Archive for the ‘Arts & Letters’ Category

Posted on July 22, 2007 - by deCadmus

A note on Deathly Hallows.

I am inordinately chuffed to see the name Cadmus turn up in a Harry Potter book. ;)

Posted on July 19, 2007 - by deCadmus

Simple Cyphers Every Muggle Should Know

If you’re a fan of the Harry Potter series — and I am — this last run-up to a book release has you sort of twitchy. Spoilers — or potential spoilers — lurk around most every corner, and sometimes in seemingly innocuous places. (more…)

Posted on April 23, 2007 - by deCadmus

Happy Birthday, Mr. Shakespeare!

And in honor of the occasion, mark well The Essential Hamlet –

His heart tied in torturous loops,
Hamlet fears he hears someone that snoops
What ho! It’s a rat!
Take this! And take that!
Oh! Sorry, Polonius (oops).

King C., full of regal concern
Sends Hamlet off, ne’er to return
Guess who takes the whacks
From the Englishman’s axe?
Good Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

(But nobody knows in advance
Which is which, so I won’t look askance
If you said that instead,
They cut off the heads
Of Good Guildenstern and Rosencrantz)

So: Prince H. and the queen got betrayed
King C. and his rogue got the blade
The windbag–deflated
Friends–decapitated
And madness devoured the maid.

(via MeFi)

Posted on March 14, 2007 - by deCadmus

There’s More to Life (and Portland) than Coffee

While planning my trip to Portland and casting about for places to go and people to see, a wise man — and, incidentally, a specialty coffee luminary — steered me in a direction I wouldn’t have expected, saying, “You know, there’s more to life than coffee.” After I picked myself up from the floor — the earth doesn’t often shake in Vermont, after all, and the experience threw me a bit — I turned the idea over in my mind. Is it possible I’ve crossed an invisible line? Have I become obsessed with the bean? Maybe. Smitten, certainly. But obsessed? (more…)

Posted on February 17, 2007 - by deCadmus

Missed it by *that* much.

When I’m not writing, I read. Voraciously. Eclectically. And of late, I frequently read about writing.

I recently discovered John Scalzi’s books — The Android’s Dream, The Ghost Brigades, Old Man’s War — and already I’m a fan. I learn today that Scalzi has a blog, in which he rambles forth on writing and such. Happiness. I also learn today that he’s just finished a book — on writing — deliciously titled, You’re Not Fooling Anyone When You Take Your Laptop to a Coffeeshop: Scalzi on Writing. And only moments later I discover that it’s a tiny, limited edition printing, and it’s already sold out… apparently only just a few minutes before I’d glommed onto the whole thing.

Bummer.

Er, in the off chance that *you* might have purchased two copies and need only one… drop me a line, eh?

Posted on February 15, 2007 - by deCadmus

Forbidden Fruit? Coffee in the Garden of Eden.

Imagine, if you will, an afternoon in the Garden of Eden. You’re kicked back on a La-Z-Boy-shaped hunk of moss trying to collect your thoughts after a hard day’s work naming animals. There are so many, after all, and having spent the better part of a day ruminating over a curious duck-billed, web-footed, furry critter that — good grief! just happens to lay eggs — you must need a break. (I mean, platypus? That’s the best you could do?)

Enter, stage left, your winsome companion. Wearing nothing (of course) but her long, auburn tresses and a particularly knowing smile she offers you a ripe, red fruit. You hesitate. You raise an eyebrow.

“This isn’t an apple,” you say, suggesting somehow that Eve’s gone a bit off-script.

“No,” she purrs, “it’s better. It’s refreshing. It’s engaging. It’s consciousness-raising. And it’s lovely dried, roasted, brewed and served with danish.” (more…)

Posted on November 4, 2005 - by deCadmus

Commit Needless Words

Somewhere in my bookcase a slim, battered copy of The Elements of Style stands — neglected — sandwiched between volumes both larger and less wise.

For some years I had an accord with the authors of this slender volume. And then I happened upon Rule 17… Omit Needless Words.

We haven’t had much of a relationship since, Messrs. Strunk, White and I.

Posted on October 31, 2005 - by deCadmus

NaNoWriMo?

In a fit of optimism (read, insanity) I’ve registered for the annual writing marathon at NaNoWriMo — or National Novel Writing Month.

The goal: fifty thousand words in thirty days. Now, it’s more or less expected that much (all) of the participants’ writing will be sheer (utter, complete, total) garbage. The idea is to get into the habit of writing… to prime the pump, as it were.

The event starts in just about twenty-four hours. I have no characters drawn, no plots… er, plotted and no particular idea where my writing might go. I’m intrigued, but I remain on the fence…

Anybody out there tried NaNoWriMo in prior years? Was it worth it?

Posted on October 28, 2005 - by deCadmus

From the Reading Chair

I have to remind myself that, since I now have a spiffy, categorized site I can write about whatever I want, and you can simply tune into to what you want to read… and tune out what you don’t. (It’s Blog 2.0, don’t ya know.) So without further ado…

From the Reading Chair

Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town by Cory Doctorow.

It didn’t take me long to suspect that Cory wrote this book on a bet. You know the drill… say you’re at a writer’s workshop and somebody challenges you with plot-lines that are so absurd as to be incomprehensible (quite a lot like our gang would do with improv… and most often on a stage before a less-than-sober crowd, where the chances that something foolish and epic-scaled would happen were freakishly high.) Things like, “Let’s say your Dad is a mountain and your Mamma is a washing machine. Oh, and you’ve got brothers who are like a set of Russian nesting dolls… No, really.”

And then I began to suspect that Cory was actually somewhere in the process of writing an Electronic Frontier Foundation manifesto, when it occurred to him to take the result of that writing workshop and mash it up with the techno-gee-wizardry of wifi freedom for all.

Someone Comes to Town is weird — altogether absurd and strange — and at the same time compelling and tightly written. It’s Alice in Wonderland meets the Goonies; David Copperfield and a car wreck; and like that wreck it’s hard to look away… the detritus is bewildering, but you know — you just know — there’s got to be some demystifying, essential truth in there somewhere.

Curious… and curiously satisfying. Recommended.

Posted on October 25, 2000 - by deCadmus

OOPS.

For a long time I dismissed personal web sites as hollow “vanity” pages. I was wrong. Sure, there are sites that don’t really have much to say… but what’s to dismiss about personal expression? There are personal sites that express real purpose, or real talent, or at least a real person.

The proliferation of weblogs, or “blogs” has added a new dimension to the mix: a sense of immediacy. It’s that dimension that can make an average blog entertaining… and a good one just plain irresistible.

So why me? And why now? I make my living from this thing we call the Internet… I’ve been ‘working the web’ since 1994 (and dialing into, and then building BBS since 1986. Anyone remember Fidonet?) And as my efforts have slowly mutated from technical architecture to information architecture to customer experience evangelism, I’m finding myself uncomfortably removed from the hands-on aspects of development. So this site is at once a means for me to express my own ideas about the web and what it can mean to people, and an opportunity for me to keep my own development experience fresh and relevant. (more…)