Books, Personal , , , 1 Comment

Huzzah! RIP Elizabeth Peters

by

Last night I had insomnia, and as I jumped from browser tab to tab looking at things I never make time for during the normal day, I discovered that one of my favorite authors died in August. I was sad, because I loved her work, and it’s had a recurring role in my life, despite not being lit-ra-choor.

First

In 1991 I was 19 years old, living and working on a dude ranch in the Sonoran desert of Wickenburg, Arizona — dude ranch capital of the world. I’d lived/worked away from home before, but only within a couple of hours. This was right after I dropped out of college and decided I wanted to try living in the desert. I had not actually read Desert Solitaire yet, but I was surrounded by people who had, and absorbed their secondhand Edward Abbey fantasies.

The main living room at the ranch where guests would gather for drinks before dinner had a wall of bookshelves, filled with paperbacks that people could borrow or trade as desired. One day when I didn’t have a ride to the library in town, I went to the wall and pulled out a tattered paperback titled Naked Once More by Elizabeth Peters. It turned out to be a mystery novel with a fantastic middle-aged former-librarian-turned-romance-novelist amateur detective female lead (long before chick lit made such things popular). It was full of literary references, and it made my brain light up so much that I decided to go back to school during the spring term while I finished out my dude ranch stint.

I also spent that spring semester motoring through every book written by Elizabeth Peters and her other pen name, Barbara Michaels. The Elizabeth Peters series were my favorites, especially Jacqueline Kirby (of Naked Once More) and Amelia Peabody.

Second

I don’t remember when, but at some point between 1992 and 1995 (I *think* it was then. Maybe it was later. She might remember; I can’t.), I introduced Andrea Middleton to the books. She also loved them. We would shout, “Huzzah!” in true Amelia Peabody form when we needed to get ourselves going.

Third

During a period of winter depression when I lived in Bellingham (sometime during 1995-1996?), I pulled myself out of the pit by reading all the Kirby and Peabody novels in a marathon to rival any of today’s Netflix marathons. When I emerged, I shouted, “Huzzah!”

Fourth

Living in Vermont (1996?) and reflecting on that time in Bellingham, I wrote the 2nd of 2 fan letters I’ve ever written in my life (the first was to Luke and Laura of General Hospital when I was very young and watched it with my grandmother). I thanked her for writing books that were so good they could beat depression, told her that Huzzah! was the Andrea-Jen war cry, and asked if it was going to turn out that Sethos was Emerson’s illegitimate brother. She didn’t reply, but based on the way she wrote about author fan mail in Naked Once More, I was glad to have written the letter.

Fifth

Andrea was pregnant and choosing a name for her first child in May of 2008. She had a boy name lined up and was trying to figure out a girl one. Emma, a family name, was in the running, but all the girls in Andrea’s generation had had A names, so she considered that as a possibility and mentioned the one she had in mind. I loved Emma, but hated her A name, so I sent her a list of girl A names I thought were better, including Amelia after Amelia Peabody for an adventurous spirit and steel-trap brain. Just after election day, welcome Amelia Middleton.

Postscript

On August 8, 2013, at the age of 85, Barbara Mertz (Elizabeth Peters’s real name) died at her home. Her Amelia Peabody series spanned 35 years. Mertz won numerous awards for her books, and is one of the few writers of historical novels whose accuracy I have never questioned — she held a PhD in Egyptology. She was also an animal lover, and cats frequently featured as characters in their own right in her books.

Today I adopted another cat (Sadie Zap’s mom, who was destined for a shelter), and I’ve named her Miz Kirby in memory of the first book that sucked me into the Elizabeth Peters world.

Brown and white cat

Miz Kirby

Andrea and I are thinking that we should re-read the Peabody oeuvre in memoriam. Anyone want to join us?

