Defining Literacy Today

While reading through my education-related feeds, I came to an interesting post on “The English Blog” written by Jeffery Hill.  He teaches overseas and blogs about learning, writing, and speaking English. I do not deal as often with learners of English as a second language, but his post brought up an interesting point.  His quote from a local radio program got me thinking:

“The ABCs are apparently no longer as easy as 1-2-3. Recent federal studies indicate that the average American teenager’s vocabulary is less than half that of the average teenager in the 1950s.”

This comment made me recount my recent lessons in English literacy through my undergraduate and graduate studies at Missouri State. Naturally, I read the post carefully a few times again and composed a response to outline my thinking:

“I think the valuable question we need to ask ourselves here is, “how important is knowing specific words to literacy?” Does knowing what “abscond” means help people to do business better? Does understanding what “ad hoc” means help you write a better poem or essay? Communication and composition are specific only to the environment that their authors occupy. People learn what they need to in order to accomplish their goals. If teens today know less words than their parents, then is it a crisis or a sign of shift in literacy? Maybe this generation is redifining the word.”

After I posted my reply, I sat back in thought.  Did I really think that a lack of vocabulary represented a shift in literacy or was I simply playing devil’s advocate to this easy-to-accept commentary on the lazy youth and their social media addiction? What research could I find to support my statement?

I turned to E.D. Hirsch Jr. and his best-selling book on cultural literacy in America. In this book, he has lists of words, dates, and phrases that “literate” Americans should know. Do you know the significance of 1066 CE? How about absolute zero or amicus curiae? These are supposed to be common terms that Mr. Hirsch requires of you. Maybe you happen to know when the Battle of Hastings was because you were a history or an English major in college, or because you were on the quizbowl team in high school, but otherwise why should you know it?

Of course, I would tell you that learning about the importance of historical events would enrich your life. If you know that the Normans defeated the English in 1066, then you may come to learn that this military event changed the face of the English language forever. Many of the French words present in our vernacular today were introduced by good ol’ Billy Conqueror via the sword and arrow.

That being said, would you really say to someone who didn’t know the significance of this date, “I’m sorry, but you are illiterate” ? I hope not. What kind of message would that send to people? I think Hirsch has only the best intentions in mind as he writes that you should know what “aeschylus” means. He is saying that you should want to be smarter (and I agree). He says only 2/3 of our society (in America) is truly literate. Is there really a “network of information that all competent readers possess” or is literacy something more than common or shared knowledge?

I think that literacy has more to do with conveying and understanding ideas than with specific words, phrases, or concepts. If you don’t understand covalent bonding or absolute zero, but you can define curricum vitae and synecdohe, are you more or less literate than a person who can do the opposite? It sounds like the first person teaches science and the second English, but I would say neither are illiterate for having very specific gaps in their knowledge.

While it would be wonderful if we could count on every American to be able to discuss the importance stereoisomers in optical science upon pulling out a pair of sunglasses, I don’t think it’s necessary to be considered literate. For most of the third of America that Hirsch sees as illiterate, I would imagine their chief concerns are more to do with basic needs than their intellect.

Hirsch has a lot of great data to back  up his thoughts on literacy, and I agree with a lot of it, but he uses a lot of anecdotal evidence too, like in the introdcution. Ben Stein recalls his experiences with California high school students, claiming that in many years not one has ever been able to tell him the dates of any US war, any of the first ten presidents, or where Chicago is. I find that very hard to swallow. As a teacher in a sub-rural Missouri public high school, I could easily find ten students in five minutes who could answer all three of those things clearly.

There is validity to the arguments though. Students are pump and dumpers when it comes to reading, learning, and testing. Students usually can’t tell you who that World War I started in 1914, or 1917 for the US involvement, because they only chose to remember it for “the test.” It is the challenge of the teacher to help students build knowledge connections so retention of information is  easier. I think Hirsch comes to this point as well, that of making connections. I think we’re starting on opposite ends of the same spectrum though. He gives a determined set of information that people need to digest to be literate–a product to be obtained–while I think the process is where literacy is built.

Design Speaks Directly to the Soul

by Matthew Stublefield

This post is part of an ongoing series of collaborative conversations. See that initial post for a table of contents of all articles in the series.

As Ryan observed, design is more than making something look pretty. It is the first line of assault against your senses, charging in to make room for a deeper truth–for the greater message being communicated through the whole of a piece. Design is the underlying foundation of everything, and much like our own skeletons, it is likewise hidden and sometimes forgotten.

There are two things I understand decently well amongst all the things in the world, and so it is those two upon which I will focus in the context of this series. The first is architecture, with which I will begin because (of the two) I understand it least. The second is writing in general and poetry in specific.

Architectural design is not something with which many Americans (by which I am referring to the residents of the United States of America) are preoccupied. We might admire a fine building and snap a picture while on tour, but it isn’t something we study, stare at, and marvel. Yet architecture is one of the great fascinations of my life, and when I am in a distant city, I spend the vast majority of my time wandering the streets, eyes fixed to the walls, roofs, and doors of all the buildings I can see. I have spent hours lying on the lawn of Westminster Abbey so that I could look upon its vast facade and out across the square at its neighbours. Days beside the river Thames marveling at the wall that skirts the river, or wandering the streets and hills of San Francisco, or the wide sidewalks of Chicago. I derived a great deal of enjoyment from comparing German Switzerland to German Germany and the similarities and differences in how the walls meet the roofs, the materials used, and the arrangement of their towns. Architecture fascinates me in a way similar to the hypnotic stare of a dragon preparing to pounce on a meal.

The USA is very utilitarian in its construction, but once upon a time architecture was not just a pragmatic means of getting a building upright. Rather, it was an art designed to communicate something to the passerby. A non-Christian friend admitted to me once that she began to cry as she entered a cathedral in Europe simply due to its beauty. This is a design done right. This assails our senses, demanding entry to our heart because of its power and majesty.

And it is not unique to architecture. Though you may not admire buildings as I do, I imagine that you can sympathize with and understand what I have written above, because it is a very obvious example of the purpose, power, and presence of design. Less obvious is the placement and depth of a thumb scoop on a MacBook, the resistance and length of a switch on a coffee pot, or the arrangement of words in a poem.

I can communicate an idea to you with a straight-forward statement of fact in a simple, well organized sentence, and in so doing you will understand the words and potentially their implications. Yet such a statement will not touch your heart, nor will it influence your soul, for that is the purview of poetry. There are many who malign the ambiguity and obtuseness of poetry, wishing instead that the writers would be more direct with their intentions, but that directness is not of the greatest design.

There are times when communicating with your head is sufficient, such as at work or when figuring out where to go for lunch. But there are other times when that will not do, when I will need to build a bridge from my heart to yours if you are ever to truly understand what I mean. A simple sentence will not suffice. And it is in these instances that the power of design is made manifest in writing.

A good design not only joins our hearts and souls, but it satisfies something deep within our selves. No, the switch on a coffee pot is not a cathedral or a poem, but you will know it is right. You will flip that switch to turn the coffee pot on and think, “Ah, there we have it. This is good.” A good design is more than just functional, it is beautiful. It was created with love and an attention to detail that surpasses a mere statement and that goes beyond simple pragmatism.

Good design, like our skeletons, holds us up and drives us forward. It is a powerful charge we can only refuse by closing our eyes and ignoring the world.

Designing a Path to Identity

Steve J. Moore

“This is part of a conversational series shared between multiple writers. As each new article is written, they will be displayed on the sites of all participating authors.”

Design begs for authenticity

Today, you hear a lot about the importance of branding, in the online world. Whether you’re selling T-shirts for your band, writing Op-Eds for a periodical, or mocking up websites for photographers, you are aware of the idea of brand control and its potential impact. Business owners need to be sure that the products they put out are consistent with their plans for objectives as a company. It is the same in education; a teacher needs to be consistent in his or her message to the class about his lessons. If the rules appear to change for no reason, then you lose credibility. You lose your audience. Such is the purpose of design, to help you communicate your brand’s message clearly. But how does good design contribute to your objective? Isn’t such a thing as ephemeral as “design” only a subjective screen covering a person’s idea? How does good design help define who you are as a professional?

