First-time Thoughts from a First-time Blogger with Unimaginative Names for Titles

First things first, I'd just like to say how glad I am that browsers have a zoom function. I hate reading large volumes of teeny tiny text, whether in print or on a screen (especially on a screen). So, if I could only pick one thing I like about digital technology, it would be the ability to blow up the text to a size that won't give me a migraine from trying to read it. It's a good example of how digital technology can transfer control of the experience to the reader.

I've just gone over "Library of Babel" and I can't say if reading it online was any different from reading it on the pages of a printed book. What did make the experience different was Google. With my Firefox browser, a Google search bar is right up there in the corner, waiting for me to use it when I needed to get a better understanding of what I was reading. If I was reading print I'd have to get up and go to the computer or a dictionary, or something that was not on hand. That would take much longer to do. But with reading it online, Google, Wikipedia and anything else are already right there in front of you just waiting for you to need to use them. So looking up references and such definitely happens much faster, and even contributes to the experience much better than if I was reading a printed version. I think it has something to do with the fact that I'm able to remain comfortably seated.

Overall, "Library of Babel" was an interesting, stimulating read. While I was reading, it began to turn into a logical exercise; as I went about digesting the library, its books, and the theories of the inhabitants. Whether or not it's all a metaphor for something, an allegory or some other thing disguised as another thing, I read it as if it was an actual place that exists somewhere. It's fun for me to imagine that something like this actually exists: books containing all possible combinations of all possible symbols; all of the implications and theories that flow from this one idea; and the people of that world trying to find the best way to understand it and live in it.

Thanks for all of you who have jumped right in

For those unfamiliar with blogger:

You have two options for posting your blog entries.

1. New Posts: In the upper right hand of the screen, click "new post." This will initiate a new thread (like the two I have created with the readings for weeks one and two). Give it a zippy and relevant title in the title box, enter the body of the text in the main "box," and make sure to click "publish post" to send your words to the public blog.

2. Comments: Beneath each thread (like the two I have created with the readings for weeks one and two)(like the two I have created with the readings for weeks one and two), you will find the word "[#] comments." This will take you to a new page that begins with the original thread and includes the bodies of all comments made thus far. At the bottom of the comment already made is a text box in which you may enter your post. Make sure that the "Comment as..." menu (directly below the white text box) has your accurate avatar/userid indicated and click "Post Comment" to make your words available as a public comment.

Please post any questions or concerns you have to our course listserv @ s09nat@googlegroups.com

:-))

Babel as Biblical, Literature, or neither

So I'm currently reading the Library of Babel, and the first thing that came to mind as I started was the Babel in the Bible (Tower of Babel). Not to say that it has any actual reference to it, but looking at it in that way provides many different perspectives.

When the author/narrator points things out such as "inexhaustible stairways for the traveler and latrines for the seated librarian, can only be the work of a god. To perceive the distance between the divine and the human" it seems to not only be talking about books, but the actual distance, or the building of the tower. In a lot of ways this can be taken as a philosophical or scientific approach to the creation and thereafter destruction of the Tower of Babel.

Although the narrative seems to be talking about the useless information of books in which the narrative is still insistent that there is an important book there, and perhaps a book that ties one to God. I still feel that there are many connections to the religious text.

Another passage, focusing on the language, begins to pinpoint the idea of mixed languages and as the level rises more confusion. "the first librarians, used a language quite different from the one we now speak; it is true that a few miles to the right the tongue is dialectical and that ninety floors farther up, it is incomprehensible."

This passage hits at the different dialect, the varied meaning of words and phrases, much like the jumble of talk after the tower has fallen, and God made it so that people could not understand one another. It explains why all of the information seems to be useless although there is certainty that it is not. It also explains how one of the texts seems to lead towards a direct tie, or equality to God.

Finally, there is a passage that talks about vindication, or the wish to get high enough to find their vindication. "Thousands of the greedy abandoned their sweet native hexagons and rushed up the stairways, urged on by the vain intention of finding their Vindication"

Here it shows the struggle, and the push to be the one closest to the Book that makes one man more equal than the others. The search for what they cannot find amiss the pile of seemingly nothing.

Although it focuses much on the texts and the inability to understand the books, rather than the Bible story, there are many ties to it. Including that of the name Babel. The name Babel is this exact story, and/or a confused mix of sound, which could be voices. This said, tying it in with library is what places this as a more scientific or philosophical understanding/comprehending of the religious text.

However, both still leave the questions why the mixed voices/languages?
Why the search or desire for vindication?
And why is there failure?

There are answers for both paths, either biblical or not, but they continue to intertwine. Like these staircases, so similar to the "staircase to heaven" seems to be perceived in a thematic way towards this original biblical ideology or even the simple universal connection or tie through language in order to obtain a certain goal. It seems there will always be why's to this work, but Babel remains a break down of borders.

