The Sock Puppet, Bernie, And Me

From a comment to another post: 'The latest Tama Janowitz novel ("They Is Us") features a lonely old man whose only social contacts are the people who write him scam letters. He's always trying to offer them advice ("Maybe you shouldn't be so trusting of me? Maybe you should learn more about me before you offer me all this money? Let me tell you something about MY life...") It's very funny and very sad.'

I should try that. I'm getting older, and I don't have that many friends since my hamster died. Not that many. Not any, really.

Sure, after the freeze-drying he still looked pretty much the way he always did. Though of course he'd slowed down a lot. Death all by itself does that, let alone freeze-drying, but we still had a good relationship, and he was available all the time. Whenever I needed someone to confide in, he was there, since he no longer slept all day.

And hamsters are naturally quiet. You might not know that. You don't get a hamster if you want noise. They aren't noisy. They're for quiet conversations, for confiding in, for working through things. You want noise and a lot of action, then it's dogs. It would be a big change if your dog died, but for a hamster no. Not really so much. They don't change all that much.

So our relationship continued.

Everything was fine for a good long while. You know a cynic would say that it couldn't be the same because I'd have to grab his little dry corpse and move it around because, of course, it was a corpse, and didn't move on its own, but really, no, it isn't all that different after you get used to it. Hamsters are always snuffling around and digging into things, and kind of twitchy, but it's like they're listening to you all the same, and they aren't noisy, so it really wasn't all that different.

Well, everything really was pretty good for a while. I'm not that social. Just someone to talk to every now and then, that's about all I need. I'm not typical that way, but it works for me.

But then Bernie made a couple of unscheduled trips off the kitchen counter way down onto the tile floor and things got a bit strange. These incidents introduced some unfortunate changes, and our conversations just haven't been the same since.

For one thing something broke loose inside, I don't know what. You wouldn't expect this. You look at a live hamster (or a freeze-dried one in my case), and the first thing you think (if you even think about it at all) is "solid all the way through". No. No longer.

Now he rattles a little when I shake him. I don't do it that much but I do it sometimes when we're having an argument. He never did that before, especially when he was alive, the rattling, though I suppose I've gotten rougher since his death. Gentleness is less important now.

Hamsters are sturdy but really quite delicate in some ways, and you can't simply throw them around, squeeze them, or give way to anger just because of a little disagreement. Not with live ones. At the very least they bite, and can be quite fierce, but are very much too easily injured, so you hold back. You control yourself for the good of the relationship.

Well, that rattling was one thing. Only one thing, sadly.

After a few months of this his fur was starting to look disorderly, exhibiting some disarray, and became a bit matted in spots. I didn't know what to do. Something.

I really should have known better, but I tried shampoo. I tried shampooing him.

A disaster. Almost immediately he began to balloon up (freeze-dried, remember?) and then, eventually, got all mooshy inside. I believe it wasn't the shampoo as such, but the rinsing. Rinsing took a lot of water, more than I expected. I didn't know a hamster could soak up so much. I mean, sponges, yes, but you don't expect a freeze-dried hamster to hold so much.

I wasn't thinking.

But what else could I do? He was sort of like this little furry bag. Couldn't stand up anymore. I had him set in a cute upright position with his little front paws just ready to reach out for a treat. No more. It took about a week of dangling from a wire hanger by a clothespin before he firmed up again, even a little, and then I noticed it — mold.

Talk about creepy.

Once mold gets a foothold the game is about over. Seriously. But he's still all I've got for now.

Yeah, there are days when I think of taking him out for a drive in the car, and when we get out there, far enough from home, just making a quick flip and out he goes, through the window, over the side, down into the grassy ravine and that's the end of it, before he even knows it's happening.

But this isn't like the old days.

The household is down to only us two. If the sock puppet was still here, Bernie would be gone in a flash, but that isn't the way the game played out. Mr. Socky had some serious problems and had to go. Serious, serious problems. Really. Serious. Problems.

At first he seemed OK, and was a welcome addition to the family, and we all had some good times together, great times even, but his dark side surfaced all too soon.

I can't go into it right now but eventually things got very strange. Some nights Bernie and I even locked ourselves in the bedroom and stayed there until daylight, but even then our eyes kept returning nervously to that crack under the door. Sock puppets can squeak through some really narrow places, and the last thing we wanted to see was Mr. Socky sliding in for a visit. I still shudder to think of some of the things we had to go through.

