Data Crunch Fever

[threadwalker]

I suspect Darth Director is snapping out orders to his direct reports because that thing about stuff rolling down hill? ... My boss swooped in exhibiting classic symptoms of a near brush with Darth Bruce and our team is Crack-a-Lackin' to crunch numbers and summarize stuff.

Boring.

But my brain wanders free to a theme I've been percolating on.

Service vs. Art and how I use my time.

I'm still very angry about the decision to cancel 1 collegium a year and to muck around with the Poppy. Very angry. I ask myself, "So shut-up or put-up, right?"

But I'm in a place where I am working on my arts. I have a lot of exciting ideas (exciting to ME anyway) and I don't have enough bandwidth to pursue both my artistic endeavors and take the lead on organizing anything big. I can take on small pieces and brainstorm, so I can happily help someone else, but be in charge? I can't go super-nova with my passions in two different directions at once. And since "super-nova" is the only way I know how to dial myself in, I'm going to have to continue to fume. And wait for someone else to jump in so that I can volunteer to help.

Fuming... fuming... Like a gassy volcano occasionally spewing off fumes and soot.

And about the Golden Poppy... grr.... Since Merlin and Lee have decided the Kingdom no longer needs a Mt Everest for the artists, I've been thinking about hosting my own endeavor. I think it would be fun if I could get 3-4 (or more!) other artisans to host an arts marathon. We could choose 4 events in the year and invite fellow artisans to do an indepth project in a field that we know something of. It could even become kind of a mentoring thing where there's a kick-off meeting wherein sponsors (such as myself) present enough research to get people started, where everyone could meet, and where projects could be schemed. So instead of encouraging people to lower their expectations, they could raise them. I'm just noodling around with the thought.

Ironically, it's she who was banished for being unladylike that inspired the idea of setting up a meeting point.

ugh... people keep interupting my lunch break. I need to skeedaddle if I'm going to get down time. BUT if anyone is intersted in exploring the concept of a co-hosted projecty thing where you work with others and have some sort of display of hard work/efforts... it probably feels a lot more like the Queen's Artisans without the requirement of involving the Queen in the selection process.

gotta run. Lots of ideas. Looking for other ideas and cohorts.

Comments

[xrian.livejournal.com]

As I understand it (and I don't hang out in Gossip Central): no, not quite. The Poppy had a low profile for several years, and then two years ago a Certain Very Tall and Rather Short pair of Monarchs invented a Royal Championship -- perhaps under the impression that there wasn't an arts championship in the West, or that if there was one it was long dead. IIRC this was an idea from before the reign actually began, so I'd prefer to think they were simply unfamiliar with the Poppy and its history, including the fact that it *had* been won fairly recently.

IMHO, the best thing to do would have been to say, "Oops, we already had one" and promote the heck out of the Poppy. But that would apparently have been far too simple. You know the West: once instituted, never abolished.

Also, the originators of the Royal Championship are apparently very attached to it and won't hear of changing it. Somehow being a "royal champion" is More Speshul, don't ask me why. I don't know whether anyone suggested adding "Royal" to the Poppy, but I suspect that would not have gone over well either, perhaps because it still implies that Royals Made An Oops. [sarcasm] And of course we can never do *that* [/sarcasm].

A complication is that some people-with-influence see the Poppy as being "too much work" and "too difficult," assuming that that's why "so few" people try it. That's one reason several people decided to compete for the Poppy this year -- to demonstrate that it's quite do-able. From what I hear, she who was banished for being unladylike was one of them, but of course her being banished had the side effect of wrecking *that* idea.

A lot of Poppies and Laurels have been variously angry, furious and nigh-on apoplectic about the proposed changes. Lots of people have put forth ideas for "reforming" the system and/or abolishing everything and setting up a completely new set of things to strive for in A&S, but as far as I know, no one idea has much support beyond its author and no two ideas are compatible with each other. Making grand proposals and picking on each other's seem to be about equally popular pursuits.

I, at least, haven't heard the most recent set(s) of rumors, so I don't know what's likely to happen, but whatever it is will no doubt make quite a few people unhappy.