“I haven’t seen it; the previews make me want to barf.  I already know the story, and I don’t really want to sit through the glamorization,”

Aaron Sylvan, the CEO of Trustworks, Inc. told me when I asked whether or not he’d seen The Social Network yet. This surprised me given the fact that I’d spent several months managing social media for social network Aaron was developing and he is one of the most knowledgeable people I know, regarding social media business development.

Another web development friend, who requested his name be withheld, expressed similar apprehension about seeing The Social Network. Though acknowledging the film’s historic relevance, this other friend wasn’t comfortable with the fictitiously distorted portrayals of people he is friends with in real life.

This made me realize that for people who, like Mark Zuckerberg, code round the clock and take gynormous risks to –more or less– homestead the wild web of the web the idea of watching a caricatured augmentation of the greatest challenges an entrepreneur can face, is about as pleasant as scratching a blackboard would be…if blackboards still existed. 

The Social Network is neither biopic or documentary.

Sensitive portrayals of prodigal socially inept visionaries have a distinguished cinematic lineage in and of themselves.

 
In Hollywood all roads lead to the Citizen Kane. Whereas Orson Wells choose to change the names, Screenwriter, Aaron Sorkin did not.  In an culture saturated by hash tagged tweet chats about reality TV, a scripted biopic that takes narrative liberties with real live people can come off as anything from unsettling to outright freakie.

Aaron Sorkin Sez:

“Antihero to Tragic Hero”

During the Q&A, following last Thursday’s WGAe preview screening, Sorkin eloquently delineated the various materials with which he crafted his character arcs: Aristotle. Aeschylus. Kurosawa. Power. Betrayal. Revenge.

Sorkin had a gold mine of emails, wall posts, blogs, legal documents and interview transcripts at his disposal. He had a legal team about the size of the entire American Bar Association.  Much Zuckerberg’s seminal drunken Facemash posts were lifted from the same post that crashed Harvard’s computer system.  Sorkin’s fictional Zuckerberg is given an even greater semblance of reality because of this.

Sorkin is Digitally Challenged

His nostalgia is completely unironic…so? 

Making no attempt to conceal or even apologize for his lack of social media literacy during the Q&A. Sorkin expressed a decided desire for a less accelerated future. A future that chooses nostalgia over zeros and ones. Who can blame him? Digitally speaking, the guy is a neanderthal.

Sorkin’s attempt to even differentiate between platforms sputtered and collapsed. Best case scenario, he’s a social media neophyte who tried his best.  Those looking to the film to elucidate the socio-techno-cog-sci-intra pulsing binary pixel that form these letters on your screen will get bummed out as well.

Erica Albright is a Sled

Rosebud.  Rosebud.  Rosebud.

Haunted by the loss of his fictitious girlfriend, Erica Albright, Sorkin’s Zuckerberg avatar is driven to construct a perpetually elusive Xanadu known as…Facebook as tech journos deconstruct up to wazoo.  At the end of the day, the Social Network is too fictious to be All the President’s Men and not fictitious enough to be  Citizen Kane.  Like any masterpiece, it is an entity in and of itself.

Who is the Real Mark Zuckerberg?

The Education Donation to Newark Controversy

Tons of peops got all hung out on Zuck’s donation to Newark. The conspiracy antennas up and ready to counter that one of the most generous educational in history was intended to buffer the inevitably bad media on it. Does that honestly matter as long as Zuck’s personal stocks sell for the 100 million predicted to fund the thing. With Booker at the helm, he couldn’t be in a better position to galvanize education throughout the country.

Ultimately, the movie fiction. Zuck’s educational initiative is real.

Here is my Politiku:

“Erica Albright”
“What did you say was her name?”
(Newark gets new sleds)

From Susannaspeier.com

Douglas Rushkoff
10 Commands

+ Leland Purvis’ Illustrations:

From Susannaspeier.c

Douglas Rushkoff uses Leland Purvis’ illustrations in Power Point show

“We’re living in a world of applications. If you don’t know how to write applications you’re not really part of the conversation,” Rushkoff said.

I was coding and note taking simultaneously — a year ago I wouldn’t have known how to do this but had finally reached a certain point, as a blogger, when it was just easier to ditch the training wheels.

Had rushed through the rain to make this last minute Dumbo Arts Festival event

Had missed the post on Doug’s FB wall but thanks to Jeff Newelt’s wall post, I whooshed myself over from Astor Place in no time flat.

From Susannaspeier.com

Conjuring up the ancients, Rushkoff ‘s 10 commandment paradigm came from a time when guidance moved from an oral culture to literate.

