This first card was challenging. Back on the 13^th, when I first set down my intentions for this project, I thought I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted to do. I spent the next ten days reading things, assimilating concepts, arguing with myself, and cutting up magazines with the thought of doing a “real” art project using physical materials.

Even when I sat down and admitted to myself that I was not going to find what I wanted in the piles of magazines to create something meaningful, nor would my drawing fulfill my vision, I encountered uncertainty and hesitance. What was the most important thing I could say or depict on this card? Did the image mean the most, or would words be the order of the day?

Ultimately I ended up with something that I feel as though I’m happy with. There is still a lot to learn about this card, and I may revisit and revise it as I understand more about the intimacies of meaning contained within this set of gnostic guideposts.

Click the image to download the full size PDF version of this card. Note: It is a 1.9mb file!

Tarot and Qabalah: A Two-Fold Guidebook

At first glance, scholars of the Tarot and its relationship with the Qabalah may rush to correct my association here. In the Golden Dawn’s depiction of the Sephiroth[img], The Hanged Man corresponds to the path leading between Geburah and Hod. I am using the reformed Tree as outlined by Donald Tyson in the essay The Gate of Daath1. In this essay he outlines changes to the positioning and numbering of the paths based on the idea that Yesod is the only realistic path into the tree from Malkuth2, as well as establishing the need for paths connecting Binah-Chesed and Chokmah-Geburah3. (He has not published the diagram for this tree on his site, nor did I find another image elsewhere. Out of respect for the publisher’s request at the beginning of the book, I will not reproduce this diagram here unless I am given permission.) This corrects the Tree for the notion that the moon (Yesod) has always been the gateway to higher planes of consciousness, as well as creating the “x marks the spot” location for Daath on the upper portion of the Tree, similar to the positioning of Tiphareth below. Although this may realistically change many of the associations, I am currently running under the assumption that since The Hanged Man maintains position as corresponding with Path 23, that the tables provided by 7774 still hold true.

Getting to the card itself, I opted here for a two panel system, very much in line with the iconic layout provided by long-running CCG, Magic: The Gathering5. Looking again at their layout, I can already see areas in which I can improve the structure of my cards to convey more information more cleanly, but results of these thoughts will be explored another time.

The top panel is an image which I feel befits the original artistic depiction of the card. The caption provided by the artist is equally fitting and moving.

I can wait…
… says the little voice.
I close my eyes, try falling asleep, try not seeing him, his pesky presence. Try not hearing his never-ending questions.
Who says I have to answer EVERY question? Who says it has to be NOW? And why me? I am falling behind, at best of times feeling like I am about to catch up. But most of my time – I am just repaying old debts.
The spotlight dims and darkness descends. Precious sleep.
But should I wake up, without omission, here he is! Ta-dah!!!!! The little powerful voice and his army of questions.
“Not now”, I say.
“I can wait” he says, from his timeless space.

From the original flickr photo page.

This story unknowingly ties perfectly into the concepts fueling The Hanged Man, regardless of which side of the Tree you are exploring. It is characterized by Ordeal, by rite of passage and confrontation of that which would rip asunder our assumptions. On the back side of the tree, this would mean blindly surrendering to ignorance. On the front side, it is a willful sacrifice of old beliefs, resulting in enlightenment. Tiphareth is sort of a mid-way point in the tree, still exalted in its own right, but by no means the end of the journey. This route (on the front side) bypasses Tiphareth entirely, though I would argue that its enlightening end results are brimming with Tipharethic energies. Likewise on the night side of the Tree, The Hanged Man catapults himself headlong into the Abyss, bypassing any attempt for reform or redemption that is offered by Daath’s position at the center of the criss-crossing paths that makeup the middle of the upper tree.

Characters Fitting This Card

Here I outline a few characters – fictional, mythological, and otherwise – whose stories have examples of the transitional energy of The Hanged Man. It’s a fairly small and obvious collection. I’d love to come up with a few more examples of both the day and night sides of the tree.

1. Cecil (Final Fantasy 4)
• Although he was victorious in many ways as a Dark Knight, he couldn’t fulfill his quest until he learned to be merciful and accept the ways of the Paladin. This is a very overt example of ordeal leading into redemption, and enlightenment.6
2. Odin
• In return for hanging upon Yggdrasil for nine nights, Odin received the knowledge of runes7. A clear example of the concepts at work in The Hanged Man.
3. Jesus Christ
• Directly noted in the correspondence tables of 777, Jesus is possibly the quintessential archetype for sacrifice resulting in ascension to higher power.
4. Any Death-Rebirth Deity
• As argued here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life-death-rebirth_deity, citing Jung’s claim that death and rebirth are archetypal processes. A theory supported by other researchers of myth.
5. Ikari Shinji (Neon Genesis Evangelion)
• Rife with gnostic symbolism and modern angst, Evangelion can and will burst your mind at the seams with all the concepts it tries to throw at you. At the end, Ikari Shinji is submitted to sacrifice and is reborn in a strange new world. I submit that his case would be a good example of the Qlippothic journey into dark supernal Binah, as his was always a path of despair and denial.

