Another Look at Social Networks

Getting the word out.

From yesterday's Inside Higher Ed:

Not long ago, a woman I know got a phone call from a sibling who reported that one of their sisters had died a few hours earlier. It was painful news, if not unexpected given the sister’s long illness; the call was part of a narrative of grief that had been taking shape for a while. But in telling me about it, she also noted an odd and slightly awkward detail. She’d actually learned the news a bit earlier, on Facebook and via Blackberry, where it had been announced in a “status report” from her sister’s daughter. . . .

An individual’s death is a rip in the social fabric. And communication among those closest to the deceased involves more than transmission of the news. It is process of patching up what remains of that fabric, a reinforcement of bonds. By some implicit rule, we take it as a given that family will get the news before it is available to a world of strangers. Not that things always happen that way, of course, but the exceptions are felt as such.

The full article is here, and it's an interesting consideration of the ways in which our modern communication tools are affecting the rules of social interaction.

Nor is it coincidence that I would open and read that yesterday morning. Despite my recent musings about matching the right information to the right venue, I find that I've failed to do so. A family member was upset at me only yesterday because a major event in my own life that I thought I'd kept her informed on, I apparently hadn't. No death involved, but a milestone of similar magnitude nonetheless. Mea culpa. I learn. I'll do better.

Parents and Facebook

On a related note, I pointed out two months ago that the face of Facebook was aging. A consequence of that has been the issue of how much of a young person's life should be open to the view of his or her parents. Happily, that's never been an issue in our family. From the outset, I've been a part of the social network of my daughters. It was one of the prices of being allowed on the internet from our home.

But for some kids, especially those whose online personas are anything but laudable, the presence of their parents on Facebook has thrown a kink into the normal stretching of the wings that takes place for almost all college students in their first year. I can't imagine conducting myself in such a way that I would have been ashamed for my parents to know what I was up to, nor do I think my daughters have that problem. (Of course, academe being my world, my threshold of shock, my expectations, and my tolerance are all fairly accommodating. The disaster that resulted from my oldest daughter's accepting one of her older relatives as a "friend" wasn't all that funny to anyone but me.) I certainly had plenty of friends in college for whose parents ignorance was bliss. And I know all too well from the use to which I've put Facebook as a college administrator, those online alter egos can be all too telling.

The conflict which often ensues is the topic of the following interesting piece from last night's CBS Evening News. Enjoy.

Update [5/21/09]: I've removed the embedded player because it automatically started the video every time the blog was loaded. If you'd like to view the video, you'll find it here.

Hanlon's Razor

Over at Enrevanche, cousin Barry has finally explained, in today's post, why I've felt Murphy was sniping at me from a Saruman's tower. The proposition is that I've been mistaking a confederacy of dunces for supernatural Irish marksmanship. Maybe. I'll still give Murphy credit for orchestrating the confluence of so many for whom the Peter Principle seems to have been no impediment whatsoever.

Strings Through the Eye of a Ring

“He sketched for the sergeant a problematic career of the man before them, his hands drafting with a marvelous dexterity the shapes of what varied paths conspired here in the ultimate authority of the extant—as he told them—like strings drawn together through the eye of a ring” (Blood Meridian pg 84).

This quote came to mind tonight as I was thinking of the wonderful way in which so many different blogs connect through each of the blogs of their respective owners. Buck has a post up today of himself in Russian hat similar to mine. Jay dropped in and commented on the golf post below and next thing I knew I was learning the recipe for a new drink (which I will report on as soon as I procure more peppermint schnapps).

Finally, back in that same arena where I saw James Taylor a few months ago, I managed to make it out on the ice tonight for charity sake. I didn't mind that I fell once. What I wish hadn't happened is that I took out my date on the way down. The funniest part was lying there on the ice, looking over at my hand pinned between her and the ice and realizing I'd actually tried to catch her. It seemed like the gentlemanly thing to do. If you're going to knock a woman off her feet on the ice, the least you can do is offer any body part of your own that may cushion the fall. I don't think that hand helped a whole lot.

Interesting instance of convergence though: later at dinner, we ran into a couple with whom I ventured onto the ice three years ago--the only other time I've done so in the last four years. Just figure the odds. Life is strange that way.

All in all, a great evening, from ice skating to wine, dinner, unexpected meetings with old friends, and hours of smile-driven conversation that I was frighteningly disinclined to see end.

Blue skies! Doc.

Convergence: Houses

I'm telling you, you can't make this stuff up.

That house that began the whole meditation on convergence? My friend will close on that later this month. I never really had much doubt about that one.

I'm not sure what to do with this though.

I'll need to move soon, I hope. The sign went up in my front yard yesterday, holidays and all. So, I've done a little looking around lately. Made a few calls today--five to be exact. Spoke to one person, left messages for four others.

