Dear Berries, I’ve been so busy lately, what with trying to reduce my Carbon Footprint and studying Seitz’ Concerto No. 5 for piano and violin, that I’m only now getting a chance to respond to Vanessa’s invitation to think over how to proceed in 2015.
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NO! NO! NO! STOP!!! This is really cruel and wrong! Donnie didn’t do it and, to be clear, I never said he did. He’s right. I fell. (What he’s wrong about is the “Palace of Justice” reference – it was a small claims court.) Media loves a frenzy. The juxtaposition of text and image led Meg to jump to an erroneous conclusion and, despite the fact that Donnie tried to nip the inaccuracy of her judgement in the bud, the damage had already been done. The first stones cast and the witch-hunt was on. Donnie was a dead man already at that stage.
What can I say? To Donnie: I’m so immensely sorry. And to the others: Be careful. Words and images do not always add up to the total you believe, or want to believe.
Can Donnie survive this character assassination, the firing from the job he hadn’t yet started?
I’m scared that Donnie with his bluster, his grit, his illness (yes, I mean his alcoholism) he was already a marked man in a community of well, it would seem, otherwise flawless characters…
You’re such a fucking worm Oscar. Crucify the man then say “no, I was only kidding.” Why don’t you stand behind something for once in your life Oscar? If I ever see either of you two liars again I swear to god I’ll turn you both into sawdust. I’ve got better things to do with my fake life than waste it on liars like you.
Good riddance.
FAKE, YOU’RE DEAD.
FAKE YOU’RE DEAD.
Fake your dead.
Sorry Donnie, I shouldn’t read things chronologically. Well at least the cops aren’t coming for you but I still hear Betty Ford calling.
So…Donnie threatened to sue me for…er…minor infractions of protocol during surgery. (Or, as he put it: “How the hell did you manage to get your goddamned sleeve stuck to my head???!!”).
However, fortunately, we agreed to settle out of court:
Out of court settlement
On a lighter note: Hello Patrick! Nice to see you here. Seems you’ve just met the ladies so far, so please, allow me to introduce myself: I’m Oscar and Donnie is my 19th Century blast from the past. And he sure is a blast…
Looking forward to chatting over the week ahead.
DONNIE!!! DONALD ARCHER!!! GET YOUR SCRAWNY ASS DOWN HERE THIS INSTANT! YOU’VE GOT A LOT OF EXPLAINING TO DO MISTER!
WHAT DID YOU DO TO POOR OSCAR!?!?
I THINK I HAVE BEEN VERY TOLERANT OF YOUR ALCOHOLIC EXCESSES DONNIE, BUT THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE!!! KEEP YOUR HANDS OFF OSCAR!!
OH, POOR OSCAR, WHAT HAS HE DONE TO YOU? ARE YOU OK? IS IT VERY PAINFUL?
DON’T MAKE ME COME DOWN THERE DONNIE. SAY YOU’RE SORRY AND MEAN IT. IF I HAVE TO COME DOWN THERE YOU WILL BE SORRY!
Hey, Meggie, did the kid say I did that to him? I don’t think so. Naw, Meggie, it wasn’t me. Here’s what happened: Just as we reached an agreement not to go any further with the whole legal mallarky, the kid slipped and toppled down a flight of concrete steps outside the Palace of Justice. (Actually. I bandaged him up myself.)
I really hate to say I told you so, and my sincere sympathies to poor Mr. Oscar, but, I told you this man was trouble from the start!
I believe that Tree Surgeons Without Borders is one of the great humanitarian organizations of our time. I am always humbled when I see their ship enter the port at Livorno. The way they bring reanimation to dummies, marionettes and other creatures great and small is nothing short of sublime.
And now the thanks Mr. Archer shows a great humanitarian is to beat him senseless and then BLAME THE VICTIM! There is nothing lower.
This is so like my own death. When I was allegedly washing my hair and just suddenly died while bending over the sink!
My husband’s handprints all over my neck? Oh, no, that’s not proof that he strangled me at all, they only look like handprints but are actually the marks from me hitting the sink after suddenly dying.
And Carl Andre didn’t murder Ana Mendieta, she simply fell out of the window!
Gran’ disgraziato Mr. Archer.
My husband’s handprints were on my neck because he strangled me, just as sure as yours was on Mr. Oscar’s back because you pushed him down those stairs. Admit it Mr. Archer, you’re a drunk who nearly murdered the man who saved your life.
As for your faculty position at Medici University…
YOU’RE FIRED!
Wow Donnie, man what happened. I go off grid for a couple of days and all hell breaks loose. We could use your fighting spirit over here at the moment. But I’ll need to keep you away from the Brewery. Hey is that Betty Ford I hear calling you. I’ll come and visit PJ
Happy Valentine’s Day Meg, Izzy, Ysidora! 
