Tablesaw!

I remember the 1995-96 shutdown fairly clearly because I was dealing with college admissions, and the offer I would eventually accept was from GW in DC. The shutdown corresponded with massive snowfall in the capital, which prevented many people from returning to work, even after the agreement was finally reached (and also prevented the admissions officers from returning to the office and answering voicemail messages about thick envelopes).

I've been trying to come up with a way of thinking about the current shutdown, but I've become a bit too goal-oriented to think about the morality of actions independent of the reasons for them. Would liberals/Democrats be willing to shut down the federal government over an issue of abortion/women's rights? (I mean, would they be willing to today, because the Democrats did it in the '70s, even though they controlled the White House and both houses of Congress at the time).

I think the problem with the current shutdown is this: The Republican House has already tipped its hand about what it wants, which is to stop the Affordable Care Act from being implemented, but they don't have the political clout to make that happen. All they have is enough clout to do is wreck the place up a bit. But ultimately, nobody's going to negotiate with them based on the size of the damage they can do. Everyone can still count the votes, and the votes say that they've exceeded their grasp.

I was listening to commentary on the way in that said that Obama and the Senate are going to let the House twist in the wind for a bit because they don't have a strategy. And it really looks like that's the case. It's wasn't one of several negotiating ploys, it was a ploy to maybe have negotiation happen, and ultimately a gamble on where the public disapproval would fall. Enough representatives have staked so much on undoing the ACA that for them the risk of not getting a concession is equal to or greater than the risk of being responsible for the shutdown. But if we have to wait for an already divided party to come up with a strategy even before any sort of compromise can be worked toward, it's going to be a long time coming.

Hello, Google Profiles Team Member, and others!

There's not a whole lot I can do to talk to you as you go through this appeal, so I'm making this public post as the first informational link on my appeal, to help you get some context about what's going on here.

See, I was suspended on August 3rd. I appealed and was summarily rejected, but you asked me to send an e-mail for further review. The ticket number for that appeal was apparently #845437331. I sent an e-mail on August 4th. A public copy is here: http://tablesaw.dreamwidth.org/484324.html. Over the weekend, I waited to see if you'd respond or simply let it fall into the black hole of non-responses. But something different happened. My account went from having failed its appeal to having never had an appeal. At least, that's what it looked like from my profile page. I'm not sure; it's possible that my profile was reinstated and then re-rejected before anyone could see it. But I'm a little concerned that my last appeal, and the carefully considered words I sent you have been wiped clean from the last time.

But before we dicsuss theory, let's get to the links, shall we?

http://tablesaw.dreamwidth.org/profile

Dreamwidth is essentially my current base of operations on the Internet, where I am Tablesaw. This is a social network, where I am connected to hundreds of people who know me as Tablesaw. As you can see, I have archives for this name going back to 2002. Of course, many of those earlier entries are actually transferred from the previous iteration of this blog.

http://tablesaw.livejournal.com/profile

It was at Livejournal that I started the blog in 2002, and started to be known as Tablesaw to a wider web audience. Again, as a social network, LiveJournal introduced me to many people whom I now associate with offline as Tablesaw.

http://www.puzzlers.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=krewe:noms:tablesaw

Before that, I joined the National Puzzlers' League, an organization with over a century of experience using chosen names in "real life," as Tablesaw. Now, I know what you're thinking, Google Person. That website looks terrible and doesn't itself, vouch for my identity much. I'll admit, I don't use the website much either. But then, you've kind of placed yourself in a bind, asking me to prove things that happen in "real life" with links on the internet. You see, most of the NPL events happen off of the internet (where all of my friends call me Tablesaw), so the web presence is naturally still a bit sketchy. Of course, it's there where I met the woman who would become my fiancée as Tablesaw.

http://ifmud.port4000.com:4001/finger?user=Tablesaw

And before the NPL, I was on IFmud as Tablesaw. Again, an online space that translated into "real life" friends who call me Tablesaw. There was, for example, the time when a dozen or so of us got together and rented a house on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, something that we managed without ever having to use anything but the handles from the MUD.

