I Thought It Was A Map...

When I first saw My Name Is Captain, Captain, I thought it was supposed to be a map. Then we talked about it in class and came up with all these different options. I thought I'd throw one more wild pitch out there because I was reading online everything I could find about this piece (which really isn't very much, we said many more interesting things in class).

One of the most interesting things I found was the emphasis on Morse code. I wanted to kind of expand on what I read a bit. Some people talked about how Morse code was significant to this piece, not only for it's visual aspect and it's relation to traveling and flying and S.O.S. emergency calls, but to the fact that both Morse code and My Name Is Captain, Captain depend on technology to function. At some point in time Morse code was a very new and brilliant invention, a new piece of technology. To use it, one was required to possess a telegraph machine, right? Just like with this CD, we need a computer to use it at all. We need a monitor to view it, and all the wires and technology that go into making our computer and monitor work. I found this connection interesting, but I then I had another interesting thought:

Though it's true that both use technology, one requires (I think) or uses sound, and one has no involvement with sound at all. I thought this was a kind of significant point, but I really don't know why. If we would have heard Morse code while the plane flew by, then would we have been irritated? Would we have thought it was cool? I don't really know, I think I might have been irritated if I couldn't turn it off. Or what if there was a plane sound? That's less irritating, but maybe Judd folks thought it wouldn't really add anything to the piece. (Changing subjects now)

How about the whole lack of sound? Why? Why no sound? Are we to focus on the visual only? Is it important that we see everything and hear, feel, taste, and smell nothing? We get only one sense aroused right? Isn't that a little bit odd? Especially because we do very little while viewing the poem, though there are certain interactions. (Which, might I add, most of the reviewers/commentors/interviewers failed to mention/missed. A couple would mention the table, but say nothing of the drawer, only of the rising/falling letters/numbers. None of them seemed to find that. There were also some that said something to the tune of "this requires no interaction at all, and no other programs can be run" which isn't true (about the no interaction) the drawers need to be opened. The plane's dit-dah-dit needs to passed over. There's definitely some interaction...all right, back to my topic) We watch the poem for the most part, at first with very little color, and then, with the aviators and the colored box tops, we get SOME color. Most of the stimulation seems to occur through the movement. Movement requires energy, which is something watching this poem requires none (physical-wise) of. So why all the movement? Why so little color? Why no sound? Why so few pictures? Would pictures be too stimulating?

One thing a reviewer noted was that "His endless way" settles over the line "She was and may still be." Amelia references? God? Lindberg? I don't know. I don't really know the significance of this, but one reviewer brings it up, but doesn't explain it. Does it have to do with the story of lost love? Maybe the reviewer is just insane. (Jessica Pressman is the reviewer, by the way)

Why are there 2 little holes on the viewer screen of the pilots with the toy planes? I was wondering if the fact that pilots are "playing" with planes has any relevance. It could, because maybe Amelia was toying with fate, flying so far, so early in flight history? Maybe that baby was lost because the family was toying with its life. Maybe Judd & Lori think that all pilots play around in a way? I have no concrete stuff here, just ideas. As for the two holes, maybe it has to do with eyes. Maybe they're so we see a big piece and two tiny pieces. Big picture as opposed to the small picture (short term), like with the execution of someone with maybe some of the evidence being questionable (which I don't really know if that's how it really was).

So we came up with, that viewer thing, from when we were kids... http://images.forbes.com/media/lifestyle/2005/12/02/4_1202toys.jpg which let me say I think might be dead on. See the two small holes? And the big thing in the center? The big thing in the center doesn't show the images, but the holes are in the right places...And the color is red...the image could just be showing something aged, and maybe showing nothing in the big hole and only a little something in the small holes wouldn't really have worked well for viewing. So maybe that's exactly the thought they were going for though.

Then there’s the Venn diagram. (Which I found spelled with “nn” and “n,” and Google didn't have a problem with each) http://www.stat.yale.edu/Courses/1997-98/101/venn2.gif. This one also seems kind of significant because at some point there is the section in the middle that seems to obviously represent that crossover area. But at that time there are no pictures, so maybe at one point the poem is representing a Venn, in trying to show how things crossover, (like their medium, which is writing, a traditionally non-digital thing throughout time, but now is featured on a computer...CD) or maybe the crossover of the words, or stories, since there are 3, and there are 3 sections to a Venn diagram (as well as three holes in the Viewmaster).

Then maybe the Viewmaster section is the audience looking. We are looking at pilots playing and joking with "toy" planes. We're "seeing" something, realizing something maybe. I don't know, but maybe it just means both things, as Judd and Lori tried to find things that fit their general image ideas.

