« October 2007 | Main | December 2007 »

November 30, 2007

Kids Say The Darndest Things!

In the Teaching Seminar we've been having a discussion all semester about student writing, and we've also been talking about gender. (The first is pretty obvious in a seminar teaching teachers how to teach composition, the second is due to a wickedly problematic set of sample papers on gender and performativity with which I've burdened the students this semester.*)

Recently, an op-ed column in the student newspaper of the University of Texas (ah, memories) has waded into the turbulent waters of sex, gender, and performativity. But not in the subtle, insightful way you might hope. Oh, no.

Meet Ryan Haecker. Ryan's a history major in his third year. He had this blinding flash of insight to share with the world:

The nature of sexual attractiveness in women is objective, immutable and incontrovertible because it is directly related to the constant and unchanging physiology of men and women. What men find attractive in women is fixed because the physiology of humanity has been relatively unchanged. In this way, the ideal form of femininity is also unchangeable and without regard for cultural context or time period. What men find attractive in women - the form of a true lady - is objectively identifiable, just as it was in the time of Nebuchadnezzar. In short, femininity is sexy, and sexy is timeless and universal.

Apparently, the history major has never heard of a bustle. Victorian babies got back like no rap guys' girlfriends ever did!

Haecker continues:

In advocating the wearing of dresses, I must distinguish between the flowing elegant dresses of tradition and the more degenerate and immodest dresses of our present culture. The miniskirt, a dress of sorts that doesn't extend below the knees, is both lacking in modesty and elegance. Elegance is essential to femininity, and the lack thereof implies a sort of masculinization. Modesty is essential to feminine virtue, and the lack thereof implies a state of whorification. Immodest, inelegant dresses constitute a degeneration and androgynization of true dresses.

The androgynous masculinization of the modern woman, through the donning of pants, suits, uncovered shoulders and unveiled hair, has in a sense led to the slow whorification of ladyhood. In discarding feminine dress, women seem to have symbolically discarded femininity and modesty (the virtues of women) in favor of sexual virility, promiscuity and immodesty (the vices of men). The ideal form of a true lady is a constant, immutable aspect of humanity, and this strange new development can only represent a bizarre aberration of a perverse and ignoble culture.

You should read the whole thing. It's choice. I am particularly fond of Haecker's neologism "whorification."

As one should expect, there are excellent responses from bloggers TBogg and Pam Spaulding.

The newspaper's site seems to be experiencing some difficulties, as I can't post the link that will let you click through to read all of the comments on this column now. Sigh.

Sometimes I miss UT, the place where I began my college career. Most of the time, though... I really don't.

* The sample papers are wrestling with a core feminist idea: the idea that all gender is performative. That is, that our actions, every action we perform constitutes our gender. It's not an act we put on, but what we do while we're doing the things that make up our lives, that constitutes our gender. Thus, our genders are not essential parts of us that have always been. (This is a big part of the feminist differentiation between gender and sex.) Anyway, it's a complex theory that goes against much of what we're raised to believe about ourselves and the world. Not surprisingly, the sample papers struggle with it.

Posted by reparent at 5:35 PM | Comments (1)

November 29, 2007

Visualize Whirled Peas

Today's post is all about visualization.

First up, we've got Garry Trudeau's Doonesbury visualizing (i.e., making visual) the recent phenomenon of the "Barack Obama is a Muslim" e-mails:

(Click on the link or on the cell to go to the full comic strip. The thread continues for several more strips, so hit the "Next" button.)

This visualization, of course, correctly identifies these e-mails as desperate attempts to smear a candidate. We expect as much from our political cartoonists. The Washington Post? Eh, not so much. AJ Rossmiller at AmericaBlog and Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo call the WaPo on its pathetic performance.

Our next visualization is a real brain-bender. BoingBoing points us to the wall-sized chart of Irene Pereyra and Tom Klinkowstein showing "A Day in the Life of a Network Designer's Smart Things, or A Day In a Designer's Networked Smart Things, 2030." The idea here is that ubiquitous computing and wearable computers will mesh by 2030, providing us with an uninterrupted flow of data and processing all day long. It's wild and incredibly detailed. As Anthony Townsend notes: "t seems also to be a potential inspiration for user interfaces to the vast amounts of personal data and media we'll throw off in the future." Cool stuff. Click on the link or on the image to download the full pdf file and scroll around it. The key to all of the future-terms is on the far right-hand side.

And finally, one last bit of visualization goodness (and naughtiness)! Artist Maurico Ricardo starts by drawing people's private bits, and then, magically, transforms them into perfectly harmless (ha!) cartoons. With some of the drawings, it becomes very difficult to see the original randy line-drawings. Enjoy!

Posted by reparent at 3:56 PM | Comments (2)

November 28, 2007

Dragon Claw Fire Horde Strike!!!

You may have read something, somewhere, about a "writers strike." And you may be suffering now, as your humble blogger and The Spouse are suffering, from Daily Show-withdrawal and Colbert Reportlessness.

Well, here are a few videos to explain what's going on, and why you -- yes, you! -- should support the writers Dragon Claw Fire Horde strike. (And be sure to watch the last video. It's awesome.

Here's a good primer explaining what's at stake and why the writers... excuse me, the Dragon Claw Fire Horde are striking:

Here's Not The Daily Show reporting on the situation:

And here's Not The Colbert Report opining furiously:

And finally, here's one of my favorite YouTube series, Ask A Ninja. Apparently, someone Asked a Ninja about the strike. Watch and learn, grasshopper:

Posted by reparent at 6:15 PM | Comments (0)

November 27, 2007

I, For One, Welcome Our New...

John Aravosis of AmericaBlog points us to two fascinating articles, one about what appears to be a giant hole in space, and one that argues that the giant hole is actually another universe infringing upon our own.

Click on the image to get the caption which explains what this terrifying thing actually is.

So I would just like to say, now, while I still can, the following very important message. And I hope that our neighbors in the next universe can read this.

I, for one, welcome our new alternate universe overlords.

Let's face it. Aliens aren't pretty.

And let's also face it, we're a mess down here. Any intelligence that can make it through the universe-collision-point could seriously kick our asses.

So, as Kent Brockman famously pronounced, I, for one, welcome our new alternate universe overlords.

And to help you adjust to the new reality, here's a fabulous conversation from John Rogers, and a great video to a really cool Jonathan Coulter song:

Peace out, my soon-to-be-enslaved-protected friends.

Posted by reparent at 7:15 PM | Comments (0)

November 26, 2007

About the Kindle

The first day back to work after a week off is always going to be rough. Today was no exception.

Remember that driving test comic I linked to a while back, because sometimes life just keeps throwing you curve balls? Here's today's metaphorical web comic version of a similar phenomenon, courtesy of the always-phenomenal xkcd:

(Hint: click on the link or on the image to see the rest of the comic.)

I've been meaning to write about Amazon.com's latest thing: the Kindle "wireless reading device" for a while now, which means that everyone you should be reading has already written about it. C'est la vie. You're here, so you're stuck with my ideas. I'll try to be brief.

Colin Brooke announced his intention to blog about the Kindle with this observation: "Kindle rhymes with swindle."

He then followed-up with a thoughtful examination of why he won't be buying one. You should read his post, it's excellent.

To all of that (especially the storage program -- 200 books is all you can ever have on the device at one time -- and adding more means you have delete the ones you already have and paid for? Get real!) here's my list of reasons why I won't be buying a first-generation Kindle:

• It's ugly
• It won't let me play with books the way I want and need to play with them

That's it. It's simple.

Matt Kirschenbaum lays down the law on the online discourse surrounding the Kindle: "On most of the blogs that I read the overwhelming reaction to Amazon’s new Kindle has been snark, ennui, and carping about the DRM. [...] Sigh. Aren’t us smart kids allowed to get even a little excited about tech anymore?"

So rather than carp on the negative, here's my list of the features that the e-book reader that I would buy possesses:

• It would be attractive (I won't apologize for my finely-tuned aesthetic sensibilities)
• It would hold at least 100 books at a time*
• The books it would read would be storable off the device when not on the device
• It would have no problem displaying embedded images and video
• It would have a headphone jack, and would be able to play embedded audio
• It would give me the capability to annotate books through highlighting and text notes*
• It would connect wirelessly to the internet to access new/different books*
• It would connect via Bluetooth (or some other wireless mode) to my computer to upload/download/swap books from my hard drive
• It would feature a screen that's easy on my strained eyes*
• It would be lighter and smaller than a hardcover book*
• It would give me the ability to insert hyperlinked notes into one book about another

And that's really about all there is to it. All of the starred items are already features of the Kindle. For this device to be useful (and not merely a toy) to me, it would have to include these features. The good news is that these features are all possible today. The bad news is that there's really no industry incentive to do this. Yet.

