A Life For Itself

Category: thoughts

  • Some Later Things – 17 March 2021

    Today’s inspiration:

    No more hiding

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Today’s joy:

    Sleeping later than usual.  It meant a late start on all the writing I had to do, but it felt good to sleep as long as I could.  It was a cold morning and I appreciated staying under that comforter until the last possible minute.  I felt a lot of gratitude to be able to do that.  

    A past joy:

    In my younger years, March 1 was always the beginning of baseball, whether it was tryouts or getting into the mindset of actually playing baseball.  I never, ever stopped thinking about baseball, but as with all things, there’s a time for it and by this time of the month, high school ball would be almost about to start and before then, I’d be taking my glove out to oil it, getting ready to check my cleats out, all that.  Even when really cold out.  I think one year, it snowed in April and we had to postpone games.  That didn’t matter because just being there in uniform and playing was all that mattered.

    It looks like Baltimore City Public School System is going forward with Spring sports, but with plenty of rules and regulations, given the state of things.  This year, there won’t be any fans at any sporting events, not even parents, from what I understand.  Participants will have to adhere to masking and some other rules; I didn’t read them all.  The main thing for me is there won’t be fans present.  I enjoyed going and taking pics of games the other year and I was hoping to go to at least a couple of City baseball games since sports are going forward, but that’s not happening.  There’s always next year for that.  I can still keep up with scores and root for the current generation of Knights via Twitter.  The still reigning and defending Baltimore City champions.

  • My Favorite Consist – 16 March 2021

    Today’s inspiration:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zd_UcjMusUA

    The technique and artistry of this.

    Today’s joy:

    My little cousin texted me to check up on me and see how I’ve been doing. I’m not used to that from the under-30 crew these days.

    A past joy:

    I don’t miss working in an office, and especially if that office is in D.C., but I do miss catching the train. Walking through Union Station. Eating lunch there. There used to be a great Indian restaurant in there on the restaurant one level down from the Amtrak (and MARC and VRE) concourse level, that served the best mango lassi anywhere. Amtrak unveiled the original Acela trainsets while I was working in D.C. and I walked through one the day they started running. If I remember correctly, MARC also began rolling out the Kawasaki MARC III bilevel trainsets around the same time. Those became my favorite ever trainsets.

    And the boarding process at Union Station for commuter trains is nowhere near as insane as trying to get New Jersey Transit trains at Penn Station New York.

  • Common Things – 15 March 2021

    Today’s inspiration:

    Monday weekly creativity prayer call. A lot was said. A lot I needed to hear.

    Today’s joy:

    Being able to slow down some and breathe more. Get quiet more.

    A past joy:

    Watching a performance where a grown adult was pushed around in the basket of a shopping cart, then lifted out of it and placed into an automobile. It was hilarious mostly because they were pushed quite a distance and I was wondering how this was all going to end. Other weird stuff had happened as well. You had to be there, I guess.

    Speaking of my commonplace book idea, back in 2016, at the Chesapeake Writers Conference, I took a bunch of notes. I was taking notes like my entire reason for being there had been to just sit around and take notes. I even took notes at the opening convocation. Took them in all of our workshops and lectures.

    When I got back, I scanned every page of my handwritten notes, printed them at my job, and put them into plastic page protectors. Put the page protectors inside of a three prong folder. I put the notebook that I took the notes in, inside of the folder, too. And there, the whole entire package stays to this day. That’s definitely part of the idea of this commonplace book.

    I really should have become a librarian.

  • Five Things – 14 March 2021

    Yes, I’m happy about Daylight Savings Time.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    The question was simple enough –too simple, in fact– so I’ll just name three of my favorite Denzel performances.

    • Malcolm X
    • Mo Betta Blues
    • Fences

    I want to create a “commonplace book.”  I’ve noticed that a lot of what I want to put into it is digital — tweets like the one I put into yesterday’s post, clips from web pages, snippets from books I own in electronic form.  Even scanned versions of notes that I’ve digitized.  So, I’m searching for an app I can use to form the book digitally.

