Timelapse video

A really beautiful and well done timelapse video by Terje Sorgjerd created at El Tiede - the highest mountain in Spain.

The Mountain from Terje Sorgjerd on Vimeo.

Video games: in the beginning

My first encounter with video games was on the atari. Pac man and donkey kong and pong. My brothers and sisters would all gather around the TV and watch the simplest games for hours - Pong - two sticks and a bouncing ball. Then came the original nintendo. I couldn't wait to get home from school and play Mario Brothers. Nintendo marked the day my skin started to grow pale. It was only temporary though, because the console was on loan from my brother's friend. Finally, when the super nintendo came out, my frugal mom bought us the original nintendo console and we played mario brothers and zelda until our fingers ached and developed callouses.

Thistles by Ted Hughes

Amazon Cloud Player

Sounds kind of cool. Boo to you iTunes.

Television Today

I liked Dan's response to segmentation. I think cable should offer a pay per channel for a small fee, rather than having to pay 59.99 for a thousand channels plus a landline (which nobody uses anymore) and basic internet. What's the deal with the warring cable company's? The only time my doorbell rings, which I should know better now than to answer, a cable rep is standing on the doorstep trying to sell me something. It's gotten out of control.  
From the discussion board, it sounds like most people are watching less and less network television. This is due, not only to internet TV, but I think it probably is related to all the other entertainment gadgets out there. ipads, smartphones, enhanced video gaming, texting or facebook during the commercials.. etc..

Giving Literature Virtual Life

Another article in the NYTimes hits closely home to English for New Media. They're calling it digital humanities and using things like 3D space to thoroughly study Shakespeare. The article then goes on to talk about an undergraduate student getting a digital senior thesis accepted:

"Jen Rajchel, one of the conference organizers, is the first undergraduate at Bryn Mawr to have a digital senior thesis accepted by the English department: a Web site and archive on the American poet Marianne Moore, who attended the college nearly a century ago."

check it out:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/22/books/digital-humanities-boots-up-on-some-campuses.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=homepage&src=me

NYTimes online charging readers

The NY Times online will begin charging their most loyal readers beginning March 28. Will it tank or will it be prosperous?

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/18/business/media/18times.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=homepage


"For years, newspaper companies have been offering Web access free in hope that the online advertising market will cover their costs. But while online advertising has grown, it has not increased quickly enough to make up for the decline in traditional print advertising. Many publications have been looking at ways to make online consumers pay as they do for print.

“This is practically a do-or-die year,” said Ken Doctor, an analyst who studies the economics of the newspaper business. “The financial pressures on newspapers is steady or increasing. They’re in an industry that is still receding. Newspapers are trying to pay down their debt, but they have fewer resources to do it.”

At the movies

As a child it was a special treat to go see a film at the theater. For most of my adult life catching a flick at the cinema was the norm and a common occurrence - it's what we did for entertainment on the weekends. At this point in my life, I'm back to it being a special event again and rarely make it to the theater - instead preferring to watch movies in the comfort of my home. With HDTV's, blu-ray and surround sound, it's almost the same experience.

The coolest theater experiences happened in Los Angeles. We made it a point to go to films that had Q&A's with the directors/actors. This was a weekly thing at our neighborhood cinema and riding our bikes over, we had the chance to see Francis Ford Coppola talk about his film "Tetro" along with the actors that starred in the movie. We saw David Bowie's son - Duncan Jones - and Sam Rockwell talk about their film "Moon." We saw/listened to "The Hurt Locker" stars discuss the film. We watched 2001: Space Odyssey on the big screen and watched countless limited releases - a lot for free admission as long as you get there early enough. In most cinemas in LA, each film was introduced via analog introduction (the person stood at the front of the theater and announced what we were about to see.

English in the Snow

Baby trashes bar

Are puppets considered new media? Maybe not, but this video is so funny! I think I may be procrastinating.

