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Thought for the day
Oct. 17th, 2007 02:09 amOnly in a climate where the possibility of failure is tolerated can success truly flourish. If nothing but perfection is allowed, nothing is what will result.
Oct. 17th, 2007
More on failure
Oct. 17th, 2007 10:01 amIt was a simple assignment. End roll of vinyl, porch floor. Fit the one to the other. I started first thing this morning, confident I'd have it done before the Countess woke up.
Things started to go wrong when I cut my finger open pushing a blade into my new Stanley knife (the words "push the blade in till it clicks" should have warned me, but I stupidly assumed there would actually be a click if I pushed hard enough) and all the plasters we've ever owned were behind a pile of videos for throwing out. But I was coping well enough till I ran up against the fact (which, again, should have been obvious) that the porch is not square, the vinyl is not square, and I can't make one fucking edge line up right. Not ONE. Let alone two. Also I can't cut a straight line with my old blunt knife and my plastered finger.
I'm going to sit here and cry for a while, and then I'm going to go back and try it again, because I am going to do this simple fucking thing if I end up having to go and buy more vinyl. But it's going to be the usual botched job, and the Countess is going to sigh and put up with it and tell me that it's because I didn't really want to do it (and that hurts most of all).
Disabling comments because I am not fishing for hugs and strokes here. I just want everyone to know that when I talk about failure and why I don't enjoy savage criticism of things that fall short of the highest standard I know what I am fucking talking about.
ETA: the Countess having woken up, agreed with me that the knife was faulty, talked me down out of orbit, and pointed out that the worst excesses of my ineptitude would be safely hidden behind the cladding we're going to put in the porch. On that basis I have finished the job. It's still a botch, and I can see every wrongness every time I look at it, but hopefully people passing won't notice.
And to the person who wondered what it is I want: I suppose, when you come down to it, I want there to be less rudeness and cruelty in the world. I don't, in the main, enjoy rudeness and cruelty (there are exceptions--I'm not perfect even by my own lax standards). I don't think it's necessary, and I don't think it's some unalterable natural phenomenon we just have to get used to. I do think it is done deliberately and of choice by human beings to each other, and I think the world would be a better place (and the state of the arts would not suffer nearly as much as some might think) if there were less of it. And people who have worked their guts out on a film that, for reasons entirely beyond their control, has turned out to be a flop, would not have to know that not only is their career in jeopardy but that someone somewhere is laughing his or her socks off at that fact. As some might have laughed to see me wrestling with that vinyl flooring.
Things started to go wrong when I cut my finger open pushing a blade into my new Stanley knife (the words "push the blade in till it clicks" should have warned me, but I stupidly assumed there would actually be a click if I pushed hard enough) and all the plasters we've ever owned were behind a pile of videos for throwing out. But I was coping well enough till I ran up against the fact (which, again, should have been obvious) that the porch is not square, the vinyl is not square, and I can't make one fucking edge line up right. Not ONE. Let alone two. Also I can't cut a straight line with my old blunt knife and my plastered finger.
I'm going to sit here and cry for a while, and then I'm going to go back and try it again, because I am going to do this simple fucking thing if I end up having to go and buy more vinyl. But it's going to be the usual botched job, and the Countess is going to sigh and put up with it and tell me that it's because I didn't really want to do it (and that hurts most of all).
Disabling comments because I am not fishing for hugs and strokes here. I just want everyone to know that when I talk about failure and why I don't enjoy savage criticism of things that fall short of the highest standard I know what I am fucking talking about.
ETA: the Countess having woken up, agreed with me that the knife was faulty, talked me down out of orbit, and pointed out that the worst excesses of my ineptitude would be safely hidden behind the cladding we're going to put in the porch. On that basis I have finished the job. It's still a botch, and I can see every wrongness every time I look at it, but hopefully people passing won't notice.