Like literacy, Rushkoff explained, when the internet’s working well, it functions as an extention of mind, soul, heart all that other stuff.  It doesn’t always work that way, however.  There are media bias’ and privacy violations, to name a few.  The users are responsible for using it responsibly.  Thus, the need for a guide.

Ten Commands for the New Era

[Bracketed comments are my annotations of Rushkoff's notes]

1. Time:

do not be always on.

Computers didn’t used to always be on. People now exhibit symptoms reserved for Air Traffic Controllers. They didn’t used to. Rushkoff argues people don’t always wanna have gadgetry on because “on” is not real time.  People are. [so simple and necessary ]

2. Distance:

Live In Person.

Really good for talking to people far away from you [don't quite remember full context of this one.  was going really fast.  sorry]

3. Choice:

You May Always Choose None of the Above.

There’s this notion that un pre-determined choices do not exist. More choice isn’t necessarily more freedom.

4. Complexity:

You are Never Completely Right.

We are rushing to make premature choices about things that are actually very far away from us. There’s this idea we’re just as good as citizen journalists. Well, corporations and governments are hiring PR firms to do this as well. That’s why we do still need some professionals.  Don’t get rid of journos [love this! yay]

5. Scale:

One Size Does Not Fit All.

Not everything works for everyone. People try to scale up and the real economy takes a back seat to the derivative economy. Tim O’Reilley says aggregators are the only ones who earn money. Then you become an aggregator of aggregators and people make choices based on derivatives markets rather than the real economy. We shouldn’t blame it on digital but it’s a way of thinking. In Dumbo [where the talk is taking place] being everything to everyone is less important than being here and real and now.

From Susannaspeier.com

6. Identity:

Be Yourself.

When people are anonymous they are do mean things. The premise is that who you are is your liability.

7. Social:

Don’t Sell Your Friends.

People are upset about Facebook and are not upset bout privacy so much as they are upset that their relationships are being monetized.

8. Fact:

Tell the Truth.

Wikileaks. It catches up with you.

9. Openness:

Share, Don’t Steal.

You could “sneak up and take one of those microphones and put it in your backpack. It’s probably a good microphone. Worth $100 each. Yet you don’t take cause its not in your behavior. If we all steal music no one will be left to make music for us. The way companies try to deal with it is they try and steal from people.

10. Purpose:

I believe this is the moment we’ve been waiting for. This is the biggest thing to hit civilizations since language. We can consciously participate in the evoloution of our species. IT’s all going to happen…question is whether or not we’re going to participate in it. This is what we should have gotten with the printing press. What did we get the printing press? The creation of an elite. We should have gotten literacy with the creation of text. Writing was called “hieroglyphs”

which means priestly writing. Whether we take it or not is our choice.
[Anyone gotta good Johannes Gutenberg bio to recommend?]
[I recommend Doug's book, btw. Cause he explains what he's talking about much better than I explain it  ]

Jeff Newelt (of Smithmag and Gothamist) had an Act-i-vate event right after.  Live readings of graphic novels.  Jeff’s also co-creating a graphic novel version of  Doug.  So if you wanna continue to geek graphically, click here.

The storm’s first thunderclap began when I was in Manhattan, social media strategizing with Joschi and Monika at their Chelsea yoga studio. The storm continued through Kaeshi’s Bellydance class in the East Village.

But even after hearing the doorman’s account of the 100 mph “cone” swirling by,  I had trouble believing.  Something about the idea of Brooklyn and a tornado occupying the same vicinity just seems so antithetical to everything…Brooklyn.

Granted, there’s the cyclone ride at Coney island and its minor league Baseball team namesake.  But that’s just a rollercoaster ride, you know?  But go ahead and check it out for yourself…

Chomp! Chomp!

Tornado’s Big Meal Before the Fast

From Susannaspeier.com

This is one of the uprooted trees in front of my building. Fell on a car as well. Several other cars got smashed and someone in Queens got killed when the tornado tore down the parkway. No fatalities in Brooklyn, thankfully. Even so, hearing about the Queens fatality was a reminder that despite the giddy excitement of having personally missed the big, bad, spiral, for the family of its victim, it was a tragedy that they haven’t even begun trying to start to reconcile.

From Susannaspeier.com

Brooklyn dogs are a culture in and of themselves. In this post Brooklyn tornado photo they are all helping one another to wind down.  “Where were you when…” the dogs ask one another.

HOOOooooooowwwwL

The Dogs of Brooklyn

Animals totally know what’s up before people figure it out. Had more or less relegated this heresay to the realm of urban legend up until last night but I believe it now. Esp after Alex (the doorman who saw the cyclone through the glass doors) told me the dogs in the building were howling advanced warnings. I imagine some twister telepathic signal pulsing some high frequency message from the moment it touched the port of Red Hook.