But as a work in this new media age, I also see it as a direct tie to the constant stream of all that is the technological world today. Here lies the central focus, language, which ties all of us together and keeps literature and new media alive.

Through text or speech language, regardless of language connects the whole world. And it leaves me to think that the one text that they all searched for, was that universal language. It was a specific source that they could all identify with, and this is why it left them as a direct tie to whatever higher source.

So I'm going to end here before I begin to yap on. Still have plenty more reading to do, till who knows what ghastly hours.

Fun and...yes, games

http://www.secrettechnology.com/madethis/enemy6.html

WEEK 2: GO GADGET GO

January 13: Hypertext I: Digital Lexia

Library of Babel (1941, Jorge Luis Borges)

my body - a wunderkammer (1997, Shelley Jackson with sound by John Wesley Harding and HTML coding by Ken Fricklas)

Patchwork Girl (1995, Shelley Jackson)--CD-ROM!! {BEGIN}
***YOU MUST ORDER THIS IMMEDIATELY FOR OVERNIGHT DELIVERY @ EASTGATE.COM -or- YOU MUST ARRANGE TO SEE THIS CD-ROM WITH PROF. BIANCO...DO NOT WAIT UNTIL THE DAY BEFORE CLASS...IT WILL NOT HAPPEN.

way to long for a first post...

Well, here I am...Its 2:15 or so in the morning and I have class tomorrow morning, and yet I find myself here. Blogging. I least I think its blogging. I dunno what else I would call it I guess...

So, Let me tell you how I got to this point. I planed to have a look at either patchwork girl or wunderkammer today, basically so I would know what I was going to be going up against tomorrow, for this weekend is already devoted to the NFL playoffs, and I can't have classes getting in the way of that. Well, around 7:30 I decided to take a look at patchwork girl. I was immediately confused and instantly distracted by the fact that I realized that the pens were on. And that was the end of that. I spent the next few hours watching the penguins, and then feeling disappointed, I turned it over to comedy central for The Daily Show and The Colbert Report to alieve my newest wave of depression. That kept me occupied until midnight. Then I realized, as I often do, that I had once again shoved school work aside. So before I 'i mo codladh' (-means 'went to sleep' [sort of]**, an Irish plug - {my 2nd language of choice}...so take THAT german...haha) I decided to take a look at wunderkammer, because patchwork girl is something that is going to take no small amount of energy to figure out, and at midnight-i wasn't going back to that...

I was enthralled almost immediately. It was deliciously disturbing, and yet, through the use of the innocent childlike vision that I felt she wrote from, brought me to that same peace of mind that was so common to me as a child. She wrote most of her story looking back to how she saw things as a child. I believe that even if you can't remember it, we all once looked at our body and the world around us in the same way she does in wunderkammer, experimenting with the always fascinating world around us in every way we could think of. I laughed out loud at parts of her story, and other parts I related to in a way that I didn't expect to.

And before I go on, people who haven't read it yet should probably stop reading this now and go read wunderkammer. What I say should not influence your reaction to it, but I have learned from the past that talking about something before someone experiences it does influence most people...

Anyways, I related to this story, because I do remember experimenting with simple things, like how she talked about her eyes seeing two different things at once. Just this past week, I was bored in one of my classes and I did that same thing I have been doing since I was a kid, playing with the 2 different visions of my eyes. We all did things like this, whether people will admit it or not with their 'newfound' embarrassment they gained by growing up is another matter.

I also related to the somewhat disturbing aspect of the story a little more than I would like to have. As she progresses (regardless of what order you read the story in, which is another amazing feat of how well written it is) she slowly become a little bit of a masochist. She is a regular girl who desperately wants to be different, and is trapped in a conforming world. She enjoys pain and blood a little more than the 'norm' might be considered. I found that I agreed to her, although only to a point, about some of the things she talked about that others might find disturbing. I, somewhat like her, have always liked the feel and warmth of blood running from an open cut, and the beauty of the cut itself. And it is my person belief that if anyone who has blood running from a cut would calm down about being cut and seeing blood, that they would enjoy it's feel as well.

Well, thats my story of how I am up now at almost 3 AM writing about something that I was just going to look at briefly and then forget about until another day. But who am I kidding, I would still be up anyways watching re-runs on tv all night...

And then I would also like to mention just for the record, that I probably won't be leaving nearly as detailed blogs throughout the semester. In fact, I am usually proud getting in a paragraph (bare minimum paragraph, that is) when I am forced to write about something I don't care about. And I apologize, but I will write (still as little as possible to get my points across...but, as you can see...) these long drawn out rants that most people do not want to take the time to read if I find the subject matter interesting. Don't worry though, I will be in no way be offended if you choose to skip my blogs...in no way at all

-godhammel

**[Irish is a funny language...I kind of paraphrased because it doen't really mix well with English...then again, what language does?]

