Sticky, Sweet, & A Little Overdressed

Fighting crime with bunny ears,
originally uploaded by Kate O’.

At the North End Night Out Against Crime: S-townMike, me, & Hutchmo. This is picture #2 because they wanted to suck in their guts. Of course, my own gut looks unjustly large in this shot, but I’m going with it because that’s just the kind of crime-fighting neighbor and friend I am.

That’s not me making the bunny ears, by the way. I’m being framed!

Bullhorn at the polling place?,
originally uploaded by Kate O’.

Doesn’t this violate at least the spirit of the “no soliciting votes within 100 feet” rule?

ETA: I know the picture doesn’t get the details across, but the people in the blue tent are campaigning for Erica Gilmore for a District 19 Council seat, and one of the guys in the tent has a bullhorn he’s using to address voters as they enter the church-cum-polling-place across the street. He very clearly asked me and Karsten to “vote for Gilmore” as we were entering the polling place. I don’t know how that law is enforced, but I don’t get the impression that this dude is in full compliance.

Liberadio included me in its roundup of “notable” bloggers endorsing Briley. Or, well, now that I read it again more closely, I guess they called the endorsement notable. Not so much me. Oh well, back to insignificance.

S-townMike has decided he wants Briley for the next mayor of Nashville.

I’m so glad to read that. Anyone who’s seen our front yard (or pictures of our front yard) in recent weeks knows we’re a Briley household. But I have a great deal of respect for S-townMike and the strength of his views on community and neighborhoods and what’s good for Nashville in general. So honestly, just to know that he’s thrown his support behind Briley as well pleases me, but I’m especially pleased that some of our reasons are the same:

Every opportunity I have to talk to Mr. Briley, he makes a concerted effort to listen, to chat with me authentically, and to be accountable for what he tells me. [...] I have never seen him evade a difficult question put to him.

Indeed I have seen David Briley seem to seek out difficult questions. I really sense that he’s a man of great character and integrity, and it comes through most in one-on-one interactions. Not to say the man’s never been wrong or won’t be wrong again — we’re electing a mayor, not an icon — but I get a good feeling when I talk with him that he sincerely means to do the right thing by people, and to do the right thing by Nashville.

Which reminds me of one more thing S-townMike says:

It is a testament to who David Briley is: a consummate leader who is not simply versed in the intricacies of governing, but a man readily attuned and energized by his responsibilities to the communities that he governs.

Exactly.

Chris Wage — whose opinions on the growth and development of Nashville I also have a great deal of respect for — has this to say about the race:

Everyone I’ve talked to in the past week — admittedly a small sample set — has been excited about Dean or Briley, whereas I’ve gotten nothing but baffled apathy regarding the rest of the field, particularly with regards to Clement.

I have had some overlap in sampling with Chris, but our sample set is not exactly the same and my experience is still identical to his. More specifically, the people I meet who are passionate about the race are passionate about Briley. I think it comes back to how much his character comes through when folks meet him.

Hey, look. I know I’m not an expert on local politics. I’m not a Nashville native, and I don’t have as much background on who’s who and what their backgrounds are as do a lot of folks I know. But I do pay attention, and I learn more every day, and I do genuinely care. When Karsten and I moved here four and a half years ago, we didn’t know we were going to fall in love with the place so much. I’m happy to call Nashville home and I hope to for a very long time. I believe David Briley is the mayor we need to help the city continue to grow responsibly, to address the valid concerns that come with growth, and to become an even better place to live than it already is.

I’m really excited to be part of a new blogging project. There’s a lot that it can become, but right now, the core group of people behind it are just trying to pull together everything we need to do right now. There’s been a flurry of email, a few of us met for lunch today, and there’s talk of a field trip for some research and networking, but more on that later.

The blog’s most basic purpose is to serve the community of middle Tennessee that was built through Nashville Is Talking, and which has been left wondering what comes next ever since Brittney left.

