February 28, 2004
omniscient narrator
This daily writing thing...
(She shakes her head).
In sleeplessness, the archives were read bottom up, chronologically. The experience was not unlike fiction. My words have become other, and have their own life apart from me.
Where I am now was foreshadowed months ago. The blog was started last June. We join the story already in progress. In the fourth entry, the protagonist alludes to the point of conflict. The central theme of fissure, other and identity.
In entry First Person Narrative Reprise she steps out for a moment to consider that she is the subject of her own tale.
Journals have been important for giving people insight to whomever the author is. In hindsight, I'm very glad that this space has been as open as it has been. Glad that it didn't stay with only overtly professional content.
Now I'm done with the PhD, which certainly used to be a major thread in the narrative of this blog, is my blog less about change and progress, or have I merely substituted other goals and adventures? My "This season on Jill/txt" suggests the latter, a need for plot.The life is but a shadow allusion in this all gives opportunity for distance. We aren't mere players if we can step out for a moment and see how each day unfolds like a pearl in a strand, fitting in its sequence. Pearls. Moments. Opportunity to be the omniscient narrator - even if it's only in hindsight.
Posted by weez at February 28, 2004 06:49 AM | TrackBack
And tomorrow the narrator will give a weekly update on cardio workouts.
Does the form of the entries change as much as the content?
Posted by: Francois Lachance at February 29, 2004 08:30 PMAnd is this now your home?
http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~lachance/jardin/html/invertTEIblog.htm
No comments. Numbers. And I do so want to say, "interesting"...
Posted by: weez at March 3, 2004 04:40 PMVery observant. And the first one to note it.
It's a newish playground. It's got four corners. Inspired by you, among others. It was the reaction to comment blogging and hobo signs etc. last November that lead me to think more about hand rolling a blog. If you truncated the URL, you'll see more of the fourfold structure. It is going to grow like a garden.
One person has dubbed it "open research". There are some entries coming with graphics.
So cool and interesting that you were the first to catch on!
Shall I add you to my blogroll? or are you in stealth mode?
Posted by: weez at March 3, 2004 05:31 PMNow this kind offer raises a bit of a question about blogrolls. What do they connect to? Other blogs? Frequently updated Web sites?
The URLs that are popping up in the signature blocks to the comments I have been inscribing of late in my tours of various blogs refer to HTML files that are generated from a single XML file. The blog proper is the XML file. That is the file that contains the full sequence of the entries. Each entry is encoded with a number (1 to 6) and the value of this "die roll" number is used by a processing set up (XSLT) to trigger the production of different HTML output. An entry with a value of "1" will be replicated in all four HTML files now set up, entries with values "2" "3" "4" and "5" go to only one of the HTML files and an entry with a value of "6" stays in the XML.
I could produce an HTML file from all the entries. And the way the site is set up a user with a bit of knowledge or a friend could do it. The blog is exposed in such a way that it can be not only reskinned at will by a user but also reshuffled and "mined".
A truncated URL http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~lachance/jardin would point to a directory (much like an old ftp site). The directory has subdirectories for the CSS, the XSLT, the XML, the HTML, the NDATA, the DTD. This is perhaps the "garden gate". BTW each of the HTML entries is generated with a fragment identifier (a name="foo_bar") so that links to specific entries can be generated (a href="url#foo_bar").
Blogrolls are also used as a type of "subscription reminder" in that depending on the service generating the blogroll there will be an indication of recently updated blogs. You've made me think about the nature of the blogroll. It is almost like a potting shed in the garden. I am going to meditate upon that analogy for a while. Thanks.
Posted by: Francois Lachance at March 3, 2004 09:58 PMBut to which page should I link?
Posted by: weez at March 5, 2004 01:14 PM*Laughing*
Wasn't that the question I was posing?
I think that the URL below is for me the "garden gate"
http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~lachance/jardin
Not likely however to be updated by a blogrolling service since it points to a directory.
You can sneek into the garden via one of following four (and more likely to be captured in a blogroll service's spidering):
http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~lachance/jardin/html/TEIblog.htm
http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~lachance/jardin/html/blogTEI.htm
http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~lachance/jardin/html/invertTEIblog.htm
http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~lachance/jardin/html/invertblogTEI.htm
Wait till I get the entry with your name in it and then you can link directly to that entry :)
Posted by: Francois Lachance at March 5, 2004 03:32 PM