    But I also want to have a paper copy and that might mean getting a binder and even more plastic page protectors.  Print out the electronic snippets that I collect, scan my handwritten notes that I take or that I write in my journal and such.

    It’s not an immediate project, but I had been leaving bookmarks and other ways to mark places in my journals that I want to come back to down the line for my writing.

    I should have become a librarian.

    I don’t watch The Walking Dead closely –episodes here and there throughout the show’s run– but I’m fascinated by the fact that Seth Gilliam’s Father Gabriel character wears his clerical dress despite the obvious dissolution of the Church and I guess, all organized religion, in the zombie apocalypse on that show.  It’s probably been addressed by the character at one point another, but I imagine that he continues to wear it as a reminder of the old world, which is probably seen as much better than the one that the characters find themselves in, as well as of his own faith, which he may or may not struggle, or have struggled, to retain.  It’s interesting that in this world, religion is almost a relic and he’s a reminder of that.

    Had pizza on pi day.  It counts.

    Today’s inspiration:

     

     

     

     

    Today’s joy:

    Sunday baseball.  Even if it’s Spring Training.

    A past joy:

    Entering a scene.

  • this can be a mess – 13 march 2021

    Today’s inspiration:

    Aren't you glad you chose yourself?

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Today’s joy:

    First time in a long time that I started a poem from a list.  First time in a long time that I’ve started a poem at all.

    A past joy:

    Playing Uno all night on the porch.

    In our creativity circle this morning, we talked about hiding.  One of the members of the group talked about their background, how they were raised, their social circle, and how that contributed to them hiding.  And they’ve been struggling with putting their work out there out of fear of being rejected by those people in their family and friend circle.

    It really goes back to the question that Dr. Thema asks in that tweet.  

    It can be difficult.  It can be messy.  People get used to you being a certain kind of way with them and they don’t want to see you any other kind of way.  And if you’re doing something new, something that’s out of the millieu in which you’ve existed with those people, they may not like it.  They’re not ready to experience you in that way.  Sometimes we go the opposite way and hide ourselves to avoid having to be that person in front of those people, which can cause unhappiness with you, since you know you’re not being yourself.

    It’s an issue I’ve struggled mightily with.  Even recently

    So, it goes back to that question.  

     

  • Longer days, fuller nights – 12 March 2021

    Today’s inspiration:

    This post from #blkcreatives about joy. As well as some really good train travel videos on YouTube. 

    Today’s joy:

    Being out and about in really nice weather.

    A past joy:

    Being out and about in really nice weather, but playing baseball.  Also, being out and about in really nice weather, but down the ocean (or down the shore, however you refer to it).

    Almost immediately after I woke up this morning, I got quiet.  Still.  Touched that joyous place within.  Cut out the background noise.  It was a great way to start what ended up being a pretty good day.  Went out in the evening.  I’m still a night owl.  I love the night.  I prefer it.  It’s ironic how happy I am that it’ll be daylight out longer in a couple of days.  That’s probably a holdover from having to go in when the streetlights came on.  I’m going to enjoy it staying light past 7, but I think I may stay up all night tomorrow night reading and working on this play.

  • An interesting exegesis – 11 March 2021

    Today’s joy:

    It’s one I partially saved yesterday.  At the behest of another wrestling fan, who told me this would be awesome, I watched the episode of Stone Cold Steve Austin’s Broken Skull Sessions podcast with Sasha Banks, yesterday and finished it today.  I know there are lots of wrestlers, managers, and others associated with professional wrestling who can give you valuable insight into their business and how it functions.  But I have rarely heard someone discuss wrestling in the context of storytelling the way that Sasha did in this podcast.  “Character,” “character,” “character,” she kept driving home.  People tune in to wrestling to see characters, she said.  Not just moves and spectacle, but the drama. 

    Today’s inspiration: 

    Watching YouTube videos where people walk around, ride around on bikes or scooters, or drive around and talk and make their living that way.  There really must be an audience for everything.  Perhaps even for me.