Final Thoughts

There is so much to learn here. I barely scratched the surface of the correspondences, especially the intense association with water and watery deities and concepts. Lotuses, nymphs, and the lord Poseidon all by the wayside while I figure out what it all means. The animal associations present their own puzzle: what do eagles, snakes, scorpions, beetles, lobsters, and wolves have to do with The Hanged Man?

What will the next card be? I have no idea. I will not draw another card until after this is published and another day dawns. When will it be published here? Again, it depends on the card and candidly on my life in general. Until then, I invite comment and question!

Resources:
1. Tyson, Donald The Gate of Daath, Howlings (Scarlet Imprint, 2008) 133.
2. Ibid, 129-130
3. Ibid, 131
4. Crowley, Aleister, 777 vel Prolegomena Symbolica Ad Systemam Sceptico Mysticae (courtesy hermetic.com, PDF)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_the_Gathering for general history & images or the Getting Started Guide on Wizards of the Coast’s site for a full breakdown of how a card is constructed.
6. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Fantasy_IV#cite_note-14 or FF IV original (Japanese) & English script: Mt.Ordeals
7. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yggdrasil#H.C3.A1vam.C3.A1l

Supplementary Resources:
http://www.servantsofthelight.org/QBL/Paths/23_mem.html An HTML table rendering of all the data of line 23 of 777.

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The premise behind this project is very simple:

1. Choose a Tarot card (only shuffling for the first draw).
2. Dissect the visuals on the card and write down their most basic symbolic elements (from opinion/personal preference).
3. Look up details of that Tarot card from tarot books, 777 and other cross-cultural references.
4. Create a visual and/or written interpretation of the card.

The idea is part research project, part art project, part image-meme-in-the-making if stripped down to its most base elements (pick card, recreate card the way you see it).1

The deck I am using for my base of operations is The Robin Wood Tarot deck, put out by Llewellen publishers in 2002.2

Candidly, the Robin Wood is not my favorite deck in terms of art; I’d bite my own mother if it would get me a copy of the Yoshitaka Amano deck, but I adore his rich, Art Nouveau inspired work and that makes me rather biased. The Amano deck would actually be a poor choice for this endeavor, as the number cards within the suits are apparently expressed with a simple display of the number of each thing (cups, swords, etc), rather than full, symbolically significant art.3 The Robin Wood deck, on the other hand, is a much more suitable deck, inspired by the perennial Rider-Waite Deck published in 19104, although perhaps slightly more “modern” in its sensibilities.

I am currently at work on my first card, which I shall reveal if you ask me about it when I’m ready with a finished assessment and/or artistic recreation. Initially, I sought to impose strict deadlines for this work, yet I grossly underestimated the amount of information that has been layered into these cards over the centuries! Just working with only the base symbolism in the card could keep me very busy. Each card has a unique personality to be expressed through careful consideration of my reactions to it and available materials for creative reconstruction. This doesn’t even scratch the surface of the myriad readings to choose from in just the books I have available, especially since broad descriptions are given to help these cards display meaning when read in the intended context of a specific goal as well as their relation with other cards in a spread. Intentionally working with one card at a time means a lot of winnowing to get to the germ of the matter.

Furthermore, there are other unique challenges: Tarot interacts rather directly with several other systems of magick and philosophy, making the cross-referencing quite an in-depth affair. My extremely limited knowledge of Western Esoteric systems will prove to be my biggest stumbling block. This has been made clear while researching the first card for the series in 7775, Crowley’s seminal work providing rich tables of correspondences between systems of symbols used in different magick disciplines.

Though I will endeavor to research each card fully and provide serious thought and commentary to this effort, I do want to keep moving forward. What this means is that each article, each visual working (likely to be magazine-centric collage as I’ve a lot of material to work with) should likely be considered a work in progress, no matter how complete it may seem at the time of release. There’s likely to be more personal revelations and hand-written notes that simply don’t make it into this journal. These things may surface later as part of a larger effort to commit this project to print. Hail Eris!

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Skimming through my feeds this morning, I was shocked to see this one from John Brownlee (of Ectomo):

I’ll miss @MacTonnies. Despite being a UFO kook, he was one of the nicest guys ever, and we emailed several times. http://bit.ly/2cjqST

~ twitter.com/drcrypt

UFO Mystic has reported that Mac was found in his apartment, deceased from natural causes.

Who was Mac Tonnies?

Author, blogger, futurologist, skeptic, bibliophile, Fortean, weirdhunter, transhumanist, interplanetary man of mystery.

