Pixel-stained technopeasantry and the radical act of reading
Kes: Long before there was a Net, I lived a technopeasant lifestyle. I was a reader in a family of non-readers, and the only way I could get access to books was by getting them used through local used bookstores or free through the local library. When I went blind, my access to books became even more restricted, and I would read almost any book that came across my path in an accessible format. Over the past couple of years, access to books in accessible formats has increased phenomenally, but at the time Cory Doctorow put _Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom_ up on the Net, my access to SF in accessible formats was limited enough that I was just blown away by the idea that an author would give me one of his books for free.
The struggles I've had to go through to get access to books means I have always been aware of books as a touchstone to polotics and, trust me, the ongoing struggles blind people undergo to get access to books means it is unlikely that I am going to ever forget how political the very act of reading can be. I've always known that my habit of giving away books is a radical act, but then again, I've always identified with low company. I even got the name Kestrell from a reference in Spenser's "Faerie Queen," where "kestrell" refers to a low and common person:
...but in his kestrell kind
A pleasing vaine of glory vaine did find,
To which his flowing toung, and troublous spright
Gaue him great ayd, and made him more inclind...
That being the case, I am going to contribute to the technopeasant movement by making my thesis _Decloaking Disability: Images of Disability and Technology in Science Fiction Media_ available online for the day of April 23 (and how cool is it that the chosen day is also Shakespeare's birthday?). Check here on April 23 for the url, and you can read the post by Jo Walton which inspired this here
http://papersky.livejournal.com/318273.html
block quote start
In honour of Dr Hendrix, I am declaring Monday 23rd April International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day. On this day, everyone who wants to should give
away professional quality work online. It doesn't matter if it's a novel, a story or a poem, it doesn't matter if it's already been published or if it
hasn't, the point is it should be disseminated online to celebrate our technopeasanthood.
Whatever you're posting should go on your own site. I'll make a post here on the day and people can post links in comments to whatever they're putting up
on. If you are a member of SFWA, or SFWA qualified but not a member (like me) you get extra pixel-spattered points for doing this. If other people want
to collect the links too, that would be really cool. Please disseminate this information widely.
block quote end
You can also buy the
Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Wretch t-shirt
http://www.cafepress.com/technopeasant
from CafePress.com (I already bought mine and hey cabell, it even comes in pink).
The original quote which started it all:
block quote start
I think the ongoing and increasing sublimation of the private space of consciousness into public netspace is profoundly pernicious. For that reason I don't
much like to blog, wiki, chat, post, LiveJournal, or lounge in SFF.net. A problem with the whole wikicliki, sick-o-fancy, jerque-du-cercle of a networking
and connection-based order is that, if you "go along to get along" for too long, there's a danger you'll no longer remember how to go it alone when the
ethics of the situation demand it.
I'm also opposed to the increasing presence in our organization of webscabs, who post their creations on the net for free. A scab is someone who works
for less than union wages or on non-union terms; more broadly, a scab is someone who feathers his own nest and advances his own career by undercutting
the efforts of his fellow workers to gain better pay and working conditions for all. Webscabs claim they're just posting their books for free in an attempt
to market and publicize them, but to my mind they're undercutting those of us who aren't giving it away for free and are trying to get publishers to pay
a better wage for our hard work.
Since more and more of SFWA is built around such electronically mediated networking and connection based venues, and more and more of our membership at
least tacitly blesses the webscabs (despite the fact that they are rotting our organization from within) -- given my happily retrograde opinions, I felt
I was not the president who would provide SFWAns the "net time" they seemed to want at this point in the organization's development, or who would bless
the contraction of our industry toward monopoly, or who would give imprimatur to the downward spiral that is converting the noble calling of Writer into
the life of Pixel-stained Technopeasant Wretch.
-Howard V. Hendrix, SFWA's current V.P.
http://community.livejournal.com/sfwa/10039.html
block quote end
The Making Light thread which prompted Jo Walton's announcement
http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/008844.html
and which gives a good overview of various responses from the SF writers community.
The struggles I've had to go through to get access to books means I have always been aware of books as a touchstone to polotics and, trust me, the ongoing struggles blind people undergo to get access to books means it is unlikely that I am going to ever forget how political the very act of reading can be. I've always known that my habit of giving away books is a radical act, but then again, I've always identified with low company. I even got the name Kestrell from a reference in Spenser's "Faerie Queen," where "kestrell" refers to a low and common person:
...but in his kestrell kind
A pleasing vaine of glory vaine did find,
To which his flowing toung, and troublous spright
Gaue him great ayd, and made him more inclind...
That being the case, I am going to contribute to the technopeasant movement by making my thesis _Decloaking Disability: Images of Disability and Technology in Science Fiction Media_ available online for the day of April 23 (and how cool is it that the chosen day is also Shakespeare's birthday?). Check here on April 23 for the url, and you can read the post by Jo Walton which inspired this here
http://papersky.livejournal.com/318273.html
block quote start
In honour of Dr Hendrix, I am declaring Monday 23rd April International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day. On this day, everyone who wants to should give
away professional quality work online. It doesn't matter if it's a novel, a story or a poem, it doesn't matter if it's already been published or if it
hasn't, the point is it should be disseminated online to celebrate our technopeasanthood.
Whatever you're posting should go on your own site. I'll make a post here on the day and people can post links in comments to whatever they're putting up
on. If you are a member of SFWA, or SFWA qualified but not a member (like me) you get extra pixel-spattered points for doing this. If other people want
to collect the links too, that would be really cool. Please disseminate this information widely.
block quote end
You can also buy the
Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Wretch t-shirt
http://www.cafepress.com/technopeasant
from CafePress.com (I already bought mine and hey cabell, it even comes in pink).
The original quote which started it all:
block quote start
I think the ongoing and increasing sublimation of the private space of consciousness into public netspace is profoundly pernicious. For that reason I don't
much like to blog, wiki, chat, post, LiveJournal, or lounge in SFF.net. A problem with the whole wikicliki, sick-o-fancy, jerque-du-cercle of a networking
and connection-based order is that, if you "go along to get along" for too long, there's a danger you'll no longer remember how to go it alone when the
ethics of the situation demand it.
I'm also opposed to the increasing presence in our organization of webscabs, who post their creations on the net for free. A scab is someone who works
for less than union wages or on non-union terms; more broadly, a scab is someone who feathers his own nest and advances his own career by undercutting
the efforts of his fellow workers to gain better pay and working conditions for all. Webscabs claim they're just posting their books for free in an attempt
to market and publicize them, but to my mind they're undercutting those of us who aren't giving it away for free and are trying to get publishers to pay
a better wage for our hard work.
Since more and more of SFWA is built around such electronically mediated networking and connection based venues, and more and more of our membership at
least tacitly blesses the webscabs (despite the fact that they are rotting our organization from within) -- given my happily retrograde opinions, I felt
I was not the president who would provide SFWAns the "net time" they seemed to want at this point in the organization's development, or who would bless
the contraction of our industry toward monopoly, or who would give imprimatur to the downward spiral that is converting the noble calling of Writer into
the life of Pixel-stained Technopeasant Wretch.
-Howard V. Hendrix, SFWA's current V.P.
http://community.livejournal.com/sfwa/10039.html
block quote end
The Making Light thread which prompted Jo Walton's announcement
http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/008844.html
and which gives a good overview of various responses from the SF writers community.