vanderwal.net

Once in A Lifetime with Sleeping Beauties

A few months back I received an email that was not the usual sort.

The email asked for clarification on how to pronounce my name. Hmm… So, I read a little further. It was from the producer for an audio book recording of an unreleased book by David Byrne called Sleeping Beauties: Why Good Ideas Go Dormant and How They Wake Up. The email continued that the author was recording the audiobook and wanted to the pronunciation to be correct.

My first thought was, this couldn’t be David Byrne of the Talking Heads and the so many more wonderful contributions that entertained me and kicked off insightful considerations of the world and art that have been sprinkled through my life. I searched for the unreleased book and found it. It has an October 6th release date and it is from the only David Byrne I know of.

Say Your Name

My first thought was, “How do I share the pronunciation?” I looked up pronunciation guides and how to use them, which turned into a hot mess quickly. I reached out to a few friends to ask how to create a pronunciation guide of one’s own name. The responses pointed to the same and similar variety of non-aligned options. I turned to the best option I knew, just record myself saying my name. I did that quickly and made a quick edit of the file. I replied to the email request with a small audio file attached and asking if that would work, and it did perfectly.

This is a Road to Where?

Now the big question sat for months. Why was David Byrne using my name in his book? For months I’ve been deeply curious. I pre-ordered the hardback book, even though I’m really also interested in hearing David Byrne say my name, in whatever context it was used.

In the last week or so I looked at the Sleeping Beauties’ table of contents that were online and couldn’t sort out where my name would surface. Nor could I sort out the context for its use.

Sparking Innovative Understandings

Today I picked up my copy of the book and opened the box. I flipped to the book’s index (that is a habit I had for a good stretch of years, but now passed) to find my name. I found my name and it is listed on two contiguous pages. It was in the “Conclusion: Liberating the Imagination” section and is the focus of the subsection, “What You Call It Helps You Find It”, which was folksonomy (folksonomy marked posts) related. David Byrne’s write-up explained it incredibly well, and he called out my explanations. His wrap-up for the this sub-section had me insanely pleased as he really understands it:

Interestingly, although folksonomy tagging is nonhierarchical, a common shared set of terms and language has emerged despite the personal and subjective origin of the tags. Surprisingly, it’s not chaotic; there is an emergent self-organizing structure, though at the same time, as Vander Wal claims, it encourages exploration and serendipity – perfect for finding sleeping beauties!

Just prior to this conveyed understanding of not only the term folksonomy, but the deep river of understanding and possibilities it brings. David Byrne in the section goes through his own use of personal understandings and terms for what he calls things and calls when he shares with others. But, the breadth of his understanding is not only shown, but he has lived it, as he conveyed.

Now I’m deeply looking forward to reading the rest of the Sleeping Beauties book.