    A Past joy: 

    Sitting on the balcony at the Inner Harbor Barnes and Noble and reading and drinking a tea or lemonade on a spring or summer day.

    To illustrate her notion further, Sasha gave a story about when she was fresh in WWE NXT.  She would show up to the TV tapings and she’d wrestle somebody.  Just a match, nothing big.  Come back the next month, same thing.  And she’d just repeat the process.  Eventually, she asked the writers why she was just doing matches, but didn’t have a storyline that might build up to something.  She was told that the reason was that she was a good wrestler, good at her craft, and because of that, they used her to make other wrestlers look better.

    At that moment, she understood that she had to create a character for herself.  She said that Tyler Breeze, another wrestler who was there at the time, had written several character biographies.

    What?  This is stuff you learn in like regular acting class.

    So she did her work and she came up with the character you see on TV these days.  It’s a fascinating interview, even if you’re not into professional wrestling, of a person who pursued their dream and also who became a master of their craft.  I definitely recommend it.

     

  • A Great Pleasure – 10 March 2021

    Today’s joy:

    Last night, I started rereading Erotique Noire.  A couple of the poems in the first chapter.  Plus, the other day, CTA uploaded new ride-the-rails videos of the CTA Brown Line in the snow.  Good railfan viewing.

    Today’s inspiration:

    The Delroy Lindo interview towards the end of today’s episode of Keep It! Podcast is so good.  He discussed his process as an actor, working with Spike Lee, working in theatre, especially doing August Wilson plays, and other good stuff.  I should have listened twice.  It was worth listening just to hear him talk about his craft as an actor.

    A Past joy:

    Sneaking off and reading stuff my mother didn’t want me reading.  Hiding a copy of Erotique Noire under my bed was my version of hiding Playboys, I guess.  That wasn’t the only book I hid under there, though.  Long story.

    Erotique Noire.  In my late teens, I first borrowed an older relative’s copy, with their blessing.  I was interested in the subject and I was mature enough to read the content.  I didn’t want to give the book back.  Eventually, when pressed, I did, and bought my own copy of it.

    I liked the stories, but the poems were the best part for me.  Some of them inspired me to explore the topic in my own poems.  Well, more than I already had at that time.  I’m starting with the poems as I’m reading it this time.  I may even skip the fiction.  We’ll see.

    Listen to Delroy Lindo’s descriptions of some of the events that took place during the filming of “Da 5 Bloods.”  It’ll excite you if you’re into craft and he gives a great glimpse into his performance in that movie.  He even talks about working with Aaliyah and Jet Li in Romeo Must Die.  It’s a really good interview.  I can’t wait until we can gather again for theatre.

     

  • joy and creating and stuff

    The poet Tiana Clark writing in the March/April 2021 issue of Poets and Writers about her process, and sometimes lack thereof, of writing during the pandemic, remarked about editors soliciting “Black pain from Black writers” in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd. At that time, she wasn’t sure she had much to add to the conversation, she wrote. After all, the killing of George Floyd was just the latest such killing in recent years and any Black writer suffering from fatigue from discussing the latest death of an African American at the hands of law enforcement, was understandable. One has to wonder how many times and in how many different ways you can frame this conversation.

    Her response ended up being a turn in the opposite direction. She embraced “black joy and pleasure.”

    After I read the essay, I had to ask myself and wonder where I had joy and pleasure in my own life. Especially during the pandemic. One place where, until recently, I had come up short was my writing. Participating in the online production of North Avenue was indeed a happy experience and yet, after that was done, I looked around and didn’t see that much joy. For one reason or another. I’d been in a play that ended just as the pandemic was starting. The first time in a long time that I’d been on stage. And when the world retreated and reorganized, I didn’t do the same as far as that goes.