Sigh.

And I think there's an important distinction to be made between harping on the DRM issue (that the Kindle restricts you to 200 e-books at any given time, which cannot be transferred to another device for storage, or otherwise retained once you've exceeded your 200-book limit -- I mean, who has more than 200 books, anyway? Right Mr. Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com, the world's "biggest bookstore"?) and thinking through the issues of how we actually use books. That's the premise of Brooke's blog post, and it's at the heart of my list of features I want and need in an e-book reader. Yes, DRM is evil and horrible and nasty on principle. But it's also a deal-breaker when its implementation on a book reader breaks my relationship with books.

But goodness - If I could digitize my library and annotate and cross-reference and mark up my books in all the ways I do now, and if I could carry that library around with me in a nifty-looking lozenge of literariness... hell yeah! Sign me up. That would be new technology the smart kids should feel good about getting all excited for. Right now, however, the Kindle is just another way to carry around a novel I'm not going to care about. Or write about. Or think about, really. And as a junior faculty member, I don't really have the time or money for those. So, no Kindle for me.

Posted by reparent at 6:33 PM | Comments (2)

November 25, 2007

Wrong and Right

In our complex, postmodern world, it often seems as if questions of wrong and right are beyond our ability to adjudicate. After all, as the New York Times Magazine reports today on a group of young earth geologists who got together in Ohio:

this was a gathering of elites, with an impressive wall of diplomas among them (Harvard, U.C.L.A., the Universities of Virginia, Washington and Rhode Island). They had spent years studying the geologic timetable, but they remained nevertheless deeply committed to a different version of history.

Hey. These folks have advanced degrees from elite schools. And they are convinced that the earth (literally "the earth" -- both the planet and the rocks in the ground we walk on) is only about 8,000 years old, and that everyone else in the scientific community is wrong. I mean, everyone knows that carbon lies.

So, what are we to make of the story of Megan Meier, who was mean to a schoolmate on a MySpace page, and who was then driven to suicide by that girl's parents? Jonathan Turley has an op-ed in the LA Times that does a good job of covering the details of the story.

We all know that cyber-bullying is wrong. And we all know that cyber-stalking and predation is wrong. But what about when the bully isn't an age-mate, and isn't even a pedophile or some other form of online sexual predator? What do we do when the cyber-fiends involved are >helicopter parents?

Turley writes that "Tina and Ron Meier were told that they had no clear legal recourse -- either criminal or civil. It is not a crime to be cruel and immature." Because, really, creating an online persona with the sole purpose of sexually enticing a girl into liking "you" enough that she'll be devastated (perhaps suicidally so, as was the case) when you dump her horrifically, is just about my dictionary definition of "immaturity."

But the badness isn't over yet. When the news story broke, the media refused to publish the names of Lori and Curt Drew, the parents who caused Megan Meier's suicide:

The local newspaper refused to publish the name of the family responsible for the e-mails out of consideration, it said, for their young daughter. Other news outlets, such as Fox and CNN, followed suit, running stories that also withheld the names. In other words, simply because they had a child, the alleged perpetrators were given the benefit of anonymity.

Turley puts the implications of this rather succintly: "The Drews' daughter was certainly dealt a bad hand by her parents. However, the media puts itself on a slippery slope when it starts to protect accused wrongdoers on behalf of their progeny, offering a free pass for alleged predators who procreate."

And that's just bad, folks. Really, really bad. It's terrible that this happened, and it's terrible that there is no recourse in situations like this, and it is terrible that it was bloggers who had to do the research to reveal to the world who was responsible for this traveshamockery.

And then there are things that are wrong, but they're right at the same time. Like cute, mentally-challenged dogs. They're not right in the head, but they're right with me:

Thanks to Scott for posting this video. One day, I am sure, the evil that is cyberbullying, and the stupidity that is young-earth creationism, and the menace that is the rear-left leg, will be vanquished. I long for that day.

Posted by reparent at 6:52 PM | Comments (0)

November 24, 2007

Briefly Noted: Cool &/Or Provocative

The Spouse and I saw The Mist a few days ago, and it was really good. We heartily recommend it. It's got a surprising amount of suspense, rather than just heaping on the gore.

And it has a moment, pretty early on, that I think I get now that we live in Vermont. Don't worry, this won't spoil anything. (This blog has a strict no spoilers policy.) The film takes place in Maine, which isn't that different from Vermont. Maine is, however, the whitest state in the U.S. Yes, Vermonters, there is a whiter state than ours.

Anyway, Andre Braugher plays a hot-shot attorney from New York who vacations at his Maine home (as you do). We're told in the film that he could have a seat "on the bench" one day. Well, early on in the film, Andre decides that the white folks (and especially the white locals -- which is redundant) are trying to pull a fast one on the black out-of-towner (and which is worse should be a subject of much debate) and he leads a group of "his people" (the 5 other black people trapped in the store) outside.

I'm not going to say anything about what happens. But I do want to mention this point because of its interesting racial implications.

We might assume that this is a racist plot point -- the black folks are too stupid to stay inside where it's safer. However...

Is Braugher paranoid? Being black in the whitest state in the country has got to be a bizarre experience.

And being an outsider, regardless of your skin color, is a bizarre experience in New England. My mother spent part of her childhood in Massachusetts, and she always told me that the Mass. folks were the most intolerant, closed group of people in the country. On the social ladder, that may be true. But I wonder about it in general, especially up here in the north country.

And let's face it -- going for help rather than staying in the store just because there's a heavy fog makes sense.

The Spouse and I were both impressed with the psychological and sociological depth of the film. (When was the last time you said that about a horror film?) This is an intriguing moment in the film for me, and one that I read differently now that I live here in Vermont.

Also, you probably read about the giant sea scorpion they found that was nine feet long. Here's a graphic from the CNN article:

I've said it before and I'll say it again: insects and arachnids are just plain evil. Yes, we know that gravity and physics prevent these monstrosities from getting this big on land. But give them a little buoyancy... EVIL!!!!

And finally, a brief return to my thoughts on movies/film/video online. I was reading John Rogers' blog Kung Fu Monkey, and I came across this post, which is intriguing for many reasons. But the one I want to mention here is his use of the word "prosumer" to describe high-quality but affordable digital video cameras.

I mention this because of the double-nature of the word. As Wikipedia points out, the word is a back-formation meaning either/both producer/consumer and professional/consumer. It is, of course, also a play on the Pro/Con dyad. This is great, as it really gets to the heart of the video online phenomenon: the consumers are also producers, and are increasingly able to become professionals. Sweet.

And there's a new branding effort going on to reclaim the much-maligned term "progressive" that makes some really nice use of the pro/con dyad. Here's one of the commercials in this effort:

You can watch the others here.

Posted by reparent at 5:52 PM | Comments (0)

November 23, 2007

Simulations Greetings, This Holiday Season

I'm a little thankfulness-ed out. So, let's take a break and look at what's going on in the world.

I like simulations, I like alien invasions, and I like thought-experiments. I also like thinking and talking about teaching and about pedagogy.

Which would make one think that I'd really, really dig Robert Farley's "Independence Day" infrastructure simulation project.

(When the movie came out, The Spouse and I were living in Washington D.C. Every time the preview hit this moment, the audience cheered. Every single time.)

Please click the link and read Farley's post. It's a fascinating idea.

So, to sum up (for those of you who refuse, even when I ask nicely, to click through and read the post), Farley is asking his students in the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce at the University of Kentucky to think through the logistical and political problems of rebuilding a functioning democratic state after a catastrophic event. In this case, he's using the alien invasion from the movie Independence Day as his template for the "catastrophic event." I'm okay with that.

But the premises that Farley and his class have worked out appear highly suspect to me. And to many of his commenters, it seems. As Farley explains, he and his students developed the premises for their simulation through "repeated viewings of Independence Day." From their premises list:

• "The actual targets of destruction would probably take into account commercial and military importance in addition to raw population."
• "We assumed that the attack took place on July 2, 2007, in order to ease various narrative problems. Of course, this means that the United States is deeply involved in Iraq during the attack; Baghdad almost certainly would have been destroyed by an alien ship."
• "The attack resulted in the destruction of the 30 largest American urban centers, assuming that a ship can destroy a city every three hours, that the aliens allocated 3 ships to North America, and that only three targets each in Mexico and Canada were destroyed."

Now, basing your thought experiment on a movie premise sounds rational and interesting to me.