Personal , 6 Comments

Sandwich Song

by

In my teenage years I worked at a hiking lodge run by the best bunch of outdoorsy liberal hippies ever. We used to sing to wake up the guests (the morning we did Psycho Killer was the best), and the first summer we also had to sing when we brought out the trail lunches. This is the song that was sung:

Sandwiches are beautiful, sandwiches are fine.
I like sandwiches, I eat them all the time.
I eat them for my supper and I eat them for my lunch,
And if I had a hundred sandwiches I’d eat them all at once!

Once there was a pretty maid, the fairest in the land.
The young men in the county all were asking for her hand.
They offered her the moon and they offered her the sea.
I offered her a sandwich and she said she’d marry me!

Automattic, Community, WordCamp, WordPress , , , 13 Comments

Automatticians at WordCamps

by

Automattic is getting pretty big, almost 200 folks now, spread all over the world. That’s a lot of people we can send to WordCamps. I remember when it was mostly Matt and I splitting up who’d go to which events — how times have changed in five years!

Since we’re hiring so enthusiastically, my team is putting together a little guide for Automatticians on how to be an awesome Automattic representative at a WordCamp. I have a pretty giant list of tips and advice at the ready (you’d never have guessed, I know), but it occurs to me that non-Automatticians are probably the best people to ask about what we can do better when we pop in to a local WordCamp.

Here are some of the things from my giant list so far:

  • Don’t travel in packs. When there are a few or a bunch of Automatticians at an event, we tend to cluster together because we so rarely get to see each other — and we like each other — but it makes it less likely that we’ll meet new community members. 1. Because we’re too busy talking to each other to reach out to new people. 2. Because it’s intimidating for someone new to break into that group.
  • Ask questions. A lot of WordCamp attendees will already know about Automattic, so while we should definitely be a resource for anyone interested in the company, the better use of time is getting to know the community members: who are they, how are they using WordPress, what would help them make their community more vibrant, who are the local independent consultants/themers/developers that we should know about?
  • Help out. WordCamps are a lot of work. Automatticians aren’t visiting dignitaries — we’re getting paid to be there — and we should help out along with the locals, whether that’s taking a shift on the help desk, moving chairs, or passing out shirts.
  • Be identifiable. Wearing the same WordPress t-shirt as everyone else is cool and all, but wearing a shirt that identifies the wearer as an Automattic employee, or a lanyard for the badge or something, would make it easier for people interested in talking about Automattic (especially people interested in jobs!) to find the Automatticians in the crowd.
  • Carry cards. Saying “email me later” works better when the card with an email address is handed over at the same time. That said, getting community member contact info so the burden of follow-up isn’t on them is even better.
  • Tweet It.  Using Twitter to let local followers know Automatticians are there is helpful. They might love to meet in person and talk about working at Automattic or contributing to the .org project and may not realize we’re there, especially if we’re not on the speaker list.
  • Don’t hog the speaker slots. Yes, Automatticians are speakers you can rely on, and we do employ a lot of seriously smart people, but if the speaker roster is filled up with Automatticians, that doesn’t do a lot to help grow the experience of local folks, which is part of what WordCamps are about.
  • Don’t be exclusionary. If planning to go off to an Automattician dinner or something after a long day of not traveling as a pack, don’t make those plans in front of other people, who will feel excluded (or might not understand what’s happening and might inadvertently show up later and crash the dinner); make private plans in private via Automattic channels. Even better, don’t go to private dinners, go to dinner with members of the local community.
  • Be present. In sessions, don’t work on the laptop, just pay attention to the speaker. In the crowd, don’t focus on the phone, smile and meet new people. Be there for the whole event, don’t take off early or skip the second day. Show the local community that Automatticians are respectful and want to be there.

What would you add? In the comments (or in an email to me at jenmylo/wordpress.org if you don’t want people to see what you think) make suggestions for what Automatticians can do to be awesome at WordCamps. It’s also okay to give examples of times when we have not been awesome. Learning from our mistakes is good, too. Thanks in advance for your help!