These are all questions with dangerously simple answers. They are questions specific to expression, that we all think we understand. The truth is, the ideas of design and expression boil your idea, your product, or your company down to one thing: Identity.

Being the good little scholar of literary concepts that I am, I naturally connect this concept which some may see as strictly economic, like “branding,” or rooted in art, like “design,” as a question of narrative importance. Design is all about who you are; it’s all about building, maintaining, and sharing your identity. So design becomes much less murky if you know who you are (or who/what you are representing). That’s simple, right!? Dang, that’s two posts in a row an interrobang could have come in handy. Sure it’s simple. Just open your chest up and look inside. Pop the hood. Crack open the server case. Read your old book-jacket cover. Well, if only life came with instr–resisting the urge to use cliche–if only, people were so simple, so static…

If design is inherently connected to identity, then marketers had better get on the couch and start self-discovering. Building web pages, you hear a lot about optimization through the use of “meta tags” that mark your domain with keywords. Looking at the word  “meta,” (which is really more of a prefix) we find that it means  “in reference to,” “about,” or “from within.” So websites and their designers need to do a little soul searching before their designs are complete. If you don’t understand the “within” for a particular job (web designers), then you most likely won’t be able to meet the needs of your client. Business owners, on the other hand, need to understand themselves before having new design implemented.

What questions can I ask myself related to establishing identity?

What language do I speak?

This is not as simple as it sounds; language is as deep and pervasive as any aspect of our identities. Furthermore, this question goes beyond what geographical tongue you use, but makes you describe who your audience is. Who are you trying to reach? Design, by definition, should fit a pre-determined purpose. Your website should be designed to fit a group or type of person with specific objectives. Maybe you are a blogger yourself and so, in considering design, you can access your own metacognitive habits and thoughts. Considering that I have a lot of readers who are, themselves, bloggers, web designers, and writers, I do my best to casually tailor my posts to fit their lexicons. I have an education blog too; I use different language off-the-cuff there than I would here.

For example, I may very easily dip into the educational “alphabet soup,” as one of my professors called it, and confuse readers if I am not careful. I wouldn’t dare write this sentence here without explanation:

“While NCLB may be considered to drive more action-based WFSGs and PDCs, there is  only correlative data to support this claim.”

Most people in the field of education (or very active parents) would understand that I’m writing about No Child Left Behind, Whole Faculty Study Groups, and Professional Development Communities, but a web designer would be rather perplexed most likely. On the same hand, I wouldn’t want to write this sentence in an education blog post:

“While pervasive in the development world, recursive acronyms like PHP, GNU, and TIP are humorous in ways often not understood by those outside of the field.”

What is your history?

Knowing where you have been is crucial to knowing where you are and where you want to go. So understanding the origins of your ideas is very helpful in forming a dialogue with your audience. If your readers perceive that you have an appropriate level of authority, then it will be much more likely for them to subscribe to your ideas. Being able to express where you are coming from is key to building a base upon which to prop your design (whatever it may be). Consider the classic frame of the Hero’s Journey, as Joseph Campbell describes it:

Is your design heroic?

Inception: the hero’s call to action (expressing the origins of your idea)

Trial by fire: the hero’s challenge (show your work and experience)

Return: the hero finds his/her way home, changed (explain how you are unique)

I have always understood the basic plan for design to be rooted in this information. Maybe it’s your updated business plan, your master’s thesis, or an autobiographical reflection; find useful ways to incorporate this information, and your design will be more authentic for it.

If you’d like to contribute an article to our conversation,  comment here, on RyanBurrell.com or at SilverPenPub.net. We’re also all active on Twitter:

Steve, Ryan, and Matthew.

I Watched the Watchmen.

Steve J. Moore

Starting where Alan Moore left off in his epilogue, I  began writing what became this post directly after coming home from the theater. I am glad that I saw the film on a beautiful Sunday afternoon because my leaving the theater provided a very natural sense of closure to the story, which I’ll get to later. Watchmen is a film whose plot I was only moderately aware of beforehand. Inkhead friends and the internet served as my own watchmen to what I eventually discovered is an incredible and powerful story on screen.

Moore was inspired by George Orwell’s 1984 before he put pen to Watchmen’s plot. While I did purchase the book before seeing the film, I did not have the time to read it entirely. What reading I did do showed me that nearly every scene in Zach Snyder’s film was ingeniously lifted from between the book’s covers. Just like 300 and Sin City, this film is an adaptation of note. NPR’s Kenneth Turan does not agree with me on this. He called the film “pedestrian,” and argues that it was no one’s fault,

“It never should have been turned into a film in the first place.”

Please Kenneth. Don’t tell me that you’re one of those movie critics. That kind of commentary is acid to both the book’s authors and to directors everywhere. I suppose no one was up to the challenge? No human could have done this “landmark” justice in your eyes? This reminds me of something my cousin once said. We were a bit younger and X-Men had just come out. Being the collectors of comic lore that we were, we ran out to see the movie we had been waiting for since our sandbox days. While we both loved it, he had a rather strong opinion about one tiny detail, Storm’s eyes.

He complained that they weren’t white the whole time like hers are in the TV show, comics, and everywhere else.

Please. That’s your problem with it!? (WP won’t print me an interrobang, oh well) My cousin was only half-kidding, but he asserted this several more times, whether joking or not, and it stuck with me. Comic book fans tend to pick, pick, pick at their favorite things (it’s just out of love, I know). I can only hope that’s what Turan was up to when he so unsagaciously scolded Snyder’s work.

What the movie does well is tell a story that could span three seasons in an hour long prime-time spot on TV, in about three hours. Hyperbole aside, when I left I realized I had digested a staggering amount of detailed back story as well as the foregrounded plot. It certainly didn’t tire me as such. Bob Mondello disagrees with me too, but then again… I wasn’t a “rabid” Watchmen fan coming into the theater. I have a healthy appreciation of comics and superheros; but as I said, I had just recently purchased the book, not even reading it before I came. Even my beloved David Edelstein calls the movie “embalmed” due to over-reverence to Moore’s detail. Somehow these critics have suffered some sort of reverse-fanboy effect where the graphic novel’s artful traversing of mediums has left them hanging. I invite you to decide for yourself on this issue.

I feel compelled as a writer and English teacher to comment on the Percy Bysshe Shelley (Husband to Mary W. Shelley, mother of Frankenstein) poem referenced in the movie by its title’s namesake, “Ozymandias.” First, here’s the text of the poem you read in school at some point (most likely).

Ozymandias

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter’d visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp’d on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock’d them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

This poem’s theme is, if I recall correctly from Introduction to Literature, man’s sense of hubris. The statue in Watchmen’s pharaoh-obsessed billionaire’s fortress of solitude (pardon the possessive trainwreck) is more than legs of stone, but bears the same inscription. Maybe that’s what caught Turan, Mondello, and Edelstein off-guard, being weary at this point in the film (from looking on such works) they despaired…

Not I! This poem has always been a favorite of mine. It brings one’s humanity into the conversation. Even the greatest of superheroes in this alternate fiction are human (okay, please ignore the giant naked blue man, he used to be human). They all have faults, mortality, and an emotional attachment to life. The story deals with ultimate questions of life: what is right? How do we know good from evil, and when is evil or wrong necessary to do a larger good? The passage of time is introduced as the great equalizer (neither good nor evil); not even kings and their empires can withstand the hour hand.

This thing all things devours
Birds, beasts, trees, flowers

Gnaws iron, bites steel,
Grinds hard stones to meal,

Slays king, ruins town,
And beats high mountain down!