Tonight, I'm at a squadron Christmas party at a golf course clubhouse. Met the Executive Chef, whom good friends think the world of. After dinner, I did too. At one point during the evening, while the emcee was giving out door prizes, my phone rings. As I was sitting up front, I didn't answer it right away, but I did pull it out to see who was calling. The number was from an exchange that could only be a land line from somewhere in the immediate vicinity of the golf course where we were. Odd. I could think of no one who should be calling me from that area. I walked out of the room and returned the call, running over different scenarios in my mind for how someone in the rowdy crowd I was with could be playing a practical joke on me. I got the answering machine for the golf course . . . the golf course where I was at that moment. I became even more certain that someone was having me on. I looked back into the dining room and one of the wives smiled and waved. What the hell were they up to? Then the voice mail indicator beeped. Someone had been leaving a message while I was returning the call. I listened to the message. The message was no joke at all; it was from one of the four people I had left voice mails for earlier in the day about houses. But here comes the good part: the name matched the name embroidered on the white chef's jacket of the man I'd met only a couple of hours earlier. I was already standing outside the dining room where the festivities were, so I walked on back to the kitchen. As I was asking one of the staff where the nearest phone was, the chef walked out. "I think you just called me," I said.

We spent the next ten minutes talking about the house. I'll see it tomorrow morning at nine. Who knows if it's the house I'm supposed to live in for the next month to a year. I can tell you this though--you don't have to hit me over the head with a two by four for me to know I at least owe it a look.

You can't make this stuff up.

Convergence: John Holiday

For those of you new to the blog, who may need an explanation of what I call "convergence," go here.

Only my closest friends (and a few new acquaintances on the way to becoming real friends) know that from late August until Thanksgiving I spent a little time looking for someone I'd completely lost track of. Those same friends also know that, like several other instances of deflating memories, I'd have been better off to leave that one undisturbed--and how.

But those are other stories. This story is about John Holiday. "Doc." Go figure.

I dine during happy hour at least once a week, sometimes several evenings a week, at Plate World Cuisine, about a mile from the house. Bar none, the best food on the north end of Colorado Springs. On an evening about six weeks ago, I stopped in there after a short errand I'd run on the way home from work. That errand was the first effort I'd made in weeks to discover what had become of that old acquaintance. The "search" was a good two and a half months old at that time, and I was, frankly, running out of ideas on how to find this person. So, I stop in at Plate, and Michael, the General Manager, escorts me to a seat at the bar and introduces me to a nice lady named Judy. Judy and I, both pretty naturally gregarious, are getting to know one another when in walks another guy Judy knows. She waves him over and he introduces himself to me as John Holiday, "But friends call me 'Doc.'"

"No kidding. Well, you're not going to believe this, but a lot of my friends call me 'Doc' too." And thinking that the coincidence might stretch credulity just a little, I fished out one of my skydiving cards, complete with callsign, and passed it to him. He returned the favor.

Now keep in mind that I had just come from the first real effort at tracking someone down that I'd made in a couple of weeks, and that I was running out of ideas, that I was, in fact, about ready to concede defeat. Enter convergence. On John's business card, just below his name, was printed, "California Licensed Private Investigator." I wish now that someone had taken a photo of my face. I can't even imagine what my expression may have been. I swear to you, the things that happen in my life, if you put them in a book, an editor would say, "No one is going to believe this." I'm going to put them in the book anyway.

One thing led to another. John gave me a few brief pointers. Persistence and time eventually led to success. I almost wish it hadn't, but again, that's another story.

This story is John's. During our conversation that first night, he mentioned that there had been a story about him in The Gazette a few years back. It was when he mentioned that he was also a collector of rare books and had owned a book store that I remembered having read the article, and thinking even then, "Now this would be an interesting person to meet."

Nor was I wrong. I look forward to conversation with this other "Doc" as much as anything about the whole Plate experience. Last night, for instance, I expected to make a quick run to Plate for dinner, and ended up spending over three hours at the bar in conversation with John. I've been an English professor. I still hang with English professors. But it took an evening with John to make me look forward to picking up James Joyce again. I was not a fan of Ulysses my first time through it, but I think I may have a new appreciation for it this next time around. Go read that article. Like most of the instances of convergence in my life, if you were to write John Holiday into a book as a character, an editor would most likely say, "No one's going to believe this." Believe it.

Indescribable

I know that this blog has few readers who don't know me personally and who don't know where my life has been lately. So, let me share, just a little. I said on New Years this year, that I thought 2007 would be the most profound year of change I'd seen in as long as I could remember. It's shaping up that way.

I've been busy finding my way back to myself. I've been getting to know my daughters better than I ever have. More importantly, they've been getting to know me--not me filtered through anyone else's eyes, but through their own, seeing me, perhaps, in some ways, for the first time.

