October, 24, 2005 archives

and the sign said, “long-haired freaky people need not apply”
so i tucked my hair up under my hat, and i went in to ask him why
he said, “you look like a fine, upstanding young man, i think you’ll do”
so i took off my hat and said, “imagine that, ha! me workin’ for you!”

oh, sign, sign, everywhere a sign
blockin’ out the scenery, breakin’ my mind
do this, don’t do that, can’t you read the sign

and the sign said anybody caught trespassin’ would be shot on sight
so i jumped on the fence and i yelled at the house
“hey, what gives you the right
to put up a fence to keep me out, or to keep mother nature in
if god was here he’d tell you to your face, man you’re some kind of sinner!”

now hey there mister can’t you read
you got to have a shirt and tie to get a seat
you can’t even watch, no you can’t eat
you ain’t supposed to be here

the sign said you got to have a membership card to get inside, ha!

and the sign said “everybody welcome, come in, kneel down and pray”
but when they passed around the plate at the end of it all
i didn’t have a penny to pay
so i got me a pen and a paper, and i made up my own little sign
i said “thank you, lord, for thinkin’ about me, i’m alive and doin’ fine”

— “signs,” by arthur thomas

there’s a great version of this song by tesla from their five man acoustical jam live album.

the “generally available” (or production-ready) version of mysql 5.0 was officially released today, and kai voigt, one of the mysql trainers, has posted a sudoku solver written as an sql stored procedure. the solver was actually written by per-erik marten, the main implementor of mysql’s stored procedure support.

it’s probably not the best showcase of stored procedures, but it is a nifty little hack.

behavior in public places: notes on the social organization of gatherings by erving goffman is a book that was mentioned in the notes for matt webb’s presentation about his “glancing” project.

because it is really a rather academic work (and perhaps because it was written in 1963), it chases a sort of precision of vocabulary that makes it tough to digest. but there were a number of interesting nuggets within that made it worthwhile.

here’s a quote from the book, which is actually a quote from georg simmel’s soziologie:

of the special sense-organs, the eye has a uniquely sociological function. the union and interaction of individuals is based upon mutual glances. this is perhaps the most direct and purest reciprocity which exists anywhere. this highest psychic reaction, however, in which the glances of eye to eye unite men, crystallizes into no objective structure; the unity which momentarily arises between two persons is present in the occasion and is dissolved in the function. so tenacious and subtle is this union that it can only be maintained by the shortest and straightest line between the eyes, and the smallest deviation from it, the slightest glance aside, completely destroys the unique character of this union. no objective trace of this relationship is left behind, as is universally found, directly or indirectly, in all other types of associations between men, as, for example, in interchange of words. the interaction of eye and eye dies in the moment in which directness of the function is lost. but the totality of social relations of human beings, their self-assertion and self-abnegation, their intimacies and estrangements, would be changed in unpredictable ways if there occurred no glance of eye to eye. this mutual glance between persons, in distinction from the simple sight or or observation of the other, signifies a wholly new and unique union between them.

it probably doesn’t take much imagination for anyone who knows me to figure out why i found that noteworthy.

(“to induce improper mutual-involvement” is one of those phrases that just popped out at me elsewhere in the book. sign me up.)

sorry for the spate of postings — i took the day off work today, and so i find myself with an excess of writing energy and no other outlet. just know that my internal editor has been nearly as busy, and there’s a half-dozen posts i started and threw away.

a birthday is a good time for reflection, like i really need an excuse for that. so i’ve been spending time thinking about what i would like to change about my life this year. the answer is easy, but also really, really difficult.

i also came up with two resolutions, or goals, or whatever you want to call them. goals is probably a better word, since although i may phrase them as absolutes, they are something i only expect to achieve in shades of gray. accepting reasonable expectations is something i’ve managed to embrace.

but i am tired of writing about personal stuff here, since i can never decide whether i am being entirely too oblique or too obvious. you are a very strange audience, made up of people i am writing to, about, and for, where sometimes i want you to be in one category when you’re really in another, and other times i wish you weren’t in one of them but you almost certainly are, and other times when you’re not any of them, you’re just some anonymous person walking past this street corner that i am talking to myself on.

so no more. or at least less. after this.

the thing to change about my life: be less afraid.

the first resolution: don’t turn down any invitations.

the second resolution: don’t avoid any questions.