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.