“tychoish” is a weblog that is something of a mashup of new and old weblog styles. New in the sense that I’m powering it using the latest and greatest from Wordpress, and the general idea of the tumblelog; and old in the sense that of tone and organization.

It seems to me that at some point weblogs started being “about things” rather than running collections of personal wanderings, ramblings, and information. In a lot of way this is the model that TealArt still uses, but it’s my intention that TealArt collect essays and slightly more formal pieces.

I’ve tried a number of times to write less formal blogs, most successfully using the LiveJournals Clever on Demand and Awkward, but Enderingly Colloquial. (Usernames celchu19 and tychoish respectively) While I’m still fond of some of the community aspects of LiveJournal, I like the prospect of doing it on my own, and having more control over the whole process. I’ve also tried tumblr and I’ve been generally displeased with the experience. And while microbloging services like jaiku and twitter are great fun, they’re not the same as what I have in mind for this site.

In this vein, this site will have short, (mostly) unedited, and rambling posts, quotes and exchanges too funny to let go by, lists of various kinds, and anything else that just needs to get out. With luck, we’ll also syndicate this mess in the TealArt sidebar. It will be delicious.

I realize this is kind of meta, but….

since I’m setting up two new Wordpress installations on this sever, for this website and also for the station keeping documentation, I’ve realized that there is so much that the software can do and so little that I generally get it to do, and about 80% of what I do do with wordpress, are hacked together things from the old days.

I mean I think it all looks good, and what not, and I don’t really want to make the website(s) any spiffier than they already are, but…. it’s craziness.

Also, I have to say that, while it works really well, Wordpress is kind of getting bloated and funny. Back in the day, you could open up the files (I guess this was back when it was b2/cafelog) and see what the database queries were doing. A discussion I had with bear, gave me the term “abstraction” to describe the way that computer code/programing becomes further and further removed from what it’s actually doing. I hope I’m getting that right…

Anyway, I had a blogging system for a while, where all the templates and what not, basically had to be done by hand. While we didn’t work out perfectly for each-other, that CMS and I, in terms of capability, there isn’t a lot that it couldn’t do that I can now with the a program that is significantly newer (as these things go).

well whatever.

ps. I’m using the BlogMate plugin for TextMate this post. Have I mentioned how much I like TextMate

well the blogmate thing totally didn’t work out.

MarsEdit for the win.

I have to say that I’m a better blogger (ie. I link more) when in textmate where there’s a key command to link a selected phrase to the first google result for that selected phrase. It’s awesome!

anyway, back to “real” work

It’s Friday, which means it’s time for some reflections on the work of french post-structuralists Deleuze and Guatteri in the book Anti-Oedipus. Good summer reading to send you off into the weekend. Fortunately, having touched on their conception of “desiring/production and machines,” and bit on “anti-oedipalism,” we can move on to something fun. This week: I have for us a few passages from the third major division about the emergence of language and cultural memory. For a while I’ve been convinced that semiotics and linguistic theory is sort of the cohesive glue behind post-structuralism, maybe it’s because I’ve been spending too much time with literary-types, but I think there’s something there. Also, I think if we understand things in linguistic terms, it makes it (more) posssible for me to interact and apply these theories. But anyway, on to the passages:

(Oedipus) implies an individual overinvestment of the organ to compensate for it’s collective disinvestment. That is why the commentators most favorable to the universality of Oedipus recognize nonetheless that one does not encounter in primitive socieities any of the mechanisms or any of the attitudes that make it a reality in our society. No superego, no guilt. No identification of a specific ego with global persons--but group identifications that are always partial following the compact agglutinated series of ancestors, and the fragmented series of companions and cousins" (143-4).

I admit that I tried to rescue that passage from yammering on about Oedipus' ultimate anality, and I fear it doesn’t make sense. They say that “our modern societies have […] undertaken a vast privatization of the organs, which corresponds to the decoding of flows hat have become abstract” (143). That society, in particular modernity, has limited the way we interact with bodies¹, and that this correlates with the way we know and understand flows--desire. Because of these privatizations, we “have” an understanding of Oedipus that is social, and one where they are forced to ask “What then remains for the making of Oedipus?”