From Sketches to the Big Screen

This probably qualifies as more of an Art for New Media, but Guillermo Del Toro is also a writer so I've decided to post the following video. It features drawings from one of my favorite movies "Pan's Labyrinth." Daniel Zalewski from the New Yorker talks about Del Toro's drawings and writings from his notebook being transformed to 3D on screen.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2011/01/zalewski-guillermo-del-toro.html

Argus Leader Print vs NYTimes online

One article in the Argus Leader talks about an e-cigarette. There's an icon of a video camera with a mouse arrow icon over it telling you to go to argusleader.com to check out the demonstration of how these e-cigarettes work. I am kind of curious to see these in action, and would most likely click on the video if I were reading this article online, but I wouldn't get online after reading this article on paper.

I love the smell and feel of the paper and I romanticize the idea of reading newspapers and books from paper sources, but I find the paper format somewhat cumbersome. From a visual perspective, the online newspaper is laid out neatly on one page with convenient links that with a push of a button will lead you to the article you want to read. The paper format is easier on the eyes - the print on paper is easier to read, but handling it is awkward. Opened up, the paper usually blocks out the light source, and pages are always falling out of it. Also, using your nose to push the paper back at the crease so you can turn the page is not the most sophisticated gesture. The ads are huge in print and smaller online. There are more photos online and news can be up to the minute; the print photos are a bit hazy and the news can never be as current as online.

I feel bad for the struggling newspaper, but I believe it is a dying industry and it will be extinct soon.

Newspapers in my life

I've never been one for reading the newspaper. The first thing that comes to mind when I think of newspapers and my youth is reading the comics in the Sunday paper. I really got interested in reading the paper for the 2008 election and have been reading online ever since. I read the NYTimes daily during this exciting time. Also, checked the Huffington Post daily and a couple of blogs that I can't remember the names of that I'm sure were non partisan. After the first uneventful year in politics, I stopped following them closely because it was too depressing. I continue to read the NYTimes - usually the 10 most popular articles or anything that I see on the front page that may catch my eye. I like the columnists for the times - Maureen Dowd, Gail Collins, Thomas Friedman and Paul Krugman sometimes and Bob Herbert. That's about it for newspapers. I started checking out The New Yorker magazine online after being exposed to it in Creative Writing. I have always wanted to subscribe to the magazine and maybe now I will because I know I'll be in one place for a while.

Catholics confess through iphone app

I came across this article from BBC News looking through Dave Barry's blog. Apparently, the Catholic church is now embracing digital technology. Catholics can now confess their sins to their iphone using an app recently approved by the Catholic church.

Read the full story here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12391129

Underbelly

After getting stuck on the story at dreaming method, I gave up out of frustration and went to another site. I chose "Underbelly" by Christine Wilks from her site crissxross.net.It's made in flash and the main story is about a sculptor being commissioned to create a sculpture at the site of a closed colliery in England and is overlapped with snippets of different voices and computer graphics/drawings.

It begins with a timeline of mining in the UK dating back to the 19th century. Blocks of text appear clockwise around an image of a mine.

The reader then moves the cursor over the blinking flashlights and a video comes up of a woman tapping on a statue talking, "you start with a block and you cut away to reveal the finished form."

You can roll over the different images or text to hear real accounts of women's lives as miners or phrases of poetry. If you move over all, they overlap.

primitive creatures between rocks pressed. bad timing. it's all a matter of timing. smothered. smothered. this passion is prehistoric. let time and pressure fossilize - fuse.

Voice of woman talking about getting beaten, chain tied to belt around waist, pulling cart uphill.

Talk turns to babies and the women's yearning for them.

Then you have to decide the sculpturer's fate by choosing to have a baby, letting it be fate, or not choosing to have a baby by clicking on one of the images below.

You're taken to this wheel of babies.

Then depending on what you choose and how you spin, there are several different outcomes:

Thoughts on Interactive Books

I looked at several different stories on the website DreamingMethods.com. Out of the few that I checked out, the most memorable one was Nighingale's Playground. I think this is because it was the least surreal/random/vague - less stream of consciousness. It was easier to retain my interest longer because there was an actual narrative or story. I appreciate these alternative forms of virtual literature, but believe that user generated stories aren't as good as reading a book. Reading a story, you are gripped by a narrative, a story, a plot and characters, where these are more of a collaborative process with the reader. I think the reader really has to be in the mood for this sort of thing. There's work involved in interactive stories. In this virtual world today, society has become lazy and wants entertainment provided for them as easy as possible.