I won’t ruin any part of the plot for you, but the transitions between light and dark–between good and evil–play a significant role in Watchmen’s deeply literate contemplations. Just as Gollum and Bilbo exchanged their own riddles in the dark, so do characters like Nite Owl and Rorschach go back and forth as close, but estranged, friends in battle against–well, you’ll see just what against. The message of the clock, of the metronymic timeline, and the bloody smiley face all help to mark time to the apocalypse. The iconography of time is at the heart of Watchmen; Dr. Manhattan (also called John) is the son of a watchmaker. His floating Martian fortress appears to be some sort of chronos-driven, gyroscopic monolith. In 1984, at the inception of this story, the Atomic Scientist’s Bulletin, had its symbolic “Doomsday Clock” reading at only 3 minutes to midnight, the closest it had been in thirty years. You can see that today the night a bit younger, but not by much (though I wouldn’t advise subscribing to a second-counting fear over the graphic gesture of the clock).

When I left the theater after a 3:50pm show, I had almost forgotten the time. My brain was expecting a parking lot illuminated by streetlights and a glowing marquee; what I saw was fluffy white puffs, a celadon sky, and a round yellow circle whose visage was covered not by a linear blood splatter, but by clouds.

That’s how the film left me feeling too: in a surprisingly sunny place. In all of Watchmen’s nearly three hours, I was never bogged down by apocryphal details (though they were there for the discerning eye to see) or by chinsy action movie cliches. Sure Snyder loves his blood, but there was exponentially less than in 300. Being the queasy type that I am, I appreciated it too. There was a moderate amount of sex in some parts, but it didn’t pervade the entire plot as though a 13-year-old directed it. Rather, it was just enough to be steamy and R-rated. While movies like Fantastic 4 are filled with dumb one-liners, Watchmen takes its time before speaking. Several characters get the chance to narrate at different times, which is what I think makes its length so tolerable and productive. You get to see two generations of vigilantes and villans, as well as two different Americas, one real, and one alternate history.

Tyler Bates does the score, and well too. The soundtrack is filled with Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Nat King Cole, and (my favorite) Phillip Glass, but Bates’s orchestral tapestry makes the other works vibrant as placeholders for character emotion. The last track brings me easily back to my sunset sky. “I Love You Mom” is the Miles Davis-esque guitar tune that closes the film before the credits as Silk Spectre II and her ex-vigilante mom share a moment. It’s the same kind of song that made me buy the Finding Forrester soundtrack; (featuring Bill Frisell on guitar) it’s transcendental, spookily beautiful, and feels like warm sun on your face.

Just as Roger Ebert intends, I too want to see Watchmen again in theaters.

The Purpose, Power, and Presence of Design

Ryan Burrell

“This is part of a conversational series shared between multiple writers. As each new article is written, they will be displayed on the sites of all participating authors.”

To say that “design” is all around us would be a supreme understatement. It impacts the very nature of our perceptions, and does so most of the time without our conscious thought or notice. It is a subtle tool, often altering our opinions in ways we can’t really explain or quantify, yet will strongly defend if pressed. Design is a sword with many edges – it can cut deeply, deflect blows, or lead a charge. But, to ask the obvious lead-in question: What is design? Is it art, theory, math, philosophy, or some unholy combination of these areas and more? Is design purely visual, or does it hide a much deeper algorithmic structure?

An Underlying Order

The common view of design, in generalized terms, is to make “something” look “nice”, or “better”, or “pretty”, or [insert ambiguous subjective visual terminology here]. A designer makes shirts, or business cards, or websites, or… branded coffee mugs or something. Newsletters and brochures – that type of thing comes to mind immediately. Yet this is a very narrow viewpoint of what design is and of what the duties of a designer are. While design’s final products typically inhabit the visual world, a designer is not by nature possessed of a purely aesthetic skill set. The title Designer can better be equated with Problem Solver, specifically within the realm of how information is presented. Design strives to be as much an analytical set of tasks as an encompassing set of visual trends. A graphic designer does not simply make a t-shirt “look nice.” Instead, they deal with a complex set of mental algorithms and practices to determine the best placement of their visual components on the palette, taking advantage of the use of space, color, line, shape, and form to produce the most effective visual result. What the end result appears as is simply a piece of clothing, but to the designer it is a set of guidelines, wrapped in equations, coated in emotions, and finally covered in their own creative spin. Art and design are similar, yet fundamentally different, areas of expression. Art relies heavily on emotion, highly abstract ideas, and an intense desire to reflect the world around you from an individual viewpoint. Design, while using aspects that make up the nature of pure art, merges these with analytical ideals more in line with science or math. The foundation of all design relies on standards, conformity, rules, grids, and numbers. Margins, measurements, columns, padding, spacing, clearance; these are the elements that make up the essence of design.

An Overarching Chaos

Yet, while the foundations for design are firmly entrenched in the realm of numbers and grids, it is the more ethereal aspects that make it so unique. An intimate understanding of spacing will only work so far; a designer must also understand their audience, the goals of their project, and emotive methods to achieve their intended results. Once the framework of a task has been determined, a designer develops his or her “in the box” thinking. The borders and restrictions have been defined, and this can open up as much or more creative potential than having a boundless field to work in. A designer’s task is to use the guidelines that have been set and take them to the limits of creativity, while still keeping a sharp eye on how the final result will be usable. It is a frenetic juggling act of limitless creativity within a walled garden. The more artistic core of the designer emerges, yet must be restrained by the warden of practicality that remains in the back of their mind at all times. Visual appeal means nothing without functionality, but usefulness can be dulled if aesthetics are ignored. A designer must be mad – a Jekyll & Hyde combination of control and raw potential.

A Wider Path

Practically, there are many names and titles for designers. Commonly, we think of those that practice design as the people who create calendars, cards, and promotional products. But design is so vast and applicable to so many fields, that the job descriptions are almost as limitless. Interior designers deal with the feel of three dimensional space in architecture – with lighting, mood, and balance. Industrial designers concern themselves with the visual appeal of products as well as their functionality, ergonomics, and practicality. Web designers and interaction designers focus on creating visually appealing Internet interfaces, but all under the aegis of superb usability, accessibility, and optimization. Database designers work only in charts and arrows, but are responsible for laying out the interaction between the vast methods of storage that are now so commonplace. Nearly any sort of planning that concerns not only the visual output, but how that output is best presented and used involves design. It is a constant and integral part of our lives, evidenced by the fact that we don’t even notice it most of the time. The hallmark of good design is when it slips beneath our conscious radar, instead allowing the user of its final product to easily adapt to its requirements and efficiently bend them to their needs. Poor design is easily noticeable, taking the form of unreadable text, confusing interfaces, uncomfortable chairs, breakable parts, and unexpected reactions. Few professions require such a variety of skills, interests, knowledge, and the drive to use them effectively. Because of this, design is not typically thought of as a job by those who do it. A job is something you do to pay the bills – design is a way of life, a way of quantifying what we see around us, and still allowing for the vast creative potential that fuels the human spirit.

Collaborative Conversations

Ryan Burrell

The idea that anything written and presented on the Web is of a static nature and lacking malleability is a false one.  Likewise, the idea that articles or topics presented in format for consumption over the Internet are closed to observer modification and addition is also false.  The Web allows for an extremely unique interchange of thought, be it an initial article writing, subsequent discussion or comments, or responsive posts created on other sites.  It encourages viewers and readers to have an opinion or viewpoint, and to share that with anyone else who may be interested.

To that end, the idea of a “collaborative conversation” has been applied to writing for the Web.  Myself and several other individuals have taken up this notion (originally a teaching method) to try and spur ourselves onward in our writing, for several reasons.  We wanted something that gave us a focus for our writing, even if it was an arbitrary idea or topic.  Being able to dance around an issue and comment from multiple viewpoints was appealing; not arguing or making a case for anything (per se), just observations and discussion.

