
Day 4 1/2.
Errors and omissions.
It should be no secret that my stenography skills, skills which I really do not have, were put to an especially severe test this weekend. Just about everything was taken down longhand, and while I'm proud of my ability to write longhand quickly, there have been so many cases in the notes where I've had to summarize things severely, or try to reconstruct them from partial or borderline-illegible notations, or where I had to break a sentence early so I could catch the next one. Anything I've shown as a direct quote probably is, or is extremely close to, what was actually said. Anything else is, at best, an indirect quote, and more likely a summary or interpretation of what was said. I've done my best, and generally I think I have done well, but please don't hold my mistakes against anyone else. I hope it's a serviceable report in any case.
I am not aware of any particular errors or omissions in what I wrote, except for one. That's simply that I had no courage to walk up to anyone and try to get engaged with the community. The notes suffer a little lack of atmosphere for that. It is a continuing problem. It is probably a big part of the reason that I didn't show up here in the Comment Room, or anywhere else, until sometime last year, and watching the Gathering featurette today, and the audience reaction to it, really drives home what I have missed over about 29 years of fanning it on my own. Seriously, though, what the hell was I thinking? I don't expect to find an answer to that question, but I'm hoping to get more chances to meet again.
To Matthew, Phoenician, and Matt, deepest thanks for reaching out and keeping me from hiding in the corner the whole time. To anyone else on the Room who I didn't meet, sorry if I seemed at times to be cosplaying Creepy Internet Guy (that apology's directed at Greg Weisman too, sort of, if he happens to read it or telepathically pick it up or whatever). I really don't like to barge in on people, especially not people I don't know. Especially not with a notebook and pencil in hand.
I mentioned at the top of these reports that I went into Loring Park that first morning and they had these plaques with T.S. Eliot quoted on them. The one I quoted finished up:
"Through the unknown, remembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea."
In a way, I suppose I'm finally looking, and I like what I'm finding.
In Minneapolis, for the Comment Room, this is morrand, signing off.
morrand - [morrand276 at gmail dot com]
posted @ Sun, Jul 7, 2024 11:25:52 pm EDT from 50.204.222.98