The Funnel Reality

Once in my apartment the Brooklyn tornado was seeming more plausible. Via Facebook IM, Jimmy Wales (that Wikipedia/Wikia guy) hooked me up to the 411 on the previous Brooklyn tornado within moments.

Making the reality all the more cogent, Kee-hap (my cat—as most of my readers already know) was re-enacting the Ben-hur chariot race scene around the circumference of the apartment.

Brooklyn Tornado Video

I seriously cannot watch this You Tube footage WITHOUT running the Wizard of Oz Wicked Witch music in my head and jonesin to see a bicycle turn into a broomstick and an East bound witch “HAaaaw-hawh-haaaw-ing over Park Slope’s brownstone rooftops.

Yom Kippur

Since I’m not religious the fact that this event coincides with the Jewish day of Atonement, Yom Kippur isn’t a really big of a deal for me. Even so, because the holiday coincides with Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year and it is typically a time of reflection. Thinking bout the year just passed and planning for the new.  Letting go of what is past and planning to restart again.

From Susannaspeier.com

See (Again) For Yourself

From Susannaspeier.com

A Tree Falls in Brooklyn

Alex Illezanii (who saw the cone firsthand and heard the dogs howling, kindly made this photo and the one above it available for me to use on this blog.)
How bout this for a conclusion: It’s important to be prepared for the unexpected since you never know what random cylindrical funnel might come swirling your way?

Okay, to be honest I’ve no idea how to connect the dots on this one. But its only Kol Nidre night so perhaps I’ll happen across something more revelatory –at the very least, satisfying) later in the day.  And I will say this much:  I am lucky that the tree didn’t fall on my building or on my head. Also lucky also that the glass doors on my building weren’t revolving glass…as were the ones next door…

From Susannaspeier.com

What happens when some douchey luxury high rise engineers are dumb ass enough to install revolving doors on a cross winds corner!

Good Yontif

As the Yom Kippur Comes to a Close

A tenth of the country is unemployed, China owns our ass, the recent health care reform is –at best– problematic and nature can be brutal.  Good news is the fact that I live in a brick building, though. I live in a brick building and am, on so many levels, safe and sound from gusts that sway the rest of the world to and fro. Is fro even actually a word, actually?

From Susannaspeier.com

Just got a call from Hampshire friend and long time Politiku contributor, Randi Cecchine who has an extra ticket to break fast services. Haven’t been fasting but am excited to see Randi so off I go to join her and do some ritualizing, regardless.

Mom, see? I’m actually heading over to Yom Kippur services, afterall…

Only complaint? They ought to have used an analog alarm clock, in the opening sequence, rather than a digital one. Like one of these, only with an alarm clock function…

Hmm, through the process of finding this clip, I actually realized I was waxing nostalgic for that opening sequence of Back to the Future, remember? I don’t, to be honest, even remember whether or not that opening sequence had a Felix the Cat Clock in it but I have a feeling it did. My brother had one on the wall of his room when we lived in McLean, Virginia. It was over a mural of an earthrise, viewed from the surface of the moon, no less. OMG, that’s IT!!! The alarm clock in the Twitter You Tube ad should have had some resemblance to the moon!!! That’s it!!! That’d have been so purrrrfect!!! Why didn’t they do that??? OMG, they totally should have done that!!!

But, okay. Problem is the Felix the Cat Clock has no specific connection to the moon, aside from the esoteric one I just mentioned, which wouldn’t really work for a You Tube ad, I guess. Hmmmmm.

Okay, would love to try and come up with some actual analog alarm clock moon type theme right now, only I really have to get some real work done. But if you can come up with any actual analog clocks that have some moon theme or reference (ones where everybody –not just my brother and me– would get the reference) LMK, okay?
Tweet

How do we, as Americans, diffuse the efforts of a weird-ass, delusional, extremist, Koran burning freak so that a far more threatening weird-ass, delusional, extremist freak halfway round the globe doesn’t wax wroth by burning people, again?

Swiffered the parquet floor.  Tried –and failed– to get any work done. Went to the Farmer’s Market and returned with fresh apples, tomatoes and peppers.  Brushed the orange, tiger striped tabby cat as she purred and crackled like the 4th of July.

While watching the evening bounce off Brooklyn Brownstones, I felt content in knowing that the godawful metal against metal boom of the shockwave that rippled me powerless the morning of 9/11/01 was long ago and far, far away.  Something only needing to be revisited on days like this one.