I think maybe a map, glasses, eyes, the MasterCard logo, the woman (maybe not so much, I can't seem to get any of my other friends on the bandwagon on that one, just the one chi....girl...girl...I said GIRL Sheela!), the dials or instruments in (or on the instrument panel of) a plane. I also though, after I kept being reminded of the Morse code by reviewers, thought "hey, maybe it looks like a telegraph," and I'll be damned if I didn't find a telegraph that kind of looked like their poem layout from the top view http://www.greatdreams.com/telegraph.jpg! I thought that looked kind of like it with the two circles and kind of tiny gap between (which is different, being that the two circles don't overlap, but this was the only picture of this kind of telegraph I could find on a couple of search engines, so maybe there are other, similar looking telegraphs, with closer together circles, and maybe Judd saw one of those), and I thought it did look like the poem and since the Morse was so significant (to these reviewers), I thought I'd throw that out there.

Well, I hope people took a break at some point during reading this. I was just trying my best to let all my thoughts and comments out at once. I tried to include those links to spice it up, I don't know if you have to copy them or you can just click them. Hope they all work when clicked on. I think I was a blog or two behind, so I wanted to write something thorough! See you guys next week. – AJ

Oh, and Jessica’s review is linked here: http://www.uiowa.edu/~iareview/tirweb/feature/morrissey_talley/.

The Joys of a Double-Braided Text

In chapter seven of Writing Machines, Katherine Hayles discusses the importance of allowing personal experience to inform and transform texts. She argues that the application of broad literary theories through the specificity of personal perspectives will allow “scholars to read old texts in new ways and seek out new texts that cannot be adequately understood without the theory” (Hayles 106). This was a refreshing take on literary criticism, a form that can be thought of as being very impersonal, scholarly and aloof – an obscure analysis floated down from the Ivory Tower. I wonder if what Hayles is proposing might be something along the lines of the gritty analyses especially noticeable in the fields of post-colonial and post-modern literature. Could Candace Fujikane’s response to Blu’s Hanging be one such example? If memory serves me correctly, that response combines the formal structures of literary theory with the personal realities of racial stereotypes and cultural attitudes.

Hayles goes on to propose that “now is a good time for a double-braided text where the generalities of theory and the particularities of personal experience can both speak, though necessarily in different voices. A text where both voices can be heard, at first very different but then gradually coming closer until finally they are indistinguishable” (106). It occurred to me that this is precisely what Hayles does herself. In Writing Machines she switches back and forth between the first and third person voice, and it is easy to hear one in the other. It would seem that House of Leaves could also be considered a “double-braided text.” Johnny’s voice and experiences inform Zampano’s writing (in the form of extensive footnotes), while Zampano’s experiences seem mirrored in Johnny’s personal/mental breakdown. So far however, the voices are very distinct from one another (both visually and audibly), and since I haven’t finished the book yet, I’m not sure if they ever merge to the point of being indistinguishable.

Ultimately, the form of analysis that Hayles discusses seem to speak to the possibility that literary criticism can be both scholarly and personal. It can represent the best of academic thinking with the best of complex realities, offering a richness and depth that is accesible to those of us who choose not to reside in the Ivory Tower!

Last Week's Post This Week - Fun Stuff!

House of Leaves presents a puzzle for its readers. The layers of fictional characters give the book a “real” feel and left me trying to sort out what was what. Part of my experience had to do with the author’s use of editors, a fictional author, and a narrator who used footnotes extensively. The use of different typefaces added to the sense of credibility of the story. Even though I knew everything from the title page on was fiction, I found myself getting drawn into the story and started wondering about some of the external sources that were cited. The fact that some of publications mentioned are real, The New York Times for example, gave the story a sense of weight, made it real. I stopped reading on page 72 and flipped to Appendix II-E. Later, I noticed the checkmark in the bottom right corner of page 97, the signal that Johnny’s mother asked him to use if he gets her letters. This threw me because page 97 is from Zampano’s notes. Is Zampano Johnny?

After reading Hayles’ analysis of the book, I thought I might have enjoyed the rest of the book better if I hadn’t read it. At the same time, having read it after reading part of House of Leaves I had a better grasp of the nuances the book. More importantly, I gained a better grasp of the ideas that Hayles talks about in her writing. I find her writing has a little too much jargon for my taste. Even with Hayles analysis in hand, I found this text ergodic. The layers of characters and the length asides - what did Thumper have to do with this story? - drew me in and at the same time required my complete attention so I wouldn’t miss too many clues or signs or symbols.

This was a dense book, I need to add it to my re-read list.

House of Leaves: Unholy discourse

I have never read a novel with so many levels of discourse, nor such explicit narration. At its heart, we have the story of Navidson and his family, though our experience of those events is shaped by Navidson's film editing. Furthermore, we don't actually see this film, but are fed only excerpts from critical literature, which describe the scenes only as evidence for a certain reading of the text. All of this is assembled by Zampano--so much commentary on a film compiled by a blind man! But it has been organized from fragments by Truant, who also reveals up front that the entire Navidson video is a fabrication. Truant presents Zampano's work as nearly unchanged (except perhaps for the addition of the word "water" before "heater"). Yet, from his footnotes we see that Truant is practically a compulsive storyteller (aka, bullshit artist; ie, unreliable narrator). As frosting on the cake, we have the nagging question of how much change was affected by the anonymous "Editors".