Well, after too many unpleasant experiences and, let's be honest, close calls, Bernie and I just left one night. Just like that. Sneaked out. Changed apartments. Changed cities. Changed states even. Got a new phone number, a new mailing address, new job. The whole deal. Never heard from Mr. Socky again, though we kept our guard up for a long time. A long, long time.

But the downside is, well, the family is pretty well down to just me now. Bernie won't be around that much longer. Not the way that mold is going. I really don't know if I should try having a talk with him or simply end it with a one-way car ride, but then where will I be?

I don't even have anyone writing me scam letters. No one at all. It's just me here. How long can this last?

 

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Have anything worth adding? Then try sosayseff@nullabigmail.com
Me? Recently nominated for something by someone, somewhere.

 

Etc...

so says eff: sporadic spurts of grade eff distraction
definitions: outdoor terms
fiyh: dave's little guide to ultralight backpacking stoves
boyb: dave's little guide to backpacks
snorpy bits: nibbling away at your sanity
last seen receding: missives from a certain mobile homer
noseyjoe: purposefully poking my proboscis into technicals

Information Density And Continuing Value

You buy a book. You read it and put it on your shelf. You never really want to read it again.

This is familiar, even more familiar with shorter pieces. If the book is a novel, there's a chance you'll reread it. Or if it's a textbook.

Much less so if it's not a book. If it's a pamphlet. Or if it's a daily newspaper. There's no need to ever look at either again.

Why?

Because there isn't enough there, and because what is there is not so moving.

Things are different with other media.

Take music. Music is different.

Music has a much higher information density, even though it's non-verbal content.

Music's content is non-verbal.

And music's content is mostly emotional.

Music is different from writing. Writing is linear. Even though you can jump around in a text, any place you put your eyes requires linear effort. And you have to work at understanding what you're doing.

Music is non-verbal. Even music with lyrics added. Lyrics are more like seasoning than the meat of the meal. Since music is non-verbal, it doesn't require thought. We can appreciate music with the non-rational parts of our minds.

Since music's content is mainly emotional, this aspect reinforces the non-linear, non-verbal aspects.

And music is dense. Even the notes of a single instrument are made of complex sounds. Add more instruments, add time, and you have a rich enfolding and layering of sounds and rhythms that interact in complex ways.

All of this plays out differently each time that a given piece is performed, even if it's a recorded piece, because it depends on the listener's mood, freshness, state of mind, and location at the time of listening.

Motion pictures are similar to music.

Compare a motion picture to a still photo. Different. No doubt about that. The still photo is more like a short short story, the motion picture to a long novel.

There's a still starker contrast comparing a motion picture to a piece of writing. No contest. You can watch a movie many times over and enjoy it each time, getting more and more from it. Not so much from a written plot outline.

And to enhance motion pictures even more, they can contain music. They are more like life, and no matter what, no matter who you are, life is something that no one tires of.

To write well you need to have lots of information complex ideas expressed simply the telling of involved stories imagery conjuring visual and other imagery emotion...(See? I'm still working on it.)

 

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Have anything worth adding? Then try sosayseff@nullabigmail.com
Me? Reconsidering the role of mail order in life as she is lived.

Etc...

so says eff: sporadic spurts of grade eff distraction
definitions: outdoor terms
fiyh: dave's little guide to ultralight backpacking stoves
boyb: dave's little guide to backpacks
snorpy bits: nibbling away at your sanity
last seen receding: missives from a certain mobile homer
noseyjoe: purposefully poking my proboscis into technicals

Getting To The Point In Six

"In the end, everything simply began." Ali Smith wrote that. It's his six word story. Its meaning is left as an exercise for the reader. As they say.

Go figure. Return. We'll talk then.

If you haven't heard yet, all of this is said to have started with Ernest Heminqway, when challenged to write a story in only six words. He did. It's good. Look it up.

Jim Lyon: "Walking home, she regained her virginity."

Yehuda Berlinger: "Found the bouquet in the garbage."

Gregory Maguire: "Commas, see, add, like, nada, okay?"

Alan Moore: "Machine. Unexpectedly, I'd invented a time"

Steven Meretzky: "Steve ignores editor's word limit and"

Get the picture yet?

A few years ago I found a small web site called "Six Word Stories" where these are being collected. There is more than one of these sites, but the quality here is good. Try it. Still there, for now.

Ocean Master: "Mime trapped in box. Irony lost."

Jkypoo: "Fell asleep smoking. Woke up homeless."