https://plus.google.com/110575895677561507998/posts/YHtqJ5AXeAF
http://tablesaw.dreamwidth.org/482794.html

I don't know if you can see my own posts on G+ while I'm suspended, because I know the technology is still new. The second link is a backup. This link tells the story of the history of being recoginzed as Tablesaw by a small company that you might have heard of called "Google." See, it's hard to document my seven years of using Tablesaw Tablesawsen on my Gmail account as a link, so the best I can do is to tell you about it and assume that you can look up the information on your own. As they say in the legal profession, the documents responsive to your request are already in your custody and control. I can't tell you how to look into the history of my e-mail account, or my web history account (which I've also used since it was brought online).

https://picasaweb.google.com/tablesaw

Though I can show you the place where I've been using a Google social service under the name Tablesaw for four years. (Though, of course, I can't leave comments on most of my friends' pages like I could last month, because they're on Google Plus, and I'm suspended.)

http://www.geocaching.com/profile/
http://forum.caravelgames.com/member.php?Action=viewprofile&username=Tablesaw
http://www.croco-puzzle.com/Ue-Raetsel/ratinggraph.php?id=2249&type=all
http://forums.unfiction.com/forums/profile.php?mode=viewprofile&u=1460
http://www.gamersquarter.com/forums/profile.php?mode=viewprofile&u=159

And a further assortment of links to places where I'm known by Tablesaw on line, and where I interact with people who call me Tablesaw offline. Some of those represent places I don't visit much anymore. In fact, one person I encircled was someone from one of those fora with whom I hadn't really had contact in years, and I was so glad that using the name Tablesaw on Google Plus allowed us to find each other. Of course, that connection's gone now.

https://plus.google.com/110575895677561507998/posts/4hyoVecgxux

Finally, one more post from Google Plus, where one of the people I meet with weekly tells someone mocking my name, in no uncertain terms, that Tablesaw's the name they know me by.

Ok, links done, let's talk about your policy.

---

See, as I mentioned in that letter I sent to you guys last week, despite suspending me a bunch of times and linking me to your progressively updated Names Policy, nobody's actually told me what it is that's wrong with my name.

I understand that you don't want my legal or government-recognized name. That's good, because I don't really want to give it to you. (Though it does raise the question of why you'd asked for a But you do want "the name your friends, family or co-workers usually call you", and I've already given it to you—you've had it for over seven years.

Let's back up. Because, to be honest, there's a problem with your "Common Name" request, which is that I don't have just one common name. I've really got two. One of them I listed as my main profile name (in fact, as I said, I listed it as my main profile name seven years ago), the other I've listed as a nickname under privacy lock. I'm assuming that you can see that, with Google Profile powers, but I'm not going to mention it in this post, because it is, still, an open letter.

You're not really clear on what the difference is between a "common name" and a "nickname" really is. As far as I can tell, my two common names are also nicknames (since neither is, obviously, the name that my local government rigorously identifies me as). Now, I can see how helpful it is to have that other name in my nickname field, locked down under security so that only people whom I choose can see it, but beyond that, I don't see what your problem is with which common name I've placed where.

There's lots of reasons I don't want my other common name up in the big fancy spot on my profile. One reason is that the other nickname is rather close to the name by which the government rigorously identifies me. As you should be aware by now, what with the My Name Is Me campaign and other e-mails I know you're getting, is that making a name like that public opens one up to a lot of different forms of danger. And a lot of that ties into the circumstances I have two common names in the first place. Many people I know are aware of both names, and which they use at any given time is their business (and can switch in the same conversation sometimes). But the people who know me as Tablesaw (which includes a lot of people like my family (Hi, mom!)) have something in common: they are the people with whom I am more willing to share information about my life. And the people who know me only by my other common name are people whom I want to know as little about me as possible.

In other words, the social network that revolves around me as Tablesaw is far more valuable than the one that revolves around me as my other common name. More valuable to me, personally and emotionally, and more valuable to you because I'll be active in sharing with them.