Moving back to our discussion of some concepts that are more connected with the themes of lanague, that I’m more intersted in.

“the primitive territorial machine codes flows, invests organs, and marks bodies” (144; emphasis added).

I understand this as saying, basically, that: from the very basis of the formation of culture, desire, machines, and bodies are coded/shaped by that culture. It’s of course the “bodies” part that I find most interesting, as this is sort of the part where culture and the individual meet. Particularly in this moment, we’re given to think that our bodies are our own domains, and in some sort of twisted Cartesian way, beyond the realm of cultural influence. Which is pattently false, even if it’s hard to grasp; in any case, the crossing of the mind/body and culture/individual boundaries are I think fascinating moment.

So at this point we have a number of pieces: the culture peice, the individuals/bodies piecs, lets continue this a bit further as they, following Nietzsche, say: >“it is a matter of creating a memory for man; and man who was constituted by means of an active faculty of forgetting (oubli), by means of repression of biological memory, must create an other memory, one that is collective, a memory of words (paroles) and no longer a memory of things, a memory of signs and no longer of effects. This organization, which traces its signs directly on the body, constitutes a system of cruelty” (145-6; emphasis original)

Man, in the social sense “created” by representation, not necessarily in our own memories of events but by a collective/group memmory. Not in the “groupthink” sense, but rather in sense that through ritual, education, and practice what we remember and know (as individuals) about “our” pasts is constrained by cultural values and interests. Think about how we “remember” on holidays, think about key cultural moments that you many not have experienced directly, but are none-the-less part of y/our cultural ethos. I suspect however that we’re all more interested in the “cruelty” that they speak of. They go on to say:

“Cruelty has nothing to do with some ill-defined or natural violence that might be commissioned to explain the history of mankind; cruelty is the movement of culture that is realized in bodies and inscribed on them, belaboring them” (145).

And then:

“The sign is a position of desire; but the first sings are the territorial signs that plant their flags in bodies. And if one wants to call this inscription in naked flesh ‘writing,’ then it must be said that speech in fact presupposes writing, and that it is this cruel system of inscribed signs that renders man capable of language, and gives him a memory of the spoken word” (145; emphasis added).

Your thoughts? I’m not sure I can add much to that, but I’d love to hear what you think.

best, tycho

In addition to TealArt I have a secret second virtual life (how sad is that phrase) as a list-mod for a couple of mid-sized email lists. It makes sense, email listservs represent a certain backbone of the what the internet is for me, and while there is never enough time, when I find one that I like, or one grows into something really cool, I like to hold on to it for as long as possible.

Back in high school I started a science fiction writer’s list on yahoo groups called SF-Writing, and it grew and while it’s sort of gone fallow for a while, this list has been really important forum for me over the years. I recently posted a question that I think is sort of interesting there and I want to reprint it, and add a little reflection, so here we go:

I recently pulled out the first 13 pages of the novel (my first) that I wrote 4 years ago, that I think contains something useable, that I want to play with in the coming weeks, I think there’s a project in there, and I had forgotten it for a long time.

I wrote this book, and it told an ok story, frankly it wasn’t that interesting, but after I finished it, but before I abandoned it, I wrote this prologue, written from the perspective of one of the characters in the novel (after the events of the story), as a sort of historical essay. Frankly it was boring as hell, out of place, and more of a sort of “formal outline” My hope is that I can can do better if I just focus on this small little piece of the story.

Ironically, it would mean writing a Mars book, which it might just be time for. Jeff and I talked about this a while ago, and I think we even talked about it on the list, but there’s a certian tradition of SF writers writing a “Mars Book” (eg. Heinlein’s stuff, Bradbury’s Chronicles, etc.). But that’s not the question I hope to pose.

I read the chunk that I spoke about in this part of the message a last night, and I realized that the story I thought it told was really only a small portion of what was contained in that section. It’s a funny thing memory.

Here’s the question I posed to the list. More writing related and specific than not, but I think there are a number of larger issues that linger around these experiences.

Do you all revive old works that flounder or do you plow forward? How long do you let projects go fallow before coming back to them. And finally do you revise and amend and edit, or do you rewrite and re- imagine?