~ twitter.com/mactonnies

As author of After the Martian Apocalypse (and a book which will be published posthumously, as he’d just turned in a manuscript), several essays and Posthuman Blues, Mac explored a wide variety of topics, and always looked to the future to bring mankind forward in truly remarkable ways, as well as expounding upon theories about intelligence outside our own atmosphere.

A more detailed biography is available by either visiting his personal site: mactonnies.com or simply delving into the backlog of his tweets. So much can be learned about a person through the ephemera they leave behind, and in this case I believe twitter will help serve that purpose well to those who find his work in the future and are curious about what sort of man he was. (Presuming, of course, that his account does not fall into the gaping maw of forward progress or server fuckups.)

I followed Posthuman Blues through a feed I picked up from singlenesia.com called The Cabal. It’s a rich variety of uncommon writers and I highly recommend it. Though I did not read as much of Posthuman Blues as I would have liked, those articles that I did manage to make time for were enjoyable and well written. And those items that he chose to simply repost or share from other areas of the net are fascinating and unique.

Though my acquaintance with his work was rather thin, I feel as though we have lost another excited voice in the push to bring us all to the glorious jet-pack future our forefathers all but promised us. But of course to get there, the future needs all of us to participate. Go read Posthuman Blues!

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Preface: If you’re following me on Twitter, you may have seen my non-stop barrage of updates relating to a trip I am currently still on, a trip to Portland Oregon for the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival. What follows are a few selected tweets (in chronological order), and my hand-written journal entries. Each will be delineated clearly, for now. As the week rolls by it may devolve a bit. I just don’t want this experience to pass by like the MoCCa convention trip earlier this year, which was amazing and full of photos and quotes that has to this day not made it into a final record.

Tweets

• 2:30am 09-28-09 – leaving for the airport – adventure start! lvl 1 bus trip
• the led 1s above me seem to stare like the eyes of some large, shifty beast, or fireflies frozen in time, forever calling out a 1 note plea.
• I feel about in the dark, which is blindingly punctuated by electric light, and can find no familiar shapes, puzzled by this urge, I settle.
• I recall the coffee, given to me gratis by a kind but unhappy young man working @ the mcd’s, I do not so much drink as huff this kind nectar
• first leg of the journey eclipsed, a girl outside has a box labeled “fresh seafood”… oh my Editor’s Note: I have no idea what became of this “fresh seafood” container.
• with the lights on as we pause to collect passengers, I note my place: seat #23 :) so far so good – hail eris!
• it suddenly dawns on me that if I had any brains I would have turned on tweet import into rknet during this trip – someone please archive?
• dozed for a moment, woke up to some horrid coughing sound & saw a SWARM OF BEES over the aisle which faded into nothing as my eyes adjusted. Editor’s Note: This is 100% true and was 100% TERRIFYING.
• promised myself i’d save sleep for the plane, yet I nearly dozed thru the 2nd checkpoint, dreams intense &fitful Editor’s Note: And I think some of them involved *shudder* furries.
• the nymphs of sleep continue to tempt me with their lush, velvet arms as hypothermic sleep must entice the arctic’s soon-to-be-lost souls!
• the end of lvl1 I avoided: snoring (I hope), leg cramps, & battery overuse. next lvl2: airport ho!
• waiting in line to check bags, kiosk fail, but the girl behind the counter is cute and chipper. :)
• woman in front of me has a lesportsac carryon, posh! Editor’s Note: I think it may have even been a highly coveted TokiDoki black bag. *swoon*
• baggage check success! now waiting for tsa to open up, c’mon sleepyheads, shake a leg, this stuff’s heavy!
• got thru tsa with minimal fuss. @meatbag sacrificed a cute dr bronner soap bottle to the 3oz only gods. oh well, no great loss. lvl 2.5 get! Editor’s note: I probably shouldn’t have called it as level 2 and a half. This was barely scratching the surface of the trip. :/
• http://ping.fm/p/I8pmq – this waiting area is PIMP. nice comfy chairs, usb (g1 used power leech! it’s not very effective)& reg power jacks
• well, we were gonna board but I guess they gotta get the gremlin piss off the wing or something Editor’s Note: One of the bathrooms was apparently leaking some kinda water.
• one plane down, sitting in chi-town on the next waiting to be hurtled thru the sky at terrifying speeds which defy the earth’s very spin! :D
• destination: portland, oregon :) finally, to the west coast! not a first for the well-travelled @meatbag though
• this is the nicest damn airport I have ever seen
• lvl2.75 complete! flying & bag claim all done – now waiting to collect @malpertuis & establish home base!
• on lvl2.75: encountered wild tacos! devoured easily but left with burn.
• Zomg I think it’s gonna be @malpertuis tiem soooooon
• http://ping.fm/p/4XV4H – we got to the hotel, complete with bear & obelisk Editor’s Note: Though I neglected to say so, I think This is officially the END of level 2.