From Susannaspeier.com

Counting the atomic hours down to midnight, I lit memorial candles and tweeted this conclusion on the tails of the trending hashtags:

From Susannaspeier.com

The sweetest part of my day happened when I coaxed a first-time Politiku out of a new British online conversationalist friend:

From Susannaspeier.com

It took a while for me to reconnect to media. Even longer for me to reconnect to Politics. Politiku enabled me to co-exist with politics without overwhelming. Never expected to turn into the poetry wrangler of the most widely read online news site after the New York Times. My background is theater and later film. And its still there, truth be told, that my most intimate, truthful creative voice manifests and will undoubtedly return one day.

The most direct creative manifestation of my 9/11 experience was in the play that I wrote right after it happened.  The play was performed in several downtown NY venues, including Ground Zero between 2001 and 2002 and then later reprized in 2008 in Los Angeles and all performances seemed to help both audiences and actors re-humanize in a way that was surprisingly potent and desperately needed back then.

Art, as always, rises like a Phoenix from the ashes.  I may well be the epitome of what the 9/11 terrorists wanted to destroy that day — an ambitious, opinionated, resilient, Jewish American female who would, nine years later, publicly defend the Constitutional rights of a moderate Islamic cultural center just a few blocks north of their. And the 9/11 terrorists perished in the flames that day. And I’m alive, well and here to firedance.

From Susannaspeier.com

Happy September 12th, everyone:)

Cross post on the Facebook and Twitter sections of The Huffington Post

Distance from the Epicenter

Questions about distance and radius are not unfamiliar to anyone who living in NY during and after the 9/11/01 terrorist attacks. The Red Cross and FEMA had their red zone maps. Trauma, a topic also discussed in my July 4th Fireworks Politiku, is very real to those who suffer in its aftermath. What 9/11 victims experienced, suffered from and in some cases are still suffering from, deserves all the support and respect one would expect from a socially conscious and sensitized civilization.

What I just don’t get about all this

Will having a Mosque and cultural center near ground Zero, truly deepen the suffering of a 9/11 survivor simply because it is there to serve a community of moderate Islamic practitioners?

Given the complex nature of trauma and how it manifests, I honestly don’t see how a 9/11 survivor’s response to Park 51 would be any easier to predict than other potential emotional triggers in that part of town.

As someone who was downtown the morning of the attacks, I go to that part of the city when I have to and co-exist with the discomfort as best I can. It’s constantly changing as are the different things that get to me about being there. Would an Islamic cultural center resonate with me as anything besides an Islamic cultural center? Probably not.

The Perceived Threat

I grew up in an educated, politically involved, middle-class Jewish family in Washington, D.C. and have chosen to reside in multicultural cities for most of my adult life because it is where I feel most at ease. I am not afraid of a moderate Islamic cultural center with an interfaith focus because, for me, ignorance, intolerance and extremism is the greater threat.

I do not agree with all of Imam Feisal Abdul Raufmight’s politics –but then– I disagree with a lot of my friend’s politics, as well.

Isn’t this what living and thriving in a multicultural urban metropolis is all about?

The Actual Threat

The actual threat, as I see it, is a potential anti-semitic backlash that the ADL’s intolerance could unintentionally end up causing.

Hopefully those following the issue will understand that the ADL’s extremist position does not represent all Jews. Hopefully..

Need the run down or a refresher on what, exactly, Politiku is all about?  Visit the FAQ section of our Facebook Fan page and follow our tweets as well!

Click here to visit my Huffpo column to read the Ground Zero Mosque Politiku we selected.

Despite –and perhaps because of this– I pushed for anonymity. Nothing to mess up a job prospect than a Google search connecting an applicant’s name to a widely misunderstood medical condition like PTSD, right?

All anonymous politiku contributors were verified as combat vets with PTSD, by the way. What really made the difference was the fact that Lily had been working with many of these vets through her site Healing Combat Trauma and they trusted her. One of these vets, Angela Peacock, is a former U.S. Army sergeant and Iraq war vet with PTSD, was even comfortable having her name attached.

Although I had no direct contact with Angela during the writing process, Lily informed me that she is a remarkable spokesperson on the topic of female military vets dealing with PTSD. In honor of her willingness to shed some light on this dark and murky issue, Angela is the featured author of the post.

I am posting in hopes that Angela as well as the anonymous vets who have contributed Politiku and every vet in the country now dealing with PTSD, will get access to the resources needed to support their efforts towards recovery.

Angela Woytus-Peacock Politiku
fire lights up the sky/ like old memories burning/ frazz-le-ing my nerves

red white and boom pow/ I can smell watermelon/ old smoke wafting by

staring in silence/ fires are burning inside me/ time to run and hide.