Basing it on the movie's plot points is, at best, a missed opportunity.

Shouldn't a group of academics (and graduate students are, at the very least, academics in training) be able to come up with a "better" attack plan than the special-effects folks at ILM? Shouldn't that be part of the exercise? If students are to really think through the issues and problems surrounding infrastructure, shouldn't they be charged with developing a really smart attack plan that does as much tactical damage to that infrastructure as possible, and then to think through the problems of rebuilding from that?

After all, as we have learned from Iraq, shock and awe does not equal instant and complete victory. It may, however, equal a big box office take.

I understand this this is not the "big" simulation project for the students, which happens in the spring. However, the premise seems to have enough potential to warrant an expansion of the project to really take advantage of all of the opportunities here. It may, even, lead to competition. I could imagine dividing the class into two groups: aliens and humans. The aliens' task is to develop an attack plan from which the humans would be unable to recoup (given reasonable constraints: aliens have x ships with y destructive capability which they can use for z time; humans have n time to rebuild to a functioning national, or possibly first world global democratic baseline). The constraints could come from the film or not. Either way, that's a project that's not only sexy, it's also maximally educational. And fun.

Posted by reparent at 6:50 PM | Comments (0)

November 22, 2007

Thankfulness Week - Thanksgiving Day!

It's the big day -- Thanksgiving! (If you're in the U.S., that is. If you're Canadian, Thanksgiving was a while ago, and you're bored of the whole thing by now. Sorry.)

So, what I am thankful for today? PEOPLE! But not just any people. Remember, I'm not too fond of people. No, today I'm talking about very special people. I'm talking about you.

I am thankful that I have The Spouse in my life. He may not know the difference between Blu-Ray, HD-DVD, and DVD, but he knows and loves me. (And he'll buy me the DVDs I want on whatever format I very clearly specify for him.) We're in our second decade together, and life is pretty darn good with The Spouse.

I am thankful for our new friends in Vermont. Vermont is, by far, the smallest place either of us has ever lived. It's also got a strong xenophobic streak. (The local paper still refers to people as "native Vermonters," and letters to the editor frequently include the magical incantation: "As a sixth-generation Vermonter..." No joke.) But we've made friends here, and I'm thankful for all of you/them. (I'm not sure that many of them/you read this blog, but if they/you are reading this, they/you rock.

I am thankful for the wee community that exists on and connected-to this blog. That means all of you reading (and I know that there are many of you) this post -- I'm thankful for you. And for those of you who comment regularly, especially my super-bestest-commenter-pals-ever, Coeurlion and Liam, I am thankful that you take the time and have the guts to respond to the stuff I write about here.

And in a related note, I'm thankful for the Northern Vermont blog community. Before I arrived, I got tipped to N Todd's blog Dohiri Mir, which got me hooked on his podcast, which tipped me off to the now sadly-defunct Friday Coffeeblogging podcast of Bill, Flameape, N Todd, and sometimes Cathy. Cathy interviewed me for 7 Days shortly after I arrived, and made fun of the fact that I correctly used the word "slacks" in a complete sentence. And since then, my colleague Philip created a super-popular political blog. But my point is that the blog scene in Vermont is big enough that there's always something to read (and you should read all of these blogs -- seriously), but small enough that you can know some of these people. And I'm thankful for that.

(And hey, Bill, Flameape, N Todd, and Cathy -- if you want to start the Friday coffeeblogging thing back up, I'm all for it. I think it would be awesome.)

I'm thankful for The Spouse's family, which is incredibly welcoming and supportive of us. It's almost like they're... family. Oh, wait. They are family. Anyway, I'm thankful that they're a part of our lives.

I'm thankful for my family, and for the fact that we regularly communicate. It wasn't always thus, and so I'm thankful for the progress we've made.

And finally, I'm thankful for our kitty family, sisters Samantha and Sabrina, who are entering (as gracefully as their rounded contours will allow) their golden years with spunk and personality. Samantha's got epilepsy and irritable bowel syndrome, and Sabrina has arythmic cardiac arrhythmia -- seriously, even her irregular heart beats are irregular. But they're both stable and happy and plump and they love us. Okay, they tolerate us. But that's a lot coming from cat people.

Here's Sabrina looking, as usual, very serious:

And here's Samantha, looking (not exactly as usual) like a vulture:

Anyway, Happy Thanksgiving all. I hope you all have as much to be happily thankful for as I do.

UPDATE: The Spouse reminds me that Sabrina Cat has asthma, as well as an irregular heartbeat. It's true. Our cats have weird, "cats-don't-usually-get-these-conditions" conditions. They're unique!

Posted by reparent at 7:03 PM | Comments (3)

November 21, 2007

Thankfulness Week - Day 3

For this hump-day edition of Thankfulness Week posts, I thought I'd send some love to a group of people who don't, traditionally, get a lot of humpy goodness. (At least, not with other people.) I speak, my friends, of nerds.

First, there was the Nerd Test, a silly web quiz that tested one's nerdiness. I took the test, and scored pretty darn nerdy.

But then Nerd Test 2.0 came along, promising even more nerdy goodness. And even more categories in which to scientifically (ha!) plot one's nerdiness. And so I took the test:

I'm thankful, today, for nerds. And for silly web quizzes. And for silly web quizzes about nerdiness, because they feed my Cool Nerd God ego. And there's nothing wrong with that.

So, my friends, how nerdy are you?

Posted by reparent at 11:09 AM | Comments (3)

November 20, 2007

Thankfulness Week - Day 2

Today, I am thankful for SNOW! South Burlington had its first noticeable snow of the season last night and today, and now the wee forest behind our house looks like this:

One of the best things about living in Vermont (as opposed to, say, Texas), is that it snows here (a lot, as opposed to practically never with any accumulation), and it's cold in the wintertime (as it should be, but probably won't be for very much longer, thank you global climate change), and you get to wear sweaters (which are pretty and that's enough reason to like them). That was technically three things, but they're all great and important. In Texas... not so much with the great things. Right now (4:30pm Central time) it's 79 degrees where my parents live, and it feels like 80. No thank you!

So, what (meteorological or otherwise) are you thankful for today?

Posted by reparent at 5:16 PM | Comments (1)

November 19, 2007

Thankfulness Week Begins!

Hey, it's the first day of Thanksgiving Vacation! In the past, UVM followed the traditional Thursday-and-Friday-off model of Thanksgiving breaking. Then, after the faculty rioted, burned down the administration building, and detonated a suitcase-sized nuclear device in the office of the Chair of the Board of Trustees, the university decided to face facts. Here's the month of November, with the old days-off marked in a lovely and soothing periwinkle:

Now here's the month of November, with the actual days most students would take off marked in a more alarming shade of pumpkin:

As you can see, the students decided that they were very thankful, indeed, and needed more time to adequately consider, express, and celebrate all of that thankfulness.

So, the University decided to give everyone the whole week of Thanksgiving off. Of course, students still check out early. (Some of them very early, indeed.) But now it's a little more fair for everyone.

To begin the week of thankfulness, I'm going to start with something I am thankful for: Sharable media. Without the video-sharing sites, without Flikr, without I Can Has Cheezburger's Lolcat Builder, the world would be a much sadder, plainer, less interesting place.

And speaking of sad, plain, and uninteresting, here's a new form of sharable media I just came across -- sharable and embed-able PowerPoint slideshow viewers! Slideshare.net does for PowerPoint what YouTube did for self-indulgent video blogs! But that's not why I used "sad, plain, and uninteresting" as the segue here. On LifeHacker I came across this bright little ray of light in a dark, dark world of bad PowerPoint presentations. Alexei Kapterev is here to tell you all about "Death by PowerPoint (and how to fight it)," and thank the Lords of Kobol he is!

As an English Professor, I don't actually have to sit through that many bad PowerPoint presentations at work. (Another thing for which I am thankful!) But I see them practically every day. The English Department surrounds one of the premier meeting/presentation venues on campus, and the hallway outside my office has four large windows that look down into this large, stained-glass-bedecked room. And what do I see? PowerPoint. Almost always. And what's on the slides? Bad stuff. And what are the presenters doing? Reading from the slides. I shudder.

(I should file a hostile work environment complaint. Proximal exposure to that much horribleness can't be good for my health or my productivity.)

Anyway, watch the slideshow. There's no sound. There doesn't need to be. I especially enjoyed the Microsoft Vista Launch PowerPoint slide. Ouch!

Posted by reparent at 6:01 PM | Comments (1)

November 18, 2007

Thinking About Video Online, some samples

This past Wednesday, I posted about a series of online videos by "Betty Munson," and started thinking out loud about videos online. I'll be continuing along that train of thought, and this post, (a repost from the Digital Narratives blog, will give us a lot of examples to consider as we think through the issues surrounding and arising from video online.