My take? This. This is what comes next. It’s grassroots, it’s cooperative, and it’s people from differing social and political views coming together with a common purpose. That just rocks my little world. After wondering what would happen to the community without a central voice to pull it all together, I feel really good about the way this has the potential to come together.

The Fug Girls get self-deprecating about blogging:

Occasionally I change out of my pajamas in the morning and into a different pair of pajamas.

Thought some folks might enjoy that reference.

Random ways my brain works,
originally uploaded by Kate O’.

Every time I see this package in the break room at work, I imagine a “Coffee Singles” dating service for people who love java.

CeeElCee and girls,
originally uploaded by lesley s.

Doesn’t this totally look like I’m saying “mine, all mine”? After all, we’re talking about BadBad-mf’in-Ivy and Ginger-f’in’-SNAPs here, people - I don’t know why CeeElCee wasn’t fighting me for them. He must have known he was no match for my mad girl-claiming skillz.

Come to think of it, I may have tried to fight with CeeElCee one other time last night. I don’t remember why, but I kind of remember saying that he and my inner fag could take it outside, but CeeElCee wisely deferred, admitting he’d have his ass handed to him. I really don’t want to fight CeeElCee - I adore the guy! - but I’m thinking maybe he just brings out the scrappy in me.

Brittney Gilbert has resigned her post as author/editor of Nashville Is Talking following a truly hideous episode of misunderstanding and attacks primarily from — get this — left-wing bloggers. Brittney is a lefty herself, but her position was misunderstood by her linking to a racist piece of garbage a few days ago without making her reason for linking it explicit — which was unnecessary for regular readers, as we all know her take on the mudslinger in question — and in the ensuing maelstrom, whatever the real issues were, they got lost in a flurry of ridiculous trolling and name-calling. Aunt B has an excellent summary of it all.

I’ve been following this whole thing for the past 12 hours or so, and it has been making me reflective and a little sad. I’m disappointed that more people don’t exercise compassion in their dealings with others. I’m disappointed that so many people resort to name-calling so quickly. I’m disappointed that this ultimately pushed Brittney to the point of resignation. And I’m just sad to see extreme reactions have such influence while opportunities for balance and understanding are overlooked.

That may make me sound like a “can’t we all just get along” type, but the thing is, I’m not afraid of confrontation. I believe in being direct with people when there are conflicts, and I strive to be gentle until my gentleness is misunderstood as a sign of weakness, and then all bets are off. I’m not always as compassionate as I should be. I forget sometimes about the feelings and frustrations of the people I’m interacting with. I think most of us do. *

The thing that makes me feel bad, personally, is that this all started because a dude died. And it was the reaction to the dude’s death that got everyone talking. You know, Talking. As in Nashville Is. And Brittney linked to an excerpt of some talking, as she is free to decide to do within the bounds of her job. (I expressed concern in comment #28 over how the link would be interpreted by those unfamiliar to the blog, as well as reservations about adding authority to the racist nonsense by linking to it, but I certainly never meant to suggest that Brittney was wrong to make that call.) It was controversial. It got people talking. I agree that the fact that she linked to it was as relevant as the link itself, but I can’t understand why so many people responded with such a lack of curiosity about either. They simply made their assumptions and began calling names.

I can’t decide whether to hope that WKRN decides to keep Nashville Is Talking up and running with a new author/editor or that they shut it down because Brittney is so much the heart and soul of that blog. What I hope for Brittney is easy, because I fully believe she’ll do really well in her next move.

* (I’m not sure why, but this reminds me to mention that Mack was surprised a few weeks ago, after reading my writings here for some time now, when I described myself in conversation as liberal. Huh? Not that it’s an either-or proposition, but I wonder how many conservatives he knows who are bisexual atheist child-free-by-choice vegans. I’m curious to meet one now!)

I just posted on Nashville Metroblogging about our dramatic storm experience at Pride today. Check it out!

View from my outdoor office,
originally uploaded by Kate O’.

This is what I’m looking at as I work right now.

