Reading in the dark
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Below are the 12 most recent journal entries recorded in the "Kestrell" journal:
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02:10 pm
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Book review: Little Brother by Cory Doctorow
block quote start
I'm a senior at Cesar Chavez high in San Francisco's sunny Mission district, and that makes
me one of the most surveilled people in the world. My name is Marcus Yallow, but back when
this story starts, I was going by w1n5t0n. Pronounced "Winston."
block quote end
As is obvious from the very first paragraph of _Little Brother_, Cory Doctorow's new book
begins with a bang and pretty much keeps up the pace straight through to the very end of the
story.
Marcus and his friends are typical teenagers in a not-too-distant future. They worry about
dating, getting into college, and how to skip class and not get caught. Then one day they
are caught in the wrong place at the wrong time when a 9/11-style terrorist attack occurs in
San Francisco and they, along with many others, get picked up in a Homeland Security sweep.
Marcus soon finds himself under constnat suspicion and surveillance by his own government,
even as he begins to ask himself and others, including the adults around him, why he is
being forced to conform to a culture of fear or risk being labeled unAmerican.
( continued below cut )
Current Location: aerye
Current Mood: radical
Current Music: 1776 soundtrack
Tags: books, coryd, media studies, politics, reviews
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10:56 am
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Username Faust review
Yesterday ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) alexx_kay, juliad and I attended "username: faust," currently playing at the New College Theater. I found it both enjoyable and thought-provoking; my ultimate judgement is that creatively, it is a fabulous play, but politically, I completely disagree with its theme.
Here is the story (note I think I am conflating the character name with the actors' names, due tot he way the program presented this information). Alice, a wheelchair user who works from home at a data entry job, becomes drawn into the Internet, posting to LiveJournal and later, under the influence of Sophie, creating YouTube videos. Soon she finds herself withdrawing from her real-life friend and neighbor, Wendy, in order to cultivate the adoration of her online fans. All of this comes about through a literal Faustian bargain, with Lucifer being played by a sort of "remixed Old Nick," who sings all his parts through pieces from various Faust operas.
The acting was impressive (although I wish the female lead had projected a bit more), and the opera was wonderful.
My main issues with the play are that it takes the easy route in some of it's narrative, including a pat "technology is evil" moral stance. To be specific, the action of the play presents the idea that the Net robs you of "real" experience and substitutes superficial meaningless virtual experience. It is to be noted, as
this other review
http://galen-reviews.livejournal.com/12688.html
points out, that this is a Harvard student's senior thesis, but still, I feel a more complex unpacking of the pros and cons of technology is, at this point in the 21st century, to be expected.
As a disability and technology advocate, I have to strongly object to this theme.
( my argument against the technology is evil theme )
Current Location: aerye
Current Music: www.wumb.org
Tags: media studies, technology, theatre
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11:10 am
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Web broadcast: It’s a Small World: How Virtual Worlds Are Changing the Ways We Relate”
The Web broadcast of the MIT event I went to on Wednesday has been posted online
It’s a Small World: How Virtual Worlds Are Changing the Ways We Relate”
http://alum.mit.edu/broadcasts
** Warning: While the initial link claims you need RealPlayer to access the broadcast, there is a Windows Media Player option once you click on the first link. However, I could not get this to play the video with my screen reader, so I'm not certain how accessible this site is.
Two comments of particular interest
1. Henry Jenkins's comment that one of the things which is standing in the way of virtual worlds retaining more users is the complexity of the interface. Note that many of the aspects of accessibility which I discuss in this blog include those same characteristics of a userface which tend to make it more easily usable by everyone, including keyboard shortcuts, the ability to get cues or hints as to possible actions, and other features such as
captions and subtitles (someone on the igda.org accessibility mailing list posted this link to
Valve statistics on user experience
http://steampowered.com/status/ep1/?captionsHelp
which includes the fact that
12.33% of users use subtitles and closed captions).
2. Beth Coleman's comments on the six aspects of a healthy virtual world (if anyone listens to this video, I would appreciate a post listing the six characteristics and the title of the 1998 HCI article she references).
Also note that Beth Coleman
blogs at
http://www.projectgoodluck.com/blog/
and is soon releasing a book titled _The Virtual World Primer_.
Current Location: aerye
Current Mood:  frustrated
Current Music: www.wers.org
Tags: media studies, mit, virtual worlds
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07:15 pm
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GamersRead.com
It needs to happen. If I had the money, I would grab the domain name myself.
Does the phrase "transmedia storytelling" not mean anything to someone who chooses to go into radio?