To set the stage, the Digital Narrative students had just announced to me and to each other what their second major project would be, and in what format. I was surprised to see that sooooo many of them chose to make videos. The post below provided them with a little bit of background on highly-regarded (or at least highly-watched) videos, and where to host them, and then a whole truckload of interesting videos and video-making collectives online. Enjoy.

Click the link below to see the post.

First, a few useful links.

Viral Video Chart tracks the number of times a particular video is posted to a blog, aggregates those numbers, and then creates a list of the week's most often-posted videos. It's a handy way to see what's getting play across the blogosophere.

YouTube is the granddaddy of all video sites (not chronologically, but definitely with regard to the sheer volume of crap it's got stored in its house). Here's video on YouTube from Smosh, which I'm posting because of their excellent use of freeze-frame in video to avoid having to deal with stunt effects. It's cheap and effective:

Nerve is an edgier, more sex-obsessed (but usually not NSFW) site with tons of videos. There are a number of series on the site, ranging from dramatic to comic to documentaries. The documentary series Boys and Girls is particularly interesting, as it straddles a line between traditional documentary and all of the satires on documentary format. Here's an episode from Boys and Girls, chosen in honor of last week's National Coming Out Day:

Google Video used to compete with YouTube, but then Google bought YouTube in the celebrated/reviled GooTube acquisition, and so now no one knows why Google keeps the old, DRMed, less-user-friendly Google Video around. On the plus side, because it is Google, you can search all of the video sites at once.

Yahoo Video... heck. Who even know Yahoo had a video site. Well, they do.

And on to the videos.

P0ykpac describes themselves as "a Brooklyn-based comedy troupe consisting of Jonny Gillette, Ryan Hall, Ryan Hunter, Taige Jensen, Jennifer Lyon, and Maggie Ross." CLick the link above to see all their videos. Highly recommended is their "This is P0ykpac Live" video, in which two of the members talk to their viewers, and the widely posted "Hipster Olympics." If you're a gamer, you should also check out their "tribute" to "Mario: Game Over."

Mr. Deity is, as you might have guessed from the title, a satire of religion. But it's sweet, really. And extremely funny. Check it out, and then be sure to watch the promos for the second season. Note that the "show" has "seasons." This has major implications for television, which has seen its viewership continue to decline in recent years...

Kelly is a force of nature. Her latest feature video is "Let Me Borrow That Top," but many view "Shoes" as her crowning achievement. They're wrong, of course. "You Can't Text Message Breakup" beats them all. And now Kelly is on the Vh-1 show "I Hate My 30s." Watch and see why:

Barats & Bereta are a comedy duo with a large number of videos online. You can use the link above to see all their films, but this one is my favorite. If you've got at least one sibling, it might become yours, too:

And here are more worthwhile videos.

Ready Set Bumbo is a trilogy of stop-motion films featuring, um... a baby, a pomerian, a foam-seat-thing, and assorted clones and other babies-in-foam-seat-thingies. It's hard to describe, really.

It turns out there are a lot of comedy collectives out there releasing videos online. And there are a lot of sites that gather together all of these videos for your enjoyment.

Funny or Die is like a YouTube devoted to comedy. It was through Funny or Die that I found the following videos.

"Switching to a Secure Frequency" is a great example of tight writing combined with minimal, easy-to-create effects to produce a really clever little video:

Calculus is another really odd group making little nuggets of comedy neurotoxin. I'm especially intrigued by their decision to put all of the dialogue on screen. It's like a moveable A Softer World. Very cool. Check out all of the Calculus "topics" at the link above, and watch their latest for a taste of their dementia:

And finally, something really interesting and not-comedy-oriented. A group of five impoverished Belgian filmmakers decide to make a sci-fi movie. After each episode airs, they'll read the comments posted by viewers, and direct the action according to what the viewers say. It seems to be a pretty cool approach, but it's too early yet to really judge. Watch the first two episodes here, and click on the link above to go to their website:

That should give all of you a whole lot to think about as you work on Narrative 2.

Posted by reparent at 4:17 PM | Comments (1)

November 17, 2007

Singing Saturday: The Sequel

This week's Singing Saturday comes all the way from the year 1938! The Slacktivist, Fred Clark, spotted a video of Sister Rosetta Tharpe performing "Up Above My Head" and felt the need to pass it on.

After I watched it, I was convinced, too. This is some amazing stuff.

Fred notes the guitar solo -- Sister Rosetta rocked hard, and she rocked hard waaaaaaaaay ahead of her time. Just awesome.

When I saw the video, I was immediately reminded of one of the iTunes free weekly downloads from a month or so ago: The Noisettes' song "Sister Rosetta (Catch the Spirit)." I think it's a lot of fun, even if it is full of very British slang. (You can read the lyrics here.)

Enjoy. And thank you, Sister Rosetta, for helping us all to catch the spirit on this swinging Singing Saturday. (I just wish that the choir behind her would have come in on one of the verses! Think about how incredible that would have been!)

Posted by reparent at 6:05 PM | Comments (0)

November 16, 2007

Geography Week...

This week was Geography Week (also Geography Awareness Week, according to some fliers) on campus. And so this post is devoted to geography, and to The Spouse, who loves maps with a passion that knows no bounds.

While reading Joe.My.God. I came across this map, which isn't really funny. It's too accurate to be funny. See for yourself:

The map comes from a blog called Strange Maps, which does indeed feature nothing but strange maps. While I was scrolling through the recent posts, I came across this one:

This map is of particular interest, because The Spouse and I will be spending some time in London this spring. I do hope we won't be surrounded by losers.

Posted by reparent at 6:35 PM | Comments (0)

November 15, 2007

Memories of the Future of Technology

Way back when in April of 1985, Apple released the Apple IIc. In May of that year, I received one for my birthday (with an Apple StyleWriter II, I think -- the dang thing was a 5-ton dot matrix behemoth, but it printed papers for me for years), and became the first kid on my block to have a real computer. (I know, I'm a snob for not counting the Commodore 64 or TRS-80 as real computers, even though I had used both of them before.)

Anyway, it was that computer that set me on the path that has brought me here today. Creepy. But it was a great little machine, and I loved it.

It also had this awesome little button on the top of it that would switch the keyboard from QWERTY to DVORAK. That was confusing, but awesome.

I learned to type between Thanksgiving and Christmas of that year, because my family had purchased the computer on the condition that I would enter my father's patient billing info from his pediatric practice into a database in the computer by Christmas. (Child labor, much?) Well, when Thanksgiving arrived and I hadn't even started on the thousands of records yet, I was informed that there would be hell to pay if the project wasn't completed on time. (Remember, I was also in school at the time...)

So I began to type. Or hunt-and-peck, rather. A lot. And I got pretty good at it. I'm still a pretty fast typist (around 50-60 words per minute), but my "touch-typing" skills suck. They suck hard. I've tried to teach myself to touch type, using books and Mavis Beacon's eponymous typing program. No go.

Then BoingBoing linked to this great little comic about the DVORAK keyboard, and I was intrigued.

I'm incredibly jealous that The Spouse is a wonderful touch typist with blazing fast speeds and no errors, and he doesn't have to look at his hands... but until now I've pretty much just accepted that he's always going to be better than me at typing. But the DVORAK guys say that DVORAK is easier and faster to learn than QWERTY touch typing, and that it's easier for QWERTY people to learn DVORAK than vice versa, and that it cuts down on Carpal-Tunnel and other repetitive stress injuries.

And so the DVORAK layout of my first ever computer keyboard will be making a return in my life next semester. I'm on research leave to get my book finished and bought by a publisher. During this time, I'm going to use an external keyboard (so I can pop the keys off and move them to their new DVORAK homes) and a laptop stand (which will help with my neck and back pain from using a screen that's too low for me), and I'm going to give it a try. It's easy to tell MacOS to use DVORAK. We'll see if the zine guys are telling the truth about how easy it will be to tell RichardOS to use it, too.

Posted by reparent at 6:10 PM | Comments (2)

November 14, 2007

Cruel... but Necessary?

I've been thinking about films and videos online for a while, now. The next few posts are my attempt to put some of these thoughts together in some reasonable order.

First, something juicy to start us off. John Rogers at Kung Fu Monkey turns our attention to these two videos posted to YouTube by Betty Munson. They're sequential, sort of, so watch them in order to get the full effect.