And to the person who wondered what it is I want: I suppose, when you come down to it, I want there to be less rudeness and cruelty in the world. I don't, in the main, enjoy rudeness and cruelty (there are exceptions--I'm not perfect even by my own lax standards). I don't think it's necessary, and I don't think it's some unalterable natural phenomenon we just have to get used to. I do think it is done deliberately and of choice by human beings to each other, and I think the world would be a better place (and the state of the arts would not suffer nearly as much as some might think) if there were less of it. And people who have worked their guts out on a film that, for reasons entirely beyond their control, has turned out to be a flop, would not have to know that not only is their career in jeopardy but that someone somewhere is laughing his or her socks off at that fact. As some might have laughed to see me wrestling with that vinyl flooring.
To end the day on a lighter note
Oct. 17th, 2007 07:41 pmOnce upon a time there was a frog. He lived in a pond in Sussex with half a dozen other frogs, and they would get together on their lily pads and talk about how the flies weren't what they used to be, and how the cost of lily pads was going up again and why didn't the government do something about it, and so on. But our frog had a restless spirit, and he took to wandering, hopping further and further away from the home pond, looking for something, he knew not what, but he was fairly sure flies and lily pads weren't it. And one day he hopped across a busy road and straight on to a lily pad that was floating swiftly down a river. This was adventure.
After seeing many strange sights and escaping many perils, he finally managed to disembark when the pad drifted close to the bank, and he found himself within sight of the sea. Amazed and enraptured, he hopped towards this wondrous sight, and soon he ended up on the waterfront of a seedy coastal city. There were strange sights, sounds and smells aplenty here, rough sailors from faraway lands, alluring women who frequented the down-at-heel bars (and the down-at-heel heel bars), and talk of even further horizons, and our frog was caught up in this new experience. And one night he made a momentous decision.
"From tonight," he said to his reflection in the dirty mirror in his little room above a bar, "I am no longer merely a frog. Henceforth I shall be...a frogue."
He affected an eyepatch and a villainous sidewise leer. He learned nine languages, including Patagonian for some reason. He became expert with a cutlass and a wicked little poniard which he had sharpened up from a letter opener. And one dark night he signed aboard a tramp steamer heading for the China seas, and bade farewell to his homeland, as he thought, for ever.
For years the frogue worked his passage up and down the coasts of Asia and Africa. From the gambling hells of Singapore to the opium dens of Peking, from the uncharted shores of Mozambique to the dreaded isle of Madagascar, he plied his froguish trade, on nameless ships flying dubious flags, trafficking in cargoes best not to be described. He rose through the ranks, became first mate, and then, after a drunken brawl in a bawdy house in Manila, took over the ship and turned pirate. He assembled a crew of rough and ready frogs like himself, and they cut a bloody and profitable swath from the Indian Ocean to the Caribbean.
During this time the frogue found himself more and more becoming a counsellor to his swarthy crew. He listened to their fears, their night-time thoughts, and their dreams. And one day he wearied of his lawless ways, and heard once more the call of the land. He quitted the ship by night in an open boat, taking only a small fortune in gold and gems, and made his way at last to Vienna, where his expertise quickly became known and his services attracted the custom of many lonely, depressed and psychotic frogs. As befits a reformed outlaw, he changed his name once again. "The frogue is no more," he said. "Now I shall be...a freug."
He published several advanced and erudite theories on the symbolic importance of lily pads, flies, and other such things that figure prominently in the dreams of frogs. He cured many, and set many more on the road to recovery. It came as something of a shock to him to find, one morning, that, as happens to many amphibians in the course of their lives, he had changed sex. It came as even more of a shock to his patients, and she was forced to leave Vienna under a cloud and make for Paris, the fabled city of lights, where La Freug, as she called herself, soon became one of the brightest stars in the firmament of polite society. Her salons were legendary, and many were the eminent citizens who dallied in the fragrant bowers of the gardens of her exquisite little chateau on the Seine.