Not part of the travel portion of the adventure, but absolutely part of adventure as a whole: http://ping.fm/p/t05uG – inspired by the interview w @jamesurbaniak & jackson publick, they’re right, it IS awful

Notebook content

I admit that I did something that could mark me as some kind of trend whore and got a moleskein journal. I wanted something without spiral binding, and unlined pages. The moleskein gave me that, and the bookmark, elastic closure, and a back pocket. It was worth it.

Page 1

Hurtling above the land & clouds at pilot-only-knows what manner of height & speed, I am inclined to make a few observations, though they may be trite and obvious to all but the most obstinately non-observant. The upper surface of a large bank of fluffy, white clouds possessed the same manner of undulating sea surface I had noted as we banked out over the Atlantic to gain speed (presumably). In short, it was a captivating case of “As above, so below”. The second thing which really grabbed me as I owlishly stared out of the smallish window to my left (would that make it port side?) was the curious juxtaposition of man-made grids of landscape, versus the chaotic winding of rivers and their surrounding forest. Of course the more urbanized areas do tend to wind and twist – the loops and whorls that give fingerprint to a living community. Not even an expert palmist, I suspect, could read the fats of these places by such unassuming lines. I think, perhaps, the swaths of red/brown, and of glittery cars clustered around big buildings paint a clearer picture of what humanity is doing to/for itself. Certainly moreso than any other aforementioned qualities of landscape.

Page 2

My good pen exploded and I smeared the ink from my fingers onto the page. I took this opportunity to try to base some drawings off it. I did a pretty nice sketch of an eye and ruined it by trying to ink it with one of my felt tip pens.

Page 3

This page intentionally left blank.

Page 4

It took about 12 hours to cross the country, no mean feat, but it’s amazing this future we live in.
Trendspot: patterned tights w/ flat boots
Saw my first ever, proper, junkies hanging about the rite aid. Editor’s Note: That Rite Aid was the most intimidating, WEIRD shopping establishment. So many strange items behind chiming plastic half doors, everyone was in an absolute rush. Disinterested cop standing near the doors, and junkies milling about both in and outside the doors, with the most lost and tragic air I have possibly ever seen in a human being. It frightened me and broke my heart simultaneously. My journal entry item was too cursory and unfair to the actual experience.
Crossing the Rockies was amazing, though perhaps more amazing were the ranges of mountains that preceded them.
So many hills, valleys, ravines, rivers. Amazing. There was a large brush fire, too. Not sure where we were when we saw it.
Looks like some of the bars round here permit smoking. This does not bode well for my lungs.
The air here is chill but clear & pleasant.
There is, potentially, so much to do, I simply don’t know where to begin.
I’m looking forward to the film fest.
It promises to be greatness for sure.
Meeting more Ectomites is also a thrill in waiting though I fear Eliza’s exacting tongue… ah well. Editor’s Note: It’s so difficult to meet people you admire, and of all the Ecto-gods, she is the one I want to avoid looking like a douchebag in front of the very most. Introspectively, I can’t help but wonder if my lack of female interaction growing up has made me incapable of interacting normally with other females now as an adult.

Page 5

While listening to WFMU, enjoying the hell out of hearing Jackson Publick and James Urbaniak of The Venture Brothers (which I absolutely ADORE), they were discussing comics, and the topic of political cartoons came up. They likened the modern political cartoon to something as crass and stupid as a guy wearing a shirt that says “taxes” and a guy with a bat that says “healthcare”. In a fit of “I should draw more because that’s the only way to get better”, I busted out the blue pencil and the non-smeary pen and set to creating this masterpiece of AWFUL. I shared it via Twitter/ping.fm: http://ping.fm/p/t05uG.

The text reads:
Guy in taxes shirt: “What’s that whistling noise?”
Guy with bat: MINE
Caption below: HE WON’T KNOW WHAT HIT HIM

Sidetext: Political cartoons are terrible (Then a note regarding the inspiration as noted above.)

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In the very early morning in the fall of 1979 a particular beach along the Aegean Sea in Athens is nearly deserted. You have not yet slept, as your crew-mates have gotten ahold of your judgment once again, and you have been out all night. But you are alone now, and the soft pink horizon gives context to your solitude. You stroll the shoreline, smoking a cigarette, thinking of home and taking stock of the day ahead of you, when, in an instant, your life changes forever.

You are not hit with a meteor, nor are you shot in the back by an enemy, mauled by a wild dog, or swallowed whole by a shark. You do not have a heart attack, or a stroke or a spasm in your back that causes permanent paralysis and a slack jaw. You have no epiphany. What you do have, suddenly, is a woman.