Rogers has this to say about these:

"So who is Betty Munson? Is she real? Or is she an entertainer who's figured out that video entertainment on the web is more like haiku -- short bursts of standalone narrative that can be linked over time? Or is she both, one become the other? Either/or, spiffy."

I agreed with him. I thought the first was interesting, and the second was really, horribly, gratifyingly cool. So I clicked on the video and tracked Betty back to her YouTube profile.

There, I learned that she had posted a third video (which was really her first, but it was the third I had seen:

Now, at this point I was beginning to wonder whether Betty Munson was really Betty Munson, or rather "Betty Munson," a la lonelygirl15. As I watched this clip, I was bothered by the gynecologist. Not because she was a jerk, but because I thought I recognized her. I freeze-framed on her and it became clear to me that she is an actress -- Lisa Zane. I had most recently enjoyed her as Diana, the exiled Roman trying to gain control of rebellious ancient Ireland in the TV series Roar. (The SciFi Channel had aired most of the series' episodes, and The Spouse and I enjoyed watching them many, many months later from the DVR. More info on the show here.)

Going back to Kung Fu Monkey, of course the Hive Mind had beaten me to the punch. First commenter "Sander" outs the videos as part of a fictional narrative work. In this case, it's Cruel But Necessary, a film imdb claims came out in 2005. Here's the plot summary, written by "anon":

Cruel But Necessary is the story of Betty Munson's strange journey of self-discovery and soul-awakening in the traumatic years following the revelation, on videotape, of her husband's infidelity. Her marriage over, struggling to raise her teen-age son alone, Betty becomes driven to discover other secrets that may surround her and so she videotapes every aspect of her life during the gradual disintegration of her comfortable upper middle-class existence. Sometimes used as an eavesdropping device, other times as a confessional, Betty's camera dispassionately records the layers of family and personal dynamics. The film is seen entirely from the viewpoint of Betty's video camera resulting in a "surveillance tape" that is a kind of voyeurism of the absurd.

I can't find a copy of the movie anywhere, and I don't remember it getting a wide release. Here's a blurb from the 2005 Seattle International Film Festival. Maybe it failed to get a distributer.

In any case, why are these clips getting released now? Is it a marketing ploy? A sign of an upcoming sequel to the original movie? Certainly, the "finding yourself by videotaping others" theme isn't new in movies. sex, lies, and videotape (one of my favorites of all time) did it in 1989. The Ethan Hawke version of Hamlet made Hamlet's need to videotape everyone around him one of the film's central modes of characterization in 2000.

But in sex, lies, and videotape there's really no way to distribute the videos James Spader makes. They're private and mostly secret. Things have changed. As we saw in yesterday's post the desire to document one's life (or the expectation that one should document one's life) on sites like Facebook and MySpace (and YouTube and the other video sharing sites), means that not only is nothing really private anymore, but that what used to be considered private is now easily and widely broadcastable.

From the point of the consumer of these videos, it's a huge shift. We don't just watch professionally-made videos anymore. We watch each others, and we frequently enjoy them more than we do the professional stuff out there.

While this is new in respect to video technology, it's not really a new dynamic. In the 18th and 19th centuries, diaries and journals were often published and read widely.

But what's the difference, still thinking about this from the perspective of the viewer/reader of these personal works, between reading Samuel Pepys' diaries, and watching the video blogs of someone like DiGiTiLsOuL?

One of the grad students in the department is starting work on his MA thesis on digital media, and I keep pushing him to address this issue: what's the aura (to use a term from Walter Benjamin in a decidedly, intentionally, not-exact-and-not-really-what-Benjamin-meant sort of way) of video, and how does that compare with print? How do their respective modes convey information, and what is the potential for impact, for affect, with their viewer/readers?

In our composition classes, we teach students how to increase, ideally, their rhetorical authority and their ability to convey their individual voice through the mute medium of print. But are those concepts really even parallel enough to remain applicable when we think about personal videos? Bree's hesitations and fumbles in the lonelygirl15 videos endear her to us and invest us in her narrative, but infelicitous prose and awkwardness often alienate readers.

Much to think about here... and we haven't gotten to the perspective of the producers/composers of these videos!

Posted by reparent at 2:25 PM | Comments (1)

November 13, 2007

Why Don't They Listen to Me?!

I teach classes on digital composition, narrative, textuality, and culture. And in all of these classes, I invariably end up discussing with my students the delights and dangers of the now-textualized and digitally-immortalized world of digital communication.

That is, I tell them that drinking-and-e-mailing can come back to bite you on the butt. And not just at your Senate confirmation hearing or Department of Justice scandal investigation! Posting to your blog or MySpace or Facebook page can actually have an impact on your job interviews. Or your job performance evaluations...

Anywhoooo... meet Kevin Colvin:

Kevin is (was?) an intern at the North American division of the Anglo Irish Bank.

Kevin sent this e-mail to his boss:

I just wanted to let you know that I will not be able to come into work tomorrow. Something came up at home and I had to go to New York this morning for the next couple of days. I apologize for the delayed notice.

And then Kevin's boss had the smart idea to check Kevin's Facebook page. The fabulous picture above is what Kevin found... Valleywag explains it thusly: "freshly posted to Facebook from the Halloween party Colvin apparently missed work to attend."

Kevin's boss replied to Kevin's excuse e-mail thusly: "Thanks for letting us know -- hope everything is okay New York. (cool wand)" and attached the photo... and sent the reply to everyone in the North American branch of the bank.

And now Joe.My.God. and Valleywag and Australia's News.Com.Au and this blog and everyone else in the blogoverse is talking about Kevin and his cool wand and his fabulous glitter eye makeup.

And still, my students roll their eyes when I tell them to be careful about what they post online or IM or e-mail...

Posted by reparent at 7:17 PM | Comments (0)

November 12, 2007

Sometimes the tests feel a little... unfair.

No time for a substantive blog post today. I'm buried under papers to grade, I'll probably have to miss a colleague's poetry reading this afternoon, and there's just no end in sight. (By which I mean I can't imagine making it to Thursday, at which point classes are pretty much over for me because we go on a week-long break for Thanksgiving. I know, I whine too much.)

A quick welcome and shout out to all the new people dropping by the blog... you're all welcome here. Kick off your shoes and make yourself at home. (That's a subtle hint that you should feel free to wander into the kitchen and make me some hot chocolate. And straighten the place up, will ya? We're expecting company!)

I'll leave you with this: a single cell from one of the most brilliant and ... odd ... comics on the web, Nicholas Gurewitch's Perry Bible Fellowship. (Which, as far as I can tell, has nothing to do with the Bible, fellowship, or anything or anyone named Perry. I've chosen this one because it pretty much sums up how I'm feeling today. You think you know what's going on, and you think you know what's expected of you. Then the test takes a decidedly nasty turn...

Click the picture above to see what happens.

Posted by reparent at 2:44 PM | Comments (0)

November 11, 2007

Ask Digital Digressions!

Once again, it's time for ASK DIGITAL DIGRESSIONS, the blog post inspired by your deepest desires (for... you know, information... about this... blog...).

Q: Hey, DD, what's up with the one-pants-leg-cuffed look you're sporting on the Author Photo? Signed, Confused in Cuff-Land

DD Responds: I'm glad you asked that, CiCL. The photo in question was taken by The Spouse during our recent trek to Bonny Old Scotland. While bicycling around the Island of Shapinsay in the Orkneys (which is where an important part of Frankenstein takes place), we stopped to enjoy the North Atlantic and take some pictures. This photo was one of the resulting photo-documents. My pants leg is cuffed to prevent my jeans from catching in the bicycle's chain. Since the chain is only on one side of the bicycle, I only need to cuff one leg to avoid getting mangled by a tragic pants-tastrophe. (Besides, that's one dang sexy calf muscle right there!) So now you know.

Q: I noticed you just added a new category to the blog, "Queer Theories." Obviously, that's a sign that the blog is going to be addressing more queer issues in the future. So... what's the best LGBT blog out there? Signed, Asking For No Particular Reason

DD Responds: Wow, AfNPR. That's a toughie. Personally, I read Center of Gravitas, Scott-O-Rama, Someone in a Tree, and Bloggernista (who I think I new once, far away, and in a not-so-happy long ago time. But I always, always check Joe.My.God. And so should you. Not only is Joe's blog consistently entertaining, it's also profound:

Best, most multi-faceted use of the phrase "We found ourselves on the dance floor" evah.

