Okay.  Couple people have asked about tweaking Twhirl to display the timeline with @replies as it did a couple of days ago, and it’s a little too fiddly to walk through in 140 characters.  (If you have no idea what I’m talking about, this post isn’t for you, have a nice day, thanks for stopping by.)

You’re going to need: a desktop Twitter app that can filter twitter results into your timeline, a plaintext list of the usernames of the people you’re following, and the ability to cut and paste.  For the app, I’m using Twirl.  I haven’t really looked at any others, but I assume the functionality isn’t Twirl exclusive.

All right.  Look at the bottom of your Twirl client.  See that little magnifying glass icon on the right?  That’s the search function.  Click that, and you should get the option to use one of two searches — TweetScan and Twitter Search.  I have no idea if TweetScan uses the same syntax, so I went with Twitter Search.

Here’s where the copy/paste comes in.  You’re going to need to plug all of your twitter contacts onto the search function using this syntax:

from:username

That’s why I recommended a plaintext file — I just ran a simple replace on my list to go ahead and plug in the "OR from:" syntax in so I could c/p/rinse/repeat.  The "OR" part of that replace is because I know that’s a LOT of searches for many of you.  Twhirl will let you plug in five at a time using the OR syntax like so:

from:jill OR from:userbob OR from:jiiminycricket OR from:chattybitch OR from:tada

You want to use the OR syntax here because AND will try to match a post made by multiple people, and those don’t exist.  Basically, what you’re doing here is bypassing Twitter’s new filtering.  Although the Twitter client will look at your contacts @replies and filter out the ones to people you’re not following, those @replies will still show up in the public timeline.  so when you search for EVERY Twitter send from:userbob, you’re going to get EVERY twittersend — even the @replies.

For each set of five usernames you plug into the search fucntion, hit the magnifying glass icon to perform the search, and then a little "activate" button will appear at the top of the screen.  Go ahead and hit that button, and you’ll get two tick boxes back at the bottom of the screen. "add to home" and "notify."  These are the magic tick boxes that will make sure these new searches get folded right into your frontpage timeline. 

Don’t worry, Twhirl is smart enough to filter duplicates, so you’re not going to get @replies and TWO versions of normal comments on the main timeline.

So go ahead and hit the "New Search" button at the top of the search screen and repeat that process, five usernames at a time, for the rest of your list.  Then, if you want instant gratification, restart your Twhirl client and watch the @replies magically filter into your timeline.

(Note: on startup, Twirl loads searches, then @replies to YOU, then everything else.  It’s going to take just a little bit longer to load than usual from now on, but that delay should JUST happen at startup.  As @replies filter in, your client should operate as usual.)

"But Ariana," you may be saying, "I’m following 3000 people! Do I really have to copypaste 600 times?"

Well, no, you really don’t.  In fact, I don’t actually know if Twhirl will handle that many searches.  But now may very well be the time to ask yourself if you REALLY follow 3000 people.  Do you REALLY need to see @replies from all of them?  It may be time for you to apply your own mental filter to your list: are there people you really want to read EVERYTHING they say, and some you really kinda just scan?  It’s your call.  Like I said, I don’t know where Twirl maxes out, so you’re welcome to try adding them all.  Me, I follow 37 people, and I’m genuinely interested in and speak to all of them on a regular basis, so It was ridiculously simple for me.  Your mileage may, as they say, vary.

"Hey Ariana," you may also be asking, "this looks really fucking easy.  Do you think Twhirl may plug this functionality into a future release?"

I dunno!  I don’t even know, at this point, if it’s going to be an issue past the weekend.  Twitter may roll back to the previous functionality and this may all be moot by Monday.  But it’s certainly a really simple fix from the user end, so yeah, I’d expect we’ll see the functionality rolled into a simpler tickbox in future desktop client releases.  Not rocket science, is what I’m saying.  But in the meantime, here’s your workaround.

Tada.

Just pushed the new site skin live over at warrenellis.com. Those are always such a joy to do. My site is where I experiment and break things, and the sites I do for work are, well, for work — but Warren’s site’s reskins are always just fun. If ever he thinks he’s found a more clever mechanic, I’ll very likely kill them in some horribly painful way. Consider yourselves warned.

Hello, the Spring.

Magazine is the name for an item or place within which ammunition is stored. From the Arabic makhāzin, plural of makhzan “storehouse.”

Wouldn’t it be lovely if that c/p were true?