Thin and birdlike, she balances on one leg to wash her feet in a tide-pool of cold salt water. She has not yet noticed you, and she goes about her washing as if she could be doing anything at all. There is nothing deliberate about her movements; it is as if she is simply an extension of the morning fog around her, supported each moment only by her flexibility to the changing whims of the air.

When she notices you she stops and lowers her foot so that when you approach her she is standing up to her knees in Mediterranean salt water. You begin to speak, though you can’t imagine now what you’d try to say, but she shakes her head. She is not Greek. You had already guessed by her fair skin.

Do you speak English? You fumble for the words. Your hands seem light, fluttering like dusty moths around your sunlit face as you try to explain: no, not really, just a little – a little English. She smiles slowly at you, at once thoughtful and amused, but not a bit wary. She says, “Maybe I should teach you.”

Twenty years from now, in a fit of defeat after being laid-off, you will tell her that you hate her. You will suffer and rage and, in private, you will cry. You will smoke too many cigarettes, drink too much bad American beer, and you will replay in your head, over and over again, how to tell your children that you are leaving; you are going back to Egypt.

Once, you even begin to pack your things, methodically filling up a large black suitcase. You iron and fold your shirts, trousers and even your socks; you pack your Koran, a photo album and your Aramis cologne. Then you venture into the damp basement to rummage through boxes of your old life, grasping at mementos to bring into your new one.

And while you are rummaging, you come across the notebooks. Dozens of them; the English alphabet over and over, tiny drawings to illustrate meaning, notes in the margins, letters, numbers, words and eventually sentences and paragraphs, her handwriting first, then yours below. And you remember her patience, her care, and you remember that she is as stuck as you are.

And you don’t leave. And you don’t hate her, that girl who washed her feet. What you hate is your American life – your small town in rural New Hampshire, your musty basement, your gray Pontiac sunbird with the CB radio; your polo shirts, nametag, cable TV, and, though you are now a Citizen, you have grown to hate Americans and the way they look at you.

Your hate makes you angry, but, after a while, it also makes you grateful. Those notebooks remind you that she too, your wife, lives the same (not really so terrible) life, and that she has never ever stopped trying.

And when you fall in love with her again (for, you’re beginning to realize, it happens over and over,) you will try to forget how you ever hated her and you will remember that first morning on the beaches of Athens when you began to know love.

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Author’s Note: Some editing may apply to the article below. This article was originally 2 hours worth of unedited vitriol, inspired by the inordinate amount of time it takes me to remove spammers from my follower list on Twitter. (I block because I care about the health of the network.) I would like to state for the record that I am ~not~ a consultant and my field of employ does not position me as a social media anything. I am fully employed at a .com company that is none of your business because my opinions here are completely my own and in no way reflect those of my employers past, present or future, as is the case with all my articles.

Listen. I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking “oh god, another contrarian anti-internet jerk who just doesn’t get it”, right? Well, here’s the problem, assuming there is anything to “get” in the first place, I feel as though I do get it. So let me explain to you in no uncertain terms why I feel that you have to be very picky about how you approach the broad spectrum of things on the internet that have fallen under the somewhat dubious umbrella of “social media” – what follows applies mostly if you are a company or work for a company which wishes to employ this miracle tool to win friends and influence shoppers. Those of you who are largely concerned with keeping up with your friends and picking up some new novel on Amazon are exempt from this lecture and may go on about your business.

Someone, somewhere, right now may have just friended you or followed you or emailed you or called you with the intent to sell their services to you as an expert in social media. It may not have even been a real person, it may have been someone’s automated robot, spitting out update after update linking back to their blog or company website. This person may have been trying to convince you of one of the following things:

• You NEED to be a part of social media in order to make it in business.
• You NEED to be a part of social media to make it on the internet.
• You NEED to have dozens of automated accounts, linking to affiliate programs, so you never have to work another day in your life.
• You NEED the services of a “qualified social media expert” (really? what are the qualifications for that?) just like them to make this happen, because you, poor soul that you are, don’t get it.
• You NEED to have “conversations” with your customers, every last damn one of them, and you can somehow find all of your customers through the internet regardless of your business model or demographic.
• You NEED to be light and human and approachable on this wild, wooly internet, or your customer base will think you’re just a mean old corporate giant and won’t trust you anymore.
• You NEED to make sure that you do your campaigning virally from now on, and harness the power of the crowd.

If you are hearing any or all of the above statements, I want you to take a deep breath, take a good long look at this person telling you these things, and realize that you may be dealing with a blithering asshole, a liar, or an asshole liar. This individual may be feeding you a complete line of bullshit in order to help themselves to your money. This individual may also be intelligent, well-rounded, and respectful of you and your business. It is a VERY difficult line of judgement, and I urge individuals and businesses out to make a name for themselves (on the internet or otherwise) to tread carefully when it comes to the internet, since without self-education and experience it is very easy to get taken in by an enthusiastic pitchman who just wants you to “embrace the new media”.

