Fractal Artist Seeks Linguine

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What do I mean by a Linguine?

The name Linguine comes from the Pixar movie "Ratatouille."

This movie starred a rat, Remy, who had a couple of rare gifts: a nose and a creative culinary vision. Remy couldn't exploit these in a profitable way, though, until he teamed up with an intermediary who could speak for him, organize the venture, and act in his defense when necessary.

As someone with Asperger's Syndrome, I see life through either a microscope or a telescope. I am practically blind to the present. I have two right brains and a very weak left brain.
However, people on the autistic spectrum seem to occasionally receive compensatory abilities, and I possess those analogous to Remy's heightened sensory abilities and his creative vision. With it, I write fantasy and create fractal art. I've shown my art at Comic-Con, Worldcon, and the World Fantasy Convention, among others.

In the movie, the Linguine character did not possess the nose, the vision, basic cooking skills, great leadership ability, or a long resume. He had to be taught the basics of the business he was entering.
Instead, he thought on his feet--added perspective first, then went along with crazy ideas, and was loyal (for the most part) even in the face of the ridiculous. He was the interface between the talent and the rigorous, mundane world of deadlines and prejudices.

Linguine didn’t look like much, and he wasn’t considered extraordinary, but Remy would not have been able to do anything extraordinary without Linguine.

I need a Linguine-type assistant.

I want someone functioning as a left brain without being a superego. I need someone to function as “how” rather than “why.” Someone to herd cats.

I do not need a critical voice, nor do I need someone to second-guess my creative decisions and try to talk me out of them. Yet the assistant needs to provide both common sense and presence of mind.

This is not a job posting, by the way. I'm collecting data points and would like to know if this idea resonates with anyone; whether they get an "Ah! I need that too!" or if someone can let me know if a program like this already exists.

Most of the career information I'm seeing on sites like this is geared toward giving Aspies job seeking skills. I'm not interested in interviewing, or even in appearing normal.

People seem to like what I do. But as I said, I currently don't have the presence of mind to connect the dots to make it work.

p.s.:
I'm going to visit the Bethesda Autism Society to ask for help with this idea. I want it to be clear and applicable to more Aspies than just myself. Therefore I would welcome any help refining it.

Do you know of any organisations near you that can provide that sort of service? There's one in my city which artists who are just starting up can go for management/ admin/ PR advice and services. It's actually free, gets government sponsorship (don't know how long that will last in this economic climate), to aid small business with their start up. Would you consider something like that?

Greetings, Mummy of Peanut, and thanks for such a fast answer.

The organization here in the States is called the SBDC, or Small Business Development Center.

And no, that's absolutely not what I am looking for.

What I posted was only about 1/20th of the business plan I'm working on. It concerns a transmedia venture. I know more about my business than any person not in transmedia itself. I have access to all the information I need to implement this plan once it's created.

What I lack is the resource I need specifically because I'm an Aspie. I've had to try again and again to explain this to SBDC people, to grant reviewers, to people who have gotten Master's degrees in entrepreneurship, and so forth. More often than not I get that deer-in-headlights look as a response.

The closest I come to an "aha!" from my audience is when I use the movie "Ratatouille" as an example.
The movie itself is an allegory of why Pixar itself has been so successful, but it works phenomenally well if I cast the rat, Remy, as an Aspie.

Remy is not human, Remy has trouble communicating with humans and being understood by them, the venture contains a much higher risk for Remy than it would for, say, Collette, the woman chef--I could go on describing how well this movie fits, but the point is that I must make sure that this Linguine idea is absolutely crystal clear as a communication vehicle, and I must be able to prove that I'm not the only one in the world who needs a resource like this.

Eastern Michigan University has a pilot program for autistic college students which might provide some basis for a paradigm, but the flaw there is that the mentor is not emotionally vested in the product. This would be a long-term investment for the Linguine-person involved.

And I have just come to the above realizations as a result of struggling to answer your question, so thank you again.