Pop Culture , , 2 Comments

Doctor Who’s a Dude; Get Over It

by

I’m nerd enough that I watched the announcement of who would be playing Doctor Who once Matt Smith leaves the role after this year’s Christmas Special. Like others, I followed along in the weeks preceding as geeks, bloggers, and celebrities all speculated on who would land the part. I had a wishlist of casting choices just like everyone else. None of my dreamdocs were chosen, alas, but you know what?  It’s not my show — I don’t get to choose.

Peter Capaldi, the 12th Doctor

Peter Capaldi, the 12th Doctor

That doesn’t mean the choice of Peter Capaldi was bad, or insensitive, or unfair. On the contrary, the choice was brilliant, and one I didn’t even think of. So why are so many people feeling okay about denigrating Capaldi’s selection?

In the pre-decision weeks, Helen Mirren and John Barrowman (love them) both advocated for a female Doctor this time around.* Idris Elba was a frontrunner among those who wanted to see the racial barrier knocked down. And then there were less-political people who just felt the character of the Doctor had waited long enough, and it was time to let him regenerate as a “big ginge.” :) Personally, I would have been happy with any of those directions, if the person chosen was the one who best fit the direction Stephen Moffat planned to take the 12th.

I know that there’s not a level of diversity in television and film programming that reflects the actual demographics of society (side note, if you haven’t yet, check out the Fresh Air episode with Geena Davis on women in movies), but the negative, bitter backlash from diversity activists (and the non-activists who mostly just retweet things) when it was announced that Peter Capaldi — a 50-something British white dude — would be taking the role was pretty sucky.

Look, I was rooting hard for Chiwetel Ejiofor to be the 11th back when Tennant was leaving, and I was bitterly disappointed when Matt Smith was chosen (though he grew on me once his episodes started airing). I know that there’s precedent for a Time Lord becoming a Time Lady on regeneration, and Moffatt has said himself that he could see it happening. But listen: we are not entitled to determine the creative decisions of artists based on our own socio-political agendas. They’re artists for a reason… they have ideas they want to express. We are all free to do the same. So just like there’s no reason an Italian restaurant should be told to serve borscht just because I really think beets are underrepresented on most restaurant menus,  people who write and cast tv characters shouldn’t be beholden to the agendas of some audience members at the expense of their creative vision.

Frankly, I wish the Doctor would be a  vegetarian this time around. If he hates killing so much, then why is he so willing to eat the flesh of dead animals? He doesn’t eat onscreen often, but it’s happened a few time and it’s included meat. But that’s my agenda, not Doctor Who’s. It’s not up to me.

The Doctor is a character that’s been around for 50 years. 50 years. He’s had a rotating cast of companions and guest stars more diverse than most US tv shows. And he’s a British dude. So far, a white one. At some point the right actor (male/female/trans) could come along and wow the showrunner/writer/producer, and then maybe The Doctor will be a Black British Dude. Or an Indian British Woman. Or an Asian Trans Brit.** Or whatever set of demographic descriptors apply to the actor who blows up the audition and wins the part.

But in the meantime, the person who wowed Stephen Moffat this time was Peter Capaldi, an actor with a pretty great pedigree, and who, yes, I can already see as the Doctor even though I’m not very familiar with his previous work. He’s a fantastic choice, and ought to bring a shift in tone that will be cool. And as far as diversity goes, I’m pretty psyched they went with someone older for a change. If nothing else, I’m thinking it will change the romcom tendencies that creep in with all the younger companions that fall for the Doctor.***

Complaints that the Capaldi choice was generic, safe, wrong, an insult to women/people of color/name-the-underrepresented-group-you-were-rooting-for are just plain mean and narrow-minded, the opposite of what the complainers try to espouse, and really insulting to Capaldi and Moffatt — what makes any of us a better judge of how to cast the Doctor? Have we done it successfully? Written scripts like Blink? It’s just conceited to think that our personal opinions on this are more valid and our agendas more important than the professional opinions of the people who are doing the job.