Lest you think I’m just out to start trouble…

There are many ways in which acknowledging popular social media outlets could benefit a business, and just as many if not more ways that it can harm a business. It shouldn’t be a question of if your company will be participating in the various activities available on the internet, but when, how, and most importantly why.

In an extreme negative example, let us take the “Domino’s YouTube incident” into consideration for a moment. A couple of young employees of a particular Domino’s store took it upon themselves to film themselves playing with food that was intended to be delivered to a customer in a way that was clearly pretty unsanitary or at the very least against guidelines. They posted said video to YouTube, a content delivery service which allows anyone with an account to upload video files to share with as few or as many people as the account holder wishes. Due to the fact that this incident was rather outrageous, the link to that video spread a lot further than those two employees’ friends, and wound up being a huge embarrassment to the entire franchise. This in turn resulted in the President of Domino’s himself recording a response and distributing it through YouTube also. The original, incriminating videos were the kind of mildly gross, slightly shocking, pure-amusement dreck that tends to go popular, and unfortunately none of the major news outlets who covered the story back when it first occurred managed to get the number of views the video managed to receive prior to the suspension of “whiteair2″, the original account the videos were posted on.

Some would argue that if Domino’s had been proactive in their approach to social media in particular, this may not have been “as bad” or may not have happened at all. Yes and no, would be my response to that claim. Would it have been worthwhile for Domino’s to monitor for the presence of its company name on the internet, and be prepared to respond should anything negative start to gain ground? Absolutely, because as demonstrated here, things can occur which get people to talking with one another, and eventually things like this can leave the walled gardens from which they sprung. Everything I’ve heard about public relations suggests that good PR has legs and will generate positive influence that may bring in future customers. Bad PR, however, seems to have a hangar full of high speed jets which can result in misconceptions, smug disdain, and complaints that spread faster and linger for much longer.

Yet this monitoring is by no means exclusive to “social media” outlets such as YouTube or Twitter, and likewise, no amount of canned responses thrown up on YouTube, nor Twitter accounts/posts to mitigate the seemingly endless stream of whiny, self-righteous haters, can stop this sort of thing or even improve the company’s standing with either the internet using people they are supposedly reaching out to or more importantly the greater public. The extremely scripted response from the Domino’s President clocks in (as of today) at 731,695 views, according to the official posting of the video, which is downright pathetic given the amount of mass media attention this story received. However, reposts may also carry views which aren’t counted in this number. Perhaps it is not a coincidence that the articles I have read only give passing nods to Domino’s response to the matter, and focus more on the shock-and-awe blitz that the original videos seem to have stirred up to begin with.

What this story has to teach is:

• Not being aware of how you and your company can be portrayed in the public by average citizens using an easily accessible set of tools can be disastrous.
• Trying to mitigate a terrible PR situation by poorly using the tools that seem to have been the “cause” of the problem does not automatically win you the love of those same detractors. Handling the situation quickly and professionally might, if you’re lucky.

Note: A commenter brought up a good point RE: my recap of the Domino’s situation and I clarified my thoughts in a follow-up comment. Scroll down and read if you’re interested. Thank you, Liz, for the opportunity to clarify those points.

So what about my business?

What this has to do with you, and the slick individual who thinks it would be a good idea to sign your company up for Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and all these other “popular” sites, is very simple. It starts by asking yourself a very simple question: “Does my company have something tangible to gain by actively interacting with its customer base through one of these outlets?”

These days, the answer to the second question is almost guaranteed to be a partial yes, unless you’re doing something like making custom wagon parts for the Amish, then maybe not so much. Yet before you invest all your money in a fast-talking internet “guru” (which is a word to watch out for, by the way, since most of these would-be rinpoche have dubbed themselves gurus), hire 6 more people just to re-tweet press releases for you, and figure out how to talk about your product on the YouTube even if no one cares, there are a couple more questions you might want to ask yourself, your staff, and your magical social media consultant:

• Why should I be proactively seeking criticism and input from a relatively small portion of my customer base using services like Facebook and Twitter when I can dedicate more resources to a more balanced approach that entails monitoring a larger portion of the internet INCLUDING those sites to create a good cycle of reactive implementation of better features and services?
• Does my company have the ability to put someone, or several people, in “the line of fire” to respond almost instantaneously to any situation that is made aware to the public, knowing that these people must be given the freedom to respond in a largely unscripted manner if they are to be at all effective in coming across as genuine?
• Does my company – or my consultant – understand the difference between marketing, public relations, and reputation management?
  • Does my company – or consultant – understand that these initiatives are related, but are still different and will require different disciplines, approaches, and sometimes people to be successful?
• Does my company know when to draw the line and handle a situation through dealing with the traditional media outlets, understanding that for every customer on the internet, there are several more who will not have access to those broadcasts from us?
• Is my company interested in self-promotion and press releases, or direct customer relations and expanding customer service contact methods?
• What kind of things are being said about my product or service on the internet?
  • What kinds of things are being said about my competitors’ products or services?
  • What kind of things are being said about directly related or easily confused products or services?
  • What kind of things are being said about my entire niche or section of business?
  • What kind of things are being said specifically by people in my demographic for any one or all of these things?
• (And of course the pre-work to all of that previous short list of questions, in case that didn’t scare you enough:) Does my company have demographic information about our business model, niche, or industry as well as a basic understanding of the terms and topics related to that, and an ability to dedicate resources to that research before, during and after any phase of a long-term customer facing campaign on the internet?

If your “social media expert” or “guru” or just plain old consultant cannot help you address any one of the above questions, then they are not doing you a service, but a very distinct disservice. The internet is a fairly complex emotional and social landscape, but so is a television viewing audience, a base of radio listeners, and the readership of a magazine or newspaper. The key factor here is that you are always dealing with answering the question of “How does my business interact with the public?” If you let yourself get blinded by cheap tactics under the guise of “better SEO” or “getting with the times” or some kind of misguided free love approach to business on the internet that you have no plans of actually embracing, then you are going to be about as effective on a site like Twitter as a man wearing a sandwich board in the subway screaming about the end times and handing out leaflets to everyone who dares get within five feet of him. Sure, being in the subway is great exposure, and he’s yelling so everyone can hear him, he’s definitely getting to a lot of people, and he’s delivering his leaflets of content to really spread the word around. The trouble is, they all thing he’s annoying, insane, or both, and they’re probably right. It’s a terrible way to do business either out on the street or through channels like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc.

Summary:

• Think before you act.
• Never abandon or detract from your bottom line for what could be a trend, or go against your core business model.
• Do not cave to the pressure to be on Twitter simply because you’re paying someone to tell you that it’s a good idea. And fire that guy who can’t give you at least one good reason why it is genuinely good for your business.
• Be aware that the internet can impact your PR, but handle the situation according to what is right for your business, not according to the media used for delivery. (Would you run a counter local Fox news investigation if a local Fox news investigation caused you a PR flap? Probably not.)

Thanks, and happy interneting!

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Stuff stuff stuff!

• Subscription to Hi-Fructose
  • It’s delicious just like the house of crepes I first read it in!
• Sewing machine?
  • I’m a little torn over this one because I’m not sure if I’d honestly do more sewing if I had a sewing machine.
• The World Ends With You
  • I’ve heard so many wonderful things, I just have to play it.
• Pretty much anything on my amazon wish list
  • Especially all the books! Delicious, delicious books.
• Kill Bill – Volume One
  • I lost my copy of Kill Bill Vol 1 a while back, and
• New Headphones
  • I just really don’t like the ones I’ve got, but I’m not really sure what I want.
• Strawberry everything!
  • Unyuu~

The best things in life aren’t things

• A clean house
  • nothing quite like a clean house, I’d like to get rid of a bunch of the crud I’ve hung onto for far too long
• The day off
  • totally got this one covered
• Do at least one thing I’ve been putting off
  • sew my pockets, send in the PS3 to get fixed, cancel old credit cards, etc
• Get help dying my hair
  • my roots are an absolute disgrace
• More blog posts
  • from myself and from… the team?

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Technically I had way more interesting dreams over the weekend, and there was much more to the dream from which this exceprt is from, but dreaming a conversation with David Bowie, however cursory, is fucking sweet and I felt I should share.

I was walking through a corridor and came through a door to a mostly darkened outdoor walkway, similar in description to the kind at a first floor motel. Sidewalk, roof from the balcony above, intermittant lights, open on the left side with supporting columns, and doors every so often in the wall to the right.

A man was slowly shifting his way down this walkway, reading as he went. I recognized him as David Bowie (circa The Hunger, I’d say – which I watched for the first time fairly recently). The book he was reading – despite the fact that it was honestly too dark to read – was something by Hermann Hesse. I started to press on, going through a metal door with a large window, but doubled back, jittery and excited and embarassed.

“What book is that?” He told me (I don’t remember now). “Mm.. Hesse is great, I loved Siddhartha,” I stammered as quickly as I could, “but I never did get through Steppenwolf.” The nerves were jangling for sure! This was David fucking Bowie I was admitting my literary ignorance to after all! The conversation went on a little further, then I think I woke up briefly.

I guess it isn’t necessarily that exciting in the description, but it was so vivid that I couldn’t help but grin like an idiot when I woke up. Maybe I should take this as a sign to listen to Ziggy Stardust and try to finish Steppenwolf? Or maybe take a crack at Magister Ludi (which is what I THINK he might have been reading).