Q: Which school would win in a steel cage death-match: Ohio State or the University of Virginia? Signed, Betting on the Big 10

DD Responds: And is that your final answer BotB10? I'm sorry, but you lose. A recent study by Ohio State researchers Ohio State sociologist Dana Haynie, and her indentured servant graduate student, Stacy Armour, argued that:

youngsters who lose their virginity earlier than their peers are more likely to become juvenile delinquents. So obvious and well established was the contribution of early sex to later delinquency that the idea was already part of the required curriculum for federal "abstinence only" programs.

Except that they're wrong. Now, researchers at UVA (led by Paige Harden, a doctoral candidate in psychology -- go doctoral candidates!) have shown that "youngsters who have consensual sex in their early-teen or even preteen years are, if anything, less likely to engage in delinquent behavior later on."

Read the whole article for the details on the scientific smack-down. It's juicy behavioral genetics goodness. And it shows that the Cavaliers kick Buckeye butt.

Q: What the heck's up with the nom-de-blogs on this blog? Signed, Coeurlion

DD Responds: I'm glad you asked that, Coeurlion! This blog holds fast to a strict policy of respecting our commenters' (yes, both of you) identities. That means not letting the LOLCat out of the bag, as it were. And, just for the record, this blogger prefers "Chard" as a nom-de-blog, which, however, this blog and its blogger refuses to use.

Q: What's the best show on YouTube? Signed, Wretched 'cuz of the Writer's Strike

DD Responds: Obviously, that would be The Flight of the Conchords, originally airing on HBO, and then running in a much better format on YouTube. Check out:

Or this favorite of The Spouse:

Just watch them all. It's better than what you'll see on TV these days.

Thanks for tuning into another installment of Ask Digital Digressions!

Posted by reparent at 4:40 PM | Comments (1)

November 10, 2007

The Patriots Don't Play...

...and the weekend just sucks.

Sometimes life isn't so good. This is one of those times chez Digital Digressions.

But even when life isn't so good, there are some good blogs out there. So go read them!

Our first good blog comes via frequent commenter and good friend Liam. Cabinet of Wonders is Heather McDougal's collection of all that is wild and wonderful both inside her brain and outside our ken. It rocks, and so does she. And so does this video she linked to:

I may have more to say about this video later. Stay tuned.

Our second noted and notable blog comes via my down-the-hall colleague Justin Henry ad his blog, Green Galoshes. Justin sends us to David Van Horn's blog (whose name I cannot spell). The thing I like best about David's blog isn't all of the computer science and math stuff I cannot understand. It's the way he blends poetry and cultural references in with the computer science and math stuff I cannot understand. See, for instance, here or here or here. Keep up the good math-y comp-sci-y work, David!

(P.S. to Liam and his kick-ass life-partner Ice: thanks for the anniversary present! You guys are awesome!)

Posted by reparent at 10:11 PM | Comments (3)

November 9, 2007

Is That Really Gay?

Tonight's should-be-out-partying-but-instead-I'm-blogging-so-you-don't-have-to blog post is about two recent big gay events: this week's South Park episode, and J.K. Rowling's announcement that Hogwarts Headmaster Albus Dumbledore was actually a big sissy all along.

Let's start with South Park. It's been a while since Trey Parker and Matt Stone really had anything worthwhile to say with their little animated show. Yes, I know "Make Love Not Warcraft" won an Emmy. But the show was middling at best, and the day a subversive, satirical show accepts an Emmy Award is the day it officially announces that it is over.

Woody Hearn's GU Comics does a great job of pointing out the jumped-the-sharkness of yet another South Park episode attempting to skewer a popular video game:

And so we watched this week's episode: "Guitar Queer-o," an oh-so-clever rhyming slam on the popular guitar-simulator game Guitar Hero (and its sequels, Guitar Hero 2 and Guitar Hero 3 -- original, no?). The plot is simple: Stan and Kyle become really good at the game, fame drives them apart, and eventually they reunite to grasp the Holy Grail (allegedly) of Guitar Hero accomplishment: scoring 1,000,000 points in Expert Mode. Which they do in the thrilling conclusion. The game responds not with it's usual "YOU'RE A ROCK STAR!" but with this message:

"CONGRATULATIONS! YOU ARE FAGS!"

I'm going to be generous here and try to interpret what I think Parker and Stone meant by this. The kids today say things are "so gay!" when they mean that things are "so bad!" Therefore, we could translate the end-game message into something along the lines of: "CONGRATULATIONS! SCORING THIS MANY POINTS PROVES YOU HAVE NO LIVES! WINNING SHOWS THAT YOU'RE COMPLETE LOSERS!" Ha-ha. We've never heard that before. And we didn't see the exact same point with the "Warcraft" episode... oh wait. We did.

But please. "You are fags"?

Obviously Parker and Stone are just phoning it in these days. But the rest of the (straight) world sees no problem with this. See here and here and here and here and jeez... it just goes on and on.

This makes me so angry I want to blast someone with a killing curse.

Which reminds me, J.K. Rowling now tells us that Dumbledore was a Friend of Dorothy, as they say. I'd drop a link, but it's Friday, and you've already heard this a billion times.

I've been having interesting discussions with a good friend who is incensed that Rowling would do this. Not because she has a problem with gay literary (or real) characters/people, but because once a book is written, it shouldn't change, she says.

The Promiscuous Reader points our attention to an article in The Dallas Morning News:

Is Dumbledore gay? He is for you, apparently. But unless you said it in the actual books, must he be so for me? Your saying so now makes it harder for me to imagine anything different. Do you really want to limit your fictional world that way? …

For all of those years, until your books were published, the characters and settings were yours to command and control. But then you let them go.

And speaking for all of your happy readers I need to tell you: Now they are ours.

Which leads Promiscuous Reader to conclude that:

“Ours” evidently means “heterosexuals” here – it doesn’t occur to the writer that many of Rowlings’s happy readers are also gay, with opinions of their own on this subject. On Jeffrey Weiss’s planet, a gay character is somehow “limited” – can you imagine him making the same complaint about a heterosexual character?

Now, given my recent conversations with my friend, I'm a little more willing to cut Jeffrey Weiss a little slack. Of course, I grew up in Dallas reading the DMN, and the particularly tone-deaf writings in it are all too familiar to me. Maybe Weiss didn't mean that "we" are the straight majority who now own Rowling's imaginary characters, but it sure as hell sounds that way.

But hey, that's not the worst part. The ever-readable Gay Prof puts the fine point on what's going on here in Rowling-land, and it really doesn't have anything to do with the homophobic reactions of her readers. It has to do with what Rowling did and didn't do:

Now I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, but a gay Dumbledore is not much of an improvement on the same old queer images that we have seen elsewhere in the popular media. Rowling’s outing of Dumbledore hardly destroyed the closet around the fictional character. On the contrary, she only pointed out how tightly those closet doors were sealed.

And that's the real point here. It doesn't matter what Rowling says now. Authors frequently re-visit their creations, sometimes in print (every sequel ever written), sometimes on the stage (Falstaff was dead until audience demand forced Shakespeare to bring him back to life in The Merry Wives of Windsor), and sometimes in conversation, as with Dame Rowling.

Because the real problem here is that the only explicitly (now) gay character in the entire Potterverse was so deeply closeted (and arguably asexual) that only his author could detect it. That's not good for gays. That's not good for understanding.

If I were a different person, I'd call it so gay, but I'm not that person.

It's so straight. And I'm sick and fucking tired of it all.

Posted by reparent at 7:08 PM | Comments (1)

November 8, 2007

Random Thoughts (so tired... must... blog)

Okay, it's the end of week 1 of NaBloPoMo, and I'm exhausted. Which means you're gonna get some random stuff to ponder, puzzle over, and 'preciate. (Hey, I'm tired here. Cut me some slack on the alliteration.)

First up is this Second Life machinima video about some college kids preparing for a time-travel party:

The song comes from a new musical being written, previewed, and re-written by Heidi Heilig and Mike Pettry called, appropriately enough, The Time Travelers Convention. Check out the web page for the musical because you can listen to some of the songs from the musical. It seems really cute. I hope they can make it work. I also hope they'll let other theater groups put on productions of it when it's in a more finalized form. (Check out the musical's blog for reports on what's being tweaked.)

Next, is a related video. Well, okay, it's about time travel, too. But that's really the only connection. I don't need to justify myself to you. (Especially not when we're talking about shirtless guys and Terminator satires.)

Moving on... Busted Tees has a great t-shirt. Mostly, it's great because I was just talking with The Spouse about fantasy football. I explained to him that it's like Dungeons & Dragons for sports geeks.