I mean, think about that for a moment.  What if a magazine really were an item within which ammunition is stored.  I mean, it certainly used to be.  At one time, magazines were slender little floppies that stored some-odd-word bullets of information that you could hide in your bag to load into your mind gun at will.  And if you came across a fellow revolutionary running low on ammo, well, you could hand them a refill right in front of the authorities with no one the wiser.

Now? No, not so much.  We’ve softened the word — put a high gloss finish on it and poured the gunpowder out of the cartridges to make it into a safe facsimile.  Like little mass-marketed military replicas and pretty little sterling silver imitation bullet necklaces, a magazine today looks an awful lot like it might contain something useful — but for the most part it’s just stocked with blanks.

Yeah, I know, right?  Way to beat an out-of-date metaphor, hm?  Especially when a demilitarized media means a peaceful one, yeah? Why on earth would I bring up the violent origins of a word that’s evolved into such a lovely, innocuous little package — and one that’s nearly dead, at that?

You’re absolutely right.  Forget I said anything.  Keep your right to bear arms and throw down your munitions.

I’m sure no one will take advantage of you when all you’re left with is an empty "click."

So, on Friday, I made the Twitter request:

TWITTERFRIENDS! Yes, I mean you. Projects, releases, things of interest that YOU did this week.  Tell me (use #whatdimiss).  Links++ good.

And, honestly, I didn’t expect too much.  But, surprisingly, I did get ten replies: 2 WATCHMEN related, 3 webcomics, 2 reviews (one of those the aforementioned WATCHMEN), 2 writeups on the economy(!), 1 software project, and this:

sispurrier: Fretted, stressed, contemplated murder, ate tofu, forgot to wank, drew a map, bought a car, swore at a git, drank tea.

Which probably covered the other 400+ silent followers of my Twitter account, too.

Unfortunately–although I’d intended to write up my own happy commentary on the links I did get–today I’m dying of DeathPlague3000, and I’ve already pushed myself closer to death just writing up this little bit here. 

Fortunately (I do like it when a bad has an "on the other hand"), I had the foresight (ha ha, no, not really) to ask for replies to be hashtagged. Which means I don’t need to write up anything at all, I can just shoo you along to #whatdimiss, and you can catch up all by yourselves.

Thanks to: evangineer, omniphobe, jamesmith3, billymeltdown, WillCouper, sispurrier, adampknave, atavistian, rickiep00h, and zdarsky for playing along.

Because I never write here, because pretty much everything I do is a secret wrapped in an enigma smothered in an NDA, but because god if I don’t know some vocal and productive people– I used that Twitter thinga that I’ll bet you’ve heard of to make a request:

TWITTERFRIENDS! Yes, I mean you. Projects, releases, things of interest that YOU did this week.  Tell me (use #whatdimiss).  Links++ good.

So what? So this.  I never write here (see above) but I still get SO MUCH MORE TRAFFIC than a dead blog deserves.  I figure folks do pretty well catching some excellent content from my network on the right side of the page there, but there’s a little voice in my brain saying "shit, woman, do you know how many people are doing things that would be really well served by the traffic you gather just by, well, sitting there and doing nothing?"

So I’m giving this a go.  Here’s how this is going to work:

On Friday (that’s today!) I’m up every morning at fuckall am.  We’ll see how many replies I get and, if there’s enough to make something that looks like a week in review, I’ll post links out to YOUR pages on Monday morning.

Yep.  Free traffic.  All you gotta do is twitter me a what and a where (and, if you have characters left, adding the hashtag #whatdimiss will help me find them all).  Should be dead easy, as I’m not putting any constraints on the content except: a time frame of this week (if you’re doing something next week, tell your friends to gimme their shit this week so I think it’s worth doing long enough to get to your project) and I want links to your stuff (I don’t want random CNN news unless you’re in it, and I don’t want links to your mates– they can twitter me themselves. I’ll probably make exceptions for (positive) reviews and editorials, since writing up multiple paragraphs on [x] is doing something, but no, I’m not interested in your delicious links.).

Now, I’ve got an idea that people don’t actually want attention, so I’m pretty sure this idea is going to die in the water with two links this Monday and a whimpering silence if I try again next week… but what the hell.  It’s worth a go, right?  Right.  Go.

Happy 2009, all. It’s not looking much better, on the whole, than 2008 just yet — but it’s early. We’ll give it a bit.

I’m divorced.  Have been for years.  It doesn’t come up in conversation, so I won’t be surprised if some of you had no idea.  I mean, it’s no deep, dark secret or anything — it’s just a pretty boring story.