    The last couple of years, I’ve been involved with prayer circles where folks gather once weekly to talk about life and then pray for each other for a time. Last year, I’d considered the possibility of merging that practice of weekly prayer with creativity. I wanted to use it as a space not just for people to come together and “hold the high watch,” but to also be partners in support and accountability. We’d support each other in our creative pursuits and make sure that we were all holding to our own and each other’s word. I told my spiritual community what I was interested in doing and they were enthusiastic supporters. I wasn’t ready right when I had the idea, but it was definitely something I wanted to do in the future.

    This year, the idea came back up and I told the group that I was ready.

    Then I read the essay.

    And thought about it.

    And what I decided I wanted was not just a spiritual and creative practice, but one specifically centered around joy. I told the others who would be participating that this was the intention — not just to talk solely about what was going on in our lives and to ask for prayer around the parts we wanted to improve, but for us to consider where the joy is in our lives. Or can be. Where we’re inspired. And how we can be inspired in our work.

    The others agreed to make these practices part of our journeys for this gathering. We’ve agreed to do the inner work and the outer work of making whatever it is that we claim we want to make, and to share it, daily.

    I think it’s a necessary process. It’s good to keep focus. With all the death around, the fear and anger. Conspiracy theories. Half truths. Hard-to-swallow truths. Scarcity. It’s easy to become distracted and derailed from the creative process at this time, so it’s good to get focus back on practice and on those things that are life affirming and not just on all of the conditions of the world. It comes across as privilege at first, but it’s not. It’s paramount. And the conditions will still be there, ready to be picked up, chewed on, etc. later. It’s less about divorcing ourselves from the world as it is about giving ourselves a place where we can find and be our best selves –especially our creative selves– in the world, as the world is ongoing. As Tiana says, “blood and bruises from history or current events will always be present in my poems.”

    Tiana also said that this year, she’s “trying to curate more joy into my life.”

    I am, too.

  • Five Things – 26 July 2020

    I haven’t been blogging through the pandemic, nor through the recent social movement. I have lots of thoughts on why that is, and I may put some out there about that at another time, but one of the reasons is that I’ve been working mostly on new plays. I’ve been working on my latest full length and off, and on, a ten-minute play based on my most recently completed full-length. Or, perhaps that’s just an excuse.

    But not blogging or writing much of anything else, and feeling the urge again, is the main reason I decided to come back and blog again, at least weekly.

    I’m going to do my best to blog weekly, one or two items from the tech world, one or two from the arts world, and maybe one or two personal things. We’ll see how it goes.

    Instagram Fake, the Twitter Breach, and Social Trust

    A couple of weeks ago, I found out somebody had created a fake Instagram account using my name and my picture. Apparently, it had been created some time in June and I only found out because I was tagged in a post by a third account that roots out such fake accounts (big ups to them for this.) This was pretty surprising because I’m not a known name or anything, not yet. I didn’t think there was any value to impersonating somebody without much social visibility or trust or good will built up. At least not outside of people I personally know.

    And yet, there was the fake. Along with the new profile picture I’d most recently posted, this time, across all of my social media accounts, as my Gravatar, et. al. The account creator had lifted the verbiage from my Twitter profile, albeit without linking to this website or to my Keybase identity, both of which would have immediately exposed them as a fake. Not that posting on Instagram in different languages, not found on this site or in my other social media accounts, helped to establish any credibility any. Nor did not posting anything about Baltimore, which is one of my things.

    I reported the account and for a few days, it was still there. A friend of mine told me she’d gone through the same experience and had to send Instagram a picture of herself, holding a piece of identification. Fortunately, by the time I found my passport –I’d decided that was the ID I’d use instead of my license– and was about to take the picture, Instagram had already removed the offending account.

    I’m glad I didn’t have to go through the extra steps and all and while Instagram never notified me of the steps they took (which it says they’ll do when you report an account impersonating you), I would have liked to know if they decided that the offending account was truly the fake because I have these small measures of social trust posted online, e.g. my Keybase account and this website. I honestly thought about going live as proof that my account was the real one because while the offending account could certainly have downloaded any video out of my account and uploaded into theirs, Instagram would have at least known how the video was created –streamed directly into their service– and known that I’d made it and the copycat had not.

