I thought of this song when I was reading The Kekulé Problem the other day. In it, McCarthy recalls,
I suggested once in conversation at the Santa Fe Institute that language had acted very much like a parasitic invasion and David Krakauer—our president—said that the same idea had occurred to him. Which pleased me a good deal because David is very smart.
Allegedly, the virus quote originated in William Burroughs’ The Ticket That Exploded, although I could not locate the verbiage in a search of the text. McCarthy doesn’t deal with Burroughs though. He’s rather discussing relationships between language and the subconscious, and language and humanity.
…once you have language everything else follows pretty quickly. The simple understanding that one thing can be another thing is at the root of all things of our doing.
The Open Culture essay on The Kekulé Problem quotes GK Chesterton: “Art is the signature of man.” Art, like language, is symbolic representation and metaphor. One thing being another. I’d also say it’s a mirror, in that what we see in it is determined by what we bring to it, and so it shows us ourselves.
I read Kekulé hoping it would help me grapple with The Passenger. The jacket flap explains it as a “novel of morality and science, the legacy of sin, and the madness that is human consciousness.” On the surface, it appears to be two interleaved tales, one of a young woman’s hallucinations and suicide, and one of her brother working as a salvage diver in New Orleans. But it’s something more as well. There’s a scene at a funeral where the protagonist muses on the scientists who built the bomb and the aesthetics of horror, with this sentence:
I just had to make a triple troll quote out of that. #MakeArtDammit! I attributed it to Hemingway and used a photo of Ellroy, contrasting the quote to their deceptively simple prose and economy of language.
Anderson’s song connects back to the book with serendipitous lyrics:
Paradise
Is exactly like
Where you are right now
Only much much (It’s a shipwreck,)
Better. (It’s a job.)
The job involves a shipwreck and a sunken plane. I don’t think paradise enters into it, although it appears to be what they like doing. Finding these connections is something I like doing. And it gives me impetus to blog a bit, and maybe get that book club thing going with Jim again.
The objective of this assignment was to take a photo of a character, add a quote to it that would be related to the universe the photo exists in, then attribute that quote to a completely different character. This process took a few minutes for my brain to understand, then I had an idea! That idea is this image:
If you are not familiar with the office, this will not seem comical by any means but for me, I giggled to myself for a solid 5 minutes after I came up with this plan. The above image is a picture of Jim, dressed as Dwight. The quote is a Michael Scott quote from another episode of the series.
The process of this art piece was easy: I found the image I wanted and added text to it using Photoshop.
Jim Groom, a guru of both ds106 and the 80s, took some time to talk about the course with me. I have an edited version above, and the full discussion is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQ53L-lecUU
I’m hoping it gives some ideas on different ways we can approach the theme. We all have our own interests. I don’t expect people to share mine, but I know we can find ways to connect to the theme and to each other. As heard in the video, “What you find interesting is what you should cultivate.” Words of wisdom, Jim, words of wisdom.
I mention Sterling and Shiner’s “Mozart in Mirrorshades” (saved in the Files section of Canvas, if anyone is interested) in the longer version. It is a basic time-travel sci-fi story at first glance, but it does tell us something about its time, and gives us a view of the future from that perspective. The issues of environmentalism, consumerism, colonialism and militarism are all prominent. We, the future we, burned through the earth’s resources so we’re then mining the past. We in the past were perfectly happy to sell out ourselves for consumer culture crack: “your cheap manufactured goods seducing the people of our great country,” as Jefferson put it.
And yet, the power of celebrity rules over all: “We’re talking Top of the Pop, here. Not some penny-ante refinery,” we are told as they bring Mozart back to the future and sacrifice the rest of the operation. We could interpret that as the power of celebrity. We could also see the timelessness of art in it.
Next week we will start looking at the Assignment Bank, but reading this story made me think of the classic Troll Quote assignment, so I made one for it, with an 80s twist.
This week was a really cool week. I finally got to start creating things!