Prompted by
this NPR segment
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17938562
where the interviewer asks the question
"Do gamers read?"
It's really too bad, because she was doing a nice job up until then discussing storytelling in games.
Disclaimer: Please do not be fooled into thinking that the number of posts I have made today referencing NPR indicate that I am any sort of responsible newshound or anything. I was just spring cleaning and doing my usual station surfing.
Current Location: aerye
Current Mood: irked
Current Music: www.wumb.org Art of the Song
Tags: books, games, media studies
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04:40 pm
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Val Lewton film marathon on TMC Jan. 14
I read this on an academic list I am on; for those who don't know about Val Lewton, he created some of the classic horror movies, such as the original "Cat People," one of my favorite movies because of its use of sound to create a sense of the uncanny.
Anyone want to come over and watch the documentary and "Cat People" with me?
Martin Scorsese's new documentary Val Lewton: The Man In the Shadows
premieres on Monday, January 14, 5:00PM PT on TMC
You can also follow a weeklong blogathon on Val Lewton and his films here
http://theeveningclass.blogspot.com/2007/12/val-lewton-blogathon.html
Current Location: aerye
Current Mood:  excited
Current Music: www.wers.org
Tags: horror, media studies, movies
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05:23 pm
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Cartoons and classical music, a natural mix?
I caught this on NPR this morning and, of course, can still see the Bugs Bunny cartoons in my head, though somehow I never got around to seeing "Fantasia" (and perhaps for this reason, I had never realized before that the music of "Dance of the Hours" is the same music used for "Hello Mudda, Hello Fadda").
Anyway, the music historian in the piece makes a great point about how these cartoons exposed kids to classical music
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17854152
Current Location: aerye
Current Mood: Meta Girl
Current Music: Night On Bald Mountain
Tags: cartoons, media studies, music
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12:39 pm
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A new book on psychogeography
_Psychogeography: Disentangling the Modern Conundrum of Psyche and Place_ by WILL SELF. Illustrated by RALPH STEADMAN.
Kes: I have been fascinated by the concept of psychogeography since alexx_kay read me Alan Moore's "From Hell," which sent me scurrying to read Peter Ackroyd's _Hawksmoor_ and--what turned out to be one of my favorite books--
Iain Sinclair's _Lights Out for the Territory_ (an excerpt can be found here
http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/s/sinclair-territory.html
Also note that the title of the review
Walker in the City, written by MATT WEILAND
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/23/books/review/Weiland-t.html?adxnnl=1&8bu=&emc=bu&adxnnlx=1198339517-RCFTdJDHLR8BJ2AcVaNBJA
references
De certeau's "Walking In the City," which proposed that the city was a text and that it was the people who walked in it who brought meaning to the story (you can find useful quotes here
http://turing.ace.uci.edu/~econrad/deCerteau.html ).
( more links and quotes from the review )
Current Location: library
Current Mood: Meta Girl
Tags: book, media studies, psychogeography
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11:22 am
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Blind psychic chicks!!!
Kes: In my ongoing attempt to coin my own lexicon of lit crit terminology, I created the term "narrative fetish" to indicate those themes and tropes to which you find yourself irresistibly drawn, at times much against your will.
One of my reluctant narrative fetishes is stories --fictional and nonfictional--about blind psychic women. I can't explain it, and I've begun working on my own blind psychic chick story in an attempt to work it out, or maybe complicate the stereotype just a little.
From the Ouch! Disability Magazine newsletter:
On this latest show: Mat and Liz are joined by blind psychic Sharon Neill who inspects their auras, they discuss partners and PAs, Rob Crossan goes on a
date with Podcast listener Kate - who frankly gives him a run for his money - and there's music from Heavy Load, a band made up of people with and without
learning disabilities!
** Ouch blog: He Could Have Anybody
"Oh that poor man puts up with such a burden. He must care for her so much. Do any of you get this?" Wheelchair Dancer on her relationship with her partner,
Wizard.
( links )
Current Location: aerye
Current Mood: conflicty
Current Music: www.wumb.org
Tags: blindness, disability, media studies, superpowers
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03:54 pm
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Reading Comics: How Graphic Novels Work and What They Mean
Has anyone read this? Read any reviews? Is it worth reading?
