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Jan. 21st, 2004 11:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
clayhornikThis next piece was written on Saturday night, Sunday I got a great postscript that I've turned into a forward, because well, I have a tendency to view things through gloom coloured glasses, seeing things worse than they are, a worse case scenario imagination. But Sunday there was a football game on tv at the Trawler, preshow mostly while I was there, the patrons chatting... until the National Anthem came up. Then the bar went quiet. Absolutely silent. Pin drop absence of sound except for the National Anthem over the sound system. Once it was over, the conversations resumed, back to business as usual. I've never seen anything like that before at a resturant or a bar, even a 'sports' bar. THAT is the kind of place I visited. And I'll be happy to go back there again.-1/21/04
--
Saturday:
I'm in Lovecraft Country. Not the literal, geographical area, but something even creepier: Lovecraft Country as metaphor for rural, isolated, clannish, and isolationary.
I'm sure I'd have less of this attitutde if I could actually get around, but being sans automobile, I'm limited in my range. As it is, Exmore is relaxing, but some how creepy. Knowing that you're never more than seven miles away from water at any point is vaguely Innsmouthian. Hearing a local refer to the area as "The Shore" is equally unsettling, as in ‘what happens on The Shore, stays on The Shore'. Somewhere, not too far my my hotel, is a farm, with at least one unmarked grave in the back yard. (This is, of course a terribly unfair approach to the subject- while I was out of town there were at least five homicides in Norfolk: one bank security officer killed during a robbery and a quadruple homicide in Ocean View.)
On the plus side, the writing has been going along nicely, with small breaks to indulge in Law & Order- do you have any idea how many times you could watch it in one day? I may have to get cable- and bad killer bug movies on Sci Fi.
My bus trip up was nothing like Mike D'Orso's though. I had little interaction with my fellow travellers on the bus and in the station I was distracted by muzak versions of Fleetwood Mac's "Big Love" and Ah-Ha's "Take on Me".
I picked up the Global Frequency trade paperback theoretically for the trip, and I've reread it a couple of times, but the majority of my reading this trip has been AUTHOR'S NAME's The Tipping Point and Faith (yes, it's her real name) Popcorn's The Popcorn Report. Earlier in the week, I tried reading "The Future Isn't What It Used To Be" but the dippy new agey-ness of the piece was spoiling it for me, so Popcorn and Tipping balanced it out for me. The Popcorn Report is twelve years old now, and some of the ideas are a bit dated (go figure) but the thoughts behind the ideas are still quite timely. I need to find some more recent stuff from Popcorn to see what her take on cell phones and Amazon.com are. She touches on these as potentials, but I don't think the Faith Popcorn of 1992 was quite there. Rather odd actually, seeing an ‘important' book like this lacking a URL.
The Tipping Point. It's about marketing and society, how we, as humans, work in a collective sense. Favourite bit looks at the idea of idea viruses, like ‘yawning'.
So, now I'm ready to go out. I haven't gotten dressed to go out in a while, twice in 2003, both times to go to concerts, and while this isn't ‘dressed' dressed, I did get out of the jammies I'd been lounging in most of the afternoon, I've been fairly indolent, but dammit that's what a vacations all about.
It's been a quiet vacation so far but now that the Clumps have checked in, the hotel room next door isn't as quiet as it has been. Lucky me.
I haven't gone to the movie theatre I was hoping to visit; the desk girl told me that it was closed this week and next week's movie is "Country Bear Jamboree." Hmmm, maybe roadtrip it this summer. It's a shame that I'm not going to see the theatre itself, but CBJ? No big loss there.
--
Saturday:
I'm in Lovecraft Country. Not the literal, geographical area, but something even creepier: Lovecraft Country as metaphor for rural, isolated, clannish, and isolationary.
I'm sure I'd have less of this attitutde if I could actually get around, but being sans automobile, I'm limited in my range. As it is, Exmore is relaxing, but some how creepy. Knowing that you're never more than seven miles away from water at any point is vaguely Innsmouthian. Hearing a local refer to the area as "The Shore" is equally unsettling, as in ‘what happens on The Shore, stays on The Shore'. Somewhere, not too far my my hotel, is a farm, with at least one unmarked grave in the back yard. (This is, of course a terribly unfair approach to the subject- while I was out of town there were at least five homicides in Norfolk: one bank security officer killed during a robbery and a quadruple homicide in Ocean View.)
On the plus side, the writing has been going along nicely, with small breaks to indulge in Law & Order- do you have any idea how many times you could watch it in one day? I may have to get cable- and bad killer bug movies on Sci Fi.
My bus trip up was nothing like Mike D'Orso's though. I had little interaction with my fellow travellers on the bus and in the station I was distracted by muzak versions of Fleetwood Mac's "Big Love" and Ah-Ha's "Take on Me".
I picked up the Global Frequency trade paperback theoretically for the trip, and I've reread it a couple of times, but the majority of my reading this trip has been AUTHOR'S NAME's The Tipping Point and Faith (yes, it's her real name) Popcorn's The Popcorn Report. Earlier in the week, I tried reading "The Future Isn't What It Used To Be" but the dippy new agey-ness of the piece was spoiling it for me, so Popcorn and Tipping balanced it out for me. The Popcorn Report is twelve years old now, and some of the ideas are a bit dated (go figure) but the thoughts behind the ideas are still quite timely. I need to find some more recent stuff from Popcorn to see what her take on cell phones and Amazon.com are. She touches on these as potentials, but I don't think the Faith Popcorn of 1992 was quite there. Rather odd actually, seeing an ‘important' book like this lacking a URL.
The Tipping Point. It's about marketing and society, how we, as humans, work in a collective sense. Favourite bit looks at the idea of idea viruses, like ‘yawning'.
So, now I'm ready to go out. I haven't gotten dressed to go out in a while, twice in 2003, both times to go to concerts, and while this isn't ‘dressed' dressed, I did get out of the jammies I'd been lounging in most of the afternoon, I've been fairly indolent, but dammit that's what a vacations all about.
It's been a quiet vacation so far but now that the Clumps have checked in, the hotel room next door isn't as quiet as it has been. Lucky me.
I haven't gone to the movie theatre I was hoping to visit; the desk girl told me that it was closed this week and next week's movie is "Country Bear Jamboree." Hmmm, maybe roadtrip it this summer. It's a shame that I'm not going to see the theatre itself, but CBJ? No big loss there.