If I want to get borscht on the Italian restaurant’s menu, I don’t just go in and tell them to put borscht on the menu, and get all my friends to blog and tweet the same thing. Then I’m just demanding an outcome, not helping the deciders see things my way. No, I need to talk to the owners and convince them of the inherent awesomeness of beets — they are the most intense of vegetables, after all — so that they will want borscht on the menu if it can be fit in without ruining the balance they’ve worked hard to create with the existing dishes, or at least so they can start thinking about gradually shifting some menu items so the borscht will eventually be a seamless addition that makes the menu more robust and diverse, rather than everyone reacting with, “Why is there Russian beet soup on this menu? It’s never been there before!”

Likewise, criticizing a professional for choosing an actor that doesn’t meet your idea of what demographic quotas need to be met is uncool. If you want to change the decisions, convince the people who get to make the decisions that your point of view is worth adopting. Then let the pro cast the right actor, whoever it is, safe in the knowledge that the diversity question was factored into the weighty decision.

Would I have been thrilled (still) with Chiwetel Ejiofor? Fuck, yeah. Would I have swooned if it had been Emma Thompson? Holy hell, yes. Or Gina Bellman? There are no words that express how fast the swoon would’ve felled me. But I’m not the showrunner, and neither are you. Congratulations to Peter Capaldi, and good choice, Moffat. For #12, Doctor Who’s a white dude again; time to get over it and start looking forward to the new episodes and the 50th Anniversary special.

White dudes can be good actors, too.

* In Barrowman’s case, do you wonder how much of that was just him hoping for more Captain Jack sexytime? 

** Come on, the Doctor will always be a Brit.

*** Though, oh, Capaldi and River Song? Can’t. Wait.

P.S. The 50th Anniversary Special airs during WordCamp London. Who’s rigging up a projection? Tammie Lister, I think it’s your turn this time. :)

Personal 3 Comments

Bye, O’Malley

by

I’m at WordCamp San Francisco right now. I just talked on the phone to my mother, who’s been taking care of my cats during this trip (CLS, team meetup, OSCON, WCSF), and I’m sad to say that O’Malley was found dead by his food bowl today.

Eating was his favorite thing (and he had the fat body to prove it), so I like to think that at least he went out doing the thing he loved best. But I don’t know. He wasn’t sick, and was only 3 years old, so it’s a surprise. Now I’m sad. To cheer myself up I looked up his shining moment of cuteness online:

3.0 kitteh

I don’t believe in cat heaven — or any heaven, come to that — so I just have to get used to the furry orange cat not being there. Which I will. And then I will have to try not to feel guilty when I stop being sad.

If anyone wants to eulogize O’Malley, probably the best way to do it would be to tweet/post the 3.0 kitteh lolcat. Or to eat a sandwich. A big one.

Uncategorized 4 Comments

Moving Soonish

by

Hi. Here’s the official announcement. I’m going to be moving back to Portland (OR, not ME)  within the next couple of months. I have my Tybee place until the end of October, so if anyone wants to come visit, start planning now.

I’ll post separately with the whys and the ‘what about the jitterbug’ stuff, but wanted to make the plan official. In other words, anyone who asks about those things in the comments won’t get an answer until the posts are finished. :)

Community 3 Comments

Appropriate Words

by
or, Being Sensitive and the End of Wheaton’s Law.

[Note: This post was originally going to be titled Meaning vs. Intent; or, Why Sensitive Language Is Hard but Important, but I forgot I already had a title when I started writing, and I didn't remember until after I hit publish. This is that post from the the "week of vs" list.]

Part I: Lamer Than Lame

I attended AdaCamp SF two weeks ago, a conference by/for/about women in open technology and culture. I’ve been running in feminist circles since I was a teenager, and with the LGBTQ cause for just as long (though back then the initials weren’t as many), so I’m pretty used to the rhetoric around language and the power it has. I have to admit, though, that while we were going though the rules and processes that would run the weekend, there was a bit about using appropriate language had me rolling my eyes.