Reading Comics: How Graphic Novels Work and What They Mean
by Douglas Wolk
http://www.amazon.com/Reading-Comics-Graphic-Novels-Work/dp/0306815095/ref=sr_1_1/104-0378015-4688748?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1191094944&sr=8-1
Current Music: www.wumb.org
Tags: books, comics, media studies
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08:08 pm
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Superheroes and Supervillains art exhibit to open in San Francisco
Via the
Disability Studies: Temple U blog
http://disstud.blogspot.com/
(which also has a great post about H. G. Wells and images of disability in his stories)
this announcement about an art exhibition in San Francisco:
Super Heroes, Super Villains (San Francisco, October 4-November 21)
http://www.creativityexplored.org/whats_new/happenings/2007/10/super_heroes_super_villains/
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Reinterpreting famous and infamous characters from comic book history….
Fly, leap or zoom over to Creativity Explored for a special exhibition straight off the pages of your favorite comic book. Studio artists reinterpret famous
saviors of the universe and those who would thwart them. Laron Bickerstaff gives a new look to heroes like The Flash and Green Arrow, while Edana Contreras
contributes an ode to Oracle — the only major super heroine in a wheelchair. Michael Bernard Loggins imagines his own cast of super characters including
Super Toothbrush Hero, Super Serious Man and even Super Average Girl — “Trying to stay as average as she can be.” Curator Francis Kohler of Creativity
Explored also contributes food for thought placing text panels throughout the show to highlight real life heroes and villains of the disability movement.
block quote end
"
Current Location: aerye
Current Mood: Meta Girl
Current Music: Sam Cooke "Only Sixteen"
Tags: art, comics, disability, media studies, science fiction
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09:14 am
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Midsummer Night's Scream
Last night alexx_kay and I went to hear the Shakespeare in the Commons production of "Midsummer Night's Dream," but when we arrived we were told it would be a tech rehearsal due to a couple of rained-out rehearsals earlier in the week. alexx_kay and I were okay with this, but once the play began, issues seemed to be about more than just timing and tech problems.
In a word, DayGlo.
That is, costumes and hair.
Also, there was singing.
The costumes, singing, and other directorial choices seemed to indicate that the setting was supposed to be an '80s MTV video (alexx_kay's interpretation) or a '70s rock opera (my interpretation).
This may have still worked, but a choice was made to forego the rhythm of the blank verse in favor of something more original. The speech Oberon has when he incants his love spell over Titania's sleeping form was delivered at a raging shout, which was really too bad since the actor playing Oberon had a stately and resonant voice which. If he had been allowed to deliver the lines as an incantation, the speech would have been breathtaking.
alexx_kay has commented before on how it is a bad idea for me to get bored. I began musing aloud about the potential for Midsummer to be done as a slasher movie, which alexx_kay promtly titled "A Midsummer Night's Scream" (I could almost feel guilty that I recently made my sweetie give a close reading of "Behind the Mask"...almost), and we proceeded to spend the rest of the time at the play and on the ride home working on the concept.
alexx_kay typed it up and you can read it here
http://alexx-kay.livejournal.com/174656.html#cutid1
Current Location: aerye
Current Mood: Meta Girl
Tags: horror, media studies, meta, shakespeare, writing
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10:00 am
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The New Disney? Four hurdles for Disney's Iger
[Kes: Henry recommended we read this article on cultural changes which will affect Disney in the future. I'm a bit wary of the adjectives used to describe children as "jaded," casting their media choices in terms of lost innocence and technical wizardry. I often wonder when I go to nighttime movies just who wanted to go to the movie, the kid or the parent, since it seems the child is often confused about what is going on on the screen, staying unusually quiet until the cute fuzzy talking animals shows up. Additionally, the article is not always clear when it is refering to what media venue: when movies like LOTR are cited, I would like to know if these are movie sales or DVD sales which are being discussed. This article does provide in a nutshell, however, a great introduction to both media and technology issues in culture.]
By Laura Petrecca, USA TODAY
http://www.usatoday.com/money/media/2005-10-02-disney-cover-usat_x.htm
[excerpted bits]
Two decades after Michael Eisner rescued a troubled Magic Kingdom, its new CEO must reshape it for a vastly different world.
As Robert Iger begins his first business day as Walt Disney
(DIS) CEO today, it represents the end of an era — and not just for Disney.
The world that former chief Michael Eisner knew during his 21-year reign is undergoing a dramatic transformation. New technologies, including cable and
satellite TV, fragment audiences among a vast array of news and entertainment options. Disney's core audience, kids, often become jaded before they leave kindergarten. And for theme park tourists, the threat of terrorism is a fact of life.
Here are four areas of dramatic change that will need to be priorities for Iger if he is to position Disney as a winner in the years to come:
( snip )
Tags: disney, media studies
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