Would you be more inclined to translate “little disaster” as “kleine Katastophe” or “Katastrophchen,” since our intent is to use it as an affectionate term (as in “Unsere kleine Katastrophe” oder “Unser Katastrophchen”)? Or is there a better translation altogether? I wouldn’t want to miss out on getting the best humor value out of it.

I think we should pitch in and get this for Brittney.

theogeo critiques a new magazine called Skirt! (yes, the banger is part of the title) with which she is obliquely associated:

Tell me you’ve got a publication for strong, successful women and I’ll usually be all, “Okay, right on,” thinking we’ve got a political-minded, informative, thoughtful outlet on our hands. Tell me it’s called “Skirt!” and my brain will start shutting down. Suddenly you’ve introduced fashion and feminine markers into the premise. Not to mention the secondary verbal definition of “skirt,” which means to avoid or work around. It’s indirect; it’s passive.

The whole premise is bewilderingly patronizing. And it’s not like I don’t subscribe to fashion magazines — I do! several! — but I subscribe to them to follow fashion and admire clothing design. I know what I’m getting into when I open a copy of InStyle, and believe me, I don’t read it expecting to encounter thoughtful essays written from a feminist perspective. Those types of publications simply have no credibility with me for that sort of content. But when I want those feminist essays (Bust, perhaps, or Off Our Backs? I admit I don’t subscribe to either — blogs provide me with ample content), I don’t expect to be condescended to with fashion and beauty advice. And here the credibility issue works basically in reverse: include fashion and beauty advice in your progressive women’s publication, and, for me, you cease to be a progressive women’s publication.

This sort of mental partitioning may be uncommon, but I sort of doubt it. That’s not to say that a cross-market magazine (or even cross-cross-market, if you think fashion-feminist-local) can’t work, but this appears to be the reason to undertake such a venture with extreme caution.

I’ve been set up for a while now, but I haven’t really used it. Here’s me. Where are you?

Update: I guess I can say more. When I first set up my account at Twitter, my thinking was similar to others I’ve seen dismiss it: sure I could use it, but what’s the point? But after reading about how much adoption it got at SXSW, I think I may just have to look deeper for ways it can be a useful tool. So color me intrigued.

The trip back from SLC involved a canceled flight, puking in the airport, and lost luggage, but it’s all over now and I’m simply happy to be home. I very nearly kissed the ground when we landed. Of course, I’ll soon be off again, bound for NYC, but let’s not think about that just now, shall we?

It doesn’t take much travel these days to make me appreciate being home. I worked from here yesterday, which was really nice. It gave us the flexibility to meet up for lunch at Baja Fresh with some of my former coworkers from the music technology gig, and that was a total blast. Aside from the ridiculous delay on one person’s one measly taco, it was an entirely wonderful experience. I really miss them, but I’m relieved that we’re actually staying in touch.

Karsten and I also dropped into a few banks after lunch and got some ideas on financing our front porch work. That’s looking promising. It’s going to look seriously great.

And then around sunset, Karsten and I walked downtown to the new H.G. Hill Urban Market to pick up some mushrooms for dinner. I’d read CeeElCee’s appraisal and basically agree with it, except that I’d add they did a great job with the vertical space. (And Smiley, if it were up to me you’d be a Metroblogger already.)

On our way back home, we stopped in at the Germantown Cafe to have a drink at the bar. After all this time, I still get a little thrill out of being able to pop in for a drink at such a great place.

And, oh yeah, tomorrow is Valentine’s Day. *yawn* Although actually, rather unusually, I bought Karsten a present this year. I can’t tell you what it is in case he sees this before his gift shows up, but I think he’ll like it. As for me, I don’t need any gifts — I already have the love of my life — what more could I possibly want? (All together now: awww.)

I did not watch this super-bowl-thing you all keep talking about. (Is that soccer or something?)

But I have been made aware (that is to say, the CEO just popped his head in the doorway and mentioned to me) that the artist formerly known as The Artist Formerly Known As Prince played halftime. In the rain. With an electric guitar.