We were young, 21, didn’t really have a whole lot in common, but kids do the darndest things, you know?  My mom married young and divorced soon after, and her mom married young and was only still married out of fear and laziness.  Didn’t really have any stunning examples of Twue Wuv, but whatever — I mean, I’ve just described over half of everyone I know right there.

Anyway, I wore an engagement ring for a while, and complete strangers said "Congratulations" to me when I was out and about.  The two little girls I nannied thought it was the coooolest thing in the world, and asked me to tell them all about it over and over and over again.  Neither of our families really thought it was a great idea — they all thought we were too young, and they were right — but they both came to accept it in their own ways, and my mother-in-law-to-be even started to get pretty excited about the idea of grandchildren.  In fact, the only thing that really, REALLY upset his family was that we wanted a tiny ceremony, instead of a huge family to-do.  I mean, everyone wanted to come see the event, and we were being pretty selfish trying to keep it to ourselves.

But we eloped, anyway.  We were married in a little Civil War memorial park in Northern Virgina by the first available Justice of the Peace.  The woman that married us wasn’t religious, so the ceremony was a simple little exchange of spoken intent with a paper signed at the end of it.  Quick and painless, not overly religious or ceremonial, and that was that.  Swung by the DMV to change my name, and life went on.

A couple of years passed, and as we grew up, we grew further apart.  Eventually it just… stopped working, and on our two year anniversary, I left.  A couple weeks later we filed for divorce.  There were no children, it hadn’t been an abusive marriage, and we’d already discussed separation of funds, so it was really just a matter of filing paperwork and going our separate ways. Like a breakup with some extra legal bull, really.  No big deal one way or the other.  The guy who took my signed paperwork didn’t even look up.

Quick and (relatively) painless, and that was that.

And that’s the story of when I was a wife.  Like I said: it’s a pretty boring story.  I’m pretty sure you’ve heard similar.  I strongly doubt you could find anything in it to really hold against me.  I mean, there’s nothing there to be overly proud or ashamed of — I made a choice, it didn’t work out for anyone, and I’ve learned from it and moved on to a better and happier life.

So but here’s the thing:

Stop telling me some people can’t marry because you’re preserving the sanctity of marriage. I followed the letter of the law, but there was nothing sacred about mine.

Stop telling me how those people can’t marry because a marriage is just one man and one woman. I had both of your necessary ingredients, but was missing the important ones.

Stop talking about how you don’t want alternative relationships setting an example for our children. Several children saw me make my completely legal choices from beginning to end.

Stop talking about how separate but equal is saving families and our culture. Because all you’re really saying is separate keeps us separate from them.

Stop lying to justify your hate.

Because it’s obviously not about what you’re saying it’s about.

So what do you really mean?

I’ll bet your story is more boring than mine.

• AmbiScript Overview
  Having a crazy moment where it occurs to me that ambigrams/palindromes may be the next logical linguistic leap as more of our math/science becomes (stays) naturally mirrored. Also think the notation font is pretty.
  (tags:ref+aesthetic )

• “parang” can be a verb, right? like, ‘i’m going to parang the shit out of you with my parang.’ #
• @PFTompkins so what we rubes here in america refer to as a dagwood bumstead triple-decker is called a Sando Sando? MUST MOVE TO JAPAN in reply to PFTompkins #
• “Yeah let me get 4 Triple Bumsteads.” “Oh we call those the SandoSando now.” “Great. Make it 4 Sando-Sandos.” IT’S LIKE TWEETING FROM HEAVEN #
• “My webbing dissolves even faster when it comes in contact with human tears.” #
• Pretty sure if any part of your tattoo reads “classy,” it probably isn’t. #
• GAY BAR is a great song to sing to yr toddler if you replace the words “gay bar” with ‘book store’ & “nuclear” with ‘book reading’ #
• The thing I have to u #
• The thing I have to put in you at the bookstore? Knowledge. #

Melissa Gira Grant posted a photo:

Working today from Wall Street, where THE LINE has its offices.

THE LINE is a documentary film on sexual consent & boundaries by Nancy Schwartzman, and I'm co-leading the online advocacy campaign. That's Carmen Rios in front, one of our fabulous interns. The stickies are the product of a five day collaboration with Jill Lipsky Cain, an advocate with the Aurora Women's Center in Minneapolis, and will be a massive and free educational curriculum to go with the film.

Full details here.

• This day has not gone as planned. Shocking, I know. #
• @dustinharbin that sounds delicious. I would like to have that delivered please. in reply to dustinharbin #

1.

Garen Ewing’s retro ligne claire-style webcomic series THE RAINBOW ORCHID is going to print. Read much of it here.

2.