    Hopefully the Keybase account is good enough for at least techies to trust. At least it probably was before Zoom’s acquisition of Keybase. It may have been in this case. The offending account didn’t offer any form of social proof that they were me.

    Whether it’s Keybase or not, these forms of social trust are going to become more crucial in the future. Especially looking at the recent Twitter hack.

    As I mentioned before, my Keybase proof is in my Twitter profile. However, had I been a victim of the recent breach on that service, that would not have mattered, since the hackers had access to the service’s administrative console. They could have deleted any references to my Keybase proof. So, while there is some social trust in verified Twitter accounts, that trust now greatly rests on not just the user becoming verified, but also on practices like Twitter admins posting sensitive passwords with wide access in locations like Slack channels.

    I know this is a sensitive issue, especially inside the privacy community, and adopting specific means of identity verification, even like Keybase, is going to be difficult. But for the larger Internet, some kind of alternate means to say “this is the person you believe you’re communicating with” will probably become more important as we learn more about how some social networks operate.  Nothing compulsory, but a place where people can more reasonably trust that they’re communicating with the people they think they’re communicating with.

    In the meantime, I still have my Keybase account and it’s here:

    https://keybase.io/kesschristopher

    And remember, if an account online displays this proof, but the Keybase profile doesn’t point back to it, then it’s likely not me.  And you can come here to see if an online account says it’s me, but you have concerns.

    Thin Clients for the Masses

    I love thin clients, as quite a few folks I’ve worked with, will tell you. Not that they did. Most of the people that I asked, and even a bunch more that I never asked, and who volunteered this information, partly due to one frustration or another, did not. At least not the ones at the office, moreso the Wyse Winterms than the HP thin clients we eventually moved to, running Windows XP. At least, initially.

    Some of the same people did not like Chromebooks when they first came out, either.

    And now, coming next year, Microsoft will be releasing an Azure powered cloud PC. DaaS, Desktop as a service. Essentially a thin client. Probably for a subscription fee.

    According to Mary Jo Foley at ZDNet, Windows loaded on a machine’s local storage, as we know it now, won’t be going away any time soon. But, what will be coming sounds like something that businesses, large and small, as well as some freelancers, will be interested in.

    For instance, say you’re a small nonprofit and you own a lot of legacy equipment and perhaps have an Office 365 subscription, but take advantage SaaS apps for functions like accounting and such, this may be more attractive than, say, buying a bunch of new PCs at once.

    Maybe you’re a large enterprise and you want to hand out laptops to users but don’t want them to be used off of your corporate network. Assuming Microsoft baked in IP address filtering into the service, it could prevent machines from booting anywhere but on the corporate network.

    Perhaps, down the line, you buy yourself a new Apple-silicon based Mac, but need access to a Windows desktop. Last I checked, the situation with software makers like VMWare and Parallels was unclear (even though Parallels will let you run Windows on a Chromebook in the future). This may end up being another case for Windows AAS.

    There may be lots of use cases in the corporate world.

    Depending on cost, I can certainly see some in the education world adopting this model. If there’s a need for certain software, yes. I’d imagine a company like nComputing, whose legacy equipment I’ve supported in an educational setting, developing hardware specifically for this Windows use case. And because of the pandemic, with public support for distance education at the K-12 level growing, being able to deliver a (more than likely) familiar Windows experience may have some value, as systems further refine their distance learning strategies.

    Hopefully, this news, coupled with Chromebooks still being popular as learning devices, larger conversations can be had about the digital divide, especially in places like Baltimore. Baltimore City Public Schools System (BCPSS) and the City of Baltimore, along with some local nonprofits, have been distributing Chromebooks to help with distance learning, often times disadvantaged areas. The problem has been that Chromebooks need to be connected to the Internet (I’m writing this on my original HP Chromebook 14) to reach their full functionality and the City has addressed this by distributing WiFi hotspots. But even with that, there have been complaints about the bandwidth and data amounts provided by the service being inadequate for the online instruction being offered as well as the availability of the devices to begin with.