First off, I was introduced to Daily Creates. This week, I did four!
My first Daily Create was more of a doing than creating. To celebrate MLK Day I decided to suggest that people use their free day to serve others. In addition to suggesting others, I decided to sign up for a volunteer opportunity that I will be doing Friday Jan. 25! I will be working alongside the American Red Cross and helping with the local blood drive. I felt this was a great opportunity to share the idea to volunteer so others could become motivated as well. I feel people get caught up in their daily lives we forget we can take a step back and help those who need it.
#tdc2567#ds106 Celebrate MLK Day by serving others. You can search for volunteer opportunities on various websites including https://t.co/nfktUyIUEb !!
My second Daily Create was to explain something technical while using furry animals. I used a boxer with a ball in his mouth to explain the Lock and Key Model by Emil Fischer. I am a biology major so using a biology concept was the first to come into my mind. I know this concept very well too because I have to know it in my field. (Fun Fact: The Induced Fit Model is actually a more correct way to describe the relationship between substrates, enzymes, and active sites (; ) I thought using the boxer picture was a really good idea because it shows how the Lock and Key fits together just like his toy does in his mouth. He is also super cute. I made this Daily Create by finding his cute picture online and looking up a direct definition of the model to double check my facts. Then I went into my Snapchat app, typed over the picture using a Big Text font and made the text black to contrast with the greenish background. The look came out very clean and served it’s purpose to being informative, but throwing the viewer off with the super cute picture.
My third Daily Create was to make a literal song comic. Currently, my second favorite song is No Place by the Backstreet Boys. So of course this is the song I wanted to play around with. I chose the lyrics in the beginning of the song that say “You’re my Memphis, New York, New Orleans all rolled into one.” I decided to literally put “You’re my Memphis, New York, New Orleans” all rolled into “one”. So, for my comic I found a picture of the word “one” written in white letters in a black circle. I picked this because it was circular and fits the rolled part of the lyrics and I could draw inside the white letters. To finish off my comic I decided to hop on my iPhone and use the “Markup” tool on the saved picture and draw inside the “one” ,”You’re my Memphis, New York, New Orleans” in a rolling motion. I also picked colors I personally associate with the places. I have no rhyme or reason why I picked the colors I did – it just felt right. I thought this was funny, creative, and different from what others were doing with the task.
My fourth Daily Create was something I loved! I got to take a high deff, zoomed in picture of nature. I love photography and I loved my end result. I picked a bush outside my house because it is the only plant that really has any color right now. It’s also raining and I thought it would look extra cool with the droplets. I took this with my iPhone 8S Camera and it did a wonderful and beautiful job. I zoomed into the bush and got my hands a little wet so I only took a picture of a few leaves on it – per the Daily Create’s wishes.
Aside from my Daily Creates, I was introduced to the Assignment Bank on our DS106 webpage. I’m also really excited about these because I get the chance to create using different medias.
The first assignment I did was a Visual Assignment. This assignment was meant to confuse three fans of different secret agent characters. So what I did was take a picture of James Bond off the Internet, go on Snapchat and type a quote from Kim Possible, and then give credit of the quote to Perry the Platypus. This way, different fans can recognize their favorite secret agent character, but get confused that the picture and quotes are meant for three different people. Furthermore, I kept the colors consistent in my creation to keep the balance and appeal to the eye to further gain the attention of the viewer. I enjoyed this assignment and I think it’s pretty funny.
The second assignment I did was a Writing Assignment. For this assignment I was to link a song to Twitter and describe how it makes me feel. I picked my current favorite song, “This Is It” by Scotty McCreery and talked about how happy and excited it makes me feel. I can’t wait for my future wedding – in fact I have a pretty clear image in my head on how it’s going to go. I’m also really excited about getting proposed to and this song makes me daydream a little harder.
