First thoughts - Peer reviewing

I am peer reviewing a colleague's draft of Project 3, and my first reaction is that as a reader, it is pretty clear that the author feels two ways about this place, and why.  The paragraph opens up with a metaphor, and then goes on to describing the negative feelings the author has about this place.  But the last line explains that is precisely because of these "negative" aspects that she loves this place so much.  Maybe I am biased because I share her position, but I think that this paradox really delivers the message she wants to convey.

First thoughts

I've been thinking about my own draft for Project 3, and I have to tell you that it is not finished.  I did not write a conclusion for it, nor did I revise it thoroughly.  Though it was hard to get started, once I remembered why I chose Pompeii as the place I wanted to write about, the ideas started flowing with more ease.  I don't know if that situation translated on to the paper because I was working up until very late on it, but I hope that I managed to at least convey some of the emotions or feelings I had in my head while writing this paper.

A sentence starts out like...

A sentence starts out like an onstage performance. Before the curtain even lifts, before the spotlight hits the stage, there has been an incredible amount of planning behind it.  After deciding on the piece to be performed, the producers or makers need to start the casting process. In the case of a sentence, once a topic has been chosen, we need to pick which ideas we will select to support it.  But it is only after months and months of rehearsals, or many rewrites later, that the play (or sentence) is ready to finally be presented to an audience.

If these walls could talk...

The message Wesch is trying to send with this powerful video is that technology cannot really help us solve the universal problems that we, as a society, as college students, as human beings, are facing.  To do so, he chooses to set the video in a classroom. I think this is an interesting rhetorical move, since the disposition of the classroom we saw responds to the conventions of the early academic environments: a big, seminar-life distribution, when all the students seat at the same level to be able to see the professor, situated at the front, the only real source of knowledge.  Students were supposed to just be passive listeners, since all the information came from the professor's podium.

He does this for two main reasons.  First, it is a way to maintain a link to the past and older technology.  Second, by having his students, part of the audience, give the viewers the information he plays on the former conception of the student-professor relationship, making the message, a critique to the educational system,  even stronger.

A magazine is an iPad that doesn't work

The video found here shows us an infant apparently frustrated with the magazines she finds.  Although her frustration might be real, this toddler's reaction works as a device to convey the message the maker of the video wants to express, which is the relevance of Steve Jobbs and his work.  Even though we only see this message displayed at the end of the video, the baby's reactions are a powerful image that can reach the viewers better than, for example, simple text could.

What is your relationship with your reader?

Our relationship is a very complicated one at times. It's like being in a marriage, and every once in a while, one has to compromise their own will and desires to please the other one to just try and maintain a peaceful environment.  I normally produce text to be read on an electronic platform, so before I push the publish or post button, I think twice.  Is this a topic that will interest my reader? What if it's something that will not agree with his or her convictions? Will they still continue to read the text I produce if they don't see their believes reflected on my text? Sometimes, posts that may be somewhat controversial never see the light, and stay eternally in my draft folder.  But sometimes, I just feel like I need to communicate a certain message, without really considering whether my potencial readers agree with it or not.  If our 'marriage' can't get over these issues, then we weren't in a healthy relationship to begin with.

Pompeii may be like...

Pompeii may be like a silent witness. The city itself has not changed much since the eruption in 79 A.D., but it was forced to be quiet for so long, buried under a thick layer of magma and ashes.  The buildings were kept quiet for centuries under dirt and waste, but now they are eager to tell everyone their story. And what a story they are willing to share!

Pompeii is not like...

Pompeii is not like your average touristic attraction. Sure, there's a museum, and sculptures, and ancient buildings. But there is more to it.  Walking down those streets, you feel like you are actually part of them. Like time stood still, frozen, unmoving. And you get to witness that, witness the people, witness their everyday life and routines, even if they haven't been there for a long time.

Pompeii is like...

A time machine. It manages to take you back to this single, perfect moment frozen in the past. There is no more accurate reconstruction of a village of this time, because really Pompeii is not a reconstruction at all. It is 'the real deal'.  Most of the buildings, houses, temples, statues that were there during the tragic eruption are still standing tall, like giants protecting the history of the place, inviting tourists to see it and take a look into the past.

5. Hypertext Makes Reading More Natural

• What is hypertext?
• link between different elements.
• Reflects the nature of the mind itself.
• Connects elements in a non-linear fashion.
• Print text is flat.
• People don't think exclusively verbally.
• Associate pictures and sounds with different stimuli.
• Print media uses a hierarchical organization.
• Reading through association creates a more personal experience for the reader.