    If companies are offering these tools and local school systems where there are inequalities of access, want to leverage these systems, there need to be real solutions for delivery. The value of systems like DaaS and hybrids like Chromebooks is predicated upon reliable, high speed Internet.

    Will I want to run out and get one of these Windows cloud PCs? If you have a .edu email address to share with me, then yes.

    Also, speaking of my coworkers, I told some years ago that desktop support as a job would be going away one day “in the not too distant future.” Well, if you’re a company running Windows, either in a data center or from the cloud, you have less need of someone to support desktops there in your office. Managed service providers, as long as those are around, will need people to support desktops remotely and sometimes in the office (seen that in action, personally), but even that should change some, the more that Microsoft moves things towards the cloud. It won’t happen in the spring or even perhaps for a few years, but if Microsoft can choose between allowing you to pay once for local Windows desktop or month-to-month for a Windows cloud subscription, I wonder which it will choose.

    TaaS – Theatre as a Service

    With the pandemic, theatre has moved online. I’ve seen more tweets and FB posts about theatres, large and small, here and there, offering one kind of performance or another, online. One playwright I’m friends with on Facebook has had weekly readings of his work for the last few weeks now. Broadway itself isn’t moving back into in-person performance until some time next spring. So, in the meantime, if you’re into theatre, you have to know how to work Zoom (which you probably do by now), Facebook, or YouTube. Theatre has become, hopefully for the time being, at least here in the US, a virtual service. Theatre as a service, if you will.

    I’m part of the fun too, as my latest ten-minute play, “Milton Avenue,” will be part of a group of readings by local Baltimore playwrights by Rapid Lemon, a local production company.

    Baseball

    Baseball came back the other night. It was surreal to hear all of this talk of MLB’s opening night while it’s hot and muggy out. We’re supposed to be seeing the top teams start to pull away going into August. But MLB is giving it a go, still, albeit without fans present. I don’t think any fans will see any MLB in person anywhere in 2020, assuming the league even makes it to the end of the season, which I’m struggling to see happening, at least not the way it started.

    I only say that because I’m less certain they’ll make it, than I am say, of the NBA and WNBA making it through their continuation and “full” seasons respectively. As it was reported, Juan Soto missed the other night’s Yankees/Nationals opener because he had been diagnosed with Covid-19. That test was administered on Tuesday, before that day’s Orioles/Nationals preseason game, in which Soto played. So, he had to have played while positive. And even as of the other night, all I heard in the media was that Soto had tested positive, but no word about his teammates. But he played around his teammates and around the Orioles. And this weekend, his teammates played around the Yankees. And this weekend, the O’s have played the Red Sox. And are supposed to be playing the Marlins tomorrow, with four players having tested positive.

    At least the NBA and WNBA are playing in bubbles with strict protocols about players entering and exiting the environment. They apparently tested completely free of the virus the other day. The bubble and the wubble have worked.  MLB is already stumbling. I am hoping for the best as I love baseball and while I’ve enjoyed KBO, staying up until 4 or 5 AM to watch it, has been tough (I like to watch sports live). Having said that, NC Dinos is my KBO team. I like their uniforms.

    Breathe, You Are Alive

    In the 2000s, I encountered the work of the Vietnamese Zen Monk, Thich Nhat Hanh. I’ve enjoyed and found great wisdom in his teachings. One of my favorite ideas I’ve picked up from him is the phrase, “breathe, you are alive.” It’s the title of one of his many books.

    When in times of distress or upset, I learned to come back to my own breath. Come back to that center. And not to just breathe, but to feel it deeply and ground myself in my breath, in my body. I learned to feel gratitude for the breath because it was a reminder that yes, I was still here. And if I’m still here, I can feel better, think better, do better.

    How scary it feels to know there’s a virus running rampant still, whose main activity is taking away the breath. And whose long-term effects aren’t known.

    Mask up. Be safe.  Remember to come back to the breath.