The Enigma of the Oracle, Giorgio de Chirico, 1910

The past week was an incredibly rough news week. I don’t know why I need to write that. Everyone in the US knows what I am talking about.

I knew I had become hypersensitive to the news by Thursday morning and while it’s true bad things happen all over the world every single day, the Boston Marathon bombing set the tone for the rest of the week as one of fear and sadness. I cried over many headlines and news tidbits  on every day of the week until Friday, when I decided to read a tenth of the news I usually do. I was hiding under a rock, unwilling to read anything about anything, especially if it had something to do with the Boston marathon bombing.

Add to that me trying to juggle three freelance gigs for the first time.  I didn’t do a particularly good job of it, but I’ve been worse during other national tragedies. Stupid super empathy, you’re good for nothing but bouts of anger and tears in times like these. Well, enough about my weird brain chemistry, here’s a recap of this week and a preview of the upcoming one:

On Monday, my Guardian piece about Anonymous and it’s mainstream shift/ now established expertise at PR was published, and it did well throughout the day (and week). I say that based off comments and retweets. I was really surprised no one in the UK or US picked out the best part of it though: that the President of United States fears Anonymous. That  great factoid is courtesy of Gabriella Coleman.  The Globe and Mail picked up the article though, and so did the Raw Story, which was cool.

Monday also saw me chatting with Jaime Cochran about weev and his legacy, over whiskey on the rocks. I am trying to write a good personal profile on weev for VICE, explaining the man behind the bad boy myth, perhaps even evoke some sympathy for him. I have been talking to various friends for a couple weeks now, and I have my own experiences with him over these last few years, but it wasn’t until tonight (Sunday) that I got  the interview with a source I’d been looking for. I think I can finally finish that piece tomorrow, which is great, because maybe Motherboard is annoyed with me now. But they need to pay me – the student loan people have begun to  hound me with phone calls again. (Because I am a simple person that loves alliteration, I made Motherboard’s primary day Monday.)  

On Tuesday (and Thursday, and Friday) I toiled away at the Video Ink – I am getting a big kick out of  doing reviews of web shows. I made a mistake in my earlier personal blog post – out of 5 writers, only one is male. Muahahaha! Phenomenal feminine power.  This week, besides regular writing duties, I will be researching the Digital Upfronts. I was really excited about seeing Questlove for NBC’s Digital Amplified event but I was confused and feel a fool. I don’t arrive in NYC for the conference until next week. NBC is doing their digital presentation at the same time as television this week, instead of waiting for the next week. NBC going rogue tripped me up, dammit. I’ll probably write an op/ed this week calling for a combination of the two upfronts. 

Wednesday, which is ReadWrite day, actually saw me writing a media criticism story that found a home on Thought Catalog. All the cool male writers at cool Internet publications were freaking out over what a couple hundred people on reddit were doing, and the resulting media coverage was incredibly over hyped. In my TC piece, I predicted this hysterical and overblown coverage would have a negative effect and lead to someone being falsely accused more so than the actual reddit thread and guess what. It happened with the New York Post. I reached out to the writers and info spreaders in question via Twitter, and Jared Keller, Ian Steadman, and Adrian Chen had the decency to respond. Steadman and Chen twisted the issue into something it is not, though. 

John Herrman and Alexis Madrigal did not respond, though Herrman would later write a piece essentially saying the same thing about the failings of media, and then some bullshit line about how journalism is now about wading through the bullshit and not just facts as if journalism wasn’t always about providing context and wading through the bullshit. At the time of the Buzzfeed piece, I was still the only person to have pointed out the harm of such media coverage, but didn’t get a link. That guy is a talented writer, but him ignoring me on this issue, combined with him unfollowing me last fall when I pointed out that in some circumstances social media shaming is not okay (along with the way my points were represented in that article), makes me wonder if he realizes just how his behavior comes across.

Thursday and Friday saw the lives of two mice in my building come to an end in my apartment, thanks to my feline hunter.

Book News!

I spent a good chunk of Tuesday and Thursday writing a chapter guide for my book (currently thinking it will break down into 22 chapters) as well as a rough draft of  a few chapters.  I was actually surprised with how quickly I was able to work on it. I will also need a pseudonym. I wonder if I can get a book proposal done in time for when I visit NYC. That would be something.

Potentially Bad news!

I need a local outlet, and I need to do some hyperlocal coverage. I need to figure out how to work this into my schedule.

I took a really long vacation  - well, more like an adventure –  in India. For all of  February.  I learned quite a few things about myself (more remembering and reflecting than anything – yeah, depression’s a bitch like that) so I know I will be processing the experience for months to come. It was a kick in the gut. No, really. One night, after 48 hours of being sick and unable to hold down water or food, I had a fever dream of such crisp details.

