Xark!

On writing, and other forms of bullshit

Once upon a time, maybe as recently as 2006, I loved writing. I'd always hoped to earn my living by putting words together, and to be a professional writer and editor, in a community of professional writers and editors, thrilled me. Sometimes it thrilled me several times a week.

For instance, in 2000 I helped launch an anonymous newspaper column called Good Morning Lowcountry, which ran half a page, seven days a week, in The (Charleston) Post and Courier. GMLc was the work of no single writer in its early years, so several of us shared the duties, churning through local topics and mild obsessions and odd bits of Lowcountry trivia like a pack of raccoons rooting through trailer park garbage cans. Every now and then we'd even pause between deadlines to talk about the experience and its process, prompting me once to write a GMLc with the self-absorbed subhead "This Writing Life," in which I attempted to share the good-humored, arty, third-person-objective camaraderie of it all.

Now, of course, I just wish everyone would shut up and get on with it.

There is no more thoroughly boring topic than writing, and if you doubt this, listen to a public radio interviewer ask a Famous Author to talk about his or her process, or even worse, his or her deeper thoughts on language or storytelling..

New Charleston

Defensive ornamentation, East Bay Street, Charleston (Dan Conover photo)

Because Charleston was founded in the 17th century at the southern tip of a north-south peninsula, power and class here have always run on something of a north-south axis. So in the 1970s, when the area around the navy base incorporated as North Charleston, the name spoke as much about the new city's blue-collar identity as it did about its relative location.

Well, I think it's time we imposed a new axis on Charleston. Not North and South, but Old and New. 

Charleston, for all its considerable charms, remains a backward-looking city. Not "backwards," as in unsophisticated or unintelligent, but more enamored of its past than its present. So while the city officially recognizes the value of its "creative cluster," its "tech sector" and its "knowledge-based industries," Charleston's institutions, typically dominated by the same old families and traditions, remain wary -- if not openly hostile -- toward new ideas and new people.

Since that anti-outsider bias tends to limit opportunity, Charleston has developed a reputation as a place where who you know is more important than what you know. It's why so many talented people here seem to direct their energies toward celebrity instead of substance.

Once upon a time I wanted to change that. Now I believe we should let eccentric, odd Old Charleston be whatever it wants to be. I thank Old Charleston for preserving this beautiful city, and aren't we stronger when we value and preserve indigenous cultures?

Instead, I want to encourage Charleston's outsiders to start appreciating their own significance. The prosperity of the Lowcountry depends on the energy, creativity and spirit of people who moved here "from off," and once we start acting on that knowledge it simply won't matter whether Old Charleston recognizes this truth.

New Charleston doesn't have to beat Old Charleston. It simply has to stop looking to Old Charleston for permission.

What are we waiting for?

Go to a New Charleston event -- Kulture Klash, Pecha Kucha, BarCampCHS, a TweetUp or an SMCCHS happy hour -- and look around. Hundreds, thousands of musicians, writers, artists, designers, art directors, photographers, programmers, Web-heads, researchers, engineers, architects, entrepreneurs, chefs, dancers, filmmakers, actors and big-thinkers live here. How many are "from off?" Most.

Yet I still meet people who tell me different versions of the same story. Instead of being encouraged in their new ventures, they are visited by members of the local establishment who always deliver the same message. Get back in line. There's some kind of old-boy system here, and it wants to pick the winners of every contest in advance. I don't understand it, but there it is.

My question is, so what? Yes, these people have some money. Yes the city has various programs and perks it can dole out to the favored few. Yes, the local paper acts an unofficial enforcer of Old Charleston orthodoxy. Again: So what?

We don't need mass media to spread the word. We don't need membership in exclusive social clubs to meet interesting people. And the sophisticated tool users here can do more with less money in less time and with less formal organization than Old Charleston can even imagine.

It isn't as if they're offering us an alternative. You're never going to be accepted into the Old Charleston clubs, so why bother conforming to their rules? What have you got to lose by ignoring them?

When we stop fighting and cajoling Old Charleston, we can invest all that energy into building a healthy New Charleston. A separate culture that reflects the values of the people who came here by choice. A culture that's more egalitarian, educated, productive and open.

This change doesn't require government loans or angel investors. Just start small. Cooperate. Do business with each other -- and with the thousands of like-minded Lowcountry natives who are our good friends and collaborators. Support each other. Work together.

Opposing an existing power structure gets us nowhere. Building our own power structure, with our own open networks and values, is progress.

In conclusion...

You don't undo an old habit. You have to create new habits, and to make them stick you have to reinforce those new patterns until the old ones silt over.

That's how we're going to make progress. And the funny thing is, Old Charleston won't even notice it.