Anyone who knows me, knows I pretty much don't get nervous. I've crashed cars, experimental planes, come out of a coma that was supposed to be final, twice opened a reserve chute less than two seconds from impact (the last time, only a month ago). People asked if I was scared. The answer's always been honest--"Not really. I was busy."

Only twice in the last two years could I really confess to being no kidding nervous to the point of knowing it. The most fascinating thing about it is how much it's surprised me.

Once was orbiting a stadium packed with 50,000 people, waiting to jump in with my class flag. I'd planned that jump for more than five years. That the reality of it set my heart to pounding nearly out of my chest, with nearly 800 jumps behind me already then, was itself almost surprising enough to calm me down. I rarely even got excited about jumps any more, let alone nervous. Don't get me wrong, I love every jump. But mostly, they're calming now, centering more than exciting. I never did figure out what made that one so different. But I haven't forgotten the feeling.

Today, I've figured it out. That feeling's back. What it is, is the waiting. Having set events in motion that you've imagined again and again, the time almost here finally, yet nothing to do for the moment but orbit, door open, knowing you're about to step out into thin air again, but this time, into the irreconcilable flesh and blood of a reality you've imagined a thousand times. A thousand times a thousand. It's the waiting. Nothing to hear but the pounding of your heart in your own chest. A thing you've grown personally and professionally unaccustomed to. Ground rush is less frightening.

Today, I'm like the little boy, who having behaved badly in church, is being carried out by his dad, and passing the last pew, throws one last glance and plea to the parishioners, "Ya'll pray for me." I may not land on target this time. I may not land standing up. I might not, I'm afraid, even make the stadium. By I am, by God, going out the door the second that green light comes on.

"You know who you are."

Convergence

I began a recent post with a very clear statement about my feelings on "coincidence: a striking occurrence of two or more events at one time apparently by mere chance: [e.g.] Our meeting in Venice was pure coincidence." Not a believer, I said.

I should qualify that. I think it's very rare. It's not possible, really, to rule out that some things do happen by mere chance. What then, is the word for the sort of events I have in mind that most people think of as "coincidence?" That's a real question. Perhaps there is a term for it. But, I'm unaware of what it is.

So, I'm going to propose one: "convergence." In particular here, I have in mind definition number 3 of the link: "the degree or point at which lines, objects, etc., converge" with a strong emphasis on the "etc." If you attribute such things to chance, then you call it coincidence. For me, I think the deciding factor may simply be the statistical probability, or lack thereof, of such a convergence occurring. The less the probability, the less likely it is coincidence.

Let me offer a few examples from recent days that illustrate what I mean. To begin with, there are those two instances of convergence that I mention in the "Like Minds" post.

Then, a couple of days ago, I was writing to friend, female in this instance, and happened to make a comparison between said friend and Aphrodite. This is one of only two women whose absolutely classic form has driven me to make such a comparison in this lifetime--and the other, with whom I went to school, is, blissfully probably, unaware of the comparison. For a week or more, I've been walking around with crossed fingers as this friend has been attempting to buy a new home. Crossed fingers because there was a competing offer. Two days after the Aphrodite reference, my friend sent me the MLS number for the house, enabling me to find the agent's listing and to take a "virtual tour." This is not a small house, there are lots of rooms and lots of walls. But, there is only one wall (there's a ceiling with elements of the Sistine Chapel, but, at least in the virtual tour, only one wall), in a cast off room on the main level, with a mural (or possibly wallpaper). And what might it be? Why Botticelli's Birth of Venus of course. You can see the original at the link in that last sentence. (If your Greek/Latin mythology is rusty, Aphrodite would be the Greek name for the Latin Venus.) And the here is a screenshot from the virtual tour of the house my friend will buy (not believing in coincidence, I take this particular convergence as a sign):

Convergences, I've noticed, seem to come in waves. So it was no particular surprise when the next followed hot on the heels of this one. The day after I discovered the convergence above, I received the following brief note in my evening e-mail on 30 Aug:

Are you a Jon Stewart fan? I don't usually watch him (or any TV for that matter), but the TV is on (no one watching), I am doing the dishes and Jon Stewart is doing some funny thing with a recent debate. It is hysterical. I'll try to get the info and forward it to you so you can watch. I can't believe how funny this is.

Nothing particularly odd about that. I do watch Jon Stewart, but we'd never discussed him before. The real convergence came the very next day, as I was reading the headlines from an academic news service I subscribe to. Among the top three stories for that day, 31 Aug, in a publication where, honestly, I've never seen Stewart's name before, is this headline: Jon Stewart, Oral Exams and More.

What next? I can barely wait to find out. (I had thought, for a minute, that the example in the definition of coincidence, might, itself, be another convergence, but it turns out the Botticelli currently resides in Florence, not Venice. Damned close though.)