The rules we follow are minimal:

• Someone picks a topic, and we try and tie in whatever we write with that topic. Think of it as more of a theme than a thesis statement.
• Everyone participating must post each article that is written.  For larger numbers of people writing, we may dispense with this and simply include links to each part of the series on our own posts.
• Don’t pander to the audience. Part of this type of conversation is to think on the topic, and come up with a unique viewpoint or observation on it.  Just as in real life, we want the conversation to be interesting.

The first experiment in this followed the the idea of the Internet being a product of humanity that has also changed it irrevocably.  Future topics have been selected and we will hopefully continue what has been (for me at least) a very nice exercise in both writing and observing.

All I Ever Wanted

Kelly Clarkson has some pipes. Let me start by saying that.

Her new album is out March 10, 2009

Her voice absolutely blows my mind every time she jumps into the upper register; it just gives me goosebumps. I can’t say that I watched American Idol Season 1, but the past few seasons I have usually watched with some degree of interest. I have noticed that mostly, the competition is a slew of karaoke singers with a few talented people peppered in. Clarkson is one of the best products the show has ever developed.

I’ve been listening to more and more pop music lately–rather, I have been more aware of my enjoyment of good pop music. I spent so much time in college with Indie music that I had forgotten how good some mass-produced material actually is. Every genre has one or two negative stereotypes that stick, and pop music’s is being “fake” or “unauthentic.” I think it’s hard to separate my opinion of Clarkson from the fact that she was literally produced by Fox through the fabricated process of a game show. That being said, there’s always been something I liked about her.

I remember going to see Red White & Boom in what used to be  Sandstone Amphitheatre back in 2003 (now it has a place amongst other sellout venues as “Verizion Wireless Amphitheater” Pshhh). The concert was a mashup of a lot of acts, many I didn’t know, and a few big headliners. The bottom line was that it was $10 to get in, so my girlfriend and I went with some friends. Kelly Clarkson was the last act that year and she had the great fortune of closing the show after some terrible acts like Lisa “Whispermoaning Marie” Presley”–shudder. I remember faintly seeing this girl come out onto stage and pick up the mic (I was far away in the lawn section); she was wearing a Royals jersey. I thought maybe it was another MC coming up to give introductions, but it was Kelly Clarkson. Kudos to her for brandishing my poor-excuse-for-a-baseball-team’s digs! She sang very well live, just as she did on the radio. That impressed me because I’d just watched a whole lineup of moderate to poor performances. She could really sing!

The funniest part was in one of her last numbers. I’d be lying if I said I remember what song it was, but she was just about to start singing when something hilarious happened. The music was keying up and she was just about to put the mic up to her face when she took one step too far backwards and into a monitor.

**THONK**

The crowd sounded with a din of gasps that turn to chuckling when people realize no one is injured. Clarkson jumps right back up and brushes herself off looking like she just stole second in that jersey. “I’m ok!” she announced with a smile, pointing to the band to start the song again.

She went right on as though nothing had happened, taking advantage of a very human moment that made her seem accessible and authentic to me somehow. It reminded me of another concert in that same venue where Counting Crows crooner Adam Duritz had a close encounter of the insect kind. He was coming to the end of Long December–right at the very climax–when his dramatic pause and deep breath were followed by something unexpected. The coda began

…I can’t remember all the times I tried to tell my myself
To hold on to these moments as they pass
And it’s one more day up in the canyon
And it’s one more night in hollywood
It’s been so long since Ive seen the ocean…i guess I should

That’s how it’s supposed to end, right before a chorus of jubilant na na nas. Duritz deep breath came at the wrong place though:

…To hold on to these moments as they pass
And it’s–**THWUNK** <–That’s the sound of a vacuum sucking up a marble

**HIKACK**

**COUGH COUGH**

“Sorry. I swallowed fly.”

Outdoors at Sandstone, you never know what’s gonna hit you. Which brings me back to All I Ever Wanted. You never know when her tone is going to shift from flowing smoothly through the verses to a sharp, double-octave jump into the chorus–really it’s almost screaming, but it sounds so on-pitch, so undistorted.

I will say that whomever did the album design should have their head examined. Hot pink, yellow and orange…wha? I suppose maybe they wanted to catch your eye with it’s barbie vomit shceme and then you’d be pulled in by Kelly’s lovely face. Then again, maybe they wanted to convey the fact that she has two sides to her (pink and orange?), both of which reside in a horrible 1970s colorscheme nightmare.

Bad design aside, I really do like the album. There’s a voice in the back of my head that keeps nudging me in the proverbial ribs saying “defend the fact that you listen to ‘girl music,’” but I got through posting about Taylor Swift, so it’s easy to ignore now.

I still need to listen to the whole album a few times before I write about specific things I like, but in general she still feels very relevant, vibrant, and authentic.

The Constant Conference: Building a PLN with Twitter, Blogs, and Plurk

I don’t want to mix amongst my personal and education blogs too much, but I’m really overdue for a post on here and I’ve been thinking about this topic for a while. Rather than re-rewriting my ideas about this subject, I think it’s okay (considering my only slightly overlapping audiences) to re-post. “Repost”, by the way, should totally be a legal Scrabble word. I’m just sayin’.

Below is an entry from my Education blog “teachersaid” posted on February 12, 2009.

The long-term subbing job I have has allowed me some great opportunities so far. I’ve got my foot a little farther in the door at this school, for one thing. I know about job openings before they happen and I can speak easily to other teachers and administrators. Since I work at a computer all day (I’m a computer aide sub), I’m able to spend a great deal of time reading and completing my homework. I don’t think I would have attempted going to grad school full time right away if I had a teaching job right now. This way, I’ve been able to ease into my program and give it great attention.

Furthermore, and perhaps most beneficial so far, I have been able to build and maintain a powerful personal learning network (PLN) online. I started using Twitter (@stevejmoore), Plurk (stevejmoore), and GoogleReader (Steve) to connect with teachers and administrators across the country and beyond. I’ve been able to find blogs, ask burning questions, and ultimately make significant connections with people whom I would have otherwise never met.

You’re obviously here, so I have either asked you to visit this page or you’re already hip to the benefits of reading Education blogs (maybe you’ve built a PLN of your own too). In case you’re with the former, I’ll explain each service that I use as a teacher, a grad student in Administration, and as a writer.

I’ll use a macroanalogy that most everyone should be able to grasp: the conference. When you go to a conference of any kind there is a similar format. Why do we go to conferences? To learn new information about our profession and to build relationships with other professionals. In my experiences, there are three basic environments at conferences: the keynote speech, focus groups (workshops), and mingling (unstructured). I use a digital counterpart that meets each of those networking criteria.

Blogs

These are the keynote speeches, the main events of conferences and PLNs. All social media networks lead to blogs at some point. This is where authors, the pros pen their prose. Like at conferences, there is usually one big headliner who sets the tone for the whole, and several more mini-keynotes that function as bullet points to the larger headline. This is a good way to stucture your blog reading. Have fewer big blogs you read and focus your attention on. These are bloggers whom you may not ever personally contact or meet like LeVar Burton or Erin O’Connor, but whose material is widely read and considered a part of many larger conversations. Then, there are a myriad other bloggers that you can find whom are more specific in their situation and whom you may come to know personally due to their smaller readership.

For example, I’ve come to know Scott Elias, a principal in Colorado through my spiderweb-like PLN. I live in Springfield so I started searching Twitter for teachers using the service nearby through a service call Twello. I found Melinda Miller, an elementary principal in nearby Willard, MO. I started following her and checking her blog regularly. Through her, I found Scott. He and Miller run a blog and a podcast together called The Practical Principals. I’ll write more about them in the Twitter section.

Twitter

If blogs are the main event, then Twitter is the exact opposite. When you’re at a conference, you spend most of your time socializing and browsing: snacking on Chex Mix, drinking mysterious hotel punch, and browsing tables of displays that other people like you have set up. Maybe you’ll exchange emails, web addresses, and chat about your classroom practices. Maybe you’ll end up collaborating on a project together in the future.

