The Answer

Looking for love online? Don't smile!

If you're a man, that is.
And don't look into the camera.


For women, the advice is: don't post pictures of yourself showcasing your physical "assets" (or the lack thereof, I'd imagine). Instead post photos that show you engaging in some "fun" activity, such as "vacationing in Brazil or strumming a guitar".


I don't like to smile at a camera; I don't like looking into a camera - in fact, I don't even like being anywhere near a camera... I also don't strum guitars; I don't even like guitars, unless they are in the hands of the likes of Paco de Lucia and such. And while on vacation, I do not take photos of myself (or any photos at all, for that matter).


Then again, I am not looking for "love" or romance, either online or offline, so - who cares?
But if you are, you might profit from this recent article from the New York Times:

Looking for a date?

Oh, and don't use terms like "beautiful" or "cutie" (duh - I could have told you that one!). Use "cool" (ugh) or "fascinating" instead.


It's not psychology, say the authors of the website who came up with these findings. It's math.
(You see, it is useful in daily life, after all!)

The Emperor's new clothes are the latest fashion

We've been thinking a lot about our few but faithful followers these days. We think people deserve more than just occasional rants.

So, on a whim I've decided to share with you some of my more intimate work. My fiction is rather long, but I thought perhaps an excerpt from a poem of mine, a musing about the meaning of life itself, might compensate you - however modestly - for your kind attention and time.

Here it goes.

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether it is nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, it is a consummation
Devoutly to be wished.

(It's just a short excerpt, the poem is actually quite long. My editor wants me to shorten and "streamline" it, as she calls it, but it's my integrity what's on the line, so I'd rather leave it as it is.

We also haven't decided on the title yet. I want something timelessly evocative, she wants something "Gothic-sexy", as she calls it, like The Master of Elsinore Castle.
I'll let you know when we have decided.)

You may have noticed the language is a whiff archaic.
Your observation is quite correct: I wanted to convey the time-transcending nature of such questions.

To those among you particularly sensitive to aesthetics it may even sound vaguely familiar.
Well. that's how good I am (even if I say so myself). What I wanted to achieve is the effect of a post-postmodern pastiche, if you will, using historic formulae to accentuate the timelessness of the main theme.
Was I successful?
You be the judge.



What has gotten into me, you ask...?
Inspiration, my friend.
And being the intellectually honest creator that I am, I don't mind sharing its source with you.
It was an email discussing originality and the current state of literacy, sent by a forget-me-not we haven't seen in quite a while now (so her blog in this blogofleet is temporarily even off-view).

The email included a link to a complaint board of a site called Triond, where apparently people can publish their texts (of all sorts) in exchange for pennies. (And glory, of course, but that's a given.)
Here is the link:

Edgar Allen [sic] Poe plagiarized due to lazyness [sic]

-->

I would recommend reading it (it's very short), but here's the gist: a member published Poe's poem The Raven as if it were his own. Not one comma was altered.

Since the author - not Poe, the other one - apparently wasn't given the chance to speak for himself, I can only speculate about his reasons.
Perhaps - and I really mean this - he intended it as a "statement" of some kind.
(After all, Poe himself was accused of plagiarising another author, precisely with this poem - and Poe in his turn accused Longfellow of plagiarising him. For more on Poe - and plagiarism - see Why Is Plagiarism Bad?)

Or maybe it was an experiment - to see how long it would take people to notice.

Or maybe he acted out the ideal of J. L. Borges' dreamed-of writer and simply rewrote not Don Quijote but Poe's poem on his own, out of his own fresh intent and inspiration. (You really should read Borges - he expressed it much better than I.)

Or perhaps he belongs to the "different generation, one that freely mixes and matches from the whirring flood of information across new and old media, to create something new"...
That is how another plagiator, a financially and critically very successful one, recently explained her unacknowledged borrowing from a less lucky writer.

I have a few questions regarding this latter case. Like, her "generation" being different... different from what?
From the "generations" who knew how to read and write?

“There’s no such thing as originality anyway, just authenticity,” said she, when questioned about her perceived lack of originality.

Well said.
(And probably plundered from someone else, too.)

I am all for authenticity.
But shouldn't authentically re-writing someone else's authenticity involve at least an original - sorry, authentic - nod to the source?
The first authentic author could be made into a character in the work of the second authentic writer; or a character in the latter's work could quote her/him. Or something else. There are many ways of incorporating the sources of one's authenticity into a work. Surely a writer should have no problems with finding an adequate one?