So I returned to the States determined to be a master of my fate, in a way that I couldn’t be if say, I was born in India.

• I started blogging for VICE’s tech blog Motherboard (a place I like much better than Slate for many reasons) after a piece I wrote about this group of online “trolls and hackers” known as the Rustle League. I think VICE is a good home for my contrarian and weird Internet stuff, and we’ll see what happens there. 

• A piece I wrote about labiaplasty was published on Thought Catalog, and it made both my mate and my mother mad. They didn’t understand the value of the piece at first, objecting to its personal nature. I ended up telling my mom I don’t want to live in a world where you can’t talk freely about your body as a woman (aka, an abstinence only education nightmare where women all get plastic surgery) and that convinced her. I had originally written it for VICE which was why there is all those curse words in it. (Ha! ) I need more non-tech venues for my writing. I’ve been tech-exclusive for about 2 and a half years now (half of my writing career!), and the stay-at-home lifestyle sometimes exacerbates my mental health issues.  

• My third piece for the Guardian’s op-ed section Comment Is Free should be up any time today. Yes, also very exciting. My first piece went up in January. I want to be an Evgeny Morozov/Nick Carr type (I think my blog subhead of multiple years communicates that desire, but maybe not), but we will see what happens there too.    

• I am still at ReadWrite despite it being a constant sea of changes.  Now an old boss was recently hired there, so, I am feeling more comfortable there now than when I first returned from my trip.    

• Last week I started writing for a content start-up focused on the business aspects of web video, Video Ink. I am excited about this for a few reasons, even if it is a pretty boring job and feels like a job more than any of the other places I am writing for, because 1) it takes the digital space seriously and understands just how disruptive it is 2) out of a core team of 4 people, only one is male.  

Now for some  (potentially) bad news!

I am 28 now and I have yet to finish any of my books. AHHHHHHH. The one I wanted to finish first was a bit memoir-like:  former Soviet Satellite refugee version of Amy Tan mixed with Obama’s Dreams of my Father done in the Collected Works of Billy the Kid style.  It touches on having a single teen for a mom,  among other darker themes. It’s heavy, but I know I can make it funny. My mother, however, broke down while we were preparing Easter dinner: if I publish what I want to about being a child of domestic violence, it would bring shame to her and her name. She is embarrassed. I should have known, as her and I only began having open discussions of what kind of man my birth father really was, just a few years ago. After he died, actually. But … I think that is also part of the problem – the lack of conversation. She didn’t even tell her second husband, or her last boyfriend.

I don’t know what to do here, as I feel like writing about my experiences is within my right as it was also my trauma - it is part of my coping process – and I actually think my book would make the world a better place. On the other hand, it is very much her life too. Maybe I can suck it up and finish my science fiction novel, but I am very inspired to work on this particular project. RIGHT NOW. But I can’t finish it if she won’t talk to me any more about it, can I?

OH MY

Okay. Nothing in any other category.

Thanks fellas, I guess??? But then I thought about it, and realized, hey I do have a sense of style! And I do write about fashion in a weird way!

So I am rolling with it, and launching a fashion Tumblr, Fuck Yeah Thrift Fashion! today. Maybe it will be an outfit of the day too, I don’t know yet.

Because being poor doesn’t mean you have to dress like it.

Sexism drove Asher_Wolf away from Cryptoparty and it looks like Twitter as well.

Last night she “ragequit” due to something related to hackers posing as “bronies” attacking her website? That is what the rumors on Twitter are saying, at least. I write “bronies” because Internet pranksters love disguising as them (or anyone they hate, really. The #cutforbieber folks, for instance, tried to blame it on 9GAG in various comment section of YouTube vlogs on the controversy).

The time stamp for the brony attack is from December, but the intention behind whatever drove the people to harass Asher_Wolf is still the same.

Her last tweet, according to Topsy, was “offline.”

While I had yet to attend a cryptoparty – it was on my agenda – I relied on her Twitter stream to keep me updated on all acts of Internet activism. She was in Australia, and her timing jived with my late night Internet wanderings when insomnia kicked in.

I get her point of not having to stick around and take abuse, but why quit Twitter when it was her site that was disturbed, not her news distribution service?

I feel like I am being punished.

1:30 pm Update:

On secondary inspection, it was probably the trolls that came out following her Aaron Swartz post.

 1/16, 2:14am Update: 

Asher_wolf is back on Twitter, no explanation for the hiatus.