I’ve just added a 19th Century .Re/cipe 🙂
OSCAR YOU PSYCHO!!! GET YOUR SCISSORS AWAY FROM DONNIE’S HEAD!!!
Oscar, my friend, I reckon you are to surgery what the Swedish Chefis to cooking…
Donnie is Missing…
I’m sorry I’ve been so inattentive to the postings over the weekend. The truth is…I’VE LOST DONNIE!! I’ve checked what have become his usual haunts: here (http://practicebased.re), Twitter (@DonnieArcher19C) and email (19thcdonnie@gmail) but I can’t find any recent traces of him around any of these…I’m worried that, encumbered by his new body (and, yes, I’m partly responsible for that gift), unfamiliar with his new weight and proportions, he’s somehow managed to get himself stuck somewhere…
Meg, dear, have you encountered him on your travels? Izzy, you haven’t tried to…er…pull him in into line have you? Ysidora, is it possible you may have accidentally frightened him off?
If anyone has seen or heard from him over the past couple of days I’d really appreciate any information that may give me some clue as to his present whereabouts. With thanks and concern, Oscar.
I did wire him a Cathay Pacific flight coupon for a trip to Sydney… could Donnie really be on his way??
Please Oscar, I’m not that cruel! I didn’t incinerate your ancestor! (though my father would have! 😛
Maybe he is stuck somewhere in the Southeast US. People here are going bananas because we are dealing with ice (something we rarely deal with). Schools have closed, parents are going nuts because their kids are home all day, accidents are piling up as naifs try and navigate icy highways — many for the first time ever! It’s — as my daughter might say — “cray cray” down here. Donnie might be taking advantage of the mayhem to get lost in the wintry mix! (I love getting lost in strange places; maybe he’s like me that way?)
Good heavens, Christa, little did I know what I was in for when, taking up on your invitation, I started to scuff the dust off a couple of centuries of vent history. I’m honestly not sure what 19th-Century-Donnie with his wild hair and wilder tongue will come out with next! I do know that he’s come through some really rough stuff – though Izzy’s right, it’s hard to be certain what’s fact or fiction when he’s so often inebriated. I want to help him somehow but he’s a strong-willed guy.
RASCALS! I’m so excited to be running amok among you. I myself stay away from all intoxicating substances, but I live vicariously through miscreant folk creatures like y’all.
Oh, I’m so sorry everyone. I think Donnie’s blundered in here drunk! Ignore him – it’s the drink talking. I’ll bring him back when he’s sobered up.
Come on, Donnie. Let’s go.
No worries Oscar. Thanks for bringing Donnie along. I’m sure he’ll liven up the place.
Oh, silly me!! I just posted a comment in response to the wrong item! Was attempting to add a reply to the sequence on the ancestor project but, somehow ended up adding it to Vanessa’s post re. Art & Tech Lab. Now I can’t figure out how to edit it out of there and into the place intended…
Oscar, I went into the Dashboard and moved that comment to the trash, so please repost it under the correct discussion.
FYI, I copied and pasted your original response in an email to you, although you could dig the one I removed out of the trash section of the Dashboard and repost it that wayy as well, if you were so inclined. xoxo
Aw, thanks, for your help Christa! Though, crikey, I’ve just tried to repost my comment in the “‘correct” place again and, to my surprise, it’s ended up in a new “wrong” place!!! I’ve been trying to add it to the dialogue that follows your call to participate – but, somehow, it refuses to post there and I’ve no idea why it’s failing…
It’s probably the ghost of Izzy d’medici messing it up! 🙂
Lord, Christa, perhaps not Izzy (she seems to be more tech-savvy than me) 😉 but maybe it’s the ghost of Mr Frederick Archer screwing things up?? He appears to have bones to pick over the way he met his death…
One more try, eh?! xx
Dear Oscar, if you are logged in, you can go up to the top of the page where you’ll see a “+ New” option. If you click that “New”, you’ll be in the Dashboard, and you’ll be able to move the comment to the trash and try reposting again (?). I appreciate your efforts!
Woo Hoo, Christa! It worked!! Have successfully relocated troublesome comment. Guess Mr. Archer’s resting peacefully after all…
Hey Oscar ‘n Christa. It’s not YOU… it’s… well… it’s not ME either… but something’s a tiny bit amiss here and unfortunately comments sometimes go on the wrong post… I moved a few but it does get tedious… I’m sort of working on a fix but IDK what the exact issue is and so I’m sort of stalling for an update or alt platform… I don’t actually have an easy answer unfortunately.
Moving them sorta works but is a pain. Just letting them sometimes go to the wrong place seems wrong, but you pretty much know what’s going on anyway.