Wunderkammer & The Title

An interesting topic of discussion herein played-out is the influence a title has, or has not, on its reading/passage.

What do you think of when you see this title?
Why is the title in both english and german?
My body - a wunderkammer....

I'll tell you what I first think of.... a body. And having some german background (5 years of highschool & placing in the highest of Pitt's language placement test) I notice wunder, quite like wunderbar... which means much more than just wonderful... its like its a story of magic... something you just can't put a finger on. At least thats my perception... and Kammer, I dont know what that is, but here are some returns:
Wunder:

• marvel
• miracle
• prodigy
• miracle(s) [plural]
• +miraculous
• wonder

Kammer:

• cell
• small room
• chamber
• cabin

Is the story about a wonderful jail cell? or maybe she's referring to the body, like cells, since the human body is made up of cells, intricately designed and yet so diverse in abilities...
Perhaps there is a marvelous room in her body? no, maybe her house... like in a castle, one room where magic happens? Yes? No? Hrm.
Or maybe, when combined, this wunderkammer means something totally different?

And why do you think she (the author) picked german of all languages?
I dont know but I can tell you one thing, german is an amazing language (++ personal bias). Many many words in german are sub-super-uber-exactingly-specific... for example, there may be thirty different ways to say money, and each depends on its context. At the same time, one word, may reveal and implicate an entire story. Rosen rot? Wunderkammer?

I think she picked it because wunderkammer has deep meaning, at least now reading the narrative(??) I think that was a perfect choice.
I dont want to give away what it actually means, or so I think.

I'll discuss the poem/narrative/story/writing, whatever it is that is so amazing, in more detail later.
Oh this is going to be a great discussion, ha. I think our professor picked this for many reasons. Lets just say, you will be pushing your boundaries... =)

-willy

Amazing People... Work Together

Hey all!!
I just blogged on my profile, but I wanted you all to see it, so I'm blogging again here.
I'm william livingston by the way. The one who repped www.MyFitTribe.com during class, yeah that's me =)

So today in class, the Profi (german for professional, but it sounds sweet so I'm using it as "pro-fessor" because they're professionals at educating?? ) was discussing how modern education is not so "modern" or intuitive. We should be working together as teams and collaborating on life... not just work. Two heads are better than one, and we really are burdened by this "im better" attitude.
If you've ever met someone outside the United States, perhaps European or such, you'll notice the kinder 'tude they carry with them. They're just pleasant to be around. Many of us are too, but it takes a while to break through that outer shell. Also, a lot of it is just our mind and perception of what we think is true, again, influenced largely by our culture (hint: Mass Media).


So this blogging deal is pretty cool if you're new to it. Its been quite a while in coming that we've known writing down things helps "transcend" (that's my word of the week... too lazy to do a word of the day) into deeper meanings, and also more generalized meanings. Quite opposites but trust me, its a neato factor.

It was a cool class today, meeting everyone new and breaking the ice. Admit it, you love ice breakers!! =)
Its pretty crazy the way narratives are shifting these days; life is shifting too.
Its not a new concept, or rather "unlocalized". I mean, it seems the new era of rebellion. Its not actually rebellion, but funny it is (yoda) that its considered rebellious that we think for ourselves now-a-days and speak our minds regarding our views and opinions.

Its really about not just taking what we're told and doing it. I mean, that's really what threatens huge corporations and companies. Its this whole idea that they have the sole power to control what we are exposed to, which in turn typically affects our choices.
Take the government for example. Its no coincidence that we have a black president. Nothing has changed, nothing external at least. I mean, the government is still what it was last year and the years before. We as people have decided that we can make a difference. It was our internal thoughts, with the help of the media (ironically enough) that got many people out there voting, regardless of whether we can actually change the government or not, we THINK we can, and therefore we DO.
"I think, therefore I am".

Woa! I could go on forever.
Let me just leave you New Years Resoluters with this one last tid-bit of info; many of us have proclaimed a great healthy and fit year to be our own. We will own it, get in the best healthy shapes of our lives.
But what really sets it apart from other years???
Its your thoughts & mind-frame!! It's time for a change....it's also about the people you meet that will help you succeed!

"You are what you THINK"

-willy

Welcome

January 6: Narrative and Technology


Introduction

from J. Yellowlees Douglas, The End of Books-or-Books without End [handout] (1964, Joseph Weizenbaum)

A History of the Future of Narrative: Robert Coover from Scott Rettberg on Vimeo.
See video in links.


Eliza/Doctor (1964, Joseph Weizenbaum)