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Hi friends!

It’s 1am on New Year’s Day for your (mostly) faithful author, gentle readers.

It snowed, no one called, my hair underwent a dramatic re-tealing, I had some wild nightmares, and I’ve got a few ideas in mind for the New Year and the blog!

My New Year’s List (so far)

• Start a magickal journal
• Dream record more
• Diet journal (see also Just Bento January Bento Challenge)
• Organize collections (books, films, dust bunnies, etc.)
• Purge the unnecessary (knickknacks, old clothes, stuff I don’t need in general)
• Yoga (i.e. stretching routine, meditative relaxation time, etc)
• Use organizational tools to support good habits
• Get into the makeup routine
• Extend aggressive budgeting rules to food, clothes, vice and miscellaneous spending.

And some older goals I set for myself that still need doing (updated comments in parenthesis):

• Wake up early enough in the morning to do what I want to do, not just what I have to do.
• Eat breakfast, plan for lunch (see bento challenge above, too)
• Drink once a week or less. (already getting there)
• Find a phystical activity that I will stick to. (the yoga thing I hope)
• Cut coffee intake. (less of an issue than it was when I wrote that)
• Recognize and learn to manage my triggers to unhealthy actions. (ties in with restructuring my diet habits and various vices)
• Read more (doing better on that!)
• Blog more (no comment)
• Develop a schedule for bill payment (BOOM! done on that one. heck yeah!)
• Stay motivated to make lunches and dinners. (seriously, the food thing. gotta stay on it.)
• Find out what smells weird in the fridge!! (an admittedly recurring issue.)
• Save up for “splurge stuff”. (ties in with that budgeting of non-bill items.)
• Go through my closet, find different “target weight” outfits and put them somewhere obvious. (probably not an easy thing to do since my weight has effected my wardrobe in strange ways. the idea here is to motivate myself every day to do the right things.)
• Do more organizational tasks, cleaning, making lists, STICKING to lists. (can’t argue with that.)

What do you want to do in 2009? Share your list (or link to your list) in the comments!

Note: The diet and magickal journals may be completely seperate from RKNet, or at least run in an area seperate from the main blog, for those who simply aren’t interested. I am also investigating my theme options to see if a more magazine-like style might be a good way to provide you, gentle readers, with a more approachable and fun RKNet for 2009 and beyond. If you have suggestions for the site, by all means comment or write me! I love outside perspective and all criticism is helpful even if it’s not strictly “positive”.

I want to thank everyone for reading, for commenting, for subscribing to the feed, and for generally being awesome. I hope this coming arbitrary Gregorian time period is as fun, as enlightening, as painless, and as unpredictable as possible.

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Those who are already subscribed to the (feedburner) RSS feed may have noticed a particularly large link dump post, brimful of esoteric whatnots and occult herbal do-dads.

Those who aren’t, I’d like to direct your attention to the great big purple box in the upper right hand corner. Exclusive to the feed is my del.icio.us activity in daily digest posts. “But why do I want to know what you do on the internet?” you might be asking yourself. A valid question indeed, but bear in mind the original purpose of “blogging” as described by the guy credited with inventing the blog is to share links to things one likes or wants to share.

The items from Saturday’s link dump post all share a common tag: wcghm.

This tag stands for White Coagulate of Greater Homunculi Matter. Not really. It stands for Weiser Concise Guide to Herbal Magick. Judith Hawkins-Tillirson provides an easy to grasp initiation to the study of herbal correspondences to planetary archetypes and the Qabbalah as set up through (Uncle Al) Crowley’s 777 and related works with a goal of improving one’s magickal practices through the use of plants.

Those already intimately familiar with 777 may find this slightly redundant, but for beginners or the generally curious it is a terrific reference. I picked it up at my local Barnes & Noble for about 12$ and it was more than worth every penny. Hawkins-Tillirson provides more than just a condensed understanding of the herbal information available in 777, she cites many different sources and at times provides differing interpretations from that classic magickal guide.

The wcghm del.icio.us tag provides to you nearly all the web-based references cited in the book. You can get the inside scoop on stuff like this by subscribing to the RKNet feed, or you can go add me to your del.icio.us network and add your del.icio.us network feed to your reader of choice. You can do that by going to your “Network” page in del.icio.us – delicious.com/network/yourusername – and scrolling down to the bottom of the page, there will be a link labeled “RSS feed for these Bookmarks” which will give you your custom network-specific feed.

Bonus: If you’re an Amazon Prime member (you can always do the free month trial!) you can get it for $11 with no shipping. There are also some used (and overstock I guess?) copies out there for between 3$-7$ if you’re curious but low on pocket money. And of course, there’s always your local library. As Judith mentions herself in the book, do not underestimate the valuable service that interlibrary loaning provides!

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