To reiterate the question: Does anybody feel they would benefit from a Linguine-type associate? And what programs (besides the Eastern Michigan University one) already exist? Ones that are specifically geared toward Aspie support services.

Thank you again, very much.

I've now come across this brochure from the AANE:

http://www.aane.org/docs/LifeMAP_Brochure.pdf

which AANE Coaching Brochure

which delineates a few tasks that Aspie coaches perform, in left-brain bullet-point format.

I realize that putting "Must be Awesome and Love Robomancy Steampunk" will not impress any neurotypical NIH grant exec in existence, so I'm collecting ideas via these types of lists. This one enumerates services such as (salient points below):

o Organizing the home or office
o Creating systems to manage finances
o Organizing appointments and calendar
o Hygiene/healthcare management
o Communication (conversational, phone, email, etc.)
o Managing workload and assignments
o Identifying and building on personal strengths

and

"LifeMAP is available as a fee for service program. Free and sliding scale services are available to those who qualify."


And here's a services list and pricing brochure from Eastern Michigan University's Autism Collaborative:

http://www.emich.edu/acc/docs/pricing_schedule.pdf


Aha. Concrete, bureaucracy-admin-approved details.

Does anybody know of any more lists or information such as these?

I'm considering that a linguine might be more of a HID (Human Interface Device) than an organizer.

A Life Coach prepares the Aspie to better take on the outside world, and to plan for and organize the interaction with it. That's more a design function, isn't it?

This Interface specialist would really serve as a more realtime, versatile interpreter, both to dynamically buffer sensory input (noise, annoying people, arcane requests which could be easily misinterpreted) and to dynamically screen output (messages I send which could confuse others, request for clarification on behalf of the current audience).

Sort of reminds me of that scene in "Airplane" where the actress playing the prim mother in "Leave it to Beaver" says "I speak Jive," and then serves as a translator.

Aha. I think I'm getting somewhere.

Now how to translate that to the neurotypical world without yet having a Linguine....

@ op
i would love to see your work are you on Deviant?

can you post a link to your work?

I LOVE fractals

You know that linguine is also a type of pasta? Which might lead people to burst out laughing at your quest.

Linguine means "tongue" in Italian.

Temple Grandin has called this particular job description a "translator."

And I get paid money to write things that make people laugh, most recently in Australian dollars.

And thank you for responding!

My DevArt account is cnicita.deviantart.com. I'm way behind in posting art there though. Bad artist. I'm hoping that getting a Linguine, life coach, whip snapper, manager, handler, or whatever I end up with will help me stay more up to date.

Thanks again.

Also, Tequila, it saddens me to know that the world treats Aspies and ASD people such that my comments evoke such a response as "people will laugh at you." In the words of Dr. Richard Feynman:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman

"What do you care what other people think?"

http://www.amazon.com/What-Care-Other-P ... 0393320928

By far, I get the most satisfaction in my life from the things that for forty years I have been laughed at for doing.

Life rocks. Especially mine.

Its not far fetched.... I have a guy I've relied on before... and he doesn't shower, he doesn't have a job, and he works for cigarettes. But his mannerisms are pleasing to others....

I believe a "translator" (I've often thought this), could basically be any NT, despite their position in society.

Yes, you're right. And I've depended on translators just as you've described, for years.

However, since I'm going to try to make a living from my art I have to be businesslike, and my assistant will have to be trained and paid. I now encounter stress and deadlines and lawsuits and taxes and I can't be acting like "mommy in the kitchen," to quote yet another good line from Ratatouille.

To this end, I need a specific job description to add to a large business plan I'm writing, and I have to do this with my diminished executive function ability.



And attempting to put this into words, even using my strange, Tamarian-type speech patterns, has helped to identify and structure what I'm going to need to say.

An agent? I actually didn't know you were asking a question, I simply provided feedback.

Trust me, in the current publishing climate you do NOT want to go blindly getting an agent right now. At least I don't.