And of course, there's the simple fact that I was here with this name long before Google Plus. When I went to initiate this appeal, the dialogue box that now appears eager to usher in a new name, wiping away years of history informs me that the name I change to is going to be changed in all Google products. Really? When just a month ago, it was perfectly fine for me to use all (and boy, do I mean all) Google products as Tablesaw, now you tell me that name's no good?

Well, maybe you do.

But you know—I know there's a lot of entitlement issues going around with Google Plus—but I do feel, after all this time, that I do deserve to be told why my name's not good enough for you anymore, if for no other reason than so that I can decide if I can change it for you.

Ok. I think that's it.

I hope you read all this, because I guarantee you, someone's going to.

And you know what? Depending on when you read this in relation to when other people read this, you can probably keep going down this page to see a bunch of my friends, friends in "real life"—and I guess I didn't even get to the part where somehow, "offline" is "real life," as though everything that happens on the Internet is somehow fictional (because, really, if online isn't "real life," then what does that make a web-based company like Google?)—tell you how they call me Tablesaw offline too.

I don't know if it even matters anymore.

After seven years, I'm starting to figure out what the cost will be of moving me e-mail address, simply because you think my name's not good enough for you and you won't tell me why.

Okay, it's late and I'm getting maudlin about this.

Best of luck with all this, Google Profiles Team Member. If you've read this far down, you deserve it.

And hell, you know what, I'm going to turn off IP logging, on the off chance that you want to leave a message. Anons get screened, and I won't reveal if you ask me not to.

Bed now. For reals.

Tablesaw out.

Last night, I discovered why I might not have been sleeping so well when I woke up gasping for breath and tasting stomach acid in my throat. Oddly, I think this may have been exacerbated by the new bedframe. I know the old one was a little messed up, maybe it was giving me that slope that's supposed to help keep that from happening.

Anyway, I finished up another hiking map. This one was mostly done, since I gave up on it back in '08 when I realized that some of the conversions from Google Earth to Google Maps weren't happening right. Now things seem to be running more smoothly.

This is for a trip to Calabasas Peak, the week after the trip to Saddle Peak.

Google Earth file / Online Google Map

The conversation continuing in the comments to my last post is awesome. Something occurred to me that didn't fit in with any of the comments, so I thought I'd address it separately.

A large part of my history with literary criticism in general, and the New Critics in particular, is the fact that my first serious analysis of literature came when I was a theatre major. In particular, my professor Stacy Wolf was very adamant about debunking the idea that analyzing theatre meant analyzing a playscript written by a playwright, as opposed to a produced play with actors, set design, costumes, music, and anything else that might be there, including the fact that any particular production of a play will have several slightly variant performances. It's harder, but it's so much more awesome.

It was also the first time that anyone had ever seriously suggested that the cover actually does affect the book. That is, it was an article that analyzed the effect of publicity on the production, arguing that it could never be simply ignored in the analysis of a play, production, or performance.

It included an anecdote about the premiere of Waiting for Godot in America that really stuck with me. Unfortunately, I had a hard time verifying it, and so for many years, I worried that it was too good to be true. And then, just today, I have found that it has appeared in the New Yorker, from an eyewitness:

amuel Beckett’s "Waiting for Godot," billed as "the laugh sensation of two continents," made its American début at the Coconut Grove Playhouse, in Miami, Florida, in 1956. My father, Bert Lahr, was playing Estragon, one of the two bowler-hatted tramps who pass the time in a lunar landscape as they wait in vain for the arrival of a Mr. Godot. "Playing 'Waiting for Godot' in Miami was like doing 'Giselle' in Roseland," my father said. The play was not so much a laugh riot as a revolution in theatrical storytelling; inevitably, it was met with militant incomprehension. "A dramatic whatzit," Walter Winchell called it, adding, "The history of frammis never had anything so rillerrah." On opening night, half the audience walked out after the first act; the next day, there was a line at the box office—to return tickets.

