This passage from the short story “Super-frog Saves Tokyo” in the collection after the quake keeps coming back to me:

“That’s fine, Mr. Katagiri. It’s better that you don’t remember. The whole terrible fight occurred in the area of imagination. That is the precise location of our battlefield. It is there that we experience our victories and our defeats. Each and every one of us is a being of limited duration: all of us eventually go down to defeat. But as Ernest Hemingway saw so clearly, the ultimate value of our lives is decided not by how we win but by how we lose. You and I together, Mr. Katagiri, were able to prevent the annihilation of Tokyo. We saved a hundred and fifty thousand people from the jaws of death. No one realizes it, but that is what we accomplished.”

Frog says this to Mr. Katagiri. Katagiri doesn’t realize, yet, that Frog is mortally injured.

Reading it, I can’t be sure if the conversation is really happening or if it’s all in Katagiri’s head. Frog might be a representation of something inside Katagiri – an illness or a weakness.

Frog may represent something greater: our human struggle with things that are so large that they seem impossible to defeat…until we realize that the only way to defeat them is to act, no matter how insignificant we or our actions may seem in comparison.

“So, I’m working on a new project for a gallery.”

“Very cool! It’s been too long. Can you talk about it?”

“Well, it’s for a show that’s focused on the human body and human form. It’s more than that, really, but that’s the easiest way to explain it at the moment.”

“OK. So are you painting again or are you back to photography?”

“I’m doing a series of nude photos for the show. My first pieces are coming out great. I think things are going to turn out really really good. Here, look at these, a few of the first shots I took, on my phone.”

A series of photographs is on the phone. I clicked the button and the phone and paged through the set. Not vulgar; not focused upon the sexual. Both men and women represented, a few more men than women.

“What do you think?”

“The photographs are small on the phone, but what I see looks really good. They don’t look like porn. I hate it when nudes in an art show focus so much on sex that it’s like walking through a porn mag. This isn’t like that at all. I’m looking forward to seeing the show.”

“That’s great. I’m glad you like those, even though they’re hard to see. So I have one other question for you. Would you pose for one of the portraits?”

And that’s where everything stopped for a moment.

What did I learn? I’ve seen the horrors that are men’s souls…

We are all Stuart Smalley on facebook
I started to look at the updates my friends made. I’ll admit I’m a nerd: I pulled out a piece of paper and created a list of update categories and counted how many times friends updated in each category.

This had a downside. As my list of friends grew, I got status update numbness. Even if you are my best friend, I do not care if:

• You are eating at a restaurant. Tell me if you just gave somebody the Heimlich Maneuver.
• You are waiting for a plane or are sitting on one. Tell me if you are landing a plane after an exciting fight with terrorists.
• You are bored/frustrated in traffic or at work. We all are.
• You have a cryptic update that says something like “I understand it all. Why didn’t I see this before?”. Don’t make me ask, you tease. If it’s profound, don’t hoard the karma. If you’re just being dramatic, talk to the hand.

I stopped counting updates-by-category after a few days because I had to ask: Why do we put this stuff into writing?

My guess: These are the things that constitute most of our thoughts. All of us have that little voice that tells us that we are the center of the universe. Now, we have a way to tell everybody.

Aren’t these updates like saying “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me.”

Today, Everybody Gets a Bumpersticker
With twitter, I was confused yet interested in the challenge that a 140 character update poses. What can I say (that isn’t a Stuart Smalley joke) in that short a space?

Once past the obligatory status update that said “I’m sitting on the toilet reading GQ”, I had to figure out a serious reason to update. I’m not a company or some public figure who is brand building. I’m just a guy. What should I say?

The problem slowly emerged. If I try to say anything profound, it is bumperstickerized. (There’s my new word for 2009.) Twitter bumperstickerizes everything because:

1. Messages need to be extremely short, no matter how complicated the idea you want to express.
2. Messages pass through your consciousness very quickly, either in a stream of tweets or on the bumpers of moving cars.
3. Even the most creative messages are going to get old as the sticker shows up on more cars or as people ‘retweet’ the message.
4. Neither can provide you with any trust. You wouldn’t pick a doctor who gave patients bumper stickers. I doubt we’ll see a day where doctors twitter to get patients.

The analogy breaks down. Feel free to poke holes in it. I won’t defend it. I’m pointing at the similarity between the two: the way that the limited format forces users or consumers of the medium to contort to fit in the given space.

Any publicity is good publicity?

And they picked “I want to fight the power” as the item they chose from the list…

Interestingly, too, I’ve been posting more on facebook than here. For “throw away” stuff, like links to youtube videos, facebook seems more appropriate.

Does anybody miss me here? (I suspect not…and if you do, send me a friend invite on facebook.)

I stumbled across this video about “The World’s Most Important 6-Second Drum Loop.”

It’s a very simple piece. I thought it was fascinating.

Get a drink. Sit down. Relax. And listen…