Or search for the others.

Or make your own.

 

References:
Six Word Stories
alt link

To cut a long story short
alt link

Caterina Fake

Fifty Original Six Word Stories, by Yehuda Berlinger
alt link

Wired: Very Short Stories - 33 writers. 5 designers. 6-word science fiction.
alt link

 

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Have anything worth adding? Then try sosayseff@nullabigmail.com
Me? Still counting my toes. Endless fun.

 

Etc...

so says eff: sporadic spurts of grade eff distraction
definitions: outdoor terms
fiyh: dave's little guide to ultralight backpacking stoves
boyb: dave's little guide to backpacks
snorpy bits: nibbling away at your sanity
last seen receding: missives from a certain mobile homer
noseyjoe: purposefully poking my proboscis into technicals

Personal, Personal, Personal

Communication. It's an art. It's necessary. It's easy. It's hard. It depends.

You can't escape communication, and you don't want to. You need it, I need it, every person needs it, every business needs it. It's really all we have. But it can kill you if you turn your back on it.

One thing you can do is to keep it personal. Make all conversations unique. Own them. Act as though you mean it, and do. In fact, this is what you have to do. Otherwise you lose people.

It always takes at least two to talk, and to talk you need something to say, and you need trust, and a common goal. And you need to work at it.

Bad communication is easy. Just don't try. Mumble. Treat people like you don't care, which you don't, if bad communication is your goal.

Bad communication is avoidable communication. It's avoidable contact. It's avoidance in every way possible. Don't talk, don't write, don't answer the phone. Skip eye contact. Drone. Never smile. Join the undead. Escape reality. Escape involvement. Escape context. Escape business. Be vague. Be forgettable.

Bad communication is pointless communication. It never stands its ground, or gains any. Say something today and something else tomorrow. Forget. Make random noises with your mouth, put random words into your ads, build a random web site. It doesn't matter. Whatever.

Make no sense. Equivocate. Break promises. Represent nothing. Claim you didn't mean it. Concede the high ground. Keep at it until you are all alone. That's your measure of success.

Bad communication is simple communication. It's so simple that you don't need to think about it at all, ever. It's really that simple. You never need to worry about what you say or do because it doesn't matter. You can do anything. Or do nothing. OK either way.

If you want to communicate poorly then you don't work at it. Who wants work? Not you. You want to keep it simple. As simple as possible. Simpler.

No need to make sure you're being understood. Or make sure that you have understood. Or that you're making sense. Sounds like a plan, which may be a sign of too much work. Why bother? Try less, less hard, less often. Give up.

Bad communication fits all sizes. No tailoring a message to the audience. Stock phrases work great. After all, who cares anyway? Too much like work. Didn't we already cover that work thing?

Remember that you're going for the steady state of zero communication, zero contact, zero activity, zero complexity, zero gain. So don't bother checking who you're talking to or about what. Make something up. Anything. It will do.

Then, once you've learned this easy technique, keep it handy. Pull it out for any and all occasions. Why worry about who you're talking to? They're only people, and people are people. All the same. Numbers. If they don't like you they can go somewhere else.

It's not as though you want to have a relationship with anyone. Or like, care. Any place, any time, any people — doesn't matter. Bad communication works on all of them.

On the other hand you might consider another point of view.

• That no matter what you do, you are communicating something. You can't avoid it.
• That whomever you are dealing with will remember what you said and expect you to stand by it.
• That communicating takes work, and thought, and perseverance, and integrity.
• That if you want customers, you have to treat them with respect, as unique individuals with unique problems to solve.

So then, do you expect your web site to communicate well or not?

If not, then why have a web site?

But if you have a web site, why not have a great web site?

Remember, you can throw a few dollars at a wall and get nothing more than flying shadows. A good site doesn't cost much more than a bad one, and you get a relationship at no extra cost. A solid communicating relationship with someone you can trust, who does good work, and who will help you gain and hold business rather than losing it.

Because the downside of bad communication isn't simply gaining less. It's losing what you already have.

Or was that what you wanted?

 

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Have anything worth adding? Then try sosayseff@nullabigmail.com
Me? Still trying to make sense.

 

Etc...

so says eff: sporadic spurts of grade eff distraction
definitions: outdoor terms
fiyh: dave's little guide to ultralight backpacking stoves
boyb: dave's little guide to backpacks
snorpy bits: nibbling away at your sanity
last seen receding: missives from a certain mobile homer
noseyjoe: purposefully poking my proboscis into technicals

Generally Speaking

It's hard being right, it really is.