Rich Barrett is 16pp into a creepy online graphic novel called NATHAN SORRY that looks like it’s going to turn into something fun.

3.

ELLERBISMS has been on a roll lately.

4.

My favourite comics-related blog is probably still Brandon Graham’s because it’s so beautifully random.

...too many artist/character pairings less suited for each other than Frank Frazetta and Brigadier-General Sir Harry Paget Flashman, VC, KCB, KCIE, and yet this works:



Found by Paul di Filippo over at The Inferior 4.

Writer Si Spurrier is not a real man because he’d rather watch LABYRINTH than THE GODFATHER, but we like him nonetheless, and would like to announce that he is launching a new weekly column at bleedingcool called SHORT AND CURLIES.

This is the first edition, which he’s calling #0 because he can’t fucking count. The same kind of mental disability that leads to watching LABYRINTH and cooing over David Bowie’s wig rather than watching THE GODFATHER like a real man.

Whenever my fianc�e catches me glowering at some irritating dickwit (a chronic snot-sniffer, let’s say), with that special ?Oh God I Haaaaate You? glare ? the one that comes naturally to Jack Nicholson, Maths Teachers and all Russians everywhere, but just makes me look constipated ? she tells me off and asks how I’d feel if it turned-out I’d accidentally given Said Dickwit a dose of Psychic Cancer. To which I dutifully have to lie that I’d be mortified ? oh yes, guilty as sin, sob ? then go back to industriously setting fire to kittens or whatever I was doing before the HATING first took hold.

Quite how ?Psychic Cancer? transformed into ?Comedy Bum-berries? in my dream, I don’t know…

Made by big machines.

Photo by Dave Walsh.

Photographer unknown.

Pina Bausch died on Tuesday, aged 68, less than a week after being diagnosed with cancer. Dozens of eloquent and heartfelt obituaries honoring the Queen of Tantztheater and her incalculable influence on modern dance are going up all over the web. Mark Brown’s eulogy over at The Scotsman contains some especially incisive remarks:

She was one of a select few modern artists - such as James Joyce, Pablo Picasso, Ingmar Bergman and Samuel Beckett - whose work can be truly described, in the most profound sense, as transcendental.

Bausch’s immense influence extended - and will continue to extend - far beyond her fellow dance and theatre makers, into film making and the visual arts. She was described so often as a “revolutionary artist” that the term became almost a platitude. Yet there is no other phrase which quite captures the impact of her deeply intelligent, humane, fearless and iconoclastic aesthetic.

Hell to the yes. It’s very rare to find an artist (in any medium) who strikes such a perfect balance of craft, grit, and grace; laughter, tears and squirminess. That lame fucking “Pornography of Pain” label bestowed derisively upon Bausch by the New Yorker years ago may have stuck, but considering the emotional commitment and complexity of her work, it just doesn’t ring true.

Photo via the AFP.

Obviously, I’m no expert, but based purely off my own intuitive response to her stage and screen work, I’d call Bausch’s vision one of compassionate absurdity. Life and death, male and female, joy and grief, discipline and abandon are all presented with courageous honesty. She didn’t just break down boundaries between the mediums of theater, dance and film; she challenged our perceptions of performance itself.� Stanford lecturer Janice Ross nails it:

In a Pina Bausch dance, the invisible divide between the real person and the stage character seems to collapse so that one often has the sense of watching barely mediated real life events. This isn’t art rendered as life so much as living rendered as art.

I’m not sure if it’s a blessing or a shame that Bausch died when she was still so actively, splendidly creative. What a tremendous gift that she was ever here at all! In her honor, I’ve added “Revolutionary” to the list of Coilhouse category tags. Long may her dance live on.

Funereal excerpt from Wuppertal’s Die Klage der Kaiserin.

Several more clips after the jump.

Read the rest of Go With Grace, Pina Bausch (1940 -2009)

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Post tags: Art, Dance, Fetish, Film, Gender, Grrrl, Memento Mori, Music, Photography, Revolutionary, Surreal, Theater

Thanks to Marvel editor-in-chief Joe Quesada, comics writer Mark Waid finally tells in public what is possibly The Greatest Story About Insane Comics Fans Ever Told. Scroll about halfway down the page here, you’ll find it. It begins like this:

Several years ago, I had done an over-the-phone college radio interview with a couple of guys in Vermont. Chat went fine, I remembered to mention what a genius Alex Ross is the requisite nine times, and we probably moved some trade paperbacks in the process. So once the interview was done, one of them explained that they ran a store in one of Vermont’s largish towns and asked if I’d be interested in doing an in-person signing. ?Sure,? I said…