Sumiyaki and narratives

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+narration
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+Close to the Machine is a nice book from Ellen Ulman.
+It talks about people working with software. 
+It's narrative. 

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+narrative, manga
+
+Sumiyaki Monogatari is a manga from Shigeyasu Takeno based on the book Sumiyaki Nikki, by Toshikatsu Ue.
+Sumiyaki Monogatari -> Tales of a Charcoal Burner (2005)
+Sumiyaki Nikki -> Diary of a Charcoal Burner (1988)
+
+It is a story about a young charchoal burner that works alone in the rural area of the Wakayama prefecture, Japan in the late fifties.
+The atmosphere of the story is really charming: it mixes the knowledge about a craft to the folklore of rural Japan. 
+There are here two differents takes on daily life: one about the work and one about the world. 
+Two different grips on reality.
+A firm hold on logs, branches and wood, and slippery dreams with yokai and spirits.
+The charchoal burner job is one of fatigue and extreme efforts, yet the story doesn't feel frustrated or miserable. 
+
+(ok this is not to romanticize physical work, the good ol' times, Japan, or this lonely boy starring at the fire in the kiln almost burning his face off)
+
+The point is: it reminds me of the struggle of programming.
+And it makes me wonder: there would ever be this kind of poetry around software development? 
+Every craft is surrounded by stories, narratives and myths.
+What narrations surround software?
+Matrix and the green source code floating around? OK, but that is fantasy.
+The series with the hacker jailbreaking crimes? E va be, again fantasy. 
+Black Mirror? Horror and dystopia. 
+What is wrong with software?
+
+Close to the Machine, by Ellen Ullman is a nice reference here: she writes about struggles of software and struggles of daily life. 
+The book is exaclty like the tales of the charchoal burner: it mixes situated knowledge and days in the life of a (female!) software developer, with the folklore and myths haunting the Silicon Valley across the eighties / nineties. Probably this folklore called neoliberalism is to blame, when there are so few poetic accounts of software development. Probably is also not so easy. 
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