After explaining that fantasy football let you pick professional football players to be on your "team" and that your "team" then fought against other "teams" in your FF league, and that these fights were decided by the stats of the players on each team... all I could think of was "My Tom Brady equips his Helm of Disintegration and launches Magic Missiles at your defensive line!"*

Which, of course, brings me to my next video clip. This one from Family Guy:

But on a more serious note, BoingBoing Gadgets alerts us to this automotive endeavor -- Fisker Automotive has designed the car below to operate as a plug-in hybrid. "The first vehicles will be delivered at the end of 2009 with a starting price of $80,000." Click through to read more. I want one.

Dean Dad weighs in on the crap that our car companies are churning out these days. It's a great read, but I especially like his conclusion: "Confidential to the Ford Motor Company: Seriously, are you guys even trying anymore?" If more car companies created pieces of art like the Fisker (though a lower price point would be lovely), the US automotive industry wouldn't be in the state it's in now. I mean, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to see the appeal of a tag line / company motto like the one on the Fisker home page: "Fisker Automotive presents Eco-Chic. A new category of automobiles that make sense. Lead the Future with Quantum Drive, a plug-in hybrid featuring premium styling, performance and green technology." Design a freaking car that looks like the Bat-Mobile, performs like an Audi, and sips gas like a Prius. I just don't get it. It's like the auto industry wants to die. Grrrr...

And with that pithy note, I leave you this evening. I need to eat and get some sleep.

A domani**.

* Yes, I know I'm conflating paladins (which class Avatar Of Goodness Tom Brady would, of course, choose) with mages (who fire magic missiles but are pretty darn fragile). Get over it. Did I mention I'm tired?

** That's Eye-talian for "See ya tomorrow."

Posted by reparent at 6:42 PM | Comments (1)

November 7, 2007

Sometimes the Ambiguous... Isn't

I was planning to do a "shout outs" post today, because there are lots of people to shout out. But then I scanned through the Viral Video Chart, as I do, and I came across the latest "Special Comment" from Keith Olbermann.

I was talking with The Spouse about Olbermann the other day, and I noticed that I hadn't seen any of his topical rants in a while. There was a period, a little while ago, when you couldn't swing a dead cat without hitting someone posting an Olbermann video on his or her blog. (And where the hell does that expression come from, anyway? What sort of sickness has to become endemic to make "dead cat swinging" cliche?) Anyway, the Viral Video Chart has a new Olbermann video out... a Guy Fawkes Night video from Keith.

As always, here's my standard "this isn't a political blog" disclaimer. So, before you watch the video, and you should watch the video because Olbermann is very good and completely correct, here are a few things to ponder.

I'm an English professor. I read books and web pages and other things like that, and I try to figure out what's going on in individual works, and what the accumulation of traits, features, themes, character types, linguistic patterns, and what-have-you means culturally and historically. That is, I look for facts that I can state about literary works and/or reading and/or composition. But then I have to go beyond the mere statement of observable fact to form an interpretation of that fact. No one who is rational and who is well-versed with the text under discussion would argue the fact, but interpretations are eminently debatable. Interpretations are also more interesting, and more valuable than statements of fact, because they look for ambiguities in the text, and attempt to craft a plausible, sometimes provocative, reconciliation of the ambiguities.

Here's an example. In the director's cut of the film Blade Runner, Harrison Ford's character, Deckard, daydreams about unicorns. That's a fact. It's also a fact that one of the android-killing police officers creates origami figures which he leaves wherever he's been. That's also a fact. A third fact is that as Deckard returns to his apartment, there's a silver paper unicorn on the ground outside his door. Trying to connect these facts into an interpretation might lead us to conclude that the police officer knows what Deckard daydreams. As we know what artificial memories have been implanted in the androids, we could hypothesize that Deckard is an android, and that the other police officer is letting Deckard know that he knows. Rational, intelligent people can disagree as to the likelihood of this interpretation. And they used to, until the final cut version of the film was released this year. This version makes that interpretation explicit. It makes it a fact.

I'm going the long way here because the Bush Administration is still trying to convince us that something that is a fact is actually an interpretation, and is thus open to disagreement by intelligent, well-intentioned people. They say that the United States engages in waterboarding as part of our enhanced interrogation techniques. Waterboarding simulates drowning. They also say that the United States does not torture people. Therefore, they would have us believe, U.S. waterboarding is a fact, simulated drowning at the hands of Americans is a fact, but the conclusion that simulated drowning is torture is an interpretation of that fact.

This is not interpretation. It is the simple, horrible meaning of words. The question of whether viruses are alive is a serious question, and any answer to that must be qualified, and must also rely at least in part on an interpretation of conflicting data and definitions. Whether strapping a prisoner to a board and pouring water over them until they nearly drown, repeatedly, is torture or not is not a serious question. If we understand the meaning of those words, then we have no choice but to realize that there is no question of interpretation here. There is no controversy caused by conflicting observations and definitions here.

There is only the sad, terrifying fact that the U.S. does torture people. That the President has ordered and continues to order Americans to torture people. That the President's "Justice Department" (paging Mr. Orwell) has worked for years to craft byzantine justifications for the government-approved torture of its prisoners.

No matter how many times they may try to tell you that this is just an "interpretation" (and they will tell you this, and that it is an interpretation motivated not by reason but by partisan political hatred), it is not. It is a fact. It is not interesting. It is not provocative. It is not debatable.

Anyway, here's Keith. He's more eloquent than I am. And he has a platform that allows him to reach many, many more people than I can. I hope he does.

UPDATE: The Spouse adds this fuel to the fire. As if we needed more. :-(

Posted by reparent at 2:28 PM | Comments (1)

November 6, 2007

Reflecting on Advertisements

The Spouse and I watched the Patriots/Colts game on Sunday. We support Tom Brady's team, so the Patriots' win was nice.

But we saw an ad that had me literally laughing out loud. I now share that with you:

And we saw that damn Geico Gecko far too many times. He's really, really, irritating to me, and I've decided that it's the accent. So when I saw this on I Can Has Cheezburger, I also felt the need to share with you:

Finally, we saw the Kate Walsh Cadillac commercial, which reminded me far too literally of one of the biggest punchlines from the Dudley Moore comedy Crazy People: Moore designs a truthful ad campaign for Jaguar cars: "Jaguar- sleek and smart. For men who would like handjobs from beautiful women they hardly know!" Sadly, or comically, or something, the ad works and sales for Jaguars go way, way up.

(I was especially impressed by the close-up on her high heels. Do you know how hard it is to drive aggressively in 3 1/2" heels?)

But then we saw the same ad... only in male. :-)

Click on the image and then scroll down in the Commercials tab to "Turn You On (Martin)." Love that suggestive titling!

See? The world isn't all sadness. Sometimes it's helpful, or funny, or mildly titilating.

But do you think Cadillac's sales would increase if they dropped that silly "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit" tag line for something like "Cadillac -- sleek and smart. For men who would like handjobs from actresses on medical soap operas or vaguely foreign actors!"...

Posted by reparent at 7:47 AM | Comments (0)

November 5, 2007

Tears are Surprisingly Salty

This past weekend, two sad things happened. The Spouse and I saw a student production of The Laramie Project at St. Michael's College which was uneven, but unexpectedly affecting. There wasn't a dry eye in the theater, I think.

And our friends Randy and John lost one of their two boys, Rockie. Rockie was a great big dog with a great big heart (and a great big tail ready to knock over whatever you put down on the table with his exuberant wagging).

There's an animated movie that alleges that all dogs go to heaven, but that doesn't really help to deal with the pain of a suddenly-missing family member. Below is the beautiful message from Randy and John informing us of this sad, unfair news.

Rockie
May 28, 2000 - November 1, 2007

It's impossible to believe that seven and a half years can constitute a lifetime, even for a cute little "beagle" boy dog. Rockie died of complications from emergency surgery. He clung to life for five long days in the hospital, but he just couldn't seem to find his way back to us.

Rocket-mon, yours was a unique and loving soul. You will be sorely missed, not only by your human companions, but perhaps most of all by your brother. Shylo is lost without you.

Here are some of the memories that we will forever cherish:

The way you always made a nest for yourself atop the pile of dirty laundry!
The sloppy smelly kisses you lavished freely and frequently upon us!
The way all the toys and all the bones belonged to you and you alone!
The way you loved and adored and were devoted to one man in particular!
The almost obscene groans of pleasure you'd make at our touch, even when that touch was just an errant foot in the middle of the night!
The evenings in the TV room, when you'd pause from chewing, look up at us, wag your tail and cry out loud and long -- usually at the climax of the show. It was you way of telling us that everything was "right" in your world, and you brought us smiles.

Rockie, you loved well, and were well loved! May that make up a little for the abbreviated lifespan. You will be forever in our hearts, Randy and John.