I think everyone in the English-speaking world is aware of our complicated slang rules. “Nigger” is a word that we should never use. Unless it’s a rapper? Definitely Paula Deen shouldn’t. Definitely I shouldn’t. I actually think that definitely rappers shouldn’t either. You can’t “reclaim” a word and take away its negative power unless it has, in fact, lost its power in the end. As long as that sensitivity exists, the word should just not be used. They didn’t tell us not to use words like “nigger” or “fag” at the conference; I think they assumed that everyone knows that’s unacceptable language.

Words we were informed at the conference that were considered inappropriate had more to do with dis/abilities. So when we were told to avoid words like “lame,” “crazy,” “idiot,” and “stupid,” I, like many others, rolled the aforementioned eyes and thought we were going a bit far in the quest for sensitivity. I may have started singing Nerf Herder’s Lamer Than Lame in my head. But by the end of the weekend I had changed my tune.

Yes, “lame” technically refers to being “unable to walk normally because of an injury or illness affecting the leg or foot,” not to being “uncool,” but would someone with that kind of disability really take offense when the word has so clearly taken on an alternate meaning in our culture? Maybe, maybe not, but the fact is that what’s happening here is that a word that references a specific kind of person has been substituted to mean something derogatory. The way we blithely exclaim, “That’s so lame!” is not really any different from the way a generation ago it was common to exclaim, “That’s retarded!” or ”That’s so gay!” We are mostly caught up to the fact that the latter two aren’t okay. But the reason why it’s not okay is something we are failing to internalize and apply to other words.

Any time we use a person’s physical characteristics (including brain/mental ability) as a negative adjective, or a cultural symbol as a pejorative descriptor, we have done a bad thing. What’s disappointing is that we do it so unconsciously, and out of habit, but we really don’t need to. There are other words, more descriptive words, and most people are capable of coming up with those words. For those without the mental wherewithal to tap into a good vocabulary, there’s always a dictionary or thesaurus (look it up on your phone!). In the meantime, here are a few example substitutions, depending on context.

  • Lame — disappointing, bad, uncool, boring
  • Stupid — a bad idea, not fair,  has problems we’d need to solve
  • Crazy — shocking, not well thought out, appalling, acting strangely

Basically, if you’re using a word or phrase like one of these that gets applied to all sorts of things in a negative manner, but doesn’t convey a specific meaning, pick a word that does convey a specific meaning. After a weekend without words like this, I began to realize how often they’re used in our culture, and how much nicer it is when they aren’t. There’s a reason kindergarten teachers don’t let the kids call each other stupid.

So let’s stop using words that can make other people feel like crap.

Part II: Cunt vs. Dick

Thinking also about language people use to talk about women negatively (bitch, cunt, etc) that are not actually descriptions of behavior, I have to wonder why this one is so skewed. Yes, I want people to stop using words like “bitch” and “cunt” to mean “a woman who’s doing something I don’t like, disagree with, or find annoying.” But if “cunt” — the female genitals — is a word that shouldn’t be used to mean things other than female genitals, why is it okay to use “dick” — the male genitals — the same way?

“Don’t be a dick,” or Wheaton’s Law, is a mainstay of geek culture, but it’s ultimately predicated on the same misuse of language that calling someone a “cunt” is. “Don’t be a jerk” would get the same point across, but we gleefully use “dick” instead. Why? I like Wil Wheaton as much as the next nerd — I even bought the Codex and Fawkes poster for the cafe — but just because he’s cool doesn’t mean that this phrase doesn’t perpetuate a bad habit, and a negative one, despite the goal of creating better behavior. Ah, the irony.

From now on, I’m going to try not to call anyone a dick, or tell them not to be a dick. If I want men to stop using the words for my body parts to mean bad things, I should return the favor. So I will.