This casual open forum is like Twitter. This service is like walking into a giant ballroom full of people and eavesdropping on conversations as you walk through. When you someone posts a link, it is like one of those displays leading to more information you may or may not be interested in. The bottom line is that you are exposed to a great deal of people and materials very quickly in little snippets. Twitter is a social gateway for building longer conversations, it’s like browsing the internet and making bookmarks of people rather than sites.

I mentioned Scott and Melinda before in blogs. Twitter is different than a blog because of the length. Twitter is often referred to as “microblogging.” There you are limited to 140 characters to express your opinion, state your question, or reach out to someone. At the risk of sounding very 1996, I’ll liken Twitter to a chatroom, one that never ends though. The more you use it and the more people you follow, the larger and more powerful your PLN can become.

Plurk

Lastly, I discovered Plurk through Paul Bogush. His blog was nearly named the “Best Education Blog of 2008″ by the Weblog Awards. I found him on the awards page and started reading his work. I started following him on Twitter and saw that he linked to something called “Plurk” on his blog page as well. Being the curious person I am, I decided to check it out. At first, I thought that this service was a lot like Twitter, only newer and more strange. I started following Paul and his “plurkers,” as they’re called.

You see, Plurk isn’t open and microcosmic like Twitter, nor is it as large in structure and as singular as a blog. Plurk is like the part of a conference inbetween the casual browsing and the big group keynote speeches. The small groups or workshops on specific topics, that is what it is. You can participate in whichever ones you want and the people running the groups are usually very casual about it. Plurk has a character length like Twitter and resembles another form of the chatroom. The difference with Plurk is that conversations are grouped by the person publishing each comment.

Just like at a conference, with Plurk, your reputation counts for something. You earn Karma through your volume, regularity, and quality of comments. Plurk is a great place to go with a question for other teachers.

The Ghost in the Machine: Dialogue on the Influence of the Internet, Part 4

Posted by kylebaxter on February 9, 2009

I know you’ve waited on the edge of your seat, biting your nails, kicking yourself in the lower back, and slamming your head on a copy of the Encyclopedia Britannica (Volume Ca-De) in anticipation of this post!  It’s finally here!  Many thanks to Steve J. Moore for getting me involved in this.  If you have not already, go back and read parts 1-3.  You can find them on my blog by scrolling down on the main page.  Or, if you would like to see them in their original context, you can find:

Part 1, by Nathaniel Carroll, author of NonDeScript, by clicking HERE

Part 2, by Steve J. Moore, author of theSpigot, by clicking HERE

Part 3, by Ryan Burrell, author of In All Reality, by clicking HERE

Again, the question that started this discussion is , “Does the Internet reflect Humanity, or vice versa?”

There are many coherent arguments that support both sides.  I intend to examine them, and give you my final opinion, which is binding in a court of law in rural Mississippi.  I will break it down very easily for you, by noting whether the argument following is “Internet reflects Humanity” or “Humanity reflects Internet”.

Internet reflects Humanity–Everything I see on the Internet was once just a thought in some acne-scarred guy’s face.  For instance, one guy (Barry) wanted to find a way to communicate with a girl that doesn’t require face-to-face interaction, use of the phone, or stalking her like wild game.  He said to himself (speaking in DnD), “Overlord, it would be so much easier to tell a mortal girl you like her with words written in electronic rose petals, so they can be perfect.  Perhaps a sonnet for my elven queen.”  This has nothing to do with anything, but I imagine it goes something like this:

Ode to My Elven Queen

When I am in Chemistry class,
I think only of you, my lass.
Hair flowing gold like the rivers of Falcoren,
Your features glow, carefully elven.

Snow princesses may desire me,
But only your beauty inspires me.
I turn them away with my blade, hurriedly,
A sword cast from fine Dwarf metallurgy.

You’ve scorned Sir Jared from second period,
I’m spilling my emotions for you, a myriad.
No one else could show you how much you mean,
But to me, you’re at least a Level 17.

And this is how (and why) e-mail was invented.  This was a time-saver, because any girl could reply to (reject) Barry instantaneously, and print out the sonnets to make sure he was mocked all through high school.  The fact that it caught on was really a huge fluke.  This is simply another way of saying “the Internet is an expression of thoughts and information originally birthed inside a human brain”.  Therefore, the Internet reflects Reality.

Humanity reflects Internet–Even before the Internet, many writers and philosophers wondered if they were part of someone else’s outside program.  For instance, The Bard (I think I sound a lot more cultured when I refer to him by the vernacular) himself once wrote, “Dost mine existence weather verily to a computational regard?”  Given this, the Internet could very well have existed before mankind.  We just never thought to plug into it until the last 40 years, when Billy Mays was born.  Those may or may not be related.  However, therefore, Humanity reflects the Internet.

Internet reflects Humanity–Everything that is good or evil in the world is displayed on the Internet, without any stone unturned.  The depravity, sickness, and loneliness of man is apparent throughout the Internet (mostly on CNN.com), as well as man’s ingenuity, love, and creativity.  It’s all there for the world to see.  To prove my theory that every imaginable horrible thing is on the Internet, I threw random words together in my head, Googled it, and (first try) there it was . . . “Dawson’s Creek fanfiction”.  Certainly, my finding it was not a reflection of the Internet having it.  The Internet cannot create such things, nor would it want to if it had any sense.  You never know, though.  Maybe the Internet is still wanting to see Joey and Pacey back together after all these years.  I am glad I’m not the only one.  I digress.  Someone wrote that awful fanfiction (for the sake of my soul, I dared not read it, and I suggest you do the same) and placed it on the Internet to display his or her ideas to the world.  What I see on the Internet is a reflection of someone else–that is to say–Humanity.

Humanity reflects Internet–I am sure of this, if for no other reason than the sheer number of “Chocolate Rain” knock-offs.  When people saw something original on the Internet, their actions were a reflection of what they saw, ghastly as they may be.  I’ll give you the point that the Internet probably didn’t exist before mankind.  Since the year 15 A.B. (After Billy), Humanity has begun to mirror the Internet in every way.  It is commonplace to find people these days whose sole source of facts and information come from news websites, blogs, online tarot cards, etc.  Therefore, Humanity reflects the Internet.

In order to get a truly neutral opinion, I asked a good friend of mine.  His name is Louie, and of course, he is my cat.  I looked him square in the eye and asked him, “Louie, do you think the Internet reflects Humanity, or the other way around?”  He stood up, walked over to me, and proceeded to lick his posterior like it was Cheetos.  Animals communicate in primitive ways, you see.  As a trained and board certified “Cat Whisperer”, I will now translate:

“Why worry yourself with such a question?  Enjoy the simpler things in life, like opposable thumbs.  If I had such comforts, I would use toilet paper instead of my mouth.  I’ve been meaning to get that off my chest for some time now.  But because you are pure of heart and because you feed me, I will give you the answer to your question . . . in the form of a riddle.”

Always with the riddles, that cat.

I gave up on him and came upstairs to finish this post.  I’ll leave you with my final thoughts below.

Who knows?  Perhaps if man dies off some day, leaving only the Internet, it will achieve perpetuity.  *Cue “Twilight Zone” theme* Maybe it will begin to reflect itself (most likely through Dawson’s Creek fanfiction).

It seems like everyone else made a fancy graph.  I’m jealous.  If you turn your head sideways, squint really hard, cross your eyes, and pretend, then this looks just like a graph!

Oops, I forgot to tell you my final opinion (those of you in rural Mississippi, pay particularly close attention).  I don’t want to rehash it.  It’s the only statement in this entire post in Bold and Italics.

The Ghost in the Machine: Part 3

by Ryan Burrell

This post is part of an ongoing collaborative conversation.  You can view Part 1 here, and Part 2 here.

