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Artistic Temperament

29 Apr 2013 by KRAG

A recent episode of “The Good Wife” made me laugh out loud. (In case you didn’t know, “The Good Wife” is not a comedy.)

In the episode, the management at a (rather ill-defined) software development firm referred to their staff as “artists.” Yes, that’s right; we were supposed to believe that this firm not only believed that the job I do–variously titled Programmer, Developer, Coder–is highly creative in nature, but that this firm also chose to encourage that by building an atmosphere that was conducive to the artistic temperament.

It’s not that software development isn’t creative. It is.

I spend my day solving problems. As a software developer, you bring me a problem and I create a solution for it. That’s it in a nutshell. I create a solution. Oh, sure, there’s a bunch of other bushwa in there, like translating your problem from Business-talk into Tech-speak, like translating it from Tech-speak into something a machine will understand, like trying to break the solution through testing, but the kernel of this job is highly creative in nature.

What I found laughable is the idea that corporate management would recognize this. Anywhere. Continue Reading »

Posted in Culture | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Dear Left Brain: STFU

26 Apr 2013 by KRAG

Yesterday I tried the “clustering” technique for the first time. I was not pleased.

“Clustering” is an idea generation technique where you start with a core idea in the center (the nucleus), and start jotting other notions around it. This sort of random, free-association is what the right-brain does best, and clustering is a way to do that without the left-brain getting in the way.

In the book (Writing the Natural Way), Rico tells of how easily people fall into the technique of clustering, how even second graders are able to generate story ideas using it. It’s the “rare individual,” she says, who has problems with it.

Meet a “rare individual.” Continue Reading »

Posted in Writing | Tagged , , , , , , | 5 Comments »

Ray and Me

25 Apr 2013 by KRAG

Stack of BooksI am setting aside work on my new novel.

If you have a problem with this, take it up with Ray Bradbury.

Some comments on a recent post of mine got me thinking, and I went to get my copy of Dandelion Wine. I hadn’t read it for a long, long (loooong) time; such a long time, in fact, that I’m really a completely different person, and I knew I’d enjoy it more. I’ve always liked Ray’s stories–he and Roger Zelazny were the major influences on my decision to attempt writing, myself–so, an indulgence. I opened the book and began to read.

I didn’t make it past the foreword. Continue Reading »

Posted in Writing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments »

When the Last Law was Down

24 Apr 2013 by KRAG

The Boston bombings brought out great emotions among my acquaintances, and understandably so. They brought out great emotions in me, as well. One thing I try to avoid, though, is letting my emotions cloud my judgment.

Occasionally, in regard to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, I hear people say, “We didn’t learn anything from him,” and “Great; now we have to pay for his room and board for the next 50 years,” and “We should have killed him on the spot.” Their rhetoric feeds their frenzy, bolstering their own anger. My calm and reasoned responses to these views are refuted by ad hominem attacks, calling me a hand-wringing bleeding-heart Liberal (and other, crispier descriptions, that I’m sure you can imagine). Continue Reading »

Posted in Culture, Politics | Tagged , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Another Mint?

23 Apr 2013 by KRAG

Kurt R.A. GiambastianiI’ve made some additions to my household’s list of neologisms.

Newly remembered/added words are:

  • feep
  • gleep
  • slooby

I was going to add “squiffers,” a word meaning tipsy or drunk (intensified as “squiffer-doodles”) but I learned that “squiffy” is a word in current use, so it isn’t a true neologism. We obviously just bastardized it.

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Posted in Culture | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments »

Lion’s Tooth

23 Apr 2013 by KRAG

Doc Maynard had a wife. Two of them, actually, and simultaneously, some say.

David S. “Doc” Maynard, one of Seattle’s more colorful founders, married Catherine Simmons Broshear Maynard, a widow he had met along the Oregon Trail. He married her almost immediately upon divorcing Lydia, his first wife, a decree granted via questionable–and later, contestable–conditions. (Doc may have implied that Lydia was…deceased….)

Catherine Maynard proved to be as legendary as her husband, helping thwart an attack on the settlers of Seattle, accepting for a time her husband’s first wife under her own roof, and traveling the state on horseback, riding from Seattle across the Cascades to Ellensburg, well into her 70s.

But she did one other thing which, 150 years later, affects every single Seattle homeowner.

Catherine Maynard brought the dandelion to Seattle. Continue Reading »

Posted in Seattle, Writing | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

Buddy Buddy

22 Apr 2013 by KRAG

We picked up two “buddy” films this weekend. One was a buddy/fish-out-of-water mashup, and the other was a classic buddy/caper film.

Both were a lot of fun. Continue Reading »

Posted in Movies | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

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