ModCloth, however, is still out of stock.

The official name of the dress, according to the Tracy Reese website is “Pink Wallpaper Combo Frock.” Really boring, and borderline horrible of a name, if I must say.

ModCloth went with “Best of Luxe” which is infinitely better. Pink Wallpaper Combo Frock may be more practical of a name but it lacks imagination and means nothing to me, a woman who would want to buy this dress. Well, actually, it does say something: it says you are wearing a combination of  wallpaper as a frock.  “Best of Luxe” does not evoke “you are wearing wallpaper.”

Luxe, a word I had not seen before, means “the condition of being elegantly sumptuous.”

Best of Luxe is a rayon/silk mixture though, so not really the best of “being elegantly sumptuous.”  Despite the exaggeration of luxury, the ModCloth name implies that while wearing the dress, you then become the best at being elegantly sumptuous. Which again, is better than wearing wallpaper.

The addition of rayon into the fabric, which diminishes the luxury, is clearly an economic choice.  

Reese kept her promise of mass producing the dress for the public, and of keeping it  ”under $500, so affordable for some.“  (So Michelle O’s dress is pure silk, might we presume?) In interviews four months ago, Reese admits to being “a little mystified” by how much of an instantaneous hit the dress was.

To the disappointment of many, it was quickly revealed that the pink and gray silk Tracy Reese dress was a custom creation. But eager shoppers can ready their wallets. While the dress is not yet on shelves, designer Tracy Reese confirmed on TODAY Thursday that her company TR Designs is trying to get it out as soon as possible.

- “Tracy Reese: Michelle Obama’s DNC dress will hit shelves,” September 6th, on MSN’s style blog “The Look”

I am not.

Mystified, that is.

I remember when I saw Michelle O in Best of Luxe. I hated the dress on sight  for being busy and metallic, and then I wondered why I cared so much. On second glance, I was charmed. Best of Luxe showed off one of Michelle O’s best features – her arms – and was elegant and feminine, but also playful and a bit casual. The dress was bold and demure at the same time.  Perfect for a President’s wife.

And the fact that it was a custom creation? All the more props to Michelle O for kicking off a production frenzy.

My photos of the airplane wing, for instance, always suck.

His, on the other hand, look like this. And he’s on his cellphone, going light on the Instagram filters:

Perhaps I am being the biased and proud mate here,  but then look at how the frame is divided into three parts here in this next photo:

That is no accident.

My mate is a photo wizard. A magic man of light and composition.

Something tells me John Lennon would not approve.

Fruzsina,

Los Angeles, CA, December 14. Those who murder all have one thing in common, says the producer of new movie on the death of the Beatles’ John Lennon.

Based on initial reports, a masked gunman murdered more than 25 people—including 18 children—at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut on Friday morning. Two guns were found near the shooter, who was discovered dead inside a classroom, according to law enforcement officials and media reports. Witnesses said the shooter was wearing a mask but his identity was still unknown. This is the second deadliest school shooting since the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre claimed the lives of 32 people.

Just two days before the Connecticut shooting, a lone gunman had entered a crowded mall in Portland, Oregon, killing two people and wounding a 15-year-old girl, before taking his own life. In what appeared to be a random rampage, police noted that the killer, Jacob Tyler Roberts, 22, had no significant criminal history. His mother said that she had “no understanding or explanation” for what he did and that it was “so out of his character.” According to a statement issued by the shooter’s high school, “The motive for such a horrific act is likely to remain a mystery to us all.”

Most experts are as baffled as those who knew Roberts. However, Ray Comfort, the producer of a new movie called “Genius,” believes he knows why people are willing to take innocent life. Comfort said, “His friends say that Roberts was a nice guy and that he lost his job and broke up with his girlfriend. No doubt the Connecticut killer suffered some sort of rejection also. But those things have happened to millions and they haven’t gone out and murdered people.” The best-selling author and TV co-host added, “‘Genius’ points to what every murderer has in common, something the ‘experts’ either don’t recognize or avoid talking about. But it’s there.”  In the movie, which is about John Lennon and why he was killed, 15 youths were asked if they would murder for money, and those who said yes all had one thing in common. “Something tragic is happening in our country,” Comfort noted, “and most people don’t know what it is. Those who want to understand why these tragedies are occurring—and are likely to continue to occur—should watch the free movie.”

Nearly 170,000 people have viewed the 34-minute movie since its release on YouTube a week ago. Watch the trailer to see those who would murder for money: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZW2lhWfa28g

“Adorable tribute to the rancor from Star Wars Episode VI: The Return of the Jedi” – Reddit