This is my first weekly summary, in response to ds106 Week One: Bootcamp. I’m in the first week of the ds106 syllabus and anyone who started the course on time is 10 weeks ahead of me. That’s the beauty of … Continue reading
An assignment to create another Three Wolf Moon shirt? Really? I’m getting GRADED for this? My life could only get better if I’d started my work on Monday like a sane, sensible human being.
I was excitation to give this assignment a try, although initially I wasn’t certain I’d be able to capture the essence of the glorious Three Wolf Moon reviews. There’s something about that sort of spontaneous moment of communal absurdity that’s difficult to recreate, and generally results in a terrible forced meme that never gets off the ground. The stuff that makes great memes great is, in part, their unpredictability, and how organically they arise from the depths of internet subculture.
However, in attempting to find something weird and different to review on Amazon, I found that the majority of obscure items (like unicorn meat, wolf urine and real uranium) already had a plethora of silly reviews attached to them; apparently the three wolf moon shirt spawned not only that one meme, but an entire tradition of leaving ridiculous reviews on odd products. In a similar vein, the mundane items I looked at mostly had at least a few real reviews already, meaning my review would hardly stand out.
At last, I found it. A Halloween costume so dumb and awkward that itneededa stupid review. In keeping with many of the story-reviews I’d read as I trawled through the weird underbelly of Amazon.com, I went with a hyper-serious tone, and even went so far as to use the persona of a scientist to really make the point. The trope of the crazy scientist living with the animals they’re studying is a well-known one, so I had a lot to work with in terms of cultural background. While my review hasn’t generated any other reviews in kind, I have a second review! And possibly a third later on! And folks are seeing it—as of writing this, 11 out of 12 OVER FORTY people found it “helpful.” Granted, that might be due to the fact that it is absolutely because I advertised what I was doing on a knitting forum I frequent that’s full of weird, awesome people who appreciate this kind of thing and who were willing to jump in and help me out (it’s not cheating, it’s generating traffic!).
In case you don’t want to head over to Amazon to view my story in all its absurdity, here’s the text of my review:
Excellent for research! Entomologist approved October 28, 2012
By HAs an entomologist specializing in Coccinellidae, I have been searching for a suitable disguise that would help me conduct up close research on new species of lady beetle that I have discovered. They are a fascinating breed, having established a colony that is similar in structure and function to that of a beehive a termite mound. I had purchased an inferior costume for my first attempt at studying this colony, and the results were unpleasant; apparently able to detect the faults in my disguise, the lady beetles swarmed and began to gnaw on my face. After a brief recovery period, however, I was determined to find a better costume and try again.This costume proved nearly faultless, and has served my needs admirably. I had to sew on an extra pair of legs and supply my own black unitard beneath the ensemble to complete the look, as well as modifying the wings so they sat beneath its outer shell, but otherwise its sturdy construction bright coloration, perfectly mimicking the iconic red elytra of the Coccinellidae, were just what I needed. I chose this costume over the others advertised on this website because the spots it boasts are more proportional to the garment’s overall size; others I looked into tended to present in a smaller polka dot pattern, which may have been the fatal flaw in my first disguise.I write this now from the outer limits of the Coccinellidae colony. They have accepted me into their ranks, and I have begun living as they do, setting out each morning before dawn to collect aphids and other scale insects for more sedentary colony members. Their behavior is utterly unprecedented, and seems almost intelligent. Soon I hope to catch a glimpse of the center of their colony, possibly a queen-beetle of some sort. I live in hope, and all thanks to this excellent costume.
Changing a webpage to tell a story is not for the faint of heart. I tried out the X-Ray Goggles recommended for the assignment, and could not get it to work (not sure if it was a problem with the program, or if I was just fundamentally misunderstanding something). So then I tried Firebug. And the initial site that I wanted to hack (The Official Google Blog) seems to have been designed to prevent exactly this sort of thing. So I switched to CNN.com. And the code was overwhelming. The recommendation to choose a simple site is very wise.
But I decided to go with it anyway. I downloaded the homepage (File -> Save Page As in Firefox), chucked the folder of extras, and started wiping out all of the excess code in Dreamweaver. Although this method does require expensive proprietary software, it was soooo nice to be able to have a dual-view of the source code and the page, and just click on an item on the page, selecting the code so that I could easily delete it. It also made changing the text really easy, and to replace the images I just had to paste URLs into a box. I did, however, keep one image. Can you guess which one?
