[sudo-discuss] Telling Oakland stories in Sudo space: my own part 1 of (?)

[Marina Kukso]

hi all, not sure how this discussion is relevant to sudo room?


On Wed, Nov 20, 2013 at 9:51 PM, Sonja Trauss <sonja.trauss at gmail.com>wrote:

> It's passed him by, or he said, oh yeah, 'a disagreement,' but didn't
> think it was remarkable?
>
> I'm trying to understand which "it passed him by" you mean, I imagine you
> must mean that you both obviously saw the same thing - people playing pool,
> a disagreement, a resolution, but that you thought it was serious or tense,
> but thought it was unserious and unremarkable. Is that right?
>
> If it is, I don't think it's because you don't know Ebonics you didn't
> understand that. Are you a WASP? More people will get mad at me, but
> cultural heritages are real. Are you infrequently around people that yell a
> lot for no reason?
>
>
>
>
> On Wednesday, November 20, 2013, Pete Forsyth wrote:
>
>> Sonja -- I'm glad my story captured your imagination, but sorry to
>> disappoint! :)
>>
>> Unfortunately I'm not sure how to capture the interesting discussion we
>> had after that -- it was a discussion between good friends, with reference
>> to past conversations and shared experiences and such. I gave him the
>> backstory I provided here (much of which I'd already told him) and we
>> shared our amazement that something so intense could happen while he was
>> paying close attention, and yet completely pass him by. We agreed that the
>> cadence of communication in that community can make it difficult for an
>> outsider to distinguish between mere animated, performance-like, boisterous
>> speech, and actual conflict.
>>
>> I'm sure there will be more stories coming out of this league --
>> hopefully with a grand *victorious* finale in a few months ;)
>>
>> Pete
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Nov 20, 2013 at 12:18 PM, Sonja Trauss <sonja.trauss at gmail.com>wrote:
>>
>> What's the rest of the story -
>> You: "What did you think of that?"
>> Eugene: "of what?"
>> You: ?????
>> What did you say, "the fight"?
>> Then what did he say ?
>>
>>
>> On Tuesday, November 19, 2013, Pete Forsyth wrote:
>>
>> All:
>>
>> In the spirit of Rhodey's recent message,[1] I'd like to share an Oakland
>> vignette of my own, about a pool league I recently joined. But first,
>> here's why:
>>
>> I began to get especially excited about Sudo Room when I started to
>> realize it aspires to be more than just a bunch of computer geeks coming
>> together to hack computery stuff (awesome enough in itself) -- that it also
>> wants to be a community that hacks *life* together. Meeting chefs and
>> filmmakers was the first wave for me, and then I started hearing heatlfelt
>> and inspired talk about stuff like social change and engaging with local
>> government. Yeah!
>>
>> Many of us, though, are new, or newish, to Oakland. And we are people who
>> want to have a positive impact on the world around us. But Oakland is a
>> place with deep history and culture, and on a pretty basic level, it would
>> be...impolite...to come to a party and immediately start trying to change
>> what it is. So the desire to get to KNOW Oakland is one that resonates very
>> strongly with me, as an important first step before contemplating ways to
>> INFLUENCE Oakland. I think sharing stories is a powerful way (among others)
>> to get to know something complex and multifaceted.
>>
>> Anyway, enough of the philosophizing. I want to tell you guys a little
>> bit about the pool league I joined a couple months back.
>>
>> Apparently, there have been several Oakland/East Bay pool leagues over
>> the last 30 years or so (where each team has a home bar, and competes
>> weekly over a scheduled season). Right now, there's only one league (or at
>> least, only one connected with this community). It's coed, it's a 30 week
>> season (we're about 9 weeks in), it's run by a woman who has run an
>> all-women's league but just started this one, and it will culminate in a
>> trip to Reno for all participants. By now, having played against all the
>> other teams, and can say I am truly the only white person in the league;[2]
>> and I think I'm also unique (more or less) in my connection/familiarity
>> with Internet/hacker culture.
>>
>> I've played in a pool league before, but it's been 10 or 15 years. As
>> this league was forming, I heard about it from a number of regulars at my
>> local bar in Emeryville -- the organizer, and a number of people who have
>> ended up on various teams in the league. There was some buzz about it, and
>> I ended up joining a team that plays out of an East Oakland bar.
>>
>> The first couple weeks passed pretty quietly. Weeks 3 and 4, though, got
>> rowdy! Lots of arguments in various games, and of course, there was some
>> inertia to it -- the overall mood became increasingly tense each night. I
>> felt cautious about this -- as a newcomer, I was reluctant to be involved
>> in the arguments -- I was still getting to know the vibe and the people.
>> But that only goes so far. I felt a responsibility to the integrity of the
>> game (I know the rules better than many in the league, who are more
>> familiar with "bar rules" than "league rules"); and moreover, a
>> responsibility to my team. I have to advocate for myself in my own games --
>> that's part of what I showed up to do -- and there are situations where I
>> have to step it up on behalf of my teammates, too. To keep it short, weeks
>> 3 and 4 were were it "got real" for me.
>>
>> In week 5, there was a new twist: my friend Eugene, who's recently been
>> taking photography classes (and who hasn't played pool in a competitive
>> context), had been asking about coming to take some photos, and was finally
>> able to make it to a match. I had run this by the league coordinator and a
>> couple teammates, so I was confident our bases were covered -- but after
>> the hot tempers of the preceding weeks, I was nervous! Were we now in a
>> new, hypercompetitive mode where the slightest detail is going to lead to a
>> shouting match? Is it OK to introduce a new and unfamiliar element to a
>> volatile situation? What kind of effect will it have?
>>
>> Fortunately, overall it was a super mellow night. Both teams seemed
>> relaxed. I found myself lining up laid back blues tracks on the jukebox
>> between my games, and
>>
>>
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