Yup, I'm one of those girls who dream about her wedding and getting engaged to the love of my life. So when I listen to this song I become so happy, excited, and filled with joy. I can't wait for the future. https://t.co/hq78NXHP2S#WritingAssignments#WritingAssignments2042
My third assignment was a Design Assignment. I got some photoshop fun in for this assignment! What I had to do was think of something I wish my iPhone did and then create a picture that depicts that thought. I said that I wished my iPhone could send information straight into my brain so I didn’t need to study the information I was reading, I’d just memorize it. I imagine the words flying from the phone straight into my brain so that’s exactly what kind of picture I put together. I took a picture off the Internet of a boy sitting and using a typewriter. The image already had words flying out of the typewriter. Next, I found a picture of an iPhone laying down and I put the two pictures into an editing app called Adobe Photoshop Mix. This app allows you to mix together two photos and photoshop them. Using this app, I cut out the iPhone and placed it on top of the typewriter. I then used a tool called Clone Stamp to hide the typewriter with a close stamp of the wall behind it. Next, I used the Warp tool to make the flying words appear to be flying into his head more. Then WAALAAA. I had finished my masterpiece. I was happy with this assignment and thought I did a good job. I also think it’s what a lot of people wish too – especially with books.
After I made all of my creations I took some time and customized my page. If you noticed, I changed my blog title, the themes, and the whole set up of my page. The first change was the change that brought all my ideas together. I decided to call my blog “A Captivating Silence” because I feel it goes with my theme of being undercover, and not showing my true self. It’s a silence from my real identity and my real world and I really wanted that for these platforms. So, I think it’s really fitting. The go with that idea, I changed the background of my blog to a pretty sunset. I feel like sunsets are captivating and when you watch them, you’re silent. It has meaning to it. I changed the theme colors to purplish pinkish too so it went with the picture and color scheme. Then, I changed my logo to a pretty white cursive G (the first letter of my name), just so I could have a small little hint of who I was, but not enough to actually know me. I thought it meshed well too and I liked the aesthetic. Last, but not least. I reorganized my posts into menus. You can view my weekly assignments in one section, and then my miscellaneous posts in another section. I felt it added more organization and my viewers can find things more easily. I felt accomplished after organizing and customizing my blog and it made it feel more personal.
In addition to my tasks, I started following a lot of my ds106 classmates and trying to find them on all of their accounts. I went through classmates followers and found others and so on. This now meant I have their posts on my feed and I can actively comment and like. I don’t feel the need to post all of my twitter reply comments or the comments I leave under posts because honestly I’m so compelled by everyones posts. I see so many creative works and I comment so freely like it’s second nature. In other words, I don’t comment because I have to, I comment because I truly like it. The two that stood out to me this week were definitely from Christiana Meyers and Matthew Miles.
Christiana or agntchristianameyers106 did an amazing Instagram mural. If you click on her Instagram profile you can see the mural that encompasses her last few posts. It’s incredible and really caught my eye.
Matthew did a great job explaining my feelings on snakes. Reading his blog post made me remember some “awesome” memories from the conference golf championship in high school where the same thing happened to me. I’ve embedded his post below. I can relate to this post so much. It really stuck out to me and gave me a good laugh. I made sure I commented on it so he knew I appreciated it.
Lastly, I was to share my thoughts on “What do you think is a good example of storytelling in the secret agent genre? What makes it a good example?” My answer to this is: I’m not really one to watch tons of movies or tv shows and if we’re being honest here, I usually stick to romance, comedy, and horror movies. The only good example that truly comes in my mind as to what is a good storytelling example of the secret agent theme is Perry the Platypus from Phineas and Ferb. I’m not kidding when I say I haven’t watched any spy movies or movies with secret agents in them because I don’t like action and a lot of those movies fall under that category. So yes, Perry is the secret agent that comes in my mind and I love the Phineas and Ferb example for a storytelling theme because of how many episodes and stories the directors created. Perry goes under so many missions and they are SO secret, no one even knows his identity. He lives everyday being an actual platypus and no one even suspects him to be different. It’s awesome and he definitely stays true to being a secret agent.