I am not a physicist, nor am I a meteorologist, nor am I an electrician. But isn’t there some electrical shock hazard here? Or is that not a very rock’n'roll thing to be worried about and I am therefore being a big ol’ sissy?

Help settle my mind, people.

PS: Brittney, does this, in your esteemed estimation, count as blogging about the Super Bowl?

S-townMike over at Enclave reports on a lock-down that occurred last night during the Salemtown neighborhood meeting (and then updates the story to clarify that the robbery actually took place on the edge of Germantown).

John H & Lynn mentioned the lock-down when we saw them a little while ago, and we were all talking about how many sirens we’ve been hearing the past few nights. There have also been a lot of police helicopters (cop-copters?) flying overhead with searchlights and all. It’s not unusual to hear a siren every so often, but in the past two evenings sirens have been more like our constant companions. And those searchlights are definitely weirding out the cats.

Can’t tell if it’s all related to the one robbery, or if there’s more.

Strange that it can feel so peaceful and relaxed in this neighborhood (like walking around taking pictures of holiday lights) while all this crime-fighting is going on.

Long line at polling place, North Nashville,
originally uploaded by Kate O’.

I also posted this over at Nashville Metroblogging, but check out these lines out the door by 7:20 AM.

Are rights given by god or by government? If you don’t believe in god, do you still have rights?

These are the questions Donald Sensing asked in his blog today. When this post showed up on Nashville Is Talking (a local blog aggregator), I knew I had to respond. Because as I said in my comment, this is the second time in a few years that I’ve been told that I (through inclusion in some group) “don’t deserve any rights at all.”

The core of his post seems to be this:

So could not we religious people simply say, “Sorry, persecuting atheists is no longer against our religon?” If you think not, why not?

Whether you are a believer or a non-believer, I’d like to hear your thoughts.

Mark at This Guy Falls Down has some musings on songwriting and his “songwriting hacks” series (which can be found by riffling through the Creative Process category on his blog archives).

I just don’t think participating in the creative process is an area where you can find a clever workaround. The creative process is not one to be manipulated. I guess it works, if all you want to do is be a “hack”.

Now, I have a lot of respect for Mark, but hey, I’m willing to go toe-to-toe with a Grammy winner. Because I do think there are ways to manipulate the creative process, and I don’t think it necessarily makes the creator a “hack.”

Besides, most of what Mark wrote about in the “hacks” series weren’t manipulations to the songwriting process, but guidelines to make the process easier. Saying that you should read good material to be able to write well is hardly a controversial idea, as writing advice goes. Saying that you should work on one song at a time is a matter of preference and experience (I don’t write as well unless I can flit back and forth between multiple songs in progress). Of course, Mark did say at the beginning of the series that he was taking liberties with the word “hack” anyway:

I’m hoping to share some advice I’ve picked up along the way as a musician, particularly as it pertains to songwriting. I call this advice “hacks”, even though that’s probably not the proper use of the term, simply because we’re on the Internet here and it seems appropriate.

But I guess I’m arguing that you could talk about songwriting “hacks” in a way that’s closer to the “clever or elegant solution to a difficult problem” meaning of the word. I’ve even talked about some of those kinds of things here over the years. There are scads of books written about songwriting technique, and some of them get awfully clever with the difficult problems they tackle.

Creativity is a fickle mistress. Taking a purist approach to songwriting and letting raw emotion drip from your pen is usually the best way to get to the heart of a feeling or an experience. That’s the art of it. But once you have the raw material, there are definitely tricks and techniques that comprise the craft of songwriting, and knowing a little of Mark’s music, I know that he’s very capable with those tools and techniques. And I’m pretty firm about advocating that craft in creativity is nothing to be ashamed of.

I also think it’s very natural to go through phases where we vacillate from a more purist approach to a more crafted approach to creating. As long as we keep creating, the balance seems to restore itself eventually.