It’s interesting to work on new and different projects, or at least break out of my habit of only writing for TealArt.

I’m getting my wisdom teeth out tomorrow morning, so while there will be a Deleuze essay on Friday, I’m going to be pretty absent for a few days. Hang in there!

Cheers, ty

Welcome to episode #3 of Station Keeping. I hope you enjoy, and can welcome a few more characters to the station keeping family. As always, this project is a collaborative one, and I look forward to hearing from you for any reason, but particularly if you would like to contribute in any capacity. But please do enjoy! -- ty

Location: Command Deck

Joshua Sian trotted into the command center, it was like he’d spent the past two weeks running and always 10 minutes late. The space station shouldn’t have been that big yet anyway. Before the door closed he called out “Status?” as he walked over to an open station.

“The first three ships are, within range, for docking, several are queueing up--and the rest will be here--in an hour or two.” The crewmen’s stilted response was punctuated as he worked furiously to pass messages along to the dock crew.

“As we expected,” Sian noted as he began to adjust his own preliminary calculations. “Crewman?” Sain asked without looking up, his voice wavered slightly with concern. Thankfully, he managed to mostly stifle a wince at being unable to recall a name.

The entire command center crew responded, but their responses weren’t synchronized.

“Where’s the docking arm?” he asked, finally looking up at one of the displays. “We’re going to need it really soon…”

There was no response.

“Well, bring it about! and inform the commander’s ship that they might not have as much help as we promised.” The error, though not inexcusable, was as much Joshua’s fault as it was anyone else’s: they were over worked and understaffed, and Joshua had planned on being in command half an hour earlier, until one of the construction teams demanded his attention. Thankfully the docking arm would probably extend (even in the right direction!) when it was needed, but it was still frustrating.

“We have space for the first two ships in bay 3, and the second ship in…” he paused to look up the docking plan again. “bay 6.”

No one responded, there was no need.

“I’ll take in the first two ships, then I need to get down to meet the commander, you can manage the rest, so get ready for it,” Josh proposed. It was good that he was about to be done with being in charge of things like space stations: proposals didn’t command in the same way that orders did.

“Should I call in Jacobs and Qunicy to help out with this?” One of the crew asked.

“Please do, It would be--” Sian trailed off, as he started concentrating on the docking arm, but everyone else was to busy to care what was to be.

Location: Docking Bay 3

“At least you’re not late this time,” David Conrad said to Josh as he jogged up to the hatch where Eli Banner was about to disembark.

“Once they step onto this deck, and people stop thinking that I’m in charge, I resolve to never run anywhere.” Joshua said taking a deep breath. Josh was surprised to see David here, but almost more surprised that he spoke so freely.

“Don’t say that, we might hold you to that.” David chuckled, and looked toward the unmoving hatch.

“So what brings you around these parts?”

“I hear there’s a ship docking.”

“Yep.”

“But I didn’t--”

“It’s alright, I have my ways, and I’ve been bored until we get the pub open, I don’t have a lot to do. Besides, Eli’s an old friend,”

“Eli?”

“The commander.”

“Oh. Right.”

Before the silence settled again, the hatch hissed, and opened.

“Well, hello!” Commander Eli Banner said to David sounding surprised, as he stepped on to the station. The men hugged for a moment, and Talia Garn stepped out behind the commander and looked awkwardly at Joshua Sian.

“Talia Garn.”

“Joshua Sian.” Their introductions were soft and understated, as they were both more interested and surprised by the interaction between the commander and David Conrad.

“Talia, this is David Conrad; the David Conrad,” the commander interrupted, sending Sain back into silence.

“A pleasure, sir,” Talia said, extending her hand.

“What are you doing here?” Eli asked.

“I’m just the bar keep, watching and listening like always. Marc Perrin’s doctoring, as usual.”

“That’s great,” Eli smiled. The awkward we’ll have to get a drink sometime."

“Bar isn’t finished yet, but indeed we will.”

“I suppose we have a job to do here?” Eli said, turning his attention to the young lieutenant. He motioned toward the corridor, to make room for the rest of the crew and passengers to disembark.

“Indeed, I have crew on the docking procedure of the convoy, and there’s nothing else to report that I haven’t already filed with you, sir.”