4. Is Hypertext a More Natural Way to Write?

• Links create connections between elements that might not be connected in the first place.
• Hyperlinks imitate the human mind in that they don't follow a linear pattern, but they are based more on association.
• Conventional writing does not allow the reader and writer to have conversations.
• You can't interact with the writer while reading a book
• The reader does not get to contribute to the writing
• Word processors have tools that allow you to connect your ideas.
• Use of maps, images, videos.
• Hypertext reflects the nature of the human mind because we think associatively, not linearly.

Great Writers, Great Readings Presents John Edgar Wideman

"He writes the way we talk." This phrase sums up perfectly the atmosphere I felt during John Edgar Wideman's speech last Wednesday.  His special attention to diction, dialect and talking voice of his characters have made him a recipient of an innumerable number of awards and prizes.  He manages to convey a sort of immediacy and realism in his writing that not many authors can express.

We were lucky enough to listen to a fragment from his work in progress, titled thus far Fathers and Sons. It's a novel heavily based on autobiographical events, yet he still considers it fiction.  The initial chapter starts with a young boy seeing the picture of a dead and battered Emmett Till on a newspaper.  This causes a big impact on the boy, because he sees himself identified with the image in print.  From this pont, Wideman cleverly inserts quotations regarding Till's murder trial as if to give the reader an idea of how the media viewed this trial, and the social ramifications of this fact.  Though a lot of attention is, so far, payed to the trial itself, it appears as though the focus of the book will eventually shift and focus on Louis Till, the boy's father, who has a dark story himself.

I found the fragment to be really interesting.  I would definitely read a book based on this premises, since trials and semi-autobiographical writings are a personal favorite of mine.  But going beyond the presentation of this new book, Wideman was willing to offer the audience some advice.  The one thing that hit me the most was him urging people to do and study what they are really passionate about.  Sure, we all have economic concerns in mind, but these should not limit us when choosing a carrer path.  Pretty solid advice, if you ask me.

Are you ever afraid to write?

Derrida states that he is not afraid of the writing process itself. He says that he writes what he needs to write.  It is the consequences that may come that scare him while he is in his 'half-sleep'.  And I think that is a legitimate concern, which I share as well.

When I write something, I usually do it knowing that somebody else is going to read it. And that is a scary realization: something you have produced will be seen by someone else's eyes. And these eyes tend to make critiques and judgements.  Also, written words have real power. So whether we like it or not, sometimes we need to filter our thoughts before we write them.

3. Evolution of the Writing Machine

CHANGING TECHNOLOGIES IMPROVE TEXTUAL EXPRESSION AND UNDERSTANDING

• The codex
• Transactions inscribed and remembered
• The printing press
• Massive amounts of text to be created
• Nearly everyone has access to writing materials
• The computer
• Biggest evolution in writing technology
• Creates interwoven society
• Grants everyone access
• Online print
• Remediation: New York Times
• Social networking
• Another way for people to connect and communicate for each other
• Informal writing
• Blogs
• Blogger, Tumblr

The Endless Possibilities of Digital Text

Group Prezi on Bolter's Writing Spaces (Chapter 1)

2. Writing Spaces Redefined

DIGITAL TEXT REDEFINES WRITING AS A TECHNOLOGY

• Computer: processes information, does not produce power.
• Redefinition of writing spaces.
• Wordle
• Traditional writings on a new platform
• Technologies shape the way people write
• Tablets, Palms.
• Remediation: process of competition beween technologies.
• Impossibility of going back to older technologies.
• Materiality of the text
• Materials used to write affect our writing

Should we like... blog?

How does the poem differ in its two recensions? What role does the spoken word (orality) privilege? What does reading privilege? What does the textual writing space (unconventional as it is) play in the transmission of writing?

Poems like the one we are analyzing are meant to be performed orally.  It is the interaction (however mediated it might me) between the poet and the audience that adds a deeper level of understanding.  The spoken word privileges the performer's attitude, tone, irony and particular way of delivering his poem.  In this case, Taylor Mali's physical and personal interpretation of his poem is just as important as the message he is trying to deliver. The different types of intonation and force between certain words make the listeners' experience more vivid and dramatic.

On the other hand, the textual space focuses more in the message the poet is trying to get across than in the way he does it.  To be fair, we should have seen the textual representation without any kind of sound, to get exclusively the experience written word could provide. Though the message did come across clearly (and this was even done in a creative way, like with the figure of a tree being cut down) I feel like it loses some of its power, as if we don't get to feel the full experience that orality could give us.