This discussion has so far covered some mathematic theory, and a histoy of life before the web.  Now, let’s examine the future in pursuit of our original line of inquiry: Does the Internet reflect Humanity or vice versa?

We’ve given our conversation the title of “The Ghost in the Machine“, because the subject matter deals with the duality of human experience – the mind reflecting the body, or the body reflecting the mind.   A series of anime movies based on the questions involved in the original thesis, entitled The Ghost in the Shell, were produced in 1995 and 2004. The series focuses on the question of delineation between man and machine (the films are quite excellent on a number of levels and I highly recommend renting them and experiencing their intellectual pathways firsthand).  In the movies, consciousness has expanded to encompass all information, begging the question: How do you define the difference between software and biology – thought and algorithm?

Such questions are highly appropriate for our lines of reasoning.  In The Ghost in the Shell, it was extremely common for people to have cyborg implants, called e-brains, as well as external memory devices where they could offload their thoughts, memories, and other information..  A physical body was no longer a necessary requirement for “life”, and one’s stored thoughts, ideas, and memories could be shuffled around from location to location, easily merging with other data types and being shared across networks…for good or evil.

An Extension of Humanity

In an extremely short time relative to the whole of human history, the Internet has impacted us all in ways we don’t even realize.  A completely new method of communication and interaction has been opened to us, and we’re just beginning to understand its potential.  Like the e-brains, wetware upgrades, and external storage units of The Ghost in the Shell, we have used the Internet to extend ourselves beyond our normal capacity, both literally and figuratively.

In a very real sense, the Internet has allowed us to extend our capacity to store our thoughts, memories, and even feelings.  Services like Evernote or Remember The Milk replace the string around the finger of past days, but bring also the capability of being accessed anytime from nearly any location.  Xanga, Blogger, WordPress, and any of the other myriad web logging services allow us to store snippets of time and ideas in a centralized location – yet still accessible freely by all.  Even applications like Twitter, that thrive on an endless stream of output about things as trivial as our moods, store all of their data as external records of our feelings at any given point in time.

We no longer have to rely on our long-term memory capabilities, but instead store them externally – outside of our physical selves.  These items of data, units of thought, and cubits of thinking have gained a permanence beyond what previous media (such as books and recordings) can offer. A book must be reprinted on physical materials, but a database can be duplicated a multitude of times and its information dispersed in the blink of an eye.  This metadata serves to make up a vast amount of what we’ve lovingly termed The Web, and obviously points to the Internet being a product of humanity’s contributions.

An Advancement of Humanity

But what about the idea of reciprocal change?  We have created a complex network of thoughts and ideas – a network rapidly becoming accessible to more and more of the world’s populace.  The data we contribute to it isn’t locked away, to be perused only when the fancy strikes us.  No, instead the vast majority of information stored on the open Web can be accessed by anyone…and that information can be a powerful force of change.  The Internet exists as an extension of our humanity, but it also serves as an agent of adaptation and movement.

Every conversation we have with another person, every book we read, every song we hear, every new idea we encounter, changes us in some way.  In daily life without the Web, a thousand new experiences may cross our path, both large and small.  Add in the ability of the Internet to spread information at an exponential rate, and its ability to change us is obvious.  We have created a perpetual motion device; we have created an engine that publishes our ideas and feeds new ones to us in one swift movement.

With the ease with which we can access such information, we change more rapidly.  New ideas can be traded more easily, and refinements made more quickly.  Trends can be communicated instantly, future predictions more readily available.  Our societal ideals and cultural influences, the very things that we feel make up each of our unique viewpoints…all of these can now feed off each other and adapt beyond any previously known speed or capability.

A Paradox

It is not the first time in human history that such a situation as what we are observing with the Internet has existed.  The construction of Roman roads led to an unprecedented spread of commerce and communication.  The printing press made efficient mass reproduction of thoughts a reality.  Television allowed not only a lightning-fast transference of ideas, but also the subtle visual cues that went along with them.

But at no other point in our history have we had the ability to communicate so openly, to save our ideas so easily, and to share information so quickly.  Ideas abound about the creation of a “global consciousness”, an interlinking of thoughts and ideas occurring at such a rate that a whole greater than the sum of its parts is created.  Perhaps this is a good thing, or perhaps it is not.  Yet, confusing though it may be, one thing is clear:  The Internet exists because we created it, but the Internet is creating the next great chapter of humanity.

Diana Saw Dr. Awkward Was an Aid.

So I’ve spent much of this weekend doing several things while my wife was out of town: finding new blogs and people to follow on twitter, watching TV, putting off writing assignments, and watching as much Demetri Martin as I could find on YouTube. If you are following me on Twitter (@stevejmoore), then you probably saw me sharing my excitement at Mr. Martin’s videos as I discovered them.

I had seen his work on Comedy Central, knew he wrote for Conan O’Brien for a while, and was a big fan of his flip-chart bit because of the part where he draws an empty circle and says, “this is a pie chart about procrastination.” That killed me.

I highly suggest that you check out his DVD, Demetri Martin, Person and his new show coming up this Wed. on Comedy Central as well. If Bill Gates was successful because he dropped out of Harvard, then Demetri is so because he dropped out of law school.

What stuck out to me most in his routine was the over 200-word palindrome

Yes, I drew these all by myself

“Dammit I’m Mad”

by

Demetri Martin

Dammit I’m mad.
Evil is a deed as I live.
God, am I reviled? I rise, my bed on a sun, I melt.
To be not one man emanating is sad. I piss.
Alas, it is so late. Who stops to help?
Man, it is hot. I’m in it. I tell.
I am not a devil. I level “Mad Dog”.
Ah, say burning is, as a deified gulp,
In my halo of a mired rum tin.
I erase many men. Oh, to be man, a sin.
Is evil in a clam? In a trap?
No. It is open. On it I was stuck.
Rats peed on hope. Elsewhere dips a web.
Be still if I fill its ebb.
Ew, a spider… eh?
We sleep. Oh no!
Deep, stark cuts saw it in one position.
Part animal, can I live? Sin is a name.
Both, one… my names are in it.
Murder? I’m a fool.
A hymn I plug, deified as a sign in ruby ash,
A Goddam level I lived at.
On mail let it in. I’m it.
Oh, sit in ample hot spots. Oh wet!
A loss it is alas (sip). I’d assign it a name.
Name not one bottle minus an ode by me:
“Sir, I deliver. I’m a dog”
Evil is a deed as I live.
Dammit I’m mad.

Truly the work of a solitary genius. Off the top of my head, I only know a few palindromes beyond the title of this post (ah, did you catch it?), “madam, I’m adam,” and “racecar.” I certainly can’t imagine spending time trying to create an entire poem out of nothing but these reflexive devices; simply astonishing and awesome. I think his act, if you take a bit of time to watch it, says a lot about art. Martin was interviewed this week on NPR, which is what prompted me to find more of his material. He has a great narrative and is now an artist I respect very much. His stand-up explores more than jokes; he gets in so many digs about humanity, philosophy, and social idiosyncrasies, but does so with such loveable sophomoric snark, that you have to digest it all with a hearty chuckle.

Very funny, and I hope his new show will be too.

The Ghost in the Machine: Part 2

Part 1 was posted over on NonDeScript first,  Nathaniel Carroll’s budding blog based in Springfield (like me!). I suggest that you click on over there first to prime the conversational pump for this seemingly simple discussion. Below is my reflection.

• What is then Internet?
• How do we relate to it?
• How does it relate to us?
• Is the Internet “art”?

The Internet is a function of art and life times expression.

I=ƒ(a,l)e

So, if we look at the events that are taking place in people’s lives around the globe each day, they exist either as art or not based on opinions, evaluations, and judgments. If we decide that “life” is a general term for every event that takes place in or outside of our awareness, then it operates as a separate coefficient from “art.”

Am I starting to bore you yet? Maths and art? There will be graphs soon, I promise.