It will simply benefit from it, along with the rest of us. Now go forth, join ranks, and start inventing a new city.

(BarCampCHS photo via Ken Hawkins on Flickr)

BarCamp Charleston: Geoff's video

Geoff Marshall has been a good friend since we met back in the early Lowcountry Blogs days. I helped him get a job at The Post and Courier and in the early days of the paper's web video push it was pretty much just the two of us, wandering around with cameras, figuring out technical tricks, comparing notes, and each of us trying to develop personal styles of storytelling.

It didn't take time much time for him to begin establishing a style that I thought was not only distinctly his, but very, very good.

Geoff covered BarCamp Charleston this weekend and just posted his video. I think it's excellent in all sorts of ways.

And it makes me feel a bit nostalgic. He's leaving Charleston in a few days with a one-way ticket back to London, his true home. So in a way, this #BarCampCHS video is his parting gift to the Lowcountry. It shows not only how far the tech community has come, but also how sophisticated Geoff has become.

Thanks, mate.

KK4 V.I.P R.I.P.

So a funny thing happened on the way to the beer ticket window at Kulture Klash 4: A guy looked at our wristbands and redirected us to the VIP Lounge, where free beer and food awaited us.

How did we wind up with VIP wristbands? Well, the most likely answer is there was some kind of screw-up, and we later heard rumors that something had gone wrong and flooded the lounge with people who weren't so important after all. Which I think is just divinely sweet.

But here's the lesson I hope the excellent people behind the influential Kulture Klash series learn from this glitch: You're misreading our new culture when you add a VIP room to your party.

Magic = Doing what you imagine

Twenty-six years ago I sold my clothes and books to buy groceries and Bugler tobacco to last me out the final two weeks of school and exams. Twenty-five years ago I had a script for a 10-minute film I could have shot with borrowed equipment if I'd had less than $200. Twenty-four years ago I could have quit my job cutting greens for $4 an hour and made double that if I could have come up with $500 to buy a used pickup truck and a push power mower.

Later that year (1984)  I thought it might be a good move to start a coffee shop in a vacant storefront on Howard Street in Boone, NC, just a few blocks from campus. Thought I could offer people a place to drink coffee and smoke cigarettes and talk talk talk.  I could have pulled it off for less than $1,000 in 1984, and I even had friends who wanted in on the idea. But they were broke too.

And so we didn't start a coffee house, and I joined the Army instead.

I like to remember this now, because it doesn't really seem that long ago that I lived in a world where I could imagine anything but I couldn't do very much about any of it. Not very many people could. The deck was stacked against people without money or access, and we shaped our dreams accordingly.

Meme 2008: "Control doesn't scale"

Three words of infinite simplicity and value (via Dave Weinberger):

"Control doesn't scale."

Want to understand the convulsion that lies ahead of us? The transitions in economics, technology, management, politics, media and art that must be made if we're to benefit from the new tools? The divisions that animate our "culture war" bullshit sessions? 

Three words: "Control doesn't scale."

Think that's a recipe for anarchy? Think again. Think it's unprecedented? It isn't. Think distributed control is a geektopian pipedream? I disagree.

Human beings have been giving up control in exchange for the expanding wisdom and benefits of freedom for as long as we've been a species, so there's plenty of historical precedent to instruct us on what course to follow. The unprecedented part is actually the rate of change, which means that the challenge in the scaling issue really lies in the feedback loops we imagine. We can't wait around and expect the old culture to vet new ideas for us. We'll have to invent the "new normal" on the fly, and  we'll certainly screw that up a few times.

But this is the central issue. And the other thing history teaches is that the people who have control generally don't like giving it up. So that's our short-term future in a nutshell.

Resenting the future

So the question has occurred to us: Why is it that some people seem to get along with the new accelerating pace of change, while others simply can't take the step?

Intelligence doesn't explain it. Neither does education level. Age seems to be a factor, but the stereotype of the "out-of-it" senior citizen is simply inadequate to explain this split (i.e., there are lots of people who are older, sharp as tacks, yet nervous and hostile and inept when it comes to keeping up with the new opportunities and developments in the wired world).

Today's answer (developed by me and J, in the car, whilst agreeing that "meatspace is poorly organized"): It's not personal; it's cultural. 

As in: We each grew up with an internalized sense of how rapidly things change, with unconscious norms that suggest what constitutes "novelty" and "reliability." How many times do you have to hear about a thing before you determine that it's worthy of your attention? What's a "fad" to you? What's credible? Thusly: People refuse adjust to the modern pace of tech/cultural change in part because they're culturally conditioned to pay attention to things only when they've worked their way through various cultural filters. We don't want to have to choose for ourselves -- we want the culture to vet new information for us. Without those cultural cues, people are simply lost, frightened and angry.