Not so hard as being wrong, but people who are often wrong usually don't know it. Most of them aren't bright enough. So maybe overall it's easier being wrong a lot. Maybe even most of the time. Because if you are you can't tell anyway.

Can't tell left from right, up from down, inside from outside, fur from feathers. Did you notice the worst singers auditioning for that "American Idol" show? Or the worst of anyone trying to do anything? They can't tell how bad they are because part of being bad is being so bad that you have no clue whatsoever. It's been proven by science.

Being right is frustrating but satisfying.

Frustrating because people don't give a flying fork. Tell someone where they're wrong and they'll turn on you faster than a pit bull on a baby. No perspective. Except the one that says my idea is right because it floated through my brain and if you prove it's wrong then I will have to hate you. Because you are wrong to tell me something like that. Where are your manners, fool?

So cool.

In that vein I once heard a brief interview with a woman who was virulently against Barack Obama. Her reasoning was that Obama had repudiated the statements of a longtime pastor and had parted ways with the man. Therefore, in her mind, he was faithless since she stood by her own Roman Catholic Church no matter what evil might be perpetrated by some of its staff, and Obama wasn't doing the same.

OK so far, if she really wanted to go there. None of my business. But then she said that if Obama would do a thing like that he would also lie about his true religion and therefore he was really an anti-American terrorist Muslim. In secret. And she hated him for that. Which is a prime example of both being wrong and being stupid.

I'm really not political. At all. It's part of being right.

If you are political then you are about power. About having power, or wanting it, or wanting to be near it, or wanting someone you think deserves it to then have it. But you don't get to be right. Because being right gets in the way. Being right means that you have to work to understand things, think them through, and often rule against yourself. In politics you never give an inch. Unless you give an inch today to become a snake in the grass and take a mile tomorrow.

The only power I really want is over my own life, and that starts with understanding it. With understanding me, myself and I. And my context. And understanding my own life turns out to be a lot more important than having power. Because you can't have any power at all of any kind if you're stupid and ignorant and keep your mind closed.

You don't get to be powerful and wealthy (two views of the same puppet show from different seats) if you are stupid and ignorant and keep your mind closed, or if you do you can't hold onto either one for long. You don't necessarily get to be either powerful or wealthy if you are smart, or well educated, or think a lot. But you do come to some conclusions. And can do whatever you want with some real chance of success.

And a lot of those conclusions are right.

No one is right all the time. Ever. But if you pay attention and stay honest with yourself you get close.

Way back when was when I started asking myself questions. Like "Why is that?" or "How does that work?" And so on. Way back. In my teens. And after the question I'd arrive at an answer. Most often it would pop into my head. I imagine that it happens that way with most everyone. First a question and then an answer, out of particularly nowhere.

And then I'd ask myself why the answer was right. Sometimes I had to change my answer. Because the answer wasn't right, it was only something that I felt good about or liked or wanted to be right or was prejudiced in favor of. Only because it floated through my head.

And I'm still not right all the time, and you aren't either. Though I do like people who are right about things, especially if they're more right than I am. Because then I can learn how to think better. Quicker, more deeply, more imaginatively, more honestly.

The hard part is really the honesty.

If you keep hacking at something you'll eventually get through the crusty old useless parts. Your habits, your preferences, your desires, the way people around you think, what's good for your finances, or what's consistent with what you said or thought or did yesterday. Once you get through to the soft tender sensitive parts underneath, then you can do some real work.

But you have to be honest. Until it hurts, and then some. Until it bleeds, and then some more. Honesty will take you places you've never been. Sometimes it's surprising. Most always. Because honesty and a little clear thinking will make you pry up stone after stone until you finally do find the real answer.

The fun part is adapting to it. It can be hard.

I was on a hike with someone once who said she didn't want to know the names of plants and trees because it would take away the magic. I've had that idea too. About a lot of things. It doesn't work. Knowing is much more fun, and more magical too.

Not knowing is easier in some ways, but it's being ignorant. And being ignorant is a lot like being stupid, which is a lot like being wrong. Which is a lot like waking up in the morning with bad breath, flat greasy hair and gummy eyes. It's better to have a fresh, awake mind in full possession of the facts. And have non-gummy eyes.

Learning things is hard but you don't have to learn everything. And you can't anyway. You can at least learn a lot. And when you do learn you start understanding things. Everything suddenly gets a face and a story The world becomes bigger, not smaller. And you find doorways leading places you could not have imagined before.