I know, I know: I am missing the point - the point being that authenticity needs no nitpicking listing of sources... right?
In principle, I agree; but if you don't mind, I'll wait for the proponents of authenticity to waive their copyrights and their royalties, being as they are incompatible with such a democratically promiscuous view of verbal intercourse.

As I said, I don't know what Poe II would have to say for himself, he was never given the chance. But based on what the Berlinese author above had to say in her defence, I believe the actions of these mavericks of authenticity really do speak louder than the words they took out of someone else's mouth: they speak of a world where it took weeks for a reader or two among the hundreds who visit a website to recognise one of Poe's most famous poems - and none of those who noticed it were the editors of the publishing site.

And there is authenticity in the actions of these scribes (it is not an insult but rather an accurate description of their activity, from a time when there was a perception that writing down is not automatically the same as writing): they reveal a multitude of facets borrowed to act in place of a personal face. They reveal the horizon, the inexistent far shores, of a world where everything has been deconstructed to death, including personal responsibility and a sense of value - the value of the past, of actions past, of lives past, of the common experience accumulated through millenia.
Everything has been gleefully relativised in this "People's Century" of ours - and now the Gutenberg Galaxy itself is fast fading into the darkness whence it came.

Then again, there is a silver (thirty pieces worth of it) lining to this abysmal darkness: this way we get to read - and write - everything all over again. It may not be long before we even get - oh joy! - to make fire from scratch.

That's the glory of an age when TXTing is the lingua franca: you get to discover all sorts of untold beauties as if it were for the first time.

Much like with Alzheimer's, I am told.



IF YOU LIKED THIS, YOU MIGHT ENJOY:
The Code

(But if you liked Dan Brown, you probably won't. :)

Buzz Off, Google!

OR

the Terror of Social Networking

A few days ago I read a headline that made my heart jump, if only for a second (I've become quite cynical since Google has become a part of my life):

Google to Make Gmail More Social

For a brief second I thought - hoped against hope - that Gmail was to FINALLY make itself more presentable. Because I am social enough: I know how to communicate, both online and offline, with people I want to socialise with; I still know how to read and write, so I don't need Google to do it for me (as I am sure - mark my words! - that will be their next development).

What I want is to be able to reply to messages without having to drag the (literally) entire history of the conversation in tow; what I want is to make my friends partake in some of the beauties I find online without having to send every blasted picture as an attachment.
I also like nice backgrounds, nice fonts, etc. - you know, superfluous bourgeois aesthetics like that.
(And yes, you can do that with other email clients.
But we are talking about Google and Gmail here - and Gmail is actually one of the most freequently used email applications nowadays.)

As I said, I only entertained such hopes for a fraction of a second - the time it takes my idealistic faith in people and progress to die these days.

As it turned out, the "more social" feature was yet another useless gadget, intended to promote - or rather, cash on - "social networking" (an epidemic condition that is afflicting all too many websites, includes some that I would never have thought capable of stooping that low).

And today, as I logged in, I was greeted by a screen prodding me to "check out" the Buzz.
I didn't and won't.
But here's what it is supposed to achieve:

"Everything in one place Follow your friends and get recommended buzz from others — all within Google Mail."


What does "everything in one place" mean?
Are they actually implying people's social lives (or just life in general) have gotten so small and two-dimensional they can be kept tidy and controlled via a gadget?
(I believe they are implying that.)

And what the heck does "follow" mean, in the first place?
I already know what my friends are up to - as much as they want me to know about their activities. The same goes for their "following" me.

And I get all the "buzz" I need from people I actually care about, both online and offline. Why should I care about the "buzz"(whatever that means) of people I don't even know?

According to a very recent poll, most people are more or less"okay" with Buzz.
Around 17% "love" it.
Around 7% "hate" it.
(The results are changing all the time, so be sure to check the current results.)

If you are one of those who hate it, here's what you can do about it:

Turn off Buzz or remove Buzz updates from your mailbox

(Hint: just look at the very bottom of your Gmail page.)

That should help you to ignore it - which is always the best policy, especially when money (in return for your attention) is involved.


I bet you're left with the feeling that I actually hate Google.
I don't; it doesn't mean enough for me to hate it.

I despise it, and that's not a word I use lightly.
I despise it because it has stooped down to the lowest common denominator - in exchange for money, naturally - and is now even contributing, very actively and quite consciously, to the dumbing down of the world. (See also Google's Goggles ogling at you.)


But of course, the Buzz and Gmail's idiotic attempts to get "more social" are only the top of the iceberg.
More on that in the near future.



P.S. And don't forget to check for occasional edits.
If you know me... you know me. ;)