Expression can give either negative or positive effect upon the function as a whole, but in order for the identity to be defined, it is required. The Internet cannot exist without “expression” in some form.

I won’t even attempt to ask why “we” exist, but I’d like to know how we exist and function in relation to “I”, the internet. If “P” stands for people, then people are a function of their experiences and other people.

P=ƒ(x, p₂)

So, if we examine a person or a group of people’s experiences, then it goes without saying that people besides the said person or group will have an influence upon him or her (notwithstanding the desert island scenario).

Graph Time!

As the above graph illustrates, the functions I and P are integrated, highlighting the importance and interrelatedness of the identities. Ok, so maybe it’s just a nonsense graph I drew on some newspaper, but as Carroll pointed out in his post, the Internet is inextricably connected to our lives today.

Maybe I’ll follow this mathematical tangent a while longer (oh, the puns, they hurt me). If you’ve ever been in the 4^th grade, then there’s a good chance that your teacher read to you, as mine did to me, Madeline L’Enengle’s masterpiece A Wrinkle In Time. If not, head to your local library, check it out, and spend a few hours in a coffee shop alone with it.

A “tesseract” is what the characters in the book use to travel through dimensions and time. In math a tesseract is, basically, a cube inside another cube that is also connected. It is  a shape that represents another direction, another dimension of existence. That sounds very philosophical, but it just means lines that extend from the same points into different places.

Before I continue–rather, before I can continue letting you suffer through this math read, I need to make a qualification.

“For me, math is like this: An attractive lady that I never have a chance of actually dating, but with whom I enjoy flirting very much.”

Ok, thanks. Now I’ll go on. So if the Internet (which I have to keep reminding myself is a capitalized proper noun) is a function connected to people, then it is like a tesseract; the Internet is a cube inside of another cube that is not floating, but is connected.

Here’s where things get interesting. You can tell from the picture below that this tesseract shape is fairly easy to conceive. It kinda looks like a sugar cube or, if you’re a chemist, maybe some compound’s crystalline structure.

With the exception of all the little greek symbols which I know nothing about, the sape is not a strange escher-esque, floating, mobiüs strip type thing. It’s just a cube inside another cube. Maybe the internet is like this…Maybe the cyberworld, which obviously exists within the human world is just a reflection of the human world.

Math people, you know what’s coming most likely, but regular folks (myself included) prepare to change your pants.

how does it do that?!!?

Which cube is which? What is the cyber world and what is human? Is the Governor of California going to come out of this cube like a Magic Eye picture if I stare too long?!

The tesseract changes when it is rotated; both cubes stay completely intact, but their positions become interchageable. This is the conclusion that I draw about the relationship of people to the Internet; they are reflexive of one another. They are coefficients of the same variable.

The Ghost in the Machine: Dialogue on the Influence of the Internet

This post is from Nathaniel Carroll’s blog “NonDeScript” and is a collaborative conversation. If you have another blog and would like to join in let us know!

“Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life.” – Oscar Wilde

This week, an e-friend of mine, Steve J. Moore, proposed an interesting question: Does the Internet reflect Humanity or vice versa? To start the discussion, we will take a look at life before Internet. Then, we will examine the life after Internet and its impact on the individual.

Information is power
Nikola Tesla began tinkering with the wireless transmission of information in 1891. The first television broadcasts were transmitted in 1928 to mechanical tv sets with horrible picture quality. In the mid thirties to the beginning of the forties, mechanical sets were commercially available for home use, but production soon stopped as manufacturing efforts became focused on World War II. After the war, the technological boom began to pick up speed again. The first full-color set came in 1954 and cost $1,000.  Today, one thousand bucks buys you a 50″ flat screen tv like this.

Figure 1.1

There seems to be an inverse correlation between the availability of information and its value (see Figure 1.1).  In other words, the easier accessing information becomes, the less we are willing to pay for it.  To learn more about this correlation, read Thomas L. Friedman’s book, The World is Flat.  The expansive virtual bank of knowledge has made the world seem much smaller.  Thanks to Mobile 2.0, we expect information to be readily available to us at all times, to the extent that even email is considered an inferior form of communication.  I drew Figure 1.1, photographed it with my phone, sent it to my email address, and uploaded it to the blog in less than one minute.  We want information now, and we want it to be free.

The Shape of (Human) Things
I am twenty three years old.  My first vivid memory involves my father busily working on a thesis under the blue glow of a Tandy 1000 computer screen, my curious finger, and a large red reset button (I’ll post the whole story sometime).  The internet, in a relatively archaic form, already existed.  But even in my youth, when I wanted information for an Earth Science research paper on volcanoes I made photocopies of encyclopedia entries in the school library.  The card catalog was not computerized until I was in high school.  Back in my day, you had to be patient – you had to wait for information to come to you.  Back in my day, you had to be dilligent – you had to spend countless hours scouring tiny print and irrelevant factoids in search of answers.  Back in my day, you had to respect the information you sought.

Today, the quality of content published on the internet spreads from precise, powerful information to pure unsolicited crap.  Because the good stuff can be accessed through the same medium as the bad, it has to be free and effortless.

With regard to the value we assign information, I say that Internet reflects Humanity.  Internet – 1, Humanity – 0.

Reading Ballistics and Conceiving a Journey to the Top of Chimney Rock

I wish I could climb a rock
fingers in cracks and feet en pointe
through rubber
my soul wants to rise up
through to the clouds above the summit
and I wish

I could read a book of poems
while I was shimmying
jimmying, and scraping to the top.

I wish his words–Billy’s words were there
at each cinch and in each crevasse
speaking in forms of detached
and animated cartoon mouths
so I could reap
so I could roll back my eyes
while my muscles contract.
The striated, lean, and corpusculous
tissues conquering the planet’s skin.

The crag should drink my blood
where the sun could bake it black
with everything but the carbon evaporating,
because of such a rough disagreement
of skin and bone with sediment.

Words, Words, Words

I decided to check out how often I said which words in my blogging after seeing word clouds of President Obama’s, as well as Bush, Clinton, and Lincoln’s, inauguration speeches last month. In my own reflection, I figured  that “music” would be a large word, meaning I use it often in my posts, but I never saw things like “just” coming. I guess my relaxed style let’s such words become over exercised, I just can’t help it!

Spider Music and Sad Stories

 Chris Thile, Sara Watkins, and Sean Watkins started making music together before they were old enough to drive. With violins, a mandolin, a guitar, and sirenesque voices they made five albums just this side of inspired. They took me in and introduced me to folk music as a genre; told me stories about foxes catching their dinner, lighthouses concerned with love, and little birds leaving the nest. Their sound was so rich in emotion, so authentically human, I couldn’t get enough. Why Should the Fire Die  was their most mature, and final album. We were invited continually into their lives through allegory and heard about their hard luck, their heartbreak , and their crises of faith. Then, in 2007, something very sad happened. The band Nickel Creek parted ways after over twenty years of making music together. 

 

Chris Thile had already made a career on the side as a virtuoso mandolinist even while Nickel Creek was touring and recording. He joined up with a few other neoclassical bluegrass-heads and formed The Punch Brothers. They continue to churn out overpaced octaves and twinkling tiny tunes today along with giving Bela Fleck and Edgar Meyer a run for their money.

 

 

Sean Watkins took a little more time off. It wasn’t until he met up with former Switchfoot frontman Jon Foreman that he got back to work. Together, the two formed Fiction Family. Not the team-up I would have suspected. I hadn’t really even heard Switchfoot since “Dare You to Move” back in 2004. NPR’s Ken Tucker gave the review that introdced me to the Family. He called their work, “spider-web music — delicate, industrious and intricate. Here today and, perhaps, gone tomorrow.” After listening to their work, I couldn’t think of a better fitting description. There are glimmers of beauty like dew drops in the sun, less filled-in areas that leave its makers vulnerable, and awkard stretching strands to some far-away branches. 