I've always been a generalist. A friend once described himself as a dilettante. Sort of proudly. In a way. Normally that's something you don't brag about. It doesn't sound great, like saying in public that when you're eating at home you spill so much food that you just eat off the floor. But he said it. Sort of proudly. He was doing a little tail pulling but he meant it.

He worked for many years as a newspaper reporter and did it well. Being a generalist was good, even if someone might call him a dilettante in a not nice way. He knew a lot. He was on top of it.

Generalists generally are. The real ones.

You get to be a generalist by paying attention. Because you can't help it. You like stuff. You like ideas, and people, and events. You do different jobs in different parts of the country in different decades. Your bookshelves at home look like a cross section of the public library. No one can figure out who you are by the books. You see more possibilities and have wider tastes that way. You end up knowing more. Hands down.

There are lots of people out there who are absolute screaming experts at blade-thin areas of knowledge and most of them are bright. And true dullards. Duds. Dorks. Stupes. Dolts. Bores. Spores. Pod people.

Being an expert can do that to you. Being a generalist will not, though mostly the specialists get paid better. Too bad for me, eh? Blame my English degree.

I couldn't have gotten to be as good a generalist and as clear a thinker without the English degree. I got it because I couldn't decide what to be when I grew up. So three decades years later, plus one, I still have the degree and still can't decide, but I learned a lot along the way.

The next time they give you all that civic bullshit about voting, keep in mind that Hitler was elected in a full, free democratic election. -- George Carlin

You can learn a lot from writers. If you don't believe that then turn on your TV set. See a movie. Watch a play. Read a book. It's all about writers. I suspect few know. Even reality shows ("reality" shows) have writers. Writers run everything. Without a plan you have bunches of people running around and bumping into each other. And mumbling a lot.

Writers weave it.

Writing and reading and thinking about writing and reading have ways of honing thought. You find ideas and take pleasure in them. You can come home with pockets full of them and sit in the sun and endlessly turn them over, and over again, and again. And sort them and stack them and play, and decide which are the real and good and true. And from that learn to make your own.

Like math without the math. Also pure thought but accessible to everyone. Open ended. You grow big invisible feelers that sound warnings when things aren't right. Sometimes people call these B.S. detectors. Handy. When they are in "off" position they will often turn their gaze back toward you, and that's one way you learn to think better. You think a thought and arrive at a conclusion and then you hear this funny buzzing sound, and that's when you know you have more work to do. Your feelers tap dance on your head until you catch on.

That's your next step into the world of honesty.

You may adapt but not everyone will love you. Because you'll want to share. Honesty is hard to accept. And people will feel threatened. Because (a) they haven't thought at all, or (b) they have a vested interest in how things are.

It was like that on my last job. They were rebuilding a software system. I came in at iteration three. After a year of working in good faith it became clear that it was a waste of time. They were only working on an extended failure. My feelers were aching. All day and all night. I started talking. No one wanted that.

They carried on for another four years or so and finally threw out six years of work. After deciding it was really was a failure. And then they started over and threw that one out too. And then I heard, after I left, that they were at it again.

It's hard being right, it really is. But it's wrong to be willfully stupid.

I'm still mad about that one. Two of us, with help from three or four carefully chosen others, could have built a bare bones version of the system that was needed. Solid, rock solid and reliable. Squeaky clean. Bare bones but rock solid, and a good platform for extension. We could have started it the right way at the beginning of 2003 and could have finished it sometime in 2004, maybe sooner.

Nope.

They didn't want to be right. That would have been work. Hard work. Tedious work. Intense work. Everyone had it easier and made more money from extending the gig than I did, but I have my integrity, such as it is. It is hard though. And most of them, if they remember me at all, hate me. Because for them it hurt too much to think. And hurt too much to change. Even though they eventually were allowed to change their minds. When management said it was the new policy.

So what's the right answer, then?

 

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Have anything worth adding? Then try sosayseff+nosey@nullabigmail.com
Me? All too soon forgotten, which is actually the way I like it.

 

Etc...

so says eff: sporadic spurts of grade eff distraction
definitions: outdoor terms
fiyh: dave's little guide to ultralight backpacking stoves
boyb: dave's little guide to backpacks
snorpy bits: nibbling away at your sanity
last seen receding: missives from a certain mobile homer
noseyjoe: purposefully poking my proboscis into technicals