Just when you think you’ve been called every name in the book, along comes a new moniker. In response to a posting of mine on Nashville Metroblogging complaining of lack of dancing options in Nashville, Omri Ceren posted an article on Gridskipper purporting to list dance venues and, incidentally, referring to me as a “carpetbagging hottie.” Heh. Best left-handed compliment ever. I got a good giggle out of it, anyway.

But as to the original matter of the postings: dancing is not really a priority at most of the venues cited in Omri’s piece. I’ve been to Mercy Lounge quite a few times, and I can’t say there’s been dancing on any of those occasions — at least not by the bar’s patrons. And I’ve seen fights almost break out at Beer Sellar and Legend’s Corner, but I’ve never seen dancing break out at either venue. But Lipstick Lounge is a valid suggestion (one I’d already considered and dismissed, but may reconsider), and this NV Nightclub is news to me. I may have to go check that out.

I’ll be sure to carry my carpetbags when I go.

Just got email from the Nashville blogger known as Chez Bez, who was reminded by my last post that he thought he caught a picture of me and Karsten riding our bikes downtown during the jazz festival a few weeks ago. Sure enough, there we were (fourth picture down).

I had mentioned riding bikes downtown that weekend in a comment on Metroblogging but forgot to write about it here. (ETA: Actually now that I re-read my comment, I guess I was talking about running downtown with Karsten riding his bike beside me. But the next day, we both rode our bikes back down there, so that’s when Chez Bez’s pic was taken.) That’s some pretty cool serendipity.

We love riding along the riverfront to downtown. There’s a great little ice cream parlor on Broadway called Mike’s and they have an awesome chocolate peanut butter flavor. It’s a real treat to ride through the downtown greenway to Riverfront Park, go up Broad a block or two to Mike’s, get a cone, and then carefully (so as not to drip melting ice cream!) ride back over to the riverfront to sit on one of the benches near Fort Nashborough and look out over the river. And it’s only going to get better.

I’m so happy to be in Nashville.

And a post about our travel ordeals is on Metroblogging Nashville.

Since what I wrote there was mostly trip complaints, here are some of the trip highlights:

• Getting to see our friend D, who was a colleague on the infamous Indy gig.
• Getting to see J & H, who were colleagues at the (infamous?) healthcare gig but have since moved to the Minneapolis area.
• Getting to see brandismarie91, whom I haven’t seen in something like 10 years.
• Eating at Chatterbox pub for Friday dinner and drinks.
• Eating at French Meadow for Saturday dinner.
• Eating at The Egg & I for Sunday breakfast/brunch.
• Eating at Chiang Mai Thai for Sunday dinner.
• Exploring and eating at several places in the Global Market.
• While D was playing a league game of soccer, Karsten and I took the light rail to IKEA, which meant passing through the Mall of America. I’d seen the mall before and knew its enormity, but Karsten, I think, was unprepared. He was stunned.
• Going to the Minnesota Zoo.
• Seeing a white-cheeked gibbon show off how well he was able to swing from one end of his habitat to the other. He made it look as effortless as a marathon runner crossing the street.
• Checking out the Loft, a cool writers’ center with a nice little cafe and the most wickedly cool staircase I have ever seen — it’s designed to be reminiscent of a book, with frosted plexiglass sheets that look like pages winding around the railing all the way up. I took pictures, but I don’t have them up yet and I don’t really think they do it justice. Here’s a small one on the Loft web site.
• Checking out Wedge, a grocery co-op.
• Checking out various other local coffee shops and bars.
• Petting D’s two cats, Bea & Greta.

But at this point, I’m just happy to be back home. I’m even happy to be back at work!

Balloon release! Art event at Image Distillery (at the Shell station),
originally uploaded by Kate O’.

Thanks to for encouraging me to take a picture at this art event the other night. It gave me something to post in Metroblogging Nashville, and I’ve been a neglectful blogger over the past 10 days.

But anyway, this was a way cool fun night of art happenings.