One night, taking an unaccustomed walk in the suburbs of Montmartre, she came upon a frog she recognised from her pirating days. He was wheeling himself along on a little trolley, for, as she quickly saw, he had no legs at all.
"But what 'as brought you to zis pass, mon cheri?" she cried, for she had picked up the accent.
The frog explained. In a fury, our heroine returned to her chateau, closed it up and sold it, and fled from France for ever, taking as many undamaged frogs with her as she could. She moved to a remote location in Scotland, where, under yet another version of her name, she wreaks her revenge upon humankind by making as many of them legless as possible. And the moral of the story is: it isn't what you are, it's how you spell it.
After seeing many strange sights and escaping many perils, he finally managed to disembark when the pad drifted close to the bank, and he found himself within sight of the sea. Amazed and enraptured, he hopped towards this wondrous sight, and soon he ended up on the waterfront of a seedy coastal city. There were strange sights, sounds and smells aplenty here, rough sailors from faraway lands, alluring women who frequented the down-at-heel bars (and the down-at-heel heel bars), and talk of even further horizons, and our frog was caught up in this new experience. And one night he made a momentous decision.
"From tonight," he said to his reflection in the dirty mirror in his little room above a bar, "I am no longer merely a frog. Henceforth I shall be...a frogue."
He affected an eyepatch and a villainous sidewise leer. He learned nine languages, including Patagonian for some reason. He became expert with a cutlass and a wicked little poniard which he had sharpened up from a letter opener. And one dark night he signed aboard a tramp steamer heading for the China seas, and bade farewell to his homeland, as he thought, for ever.
For years the frogue worked his passage up and down the coasts of Asia and Africa. From the gambling hells of Singapore to the opium dens of Peking, from the uncharted shores of Mozambique to the dreaded isle of Madagascar, he plied his froguish trade, on nameless ships flying dubious flags, trafficking in cargoes best not to be described. He rose through the ranks, became first mate, and then, after a drunken brawl in a bawdy house in Manila, took over the ship and turned pirate. He assembled a crew of rough and ready frogs like himself, and they cut a bloody and profitable swath from the Indian Ocean to the Caribbean.
During this time the frogue found himself more and more becoming a counsellor to his swarthy crew. He listened to their fears, their night-time thoughts, and their dreams. And one day he wearied of his lawless ways, and heard once more the call of the land. He quitted the ship by night in an open boat, taking only a small fortune in gold and gems, and made his way at last to Vienna, where his expertise quickly became known and his services attracted the custom of many lonely, depressed and psychotic frogs. As befits a reformed outlaw, he changed his name once again. "The frogue is no more," he said. "Now I shall be...a freug."
He published several advanced and erudite theories on the symbolic importance of lily pads, flies, and other such things that figure prominently in the dreams of frogs. He cured many, and set many more on the road to recovery. It came as something of a shock to him to find, one morning, that, as happens to many amphibians in the course of their lives, he had changed sex. It came as even more of a shock to his patients, and she was forced to leave Vienna under a cloud and make for Paris, the fabled city of lights, where La Freug, as she called herself, soon became one of the brightest stars in the firmament of polite society. Her salons were legendary, and many were the eminent citizens who dallied in the fragrant bowers of the gardens of her exquisite little chateau on the Seine.
One night, taking an unaccustomed walk in the suburbs of Montmartre, she came upon a frog she recognised from her pirating days. He was wheeling himself along on a little trolley, for, as she quickly saw, he had no legs at all.
"But what 'as brought you to zis pass, mon cheri?" she cried, for she had picked up the accent.
The frog explained. In a fury, our heroine returned to her chateau, closed it up and sold it, and fled from France for ever, taking as many undamaged frogs with her as she could. She moved to a remote location in Scotland, where, under yet another version of her name, she wreaks her revenge upon humankind by making as many of them legless as possible. And the moral of the story is: it isn't what you are, it's how you spell it.