And here's what's worse (and we both know lots of people in this category): People resent the fact that things are changing. As in (and this is the one we hear over and over): "I'm X years old and I've been working here for Y years! Why do I have to learn this new software?" Why the ridiculous, self-centered attitude? Because that's the expectation they grew up with: You get to a particular stage of life and you finally start to collect the benefits of your hard work. You get to coast. You don't have to start over.

OK, new rules: You do have to start over. The old, unconscious rules of novelty/reliability are now obsolete and self-destructive. The old values may be fine, but the "old verities" are not compatible with the new operating system.  If you think the world is out of control, it's because you're not participating in it, and that's your choice. But don't resent it because you've decided to hold your breath until the world conforms to your expectations.

Don't like the new world? Grow up. Make a better one. Here are the tools.

And away we go

It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine. REM

Once,  the biggies controlled the pipelines, deciding whose content was disseminated and how.  But no more. Thousands of little conduits are siphoning the power from the few and allowing art and information to flow up, over, around to audiences, albeit smaller ones, everywhere.

We've witnessed the phenomenon of Radiohead's Web-only album release. Here's another example of a breach in the wall: Ingrid Michaelson.  The NY-based singer/songwriter's road to fame, if not quite stardom, ran through MySpace, where her music was found by TV types, scoring her an Old Navy commercial and a few seconds on Grey's Anatomy.  Now she's gaining traction as an indie darling, with coverage in the likes of The New York Times and  Rolling Stone. Her second album, Girls and Boys, has been rereleased and is doing nicely on Billboard.com (meaning there's radio play) and iTunes.

Why is this so cool? She's never been signed to a label.

Oh yes, the end is coming.

Polish the tiara, ladies!

Mark your calendars: The fifth annual International Princess Day will be celebrated on Dec. 14.

The history:

Also known as "Wear Your Tiara to Work Day," International Princess Day is held each year to raise awareness of the thrills of being a girl ...

The idea for IPD originated from the observation that qualities of the feminine were seen as negatives in certain arenas by both sexes. (Plus Princess Carol and I had birthdays within days of each other in December, so it was convenient.)

(There's more on IPD  here. But, uh, yeah, we've capriciously changed some things from last year already so stay tuned to xark!) All princesses are invited to wear a tiara all day: at work, at home, at the mall, anywhere.  Plan to take lots of photos! That can be published!  For those here in the Lowcountry, there will be a celebration after work, I'm thinking  5-8 or  at a place TBA, but most likely a bar downtown, unless other princesses have better ideas. I hope to  have  discounts for  those wearing tiaras, courtesy of Guerrilla Muse, my online store. Yes! There is IPD merchandise available!!!

Full details will go out as soon as possible, but plan to participate and join the fun! Feel free to spread the word to any and all of your royal friends.

Brooks chases his Long Tail

This morning's confounder? A David Brooks column that ran locally under this headline: "Once-unifying music fragmented by society and technology."

The gist? Hipsters and technology are ruining the country. And the Long Tail (Brooks doesn't capitalize it, or explain it) is bad for the culture.

There is just so much here to discuss that perhaps a fisking is in order. But for those of you with lives and/or better things to do, I'll state my conclusions first:

Brooks' true subject isn't music or  economics or technology or even the "hipsters" who seem to bother him so much. What he's really writing about is the desire for a world that is simple, a world mediated by trusted gatekeepers and ruled by institutions that set the boundaries of everything from legality to morality to taste.

That Brooks could write this piece without even mentioning the monopolization of commercial radio betrays his selective myopia. But for the love of Gawd how do you write about "all-purpose" Rock and Roll as some canonized marketing wing of The One True Establishment without even a trace of irony?

Brooks is popular because he speaks to a common anxiety: The world is spinning out of control. Then he provides a reassuring answer: People like you who remember the old values have the right answer. He explains how things got this way: Hipsters and elites have caused a general breakdown of authority and good order. And he prescribes a solution: Stop it!

But here's the way it's going to be, folks: The world is going to change. Rapidly. More rapidly than you remember. More rapidly than you may be prepared for emotionally.  Values and ethics and cultural connections are going to be hugely important to us, as they are now, but they must be portable. Offering them as talismans against change will fail to prevent change and succeed only in damaging the very concepts you claim to hold in such esteem.

Imagining alternatives to your accepted reality is uncomfortable, but it's an absolute requirement for staying relevant in the 21st century. Our country's established conservative voices seem intent on disqualifying themselves from credibility with the next generation, and believe it or not, that's going to become a problem soon. We're going to need conservatives who understand cultural symbols, technology and change as a force of history. But that's a topic for another day.

Fisking after the jump...