[free-sklyarov] The OSCON sleeps on ...

[Klepht]

>>>>> "K" == Klepht  <klepht at eleutheria.org> writes:

    K> An announcement sent out tonight for, say, a Thursday lunch
    K> event would be ambitious but not unreasonable.

        "If you keep your spirit correct from morning to night,
        accustomed to the idea of death and resolved on death, and
        consider yourself as a dead body, thus becoming one with the
        Way of the warrior, you can pass through life with no
        possibility of failure and perform your office properly."

                                           -- "Hakagure"
                                              (Also, "Ghost Dog" B-)

I think I've already mentioned my ideas about the Way of the Event
Samurai, but I think I'll say them again. First and foremost you have
to come to terms with having your event fail miserably.

With standing alone, in your underwear, in the rain, crying.

With having that very attractive MOTS (or MOSS, your call), who you've
been secretly pining over for years, walk by you in your big dumb
topical sandwich board or silly hat and give you a look that says
you're absolutely, positively NEVER going to be an attractive person
in any sense of the word.

With having no one around to take your poorly-made flyers or even look
at your soggy rain-soaked cardboard sign.

With having riot troops with blue visored helmets and clear plastic
shields come marching down the street at you, despite all the proper
permits and exemplary behavior, throwing big heavy tear gas cannisters
clonking into your head, zapping you with cattle prods and tasers,
dragging you behind the paddy wagon like a rag doll, and then dropping
you into some oubliette from which you will never return.

Only when you have faced complete and total event failure will you be
able to make event success happen with confidence.

You can use that confidence to send out _announcements_, and not
_feelers_ like, "Is anyone interested..." or "Will anyone
come...". Because you don't care if anyone will come. Rather, "This
event will happen here, at this time, and we will do X, Y and Z."

The only thing I know about events is this: people ignore questions
and respond to announcements. "Putting out feelers" must be done in
private and only to avoid holding an event at some catastrophic time
or place. Once you're even vaguely confident, you should announce,
announce, announce.

This is the Way of the Event Samurai.

~Klepht

-- 
klepht at eleutheria.org
http://www.eleutheria.org/