Author: Carl Setzer

A blogger blogging from just north of Seattle.

World Poetry Day

Carl Setzer2 Comments

As today is World Poetry Day, I offer up this contribution:

Shall we celebrate power?
Speaking conscience to the brutal.
When nothing else can resist.
Words sharper than swords?

Or those words capturing love?
That exquisite, maddening
Sensation. Delightful, painful,
No greater sorrow, or pleasure.

Poetry, indefinable, glorious
Mystery. Savor this moment
For soon we shall recommence
Our most divine torment.

Distraction

Carl Setzer

Laying upon my couch this lovely sick day, Twitter has been a dear friend (autocorrect changed “sick” to “suck”; might be something there). Yet, there’s a tyranny present. I grab my tablet to look up self-publishing options (Kobo vs. Amazon). Then I came back to myself some time later, trying to remember what I was doing. Just one tweet popped up, and my mind was gone.

So, exploring those options, I struggle. Amazon has a larger audience. However, do I want to align myself with them? What are my expectations of a company? I interviewed with Amazon a few years ago, plus I did several projects with them back in the mid-90s. So clearly I find then tolerable. Yet, they are getting gargantuan, which I suggested find concerning.

Writing-wise, at this point I’m planning on assembling a collection of my poetry. It’s been requested of me, and it sounds rewarding. Plus, I’ve been meaning to put side short-stories out, too. So I think this would be an interesting and viable channel. The main limiter of my success is time, and not getting sidetracked by the scatter of modern life. Sick-days challenge me enough without Twitter and it’s kin absorbing my attention and creating suck-days.

Impressive Demonstration Of Fitness

Carl Setzer

I SO want to be able to do this:

The amount of fitness growth needed is hard to imagine. But, hey, who knows? I think it’s doable, just whether I have the gumption to pull it off. Still, I find it inspiring.

Wednesday

Carl Setzer

Now, the week’s center
Mystical place of balance
Sunlight drifts forwards

My Relationship With Seattle

Carl Setzer

I consider myself a western Washingtonian, even though Mr. Ron Rudd might not.

“If you weren’t born in Seattle or the Northwest, you’ll never be one of us.”

Though born in Rhode Island, my parents were born in Washington, as were all my grandparents. My father and his mother were  born in Seattle. Next: my parents met at UW. And I was supposed to be born in Seattle, but my timetable was a bit off-kilter. The family was in Rhode Island as my father attended the War College. So, I guess if I must be disqualified from “one of us” status, I’ll accept the consequences of my father’s service with pride.

Deeper: why do I consider this place “home”? Well, the biggest reason was that we always called it home. Flying out to Seattle was always “going home to visit grandma” (sorry grandpa, but it was always “to visit grandma”.

Lastly, this is the place we moved when my dad decided to retire from the Navy. And where I’ve lived the vast majority of my life here. Lastly, there’s the simple fact I love it here.

Please note: I’m hardly offended by Mr. Rudd. Actually, I find him quite witty, and the piece is quite clever. It did give me pause to consider, though. Which is worth a heap of oysters, shucked by hand along the Edmonds beach: my happy place.

Digital Legacies

Carl Setzer

I just received an recruiting email, where the writer found me via my long neglected Indeed.com resume. It got me thinking about all the sites I’ve used over the years, that I’ve eventually abandoned, or at least dropped into neglect. Profiles on Monster, Indeed, NWJobs, MySpace…what do these say about me? To the recruiter emailing me about positions at Microsoft, what is there expectation of who I am, and would any elements of my current reality match?

On a somewhat related note, Om Malik recently posted You’ve Go (No) Mail. He talks about the sense of loss accompanying the ending of his Gigaom email. I’ve felt these twinges in the past, with the suspending of my Starbucks and Microsoft emails. But those were different at an elemental level. Regardless of my emotional connections to those institutions, I didn’t found them. They didn’t hold my name, they never represented me at the same level. The closest I could imagine is with this site, and the email associated with it.

carlsetzer.com is mine, it is me. If this were to become part of a larger institution, which subsequently failed, I expect that would hurt at a deeper level than the losses I’ve felt.

These footprints we leave across the web, and that the web leaves upon us. Intertwining, weaving with all those others, those we love, those we don’t, and the masses we’re unaware of, the active and neglected, loved and forgotten, all blend into this thing: the internet.