Posted by reparent at 9:05 AM | Comments (1)

November 4, 2007

Fall Back... In Plain View of Everyone

Welcome to the end of Daylight Savings Time! That event is one of the happiest festivals of the year chez Digital Digressions. "Falling Back" means never having to say you're sorry for sleeping until 7 or 8am, because it's now 6 or 7am, and you suddenly seem like a good, upstanding member of the (early-rising) community.

Ah, the joys of time travel!

Of course, life isn't all champagne brunches in bed here at the hacienda. No, regardless of what temporal witchery we may effect with our digital chronometers, we have an older, primordial force to reckon with.

The cats.

Or, as we like to call them, our fuzzy alarm clocks. See below, for an in-depth and unflinching look at life with felines. I must warn you... you may be shocked by what you see. You may be disturbed. (We sure the hell are, most mornings.)

I don't know what perverse demon-god brought the so-called "Protestant Work Ethic," the phenomenon of the "morning person," and cats desiring ever-earlier sunrise breakfast specials in to existence, and then conflated them into a huge, looming monolith of cultural (and individual) expectation that we should all get the frack up before the sun rises, but that demon-god had dang well better have received a MASSIVE promotion and raise for that one.

Anyway, I was reading the Sunday New York Times ("so much paper, so little news" -this morning's review by The Spouse) and I came across the article on the front page above-the-fold of the Week in Review section, "See Me: Yours for the Peeping." And this was the image that took up almost all of the above-the-fold page:

The article is all about how new buildings are being designed to heighten, not minimize, your exposure to the rest of the world. That is, whereas in earlier, simpler (pre-digital, but we'll get to that in a minute) days, buildings were designed so that you could create a private space for yourself and/or your family. (For instance, memorably, in Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead, both a resort community and a public housing project designed by the Frank Lloyd Wright-esque Howard Roark were built so that each of the units in the resort and tower had no view of the neighboring units, providing the illusion that each unit was it's own space, rather than simply one of many in the development.)

However, in the age of Facebook and web cams, Penelope Green tells us that our architecture is now facilitating our exhibitionism like never before. Architects like Jeremy Fletcher and Alejandra Lillo strive to create "glass-walled condominium towers" that "allow [...] residents to see, and be seen by, passers-by on the street below." But not only can you now flash your neighbors, you can also flash your cohabitants! Green tells us of "peekaboo features within each apartment, like a window between the kitchen and the bedroom, and a bathroom that's a glass cube, allowing residents to expose themselves to their roommates and family members, too."

Mmmmm... sounds tantalizing, doesn't it? I can't wait to use my new glass-cube bathroom! I bet you can't wait for me to use my new glass-cube bathroom, either!

But all of this architectural philosophizing is predicated upon our on-line behavior, which is, admittedly, increasingly exhibitionistic. Why do we text message each other at all hours of the day and night? Why is there no shame in having loud, often personal conversations on mobile phones in public spaces? (The NY Times has an article about the popularity -- and illegality, damnit -- of personal phone jamming devices.) Why should I care that the NaBloPoMo site tells me that I have "No friends on this social network yet"? Do I care? And why do we blog our lives, and keep our MySpace and Facebook pages up-to-the-second?

Which reminds me of a conversation I had with Pat Mardeusz, research librarian extraordinaire at UVM's main library, about exhibitionism on campus. She was leaving campus one evening and she saw a scantily-clad young lady walking down the sidewalk. The car in front of her was filled with scruffily-dressed young men, whose heads all turned in eerie synch to watch her walk by. Pat told me about how angry and protective she felt in that situation. I understood where she was coming from, but I immediately thought about the presumption of public performance that seems to be an inextricable part of youth culture today. They seem to expect that everything they say and do will be out there for others to read/watch/listen to/whatever. And, as the NaBloPoMo "you have no friends" notice points out, the more people who watch you, the more popular and socially powerful you are.

But is it the same in the "real," i.e., non-digital world? Wearing trampy provocative clothing undeniably makes one more noticeable and more noticed, but does the social power of that noticing also translate?

One final thought on this. I was talking about female objectification with the grad seminar a few classes ago (we were discussing an article on visual literacy, visual rhetoric, and the role of subjectivity in visual interpretation). We ended up talking about the respective connotations of images of fully or mostly naked men and women in the media.

In your mind, which more often conveys strength, power, or security, and which conveys weakness, vulnerability, and defenselessness -- undressed men or women?

Which brings me back to the glass bathroom article in the Times. What are we to make of the shirtless guy in this picture? (The Spouse told me he thinks the guy is urinating. I'm not convinced of that, but it's certainly apropos of the article. And, for the record, if that's the case... ewwwwwwww.)

And what would you make of the picture of the building if it were a topless woman facing away from the camera? Does that change the stakes in this discussion of moving our exhibition off-line? Why?

Posted by reparent at 3:06 PM | Comments (1)

November 3, 2007

It's Singing Saturday!

As promised, here's a post. On Saturday! But it's not just any Saturday... it's SINGING SATURDAY!

But first, a few observations.

• A while back, David noted on his blog, Someone In A Tree, that "There is something primal and therapeutic about letting that sound just rumble up through the body and out into the world. No matter how depressed or lonely or negative I'm feeling, if I start to sing it makes me feel better." I used to sing. A lot. I was in choir and the pop vocal group in high school (yes, I was a choir geek), and then I completed almost all of a BFA in Music Education with a vocal concentration. I was a singing fool. But that was a long time ago, and now I really don't sing at all. Not even to myself. I often wonder what it would be like (and what it would sound like if I just cut loose and belted something out. Probably not pretty, at this point. Sigh.
• Big Bear Butt Blogger Karthas (it's a World of Warcraft Druid thing... and you have a filthy mind!) notes that November is NaBloPoMo, or National Blog Posting Month, for the acronymically-challenged. (Yes, it's also NaNoWriMo, but there ain't no way in hell I'm writing a novel this month.) I can, however, try to post a post each day for the rest of November. (The previous November days don't count because I didn't know about NaBloPoMo.) If you're in to that sort of thing, here's my profile on the NaBloPoMo site. I'm not sure I'm going to do anything with it, as I really don't like the social sites (I know, big surprise), but who can tell what the future will bring? Perhaps I will use this site to torment my blogging friends. Yes, Sster, I'm looking at you!
• So here we go!

First up on SINGING SATURDAY is a lovely rendition of the Flame Wreath chant in a light madrigal style. (You don't need to know anything about Flame Wreath to enjoy this, but I'll explain after the clip.) And for those of you who are now considering skipping this because you a) don't know anything about this "flame wreath" thing; or b) are worried that not knowing anything will dampen your enjoyment, I say: Don't be silly! It's Singing Saturday, so watch the clip and enjoy the pretty harmonies!

For those of you who care, here's what's going on in that chant. Flame Wreath is a spell that one of the big monsters in World of Warcraft casts at players when they try to kill him. It creates a wreath of flame around each of the players in range of the monster, and as long as all of the players in the wreath stand perfectly still, it's not much of a problem. However, if anyone moves through the wreath itself (to run to safety or to attack the monster, all of the players in the wreath get some massive hurt put on them. Hence the raid (the group of players raiding the dungeon) blows up. But even not knowing that, it's nice to hear geeky guys doing neat stuff with harmony.

Next up is one of my guilty cinematic and aural pleasures -- Mortal Kombat. Except that it's Singing Saturday, so you know it'll be fun! (Same rule applies -- watch at least the first minute or so of the clip!)

Now, if you're not familiar with the theme from Mortal Kombat, you're in luck. I'm experimenting with embeddable MP3 players on the blog, so here's the original theme for your entertainment and education!

I think what I like best about these two (and yes, I confess that I rarely make it all the way through the DeCadence video (even though their name is quite clever, that's not quite enough to make up for the fact that a'capella songs shine most brightly when they are able to highlight variation, while techno is quite repetitive) is that these are both examples of really surprising examples of the de-technologizing of essentially technological experiences. That is, it takes no mechanical or digital technology at all to sing, but going up against the Shade of Aran's flame wreath in Warcraft's Karazahn Tower is impossible without a whole mess of technology. Same for the Utah Saints' techno tune, which is the theme to a highly special-effects-dependant movie which is itself based on a series of computer video games.

And, of course, even though these are both de-technologized adaptations, they were both captured by digital cameras, encoded for digital playback, and then uploaded to YouTube. That is, you could call both of these clips examples of technology displaying technology capturing de-technologizations depicting technology-based entertainments. Pretty cool for a Singing Saturday, n'est pas?

Posted by reparent at 3:01 PM | Comments (1)