StopMo ENM

Alice in Motion Land

**Warning** may induce seizures. This advert has the reverse effect it's aiming for I think. It makes me want to pick up a non-threatening, motionless paper bound book. But I still want an iPad.

The Wilderness Downtown

I'm sure a lot of traditional/classical English scholars scoff at the idea of English combining with New Media. But in this world today it's inevitable for everything in our daily lives to be affected by some form of new media. So why not embrace it in such a way that adds some meaning to it? One of my favorite bands - Arcade Fire - created a really cool interactive video/website for "We Used To Wait" off their latest album. It creates a real feeling of nostalgia and you can actually write a letter (to your old self), or make a drawing..

Here is their blurb:

"The Wilderness Downtown is an experimental interactive film using Google Chrome created by Chris Milk in collaboration with Arcade Fire and Google. It was built using HTML5, Google Maps, an integrated drawing tool and it uses multiple browser windows as the user moves around the screen."

Best to watch using Google Chrome browser. The link below is to my husbands and my address in LA. (you can actually see our old black VW jetta sitting in front of our apt!)
...Or you can just go to the site and plug in your own address.

The Wilderness Downtown

Some of the lyrics:

I used to write

I used to write letters

I used to sign my name

I used to sleep at night

Before the flashing lights settled deep in my brain

But by the time we met

The times had already changed

So I never wrote a letter

I never took my true heart

I never wrote it down

So when the lights cut out

I was left standing in the wilderness downtown

Now our lives are changing fast

Hope that something pure can last



It seems strange

How we used to wait for letters to arrive

But what's stranger still

Is how something so small can keep you alive

We used to wait

We used to waste hours just walking around

We used to wait

All those wasted lives in the wilderness downtown

I Miss the Scent of Books

On average, I use my Macbook pro more than any other form of electronic media outlet. A close second is my Kindle. We use the television strictly for watching movies, approximately 1-4 movies a week, maybe some television series thrown in via netflix. I don't like long telephone conversations, so I keep cell phone usage to a minimum. I have a DSLR - Nikon D5000 - and have loads of photos sitting on my external hard drive that desperately want to have something done with them. Another blog perhaps?

I blast the iPod through our surround sound whenever I clean or when I am doing something that doesn't require any form of concentration - basically, when I'm not using any other form of media device - so not very often.

I like quiet while thinking and minimal distractions. I'm not one of those people that can study while listening to music through their earphones with the television on in the background.

I miss listening to NPR in the car during the daily commute. I feel isolated and out of touch with the world. I try to stay current reading NYTimes online, but that goes in spurts.

I miss the smell of books. Otherwise, the convenience and ease of use makes up for that now nostalgic heady fragrance.

Poems for Possible Projects

Hawk Roosting by Ted Hughes

I sit in the top of the wood, my eyes closed.
Inaction, no falsifying dream
Between my hooked head and hooked feet:
Or in sleep rehearse perfect kills and eat.

The convenience of the high trees!
The air's buoyancy and the sun's ray
Are of advantage to me;
And the earth's face upward for my inspection.

My feet are locked upon the rough bark.
It took the whole of Creation
To produce my foot, my each feather:
Now I hold Creation in my foot

Or fly up, and revolve it all slowly -
I kill where I please because it is all mine.
There is no sophistry in my body:
My manners are tearing off heads -

The allotment of death.
For the one path of my flight is direct
Through the bones of the living.
No arguments assert my right:

The sun is behind me.
Nothing has changed since I began.
My eye has permitted no change.
I am going to keep things like this.


Thistles by Ted Hughes

Against the rubber tongues of cows and the hoeing hands of men
Thistles spike the summer air
And crackle open under a blue-black pressure.

Every one a revengeful burst
Of resurrection, a grasphed fistful
Of splintered weapons and Icelandic frost thrust up

From the underground stain of a decayed Viking.
They are like pale hair and the gutturals of dialects.
Every one manages a plume of blood.

Then they grow grey like men.
Mown down, it is a feud. Their sons appear
Stiff with weapons, fighting back over the same ground.


Do not go gentle into that good night by Dylan Thomas

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.