So what is the narrative of the web story? Well… In the fall of 2012, a new virus emerged. A feline virus. The Lolspeak Virus.
To view the full page, complete with links that I didn’t bother changing so they will take you to surprise CNN articles (the mystery is part of the fun!), you can access it here. Dropbox shows the source code, so you need to download the file and then open it in a browser to view the page.
I changed up the Make Music DAMNIT assignment a little, and instead of talking about the first song I ever learned to play (that was probably something random from a kid’s music book on the piano), here I talk a little bit about the first song I ever made up on the guitar.
OH HEY LOOK A WRITEUP:
This assignment was super low-tech. “Haley Unplugged.” Kinda.
I just sat down in front of my digital recorder with my guitar, switched it on and started talking about my Mom and how she inspired me to learn guitar. I’d thought about what I wanted to say prior to doing the recording, but didn’t have anything scripted or prepared beyond that. I actually had one bad take when I stumbled over a few words, but the second one came out just about perfect.
Using the guitar to supply a bit of background noise seemed natural as I was recording this piece, and as I kept talking I realized that I could use the guitar to subtly enhance the story I was telling as well. When I’m talking about my mother playing guitar I strum a few chords that more or less match up to the styles of song I’m discussing, and each chord is clear and true. Around the bit where I mention how learning to play was more difficult than I’d anticipated, the guitar gets a little more dissonant—not enough to distract from what I’m saying, but I felt like it enhanced the message at least a little. If I recorded this piece again, I think I might try to play something even more dissonant there just to make the message that much clearer for the listener.
Once I’d finished recording I downloaded the file onto my laptop, converted it to a .WAV file with the superbly useful Online Convert.com and then uploaded it into Audacity to reduce the noise and cut it down a little.
While this project wasn’t much of a stretch in terms of my technical knowledge or sound editing skills, I think it serves to highlight the importance of decent source material. I’m not saying my song or my storytelling is anything to write home about, but it’s pretty clear and concise, and it’s got obvious narrative flow. Because of that, I could get away with posting a more or less unedited clip as a finished piece. It’s like Ira Glass said; his team spends most of their week hunting for good stories, because when you start with solid raw materials, it’s a lot easier to create something worth listening to.
For an assignment that I didn’t enjoy nearly as much as I thought I would, I certainly went a bit overboard with it. There’s another newsprint blackout poem under the cut, as well as my own spin on the art form.
Weirdly, I think the reason I found this assignment less awesome than I initially anticipated was that I am a poet. It’s one of the titles I use to define myself, these days–poetry is part of me, just as much as breathing or seeing, speech or touch. It sounds a little ridiculous but it’s absolutely true. Trying to create poetry from a fixed collection of words was uncomfortably limiting. When I write poems, I agonize over ever single syllable, each line break, which words are placed where. It’s an intense process, and this kind of poetic creation was a bit frustrating.
Even so, I love the look of these poems. The meaning and word order can’t be as precise as I’d like since I’m not choosing the words, but I’d be hard pressed to find a form that’s more visually arresting:
While I was thinking about the form of these poems, I thought about what might happen if I reversed their format. Essentially, instead of blacking out large sections of newsprint and leaving only a few visible words, I highlighted a couple of words and left the main article visible:
Nifty, isn’t it? It’s fascinating, this play of language–the way it changes the original article,the way the original article alters and informs the newly created poem… gah. I could go on! I’ll be curious to see if anybody else came up with a similar idea, or wants to try my variation on this theme.
As I was scanning through the DS106 RSS feed reading posts and listening to lots of content, I came across an assignment that had to do with writing a story using your music playlist. I couldn’t find the “official” assignment anywhere on the ds106.us website. I’m still trying to figure it all out. Anyway, this assignment was a bit less academic than the one I was currently working on (reading and reflecting), so I thought I’d give it a whirl. It looks like someone named Colleen created her own assignment. The jist of it is:
Using Windows Media Player*, construct a playlist of songs (using song titles only) that can go together to form a sentence, a poem, a new song, etc. When you are done, print your screen, paste it in paint and upload it to your blog, flickr, etc., tagging it.
By passing the Windows Media Player for iTunes (does anyone use WMP anymore?), I got started making my story. Interestingly enough my story ended up being quite a depressing love story. I recall someone else making a similar comment on his on music playlist story. I guess writing poetry is easier if there is a sad story in it.
