven't studied ancient
Greek.
There was a big "Carnaval" parade on 24th Street all morning, which
was strange because it wasn't actually Carnaval.
Sunday was the birthday of the Golden Gate Bridge. In honor of that
fact, Zack and I went out to the bridge and walked across to Marin
County and back. Some observations:
- It's very long. (30 minutes to walk across!)
- It's a very impressive accomplishment. (If you look straight up,
you can see how big it really is, which is difficult to appreciate from far
away.)
- It's very beautiful.
- It's very cold and windy. (We wore warm clothes.)
- It's very scary (thinking about earthquakes, looking down through
the cracks at the ocean below).
- It's very orange, even the wastebaskets and fire extinguishers
and telephones and toilets and plaques and everything.
- It's pretty foggy, even up close, but not as much as Pacific
Heights at night.
- A lot of people visit, some from very far away, but few seem
to know that the birthday of the bridge is May 27. (There is a
plaque which mentions this, but you have to walk all the way out to the
middle of the bridge to read it.)
- They allow pedestrians and bikes, unlike the Bay Bridge.
(There are some people
who would like other bridges to follow this example.)
(It was the bridge's 64th birthday. It's looking well, still a healthy
international orange glow...)
After we walked across, I felt kind of sick. I was exposed to something
recently, but it's not really clear to me whether I caught it or
whether I was just feeling funny for some other reason. I'll keep
paying attention and try to figure out whether I'm really sick.
Notwithstanding the possibility that I might not really be
sick, I walked most of the way home instead of taking a bus or
a cab. (Yeah, other people take a cab if they feel sick, and
walk if they feel OK. I take a cab if I feel OK, and walk if I
feel sick. This is to avoid any possible motion sickness effects
or general anxiety from being in a vehicle when I don't feel
well. It worked well; I walked from somewhere out on
Lombard -- west of Van Ness -- to the Civic Center BART
station, and actually felt much better from the fresh air and
exercise. At least, that's how it seems at the moment.)
Zack made a lot of progress on the new LNX-BBC project web site.
I got a Mouser Electronics
catalogue in the mail.
My arms felt messed up again.