 

 

1. “When She’s Near” – 2:55
2. “Out Of Order” – 3:31
3. “Not Sure” – 3:06
4. “Betrayal” – 3:03
5. “Elements Combined” – 3:38
6. “War In My Blood” – 2:57
7. “Throw It Away” – 4:14
8. “Closer Than You Think” – 3:12
9. “Please Don’t Call It Love” – 5:11
10. “Mostly Prove Me Wrong” – 3:02
11. “We Ride” – 3:18
12. “Look For Me Baby” – 1:35

 

 

When you listen to this album you will hear the simplistic elements of Switchfoot’s New Way to be Human, but infused with the poetic wonderings of songs like Nickel Creek’s When in Rome. Especially on “Elements Combined,” we get a true marriage of styles. You hear the high-strung mandolin’s plea against Foreman’s tin-can voice singing “some day you’ll be mine.”  Other tracks like “Throw it Away” introduce us to the slow contemplation of a man drinking wine alone–the image of a closed book in the corner. This folornness is whispy like the spider web too, because it is easily wiped away by the very next track, “Closer Than You Think.” 

 

I can’t decide if I like it as a whole. At times it’s “Scotch and Chocolate” and at times it’s alt-rock in a church I heard in 9th grade. It builds its pace up, slows down, shows you a delicate flower in the road, then spends the next fifty miles mourning its loss to the wind. There are songs I’d very much like to come on the radio at random to lift my spirits, maybe to help me appreciate a sunset or to help me find my way home. “We Ride” has a sound of that sort. Ambiant and ambling, the ticking clock of the stringed instruments tumbles forward clumsily into slow drum breaks and a lyric solo.

 

Sometimes I get very tired of hearing Switchfoot’s laothesome signature ding ding ding ding… circus chime xylophone in the background (you know what I mean), but generally this album stands out as one of the more interesting trials I’ve heard this year. I leave you with their first track, and first single, “When She’s Near.”

 

A Poetic Inauguration

Because I love poetry, because I love politics, because I am too lazy busy to write anything else, I am posting a copy of the inaugural poem that Robert Frost read for John F. Kennedy on this very day in 1961.

Barack Obama has chosen Yale poet and scholar Elizabeth Alexander to pen the fourth presidential inauguration poem for him. She was a Pulitzer finalist in 2005 and has written several volumes of poetry.

 This first poem, Dedication (pictured below), was written in commemoration of John F. Kennedy’s 1961 Inauguration, but due to 87 year old eyes, Frost could not read the type. Instead of the poem below, he read The Gift Outright (further below) from memory.

 

 

Dedication

 

Summoning artists to participate

In the august occasions of the state

Seems something artists ought to celebrate.

Today is for my cause a day of days.

And his be poetry’s old-fashioned praise

Who was the first to think of such a thing.

This verse that in acknowledgment I bring

Goes back to the beginning of the end

Of what had been for centuries the trend;

A turning point in modern history.

Colonial had been the thing to be

As long as the great issue was to see

What country’d be the one to dominate

By character, by tongue, by native trait,

The new world Christopher Columbus found.

The French, the Spanish, and the Dutch were downed

And counted out. Heroic deeds were done.

Elizabeth the First and England won.

Now came on a new order of the ages

That in the Latin of our founding sages

(Is it not written on the dollar bill

We carry in our purse and pocket still?)

God nodded his approval of as good.

So much those heroes knew and understood,

I mean the great four, Washington,

John Adams, Jefferson, and Madison

So much they saw as consecrated seers

They must have seen ahead what not appears,

They would bring empires down about our ears

And by the example of our Declaration

Make everybody want to be a nation.

And this is no aristocratic joke

At the expense of negligible folk.

We see how seriously the races swarm

In their attempts at sovereignty and form.

They are our wards we think to some extent

For the time being and with their consent,

To teach them how Democracy is meant.

“New order of the ages” did they say?

If it looks none too orderly today,

‘Tis a confusion it was ours to start

So in it have to take courageous part.

No one of honest feeling would approve

A ruler who pretended not to love

A turbulence he had the better of.

Everyone knows the glory of the twain

Who gave America the aeroplane

To ride the whirlwind and the hurricane.

Some poor fool has been saying in his heart

Glory is out of date in life and art.

Our venture in revolution and outlawry

Has justified itself in freedom’s story

Right down to now in glory upon glory.

Come fresh from an election like the last,

The greatest vote a people ever cast,

So close yet sure to be abided by,

It is no miracle our mood is high.

Courage is in the air in bracing whiffs

Better than all the stalemate an’s and ifs.

There was the book of profile tales declaring

For the emboldened politicians daring

To break with followers when in the wrong,

A healthy independence of the throng,

A democratic form of right divine

To rule first answerable to high design.

There is a call to life a little sterner,

And braver for the earner, learner, yearner.

Less criticism of the field and court

And more preoccupation with the sport.

It makes the prophet in us all presage

The glory of a next Augustan age

Of a power leading from its strength and pride,

Of young ambition eager to be tried,

Firm in our free beliefs without dismay,

In any game the nations want to play.

A golden age of poetry and power

Of which this noonday’s the beginning hour.

 

 

The Gift Outright

 

Poem recited instead by Robert Frost at the

1961 Inauguration

  

The land was ours before we were the land’s.

She was our land more than a hundred years

Before we were her people. She was ours

In Massachusetts, in Virginia,

But we were England’s, Still colonials,

Possessing what we still were unpossessed by,

Possessed by what we now no more possessed.

Something we were withholding from our land of living,

And forthwith found salvation in surrender.

Such as we were we gave ourselves outright

(The deed of gift was many deeds of war)

To the land vaguely; realizing westward,

But still unstoried, artless, unenhanced,

Such as she was, such as she would become.

 

As a gem for those of you who at least scrolled to the bottom of this post (not everyone reads poetry carefully, I know) I stumbled upon two poems that Obama, himself, had published in an Occidental College journal years ago. Read them for yourself here.

Not Too Late for This White Horse

Warning to People of the Internet: the following post contains references to country music.

Taylor Swift’s sophomore album, “Fearless,” enters the room of coked out pop starlets that is pop music with an enchanted poof of fairy dust, looks around, dusts off a stool with a pink feather, and orders a Coke. Prince Charming, Akon, and John Mayer all ask if they can get her a straw. Swift disposes the notions quickly that she’d be someone’s bong hit (sorry Johnny) or something to smack ’til sore (no love for Mr. Kon). Only a gentleman will do.

Five years ago, I would have never told you that I enjoyed country music, and if I did it would have been a lie. It was usually an experience relegated to the passenger seat of my girlfriend’s car. Slowly but surely, I was assimilated through various means like my interests in folk music (Bob Dylan leads to Gordon Lightfoot, who leads to Nickel Creek, who leads to Dixie Chicks… you get the picture).

I knew even  then that resistence was futile; I would surely soon be reborn in a straw hat, coveralls, a carhart jacket, riding an international harvester. I suppose my conversion is total now, except for all of the stereotypical items I just rattled off, because here I am writing about Taylor Swift.

To be fair, even now I’ve only heard the album because of my wife (still don’t have CMT set to record my DVR, sorry), but I crave variety. My Coverflow should go from Kraftwerk to Tom Waits, from Hootie and the Blowfish to Dave Bruebeck, and from Yo-Yo Ma to (old) Metallica. I’d recommend trying new things to everyone I find that the more I branch out the more I come to appreciate new things about old favorites.

Back to Taylor, it always makes me happy to see cohesion on an entire album as opposed to a series of single tracks that just happen to be on one disc. Fearless goes from title to title like the pages in Swift’s diary (take that for what you will, but it flows). The fact that she wrote every song herself, with help on only a few, including the female Jack Johnson herself Colbie Caillat, makes for a nice authenticity in style. Every song feels necessary, which, on a pop album of any sub-genre, is not easy to find.

Check out the album on the new DRM-free iTunes +