Again, this week I learned so much and I finally feel like I’m in the swing of things. I’m ready to tackle this course and keep on chuggin’ along!
Seems to me finding an Audrey Watters quote in a ed- tech focused presentation is as common as finding an image of cats. Her work as become synonymous with critical ed-tech, so when Whitney Kilgore suggested creating inspirational quotes based on her work—nothing seemed more natural. There have been some fun ones, but given Paul Bond has started up another instantiation of ds106, I figured I would take the quote prompt as an excuse to ump in the assignment and do one of my all-time favorite assignments: Troll Quotes (or the Triple Troll Quote). It’s dead simple, take a quote, assign it to someone else, and add a picture of a third person just to help feed the fake news ecosystem of the web It’s so easy you can do it all in Preview or Microsoft Paint in seconds.
When I got the idea I knew the quote I would use, the 50 years 10 university quote from Sebastian Thrun that would make Audrey’s blood boil, and become that staple critique of MOOC-mania, and by extension the Silicon Valley narrative, that was fairly rare in ed-tech. In fact, most folks where figuring out how they could jump on the MOOC gravy train in one way or another, but Audrey and Alan Levine did not let up, continually pointing out what a con the whole thing was. Which, I guess, explains the image of Daphne Koller, who founded Coursera with Andrew Ng, a company that represented for much of higher ed the great disruption we’ve all been waiting for—and the degree to which money was spent, research time was devoted, and ink was shed for video lectures in a scalable LMS will never really add up for me—so much waste.
So anyway, thanks for the Monday morning diversion Whitney, and hopefully for me a good sport Audrey
I loved the humorous example I saw while browsing this assignment. The idea of mixing an image, quote, and signature to trick unwary viewers seemed intriguing. I wanted to try my hand at finding similar characters and see how one could mash them into essentially one super-character. But on a more serious note, the assignment immediately reminded me of the various quotes that pop up on Facebook. Many of them have an image of either a celebrity, or a particularly emotionally-compelling image with some form of quote. Oftentimes in the comments I will see astute observers pointing out that either the quote is misattributed or completely false. So while this certainly was a fun exercise, I felt that it also reinforced the need for skepticism while browsing information on the Internet.
For the actual creation process, I first had to decide on the characters I wanted to include in the piece. Xena and Wonder Woman immediately came to mind, followed by Eowyn as another popular female warrior. But then came the question of which aspects of each to include. At first I considered using Xena’s famous quote of “I have many skills”. But it then became apparent that such a choice would mean I would have to use an image of Wonder Woman with the signature of Eowyn, which I felt might be more easily spotted as a fake (as the two are fairly distinctive). I then considered that many fans reacted to Gal Gadot’s first promo image as Wonder Woman by comparing it visually to Xena. As such, perhaps Wonder Woman and Xena would be more likely to be confused with each other. This led me to use Eowyn’s quote of “I am no man,” (especially fitting since all of the chosen characters are female) paired with that particular promo image and Xena’s signature.
To create this image, I opened the promo image in paint, and cropped out extraneous space on the righthand side. I then changed the word coloring to white (to better contrast with the darker background), and experimented with various fonts for the quote itself. I ultimately opted for Papyrus, which had a more ancient/timeless feel to it (especially fitting since Xena and Wonder Woman have Greek backgrounds). After fiddling with font sizes, I saved the work, and voila!
I felt that the final product looked quite convincing, but was pleasantly surprised by the reaction of my parents. My dad’s reaction was, “Did Xena really say that?” apparently missing that the image was of Wonder Woman. But better yet, my mom didn’t notice anything odd at all about the picture, which cemented in my mind that the image appears perfectly plausible to a casual viewer!
That first heady phase of the first round of DS106, back to December 2010, before Jim Groom’s first class very started, set the stage for the creative riffing ethos that is part of this crazy space.