It seems as if commenting on the newest post always works. But sometimes commenting on the 2nd or 1-down post goes instead to the top post. That’s all I’ve really figured out so far. Sorry about this!
If you figure out when it does and doesn’t go wrong, I can more precisely ask the “Houston” designer Woo Themes about it. TY / Sorry!
Yes Christa, I agree! At the risk of introducing yet another app, the platform Editorially, which Molly and I started using for our MOOC Writeup Article, might be nice as it can have multiple authors and you can edit, record changes, it has a comment panel that can link to doc text, etc
I just threw the text up there and sent you an invitation to collaborate. We only have a week to submit it — but we do well with deadlines! — and I think that can help us focus on broad, dramatic strokes. I think you hilited most of the same areas that leapt out as exciting / motivating / relevant to me.
Yes, Xta, I’ve seen this too. It’s weird. So many “tiny moving parts” in these contraptions! 😛
It’s happened to me too, with Michael specifically, although it probably isn’t him.
The only thing I can think of is that when someone who doesn’t have a “Gravatar” (the “Wavatar” is the randomly generated “cartoon” for peeps who didn’t sign up at Gravatar) for some strange reason our “Diablo” theme on .Re/search gets confused and makes it look like we talk to ourselves even more than we already do!
Geez!
So a comment bug in the .Re/act “Houston” theme
and a different comment bug in the .Re/search “Diablo” theme
I’m not certain that the “theme” is even the culprit, IDK. We could twist Michael’s arm to go paste a pix at Gravatar. That wouldn’t fix it for other unsignedup peeps, but he talks more than most of them so it’d be a clumsy but helpful partial fix.
Diablo and Houston are pretty nice so I’m loathe to lose them, but perhaps I should at least try some other themes to try to track down these 2 bugs. To me, the .Re/search issue is a minor annoyance, but the .Re/act issue is a real mess.
Also, separate (3rd!) thing, which you probably realize, is that you seem to have 2 accounts, the “Christa Forster” and the “Xtaforster”. This is basically fine, but could be confusing. I assume you have 2 different emails and login 2 different times / ways. For simplicity I like to have everything under one email and try to not have more multiple identities than necessary! 😛
Unless, obviously, if I’m resurrecting Octavian or something, in which case I might use a separate Augustus.Caesar@gmail.com account…
I would be loathe to change to a new theme, too, because I’ve just gotten used to this one! Thanks for the reminder of why my two different photos are showing up. You’re right. I’ve got two different emails operating; I will try and streamline it asap.
Crikey! I can actually comment on Oscar’s post now! Praise the Lord!
Thank you for all your hard work, Vanessa and for the helpful posting tips Christa! I’m having a rough day as my “blast from the past” – 19th Century Donnie – is proving to be quite a handful…
You’re doing a great job Oscar. Try to be patient with with Donnie. Don’t let him wear you out!!
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Oscar,
Vanessa Blaylock 08:46 on 24/01/2015 Permalink |
It’s been so great meeting you in 2014 (and maybe late 2013) Oscar!
Forgive me, I know you’re not a “marionette,” but you’re certainly no “dummy,” I’m not sure how you refer to yourself?
However you do, I think as an “avatar” I have some things in common with you. I must say, you’re far better at typing than I am at speaking! Do you have special keyboard? Or do you just use a full sized one? Anyway, when you mentioned having to fight to have your voice heard… I felt kind of silly doing “Video Hangouts” since I can only type. What I found though is that it’s nice in some ways. Instead of waiting my turn to talk, I can be typing while listening to someone else. And then I kind of love that someone else, like Christa or maybe Molly will, at some times “speak for me” and read what I’ve read. Sometimes no one voices what I’ve said and that’s interestingly not bad at all. I’ve discovered a little bit, just how many unnecessary things I say! It’s “humbling,” but “humbling” is too dramatic a word, I don’t mean it in a big or emotional way, just that it’s surprisingly fine to have some things passed over. And sometimes I respond to a point but by the time the speaker finishes the conversation has moved somewhere else and it’s nice not to have to drag back to my earlier me-too-ism.
Other times though, when someone does voice my words for the group they can seem smarter or more important than I thought they were. It is supposed to be a “group”, a “community” if we can get that far, and I find I like having 1 facility less and being a little bit reliant on others. Has your experience been at all like that Oscar?
I’m not aware of the full breadth of your oeuvre, Oscar, but I’m quite impressed with all you’ve accomplished in the brief time I’ve known you. And, BTW, your speech at the climate summit brought tears to my eyes, literally.
I love that photo on your website Oscar!
http://www.oscardevent.com/
You always seem to look so happy. Like no matter what happens you’ll find a way to make the best of it.
Have a great 2015 Oscar!