To the mountain if you must, or the burning...
This from "Valerie" whose blog is titled Steblographer. Reproduced without permission.
This week was probably the most stressful week at work- EVER! You see, due to the strange accents of the witnesses and the rapid banter between them and the lawyers on the case, the judge decided to bring in a second stenographer to court. I actually recognized Helen from the breakroom. Often times she'd be getting up from the little rolltop desk we stenographers like to sit at during lunch, listening to white noise on our walkmen, and we would nod and smile in passing. Nevertheless, as the saying goes, 'With two stenographers, keystrokes are no longer silent.' Boy was that the truth. After court adjourned we'd read our transcripts aloud in unison, voices melding in the air between us, but in the moment of discord...
You see, as much as you want to hold on to the memory of the words that were spoken, as you read on and on you can't help but lose yourself in the world of your words on the page. So when we clashed, there was no "well remember he said it like this" - there was no memory of spoken words.
We both knew that- its the stenographer's reality. For the word's sucessful transcription it must pass through us, leaving mark only on the page.
What that meant in this case, however, was that Helen and I were in an uncomfortable position of grappling with each other, of maneuvering together in a moment to moment give and take where one throws one's weight in a certain direction, then responds in another, shifts again, then finally, if one can, position oneself so that you can kind of force it, so that there's no other way, your thing is getting put where it matters. Like I said, uncomfortable. It happened to both of us, both ways.
Anyway, as if that wasn't stressful enough! But after work I had the strangest run-in in front of my house. I mean, Thursday, we stenographer's were steady logging the jargon, the two councilors were barking, in hopes of a plea bargain. And when you read that verbatim, what they're saying to persuade them, you realize exactly how I played it. Because (as a stenographer) I come with truth, whole truth and nothing but, because the truth hurts just as much as fucking with Live Will.
Live Will, (or Willie-boy as I remember him) is a guy that's always lived on my block. On Thursday (on top of everything else!) he got in my face and started accusing me of all these strange things. From what I could get of it, he calls himself Live Will because live performance, the spoken word, is the truest expression for him. Recording his voice is ok, I think he compared it to being a eunuch in the royal palace of hip-hop, but to be stenographatized, as he put it, was "straight decapitation." He said, "listen, you will NEVER string me up in no liner notes." I said 'ok Will.'
He took the carton of milk out of my grocery bag and drank the whole thing right in front of me, its surplus coursing down his neck in feathery rivulets, then walked away saying "I prove skill with refills from now until plagerizers like you get they flows distilled." Sorry Will, but that's what you said, so I wrote it.
This week was probably the most stressful week at work- EVER! You see, due to the strange accents of the witnesses and the rapid banter between them and the lawyers on the case, the judge decided to bring in a second stenographer to court. I actually recognized Helen from the breakroom. Often times she'd be getting up from the little rolltop desk we stenographers like to sit at during lunch, listening to white noise on our walkmen, and we would nod and smile in passing. Nevertheless, as the saying goes, 'With two stenographers, keystrokes are no longer silent.' Boy was that the truth. After court adjourned we'd read our transcripts aloud in unison, voices melding in the air between us, but in the moment of discord...
You see, as much as you want to hold on to the memory of the words that were spoken, as you read on and on you can't help but lose yourself in the world of your words on the page. So when we clashed, there was no "well remember he said it like this" - there was no memory of spoken words.
We both knew that- its the stenographer's reality. For the word's sucessful transcription it must pass through us, leaving mark only on the page.
What that meant in this case, however, was that Helen and I were in an uncomfortable position of grappling with each other, of maneuvering together in a moment to moment give and take where one throws one's weight in a certain direction, then responds in another, shifts again, then finally, if one can, position oneself so that you can kind of force it, so that there's no other way, your thing is getting put where it matters. Like I said, uncomfortable. It happened to both of us, both ways.
Anyway, as if that wasn't stressful enough! But after work I had the strangest run-in in front of my house. I mean, Thursday, we stenographer's were steady logging the jargon, the two councilors were barking, in hopes of a plea bargain. And when you read that verbatim, what they're saying to persuade them, you realize exactly how I played it. Because (as a stenographer) I come with truth, whole truth and nothing but, because the truth hurts just as much as fucking with Live Will.
Live Will, (or Willie-boy as I remember him) is a guy that's always lived on my block. On Thursday (on top of everything else!) he got in my face and started accusing me of all these strange things. From what I could get of it, he calls himself Live Will because live performance, the spoken word, is the truest expression for him. Recording his voice is ok, I think he compared it to being a eunuch in the royal palace of hip-hop, but to be stenographatized, as he put it, was "straight decapitation." He said, "listen, you will NEVER string me up in no liner notes." I said 'ok Will.'
He took the carton of milk out of my grocery bag and drank the whole thing right in front of me, its surplus coursing down his neck in feathery rivulets, then walked away saying "I prove skill with refills from now until plagerizers like you get they flows distilled." Sorry Will, but that's what you said, so I wrote it.
posted by M.N.V.L. Local 1430 at 11:32 AM
<< Home