“That’s probably true,” Banners response was a quick as it was dry.

Sian squirmed, he was unprepared to be the butt of all the new commander’s jokes. “I actually have some paperwork for you, to transfer command and what not.” Sain produced a tablet

“Sure, I’m sorry. We’ve been cooped up on the ships for so long, it’s just good to get out.” The commander took the tablet and began to confirm the transfer of authority. “I actually have heard that you’ve been doing a great job here.” He looked toward Talia and David and offered a curt smile.

“Thank you, sir. It’s good to have you aboard,” Joshua said and indicated that they should talk the elevator at the end of the corridor.

As the others turned to enter the elevator car David recused himself; “I actually have an appointment, that I have to tend to, but I trust I’ll see all of you soon.”

“Thanks for stopping by,” Eli said: the others just smiled kindly.

Joshua Sian inputed the code for the command center on the elevator’s keypad once the doors closed and everyone was aboard. “That was so incredibly strange,” he thought as the lift moved in silence.

“Gaurd Changing” was written by, `tycho <http://tychoish.com/tycho>`_, the creator of `TealArt <http://tychoish.com>`_ and `Station Keeping <http://tychoish.com/hanm>`_. He is a student and knitter by day and a science fiction writer by night, you can read his work elsewhere on `TealArt <http://tychoish.com>`_ and at `~/tychoish <http://tychoish.com>`_.

I kind of promised to myself that I wouldn’t post about knitting until I had news and pictures. Well I do. So here we are.

I recently finished a sweater. I know craziness. Anyway, it’s one that I’ve been working on since mid February, which means I figure based on a non-scientific study, that it’s taken a bit longer than many of my sweaters. But it’s knit with very fine yarn, and one of the pattern repeats was incredibly tough to memorize¹.

But I have to say that I enjoyed the experience, despite all these things that I fairly promptly ordered the yarn to make another, sweater with similar materials. There’s something to this HD shetland stuff.

In any case, I present to you, this sweater. HD Shetland. US #2.5 needles, turned hems, my own design.

The other part of this announcement is that I’m going to be teaching a class at a local (st. louis, missouri, USA) yarn store on 2-color stranded knitting at the end of this month and the beginning of next month (June/July 2007). Email Me for more information.

Cheers, tycho

I think I took away my own thunder last friday when I posted news of the Station Keeping Twiter log. I’m posting little updates from Hanm Center and other assorted Station Keeping related notes, it’s been fun and I’d like to welcome all who’ve come to TealArt from twitter, and invite all of you to visit either the Hanm or my own twitter account.

This week is pretty exciting for me right now. I’m going to be in town for the whole week, with none of this running about. While I had a slow output week last week, I think I’ve recovered a lot of the creative juice and I’m starting to write (and plan to write) more. This is a good thing. A very good thing. I had burned through the backlog pretty severely, and while having that backlog is good for cushioning the give and take of every day life, I feel better when I can write more: writing is like any other kind of exercise, it takes stamina and practice, and unless I have the chance to write, I get rusty and it gets hard to write. So it’s good that I’m doing better.

I have a great `Station Keeping <http://tychoish.com/hanm>`_ for you this week. We get to meet a couple more characters, and that should be fun. I realized last week, rather late in the game that the SK portal was broken. I’ve remedied the situation, so hopefully that will make it easier for you all to stay caught up with the series. As always, I’m interested in expanding the SK team. Please contact me!

Later today, I’ll have a post together about a sweater I recently finished. With a picture! It’ll be awesome.

In terms of other content? There’ll be a Deleuze piece, of course. Having summarized the best parts of the first ~150 pages of the book in 3 posts, we’re on to territory that’s new to me and that I haven’t had the opportunity to stew over for months. I think, ultimately this is a good thing for these pieces. At the same time, I realized last week that If I read a “chapter” a week, I’ll be done with the second part by the end of the summer. No promises, but I think I’ll take a break from that with something else.

There’ll be other posts, of course. I’m trying to figure out a way to talk about the things I’m reading in a way that isn’t completely inane, but we’ll have to wait and see.

I’ll see you all around.

Cheers, tycho