Angela Woytus-Peacock is a former U.S. Army sergeant and Iraq war vet with PTSD.

Anonymous Fireworks & Combat Trauma Politiku
No Fi – Er – Works, No !/ Got P – T – S – D, Need Help !/ Stop War, Fix V – A !

Anonymous Fireworks & Combat Trauma Politiku
some one call the cops/ poor neighborhood kids don’t know / they will find out soon

Craig Newmark’s recent blogpost about National PTSD Awareness Day inspired me to draft a proposal for a series of Politiku workshops for U.S. Military Veterans dealing with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder due to combat trauma. Craig referred me to Lily Casura, author of the website HealingCombatTrauma.com for additional info on the topic.

4th of July Fireworks can be stressful, isolating, alienating and outright exhausting for vets suffering from PTSD. Moreover, they may not necessarily be in the mood to the political issues behind their most recent tours of duty with their civilian families who only know what the media tells them and, in all fairness, why should they? Why should one individual be singlehandedly responsible for setting the record straight, given how polarized the issue has become? Given the diversity of perspectives on this issue, how accurate would one individual’s perspective be, anyway?

Most of us –myself included– grew up associating Fourth of July fireworks with excitement. In Washington, DC, Dad, Mom my brother and me would all go to the Ellipse early to place a picnic blanket by the Reflecting Pool and twirl sparklers as the sun set while waiting till 9:30 when it was dark enough for rose shaped streaks to rip open the sky as we cheered. We would then ooo and ah as the twinklies descended on parachutes and then head home in a blissful fume of post grand finale haze. Though each and every family has their variation upon the theme, it seems to me most Americans still honor the 4th in some way involving family and fireworks. It’s an altogether awesome holiday — one of the few in this country that truly everyone can be a part of!

From Susannaspeier.com

For soldiers dealing with combat trauma, however, the explosive blasts can trigger a more visceral fight/flight response because of their similarities to the blasts and explosions experienced in Iraq and/or Afghanistan. Being surrounded by explicit and implicit displays of patriotism and anti-patriotism can further augment a shell shocked combat vet’s sense of displacement.

I want to be clear that Politiku is not therapy. A Politiku writing workshop for vets dealing with combat trauma might be of value to some because it is a journalistic and literary based technique would enable these individuals to condense their complicated, timely and multifaceted experiences into simple and accessible piece of poetry for them to choose to share with others or not.

This Politiku proposal is 21 slides; mostly images. Assuming you’re on vaca don’t wanna be bothered with anything too long and complicated, I assure you that the proposal (embedded below) is a fast, readable and generally un-confusing read and so check it out, okay? Speier July Politiku Pitch

A project like this would benefit the readers as much –if not more– than it would benefit the writers. Politiku written by combat Vets suffering from PTSD has the potential of helping those who might not otherwise be comfortable with this issue due to its complexity and seeming inpenetrability.

The samples in the Power Point proposal — provided by Yours Truly — are my attempt to give a reader a better sense of what a Politiku written by a vet might look like. Here is where the next request comes in:

Submission Call

If you would like to Politiku about vets with PTSD on July 4th and fireworks please post your Politiku in the comment section.

If you are a vet with PTSD and would still like to Politiku but prefer to remain anonymous, you can email your Politiku to to susanna (at) susannaspeier (dot) com and I will feature it anonymously. I will assume that any politiku received in my inbox is mean for anonymous posting.

Need more specifics on how to write Politiku or want to follow for updates and info on future posts? My Facebook fanpage has an FAQ. You can also go to my Huffpo column to read other Politiku posts if you want to get a better sense.

While it’s my ordinary inclination to suppress and to deny any tendency towards the star struck swooner response; the exhilaration of meeting and interacting with luminaries Painter, Chuck Close and Playwright, David Henry Hwang and Astronaut, Leland Melvin in a forum established to bring science and art together would have been impossible –not to mention, petty– to try and suppress.  And all things considered, I didn’t mind.  In fact, I realized that when the celebrity is in the context of meritocracy, I’m kinda into it.

From World Science Festival

David Henry Hwang told me the science stories that had the greatest influence on him were the sci-fi stories he read as a kid.  Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy and books by Robert Heimlin.

From World Science Festival

Chuck Close talked to me about how he and Rob Rauchenberg’s creative processes were based in the techniques they developed due to their learning disabilities.

Leyland Melvin talked about how difficult it was to get accustomed to gravity again after being in space. Walking on the beach and looking at the horizon line helped, he explained.

From World Science Festival

And…I got to play the Therumond.