Like free form music jamming, it is taking something someone else has played, not as a theft labeled copyright act of stealing, but using as a base to do something slightly different and new. Novel? It’s sort of how species like us evolved from proto mollusks in the mud.
The funny thing is what he did is probably not quite the style as shown in the examples, but that’s the point of ds106, you, as creator, have the right to do something completely different from the assignment if (a) it’s interesting; and (b) it’s justified somewhere (hopefully in his/her blog).
How many other classes are you given liberty to not follow the letter of the assignment?
Find an image of a well known figure, add to it a famous quote by someone related in some way to the figure in the image and then attribute the quote to a third, related figure… This way, nothing about your image is correct, and you’re trolling fans of all three characters at once.
Classic DS106 indeed. It gives you room to riff on popular culture, and play on truth and perception, by putting together more or less information incorrectly (in an assignment-y construct) in a way that at first glance might be legit, but with just a little bit of critical analysis, should be seen as a false one. And the real beauty is not just putting together three random bits, but in a way so there is a theme to it all.
He was doing this for the Triple Troll Quotes assignment, but I really thought it would be fun to re-do the assignment as he did, with rock stars. Take a photo of one rock star/band, overlay the lyrics of another star/band’s music, and attribute it to a third.
I gave myself 20 minutes to do mine:
Got the connection?
The lyric is from the closing stanza of one of the most popular rock songs ever (and one I loathe for its bloatiness). The photo is the band Spirit, who had a burst of popularity in the late 1960s (supposedly Jimi Hendrix opened for them at Woodstock).
This does not happen in any tightly instructional designed LMS hosted assignment graded by robots.
This happens on the open web in DS106. What are you waiting for? Make some triple quote art, damnit.
Top / Featured Image: For the idea on riffing, I started with Google Image Search (licensed for reuse filter, the one buried 2 clicks away from the public interface, sigh) on “guitar riff”. The vast majority are the typical screen shot from a youtube video of “some bearded kid in his bedroom teaching you a rock song”
But just below the fold was this awesome photo of a yellow suited Elvis with a dog’s head, “elvis presley guitar mutt” a public domain image from pixabay.
Winning riff.
The post “Triple Troll Quoting and The Riffness of #ds106” was originally pulled like taffy through a needle’s eye at CogDogBlog (http://cogdogblog.com/2016/02/riffness-of-ds106/) on February 23, 2016.
The Triple Troll, in spirit, is meant to irritate fans of three different things at once. This one went in a little bit of a different direction. This one will only irritate one fandom and the others won’t care at all. They are nihilists. They are too exhausted.
I trolled myself really, in the end. At first it was all ‘ha, ha, hoo, hoo’ put Bieber lyrics on a Nickelchad picture…hahahaha…. But then it got dark by adding two wonderful words: Joe Strummer. I’m sorry Joe. You said the future is unwritten. Does that mean we can unwrite this?
Now this is an interesting assignment. We’re meant to take a photo of a famous figure, put a quote from a separate, related figure, and attribute it to yet another separate, but related figure. For this one I decided to break out the nerdy stuff (I managed to hold it back for this long!) This creepy dude is from the video game The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, and he’s called the Skull Kid. The quote is from a different character from the game, whose looking from the Skull Kid, called the Happy Mask Salesman. It’s a quote that anybody who knows the Zelda series or video games in general might know, as it’s used extensively in fan-made material inspired by the game. I attributed it to Zelda, who actually doesn’t appear in the game, but is still named after her for some reason, which is relatable enough I would say, and is sure to aggravate any fan of the series.
First I found a well-know image of the Skull Kid on google, downloaded, and opened it in, you guessed it, Microsoft Paint. There I simply resized the image, added the quote with the text tool, and tried to find a font that fit well enough. Personally, I didn’t feel any of the fonts fit super well with it, but this one I found was close enough. I thought about changing the background to black, but I kind of felt the white background worked well, kinda accentuating the contrasting parts of the image.
It’s so easy you can do it all in Preview or Microsoft Paint in seconds. 