—John Lahr, "Panic Attack"

Of course, once found, that phrase "the Laugh Sensation of two Continents" becomes a key into finding related work, because the anecdote is so good, it gets worked into other articles. I'm pretty sure the article I read was excerpted from Directing Postmodern Theater: Shaping Signification in Performance. And here's an excerpt from The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative using it to talk about paratexts, which flourish mentioned in comments:

Gerard Genette invented the word paratexts for this material that lies somehow on the threshold of the narrative. Talking about the impact of a narrative, we can easily overlook the contributions of paratexts. We get into the habit of assuming that the narrative is wholly comprised in the thing we read, hear, or see with its beginning, middle, and end. Of course, the influence of some paratexts, like the kind of paper a novel is printed on, or the texture of its binding, may have very little influence on how we experience a narrative. (Though even here one can find exceptions. Wilde's Dorian Gray purchased "nine large-paper copies" of his favorite novel "and had them bound in different colours so that they might suit his various moods.") But a strong recommendation on the book jacket might predispose us to read a narrative with a favorable mindset or, conversely, to be doubly disappointed when the narrative dails to match the expectations created by the blurb. Or an ad, perhaps for commercial reasons, may lead us to expect one kind of play or film, when the work is quite something else. The American premier of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot—a stark, static, darkly humored representation of the human condition—was advertised as "the laugh sensation of two continents." As a result, the production played to, if not the wrong audience, the wrong set of expectations. On opening night, the upper-middle-class Miami audience, lured by the prospect of light comedy, left the theatre in droves before the first act.

I spent some time today tagging old entries, getting up to today's date seven years ago.

If you haven't noticed, I have a tag called "meta:declassified, which I use for posts which used to be filtered but now are open for general reading. After seven years, there are a lot of things that don't need to be so close to the vest. I've also been tagging filters, so that you can see what filter a given post is under (or was under).

I've also found myself adding to the breakup tag, with posts from older relationships. That's been interesting to read through, certainly.

Trying to figure out what my plans should be for tonight. Dungeonmaster's finishing the season (with the obvious exception of the all-star show), and I've been invited out with a different friend as well (though the location has its own problems). I'll figure it out soon enough.

As awesome as it is to have the box set of Daria, it's not really helping with the college flashback thing.

I'd forgotten how many different places and with how many people I'd watched so many different episodes.

I also remember everything being so much more vivid. Watching pre-HD cartoons in the HD era is so disconcerting.

Slowly, sporadically, I've been tagging my journal, which means I've been reading through all my entries to tag them appropriately. So far, I've finished the year 2002, when I started my LiveJournal. There's a handy tag for my favorite posts of that year: best of:2002, if you feel like taking the plunge. It's mostly puzzles, light verse, and meloncholy. If you're into that sort of thing.

There are so many automatic ice makers in freezers now. What hope can there be for the future, when our children can never know the joy of using their parents' ice cube trays to make their own frozen treats!?

Recently, a member of the npl passed away. Her hame was Mary Youngquist Hazard, but she was known to the Krewe as Nightowl.

A few weeks ago, she sent a note with a self-addressed postcard asking me about a recent puzzle I had authored. I thought it was a cool thing to do, but with the crazyness of the past two months, I forgot to respond. It's a bit late now.

This poem was written by her, and it appears in a few places on the web. It's a good poem with a remarkable restraint. Godspeed, Nightowl.

Winter Reigns

Shimmering, gleaming, glistening glow--
Winter reigns, splendiferous snow!
Won't this sight, this stainless scene,
Endlessly yield days supreme?

Eying ground, deep piled, delights
Skiers scaling garish heights.
Still like eagles soaring, glide
Eager racers; show-offs slide.

Ecstatic children, noses scarved--
Dancing gnomes, seem magic carved--
Doing graceful leaps. Snowballs,
Swishing globules, sail low walls.

Surely year-end's special lure
Eases sorrow we endure,
Every year renews shared dream,
Memories sweet, that timeless stream.

— Mary Youngquist

FriNYTX: 17:30.

September's gone already. The crushing heat is over. The forest fires have stopped. My house is a year old. School is very much happening again. There's less and less sunlight to be in. The fog sits in the canyons every morning. And the California flora gets guilty about staying alive while its relatives across the country grow withery.

How did it get so late so soon?
It's night before it's afternoon.
December's here before it's June.
My goodness how the time has flewn.
How did it get so late so soon?
— Dr. Seuss