Saturday, October 04, 2008

THE TRANSPARENT WORLD

If you watch the right margin of this blog, you will see that I've installed a widget that records every time someone signs onto this blog. It doesn't tell who they are but it tells where their nearest "node" or whatever might be. Some people are cloaked and the stranger locations (Dubai, Cyprus, et al) might not show hits coming from there at all. Or maybe they do. Why cloaked? Because they are cyberstalkers.

In early 2003 or so I began to talk about Tim Barrus' three "Nasdijj" books. I really fell in love with one: "The Boy and the Dog Are Sleeping." So I said so. You know that if you've been reading this blog.

Then there was a great furor about how wicked it was for Barrus to take an NA nom de plume and how even more wicked his years in SF as part of the Aquarian Revolution were. See, he wrote porn. Gay, S/M, leather porn: the kind that everyone assumes will make you rich but doesn't. As soon as the Nasdijj books began to win prizes and praise, all the most wicked things were funneled to reporters and everyone was shocked, SHOCKED!

What the funneler never funneled and the press never researched was Barrus' work with boys in trouble bad enough that no one else would take them on. The idea that anyone would try to help them was seen as unbelievable on its face. Even Wikipedia refused to add this part of the story.

I'm counter-phobic. If I worry about something, I go towards it rather than away. Barrus is the same. Pretty soon we were emailing. The more I know, the more I'm bothered by the injustice of all this. The media loves to play "let's you and him fight" (remember that brilliant Eric Berne book? "Games People Play?") and so they make a big deal out of grouping totally dissimilar cases. Barrus in not in the least like the others. He is unique. When people finally get the real story they're going to be ashamed. Including Sherman Alexie.

The point is that the stalkers are now preying on me. They sucked out of my hard drive the beginnings of two novels. What they don't know is that I always print-out and save stuff in 3-ring binders. Also, this website is a way of archiving, so that nothing important is lost. He could have just downloaded from my blog.

Thus, I'm monitoring traffic. Anyway, it's a revelation! I get over 150 hits a day and this "feedjit" tells me what post the person was looking for (so far today, dinosaurs, Robson Green, street names in Browning, and some of the posts on ethics). Maybe you were there! If so, howdy!

Prairie Mary

4 comments:

Mary Strachan Scriver said...

So far, one hostile commentor advised me to get the "truth" by going to a certain website. When I put the url in my browser, my computer told me it was phony. What does THAT tell you?

Prairie Mary

Mary Strachan Scriver said...

Anonymous, you are transparent.

Prairie Mary

mscriver said...

Anonymous, do you get it yet?

Prairie Mary

mscriver said...

Me, again. Three years have passed since these "warnings" and "accusations." Tim and I remain friends, still write together, and I have not been damaged or disappointed.

Prairie Mary