Hayles does a nice job pointing out how each of these levels of narration have also affected a change in medium, from film, to scholarly article, to a box of notes, to a novel.

Also, we are constantly aware of the narration. (This book reminds me of The French Lieutenant's Woman, which is my only other major experience with this sort of thing.) Footnotes inherently break our reading of the text for the purpose of commenting on that text. (Though in House of Leaves, it's so easy to slide from the text into a footnote!) Each level of added narration comments on how the previous narrators were unreliable or biased, adding levels of their own experience to the mix. And the text wanders away from the story for pages at a time to make an abstract argument for a certain reading--such as the discussion of the mythological and symbolic nature of echo.

Certainly a very dense and somewhat unsettling read!

Mind Games

For me, HOUSE OF LEAVES, acts as a complex and intriguing set of mind games - a literary work that forces me to question my perceptions of what is real and what is imaginary. Never before have I read a book that tricks me so thoroughly into believing that the characters and events are real, only to have me reminding myself in the next minute that it is all fictitious. It is not so much the descriptions of darkness nor the dangers of nothingness that frighten me the most, but rather the ability of words on a page (words on these pages) to so thoroughly mess with my mind!

Katherine Hayles refers to this phenomena as it relates specifically to the “realness” of the characters. She notes that “the text emphasizes that people within the represented world – Will Navidson and Karen Green on one level, Zampano on another, and Johnny Truant on yet another – exist only because they have been recorded” (116). My relationship to the various characters – i.e. my willingness to believe that they are real – is precisely determined by the unusual nature of what is recorded on paper, who is recording it and how. I believe Will Navidson and Karen Green to be real because some character name Zampano dedicated his life to writing about them and referring to others who wrote about them. I believe Zampano is real because some character named Johnny Truant has found his writing and writes in turn about him. I believe Johnny Truant to be real because some anonymous authors have written about him and his desire to publish his writings as well as Zampano’s. Each of their writings – distinguished by location on the page, typeface and the addition of footnotes – further confirms the apparent validity of what they are writing about.

This cycle is one that transforms the traditional “unreliable narrator” into a “remediated narrator” (116-117). And it is the multiplicity of these remediated narrators that tricks me into believing, almost unconsciously, in the reality of what I am reading. While HOUSE OF LEAVES is definitely not one of my all-time favorites, I do recognize the value of a literary work that remediates reality so completely.

Creative Projects

I'm hoping you've all been thinking about what you'd like to accomplish with your creative projects for this class. We'll go around and hear from each of you in class tomorrow. I'd like to emphasize the importance of archiving your materials as you generate them, even early drafts/attempts/test-runs you don't especially like. You will be asked to account for your process at the end of the semester, and having a collections of previous versions and "cutting-room floor" sweepings will help you describe your trajectory and assess your final project in relation to your initial goals.

I'll refer you to Acid-Free Bits, an excellent resource for digital artists and writers that focuses especially on the problem of preservation. It's co-authored by Noah Wardrip Fruin, who is the editor of First Person, and Nick Monfort, a writer of interactive fiction and author of Twisty Little Passages, a critical book about IF.

I'll also invite you to take a look at one of my creative projects. Ask Me for the Moon is a combination of a poetry chapbook and a critical essay on Waikiki. It appeared in the Summer 2005 issue of The Iowa Review Web, but I'm giving you the direct link to my site to save you having to hunt through the IRW archive.

comments for "New or Recycled?" by Michael

Michael-

I'm still in awe on how far the design of your site has evolved from its initial stages!

Navigation/Organization: I love the organization of your site--how you incorporated different ways to navigate through the lexias, with the navigational bar on the side and the links w/in the text. They seem to complement eachother-one is good for the type of person who needs some kind of linear organization, and the other for the type of person who doesn't mind the nature of hypertext (in that you are able to jump around from screen to screen). I'm kind of embarrased to say that it took me several visits to realize that the green and blue (non-underlined) links are activated by the rolling-over of the mouse. (I kept thinking...did I accidentally click the mouse? That's certain evidence that I'm an "old dog"!) I also like how you incorporated the definitions with the red links--it cuts out on the time spent waiting for a new window to open.

Content: You provided a very deep analysis of Hermeticon in relation to the philosophy of the past (Bruno) and present (Hayles). You also discussed concepts I never would have came up with on my own, such as conning, consumerism, alchemy...etc. There was one part that I found a little confusing...on the "Fifthly" screen, you start off with, "The importance of this can be seen with a few kewstrokes." I was a little confused by what you mean by "this," is it the importance of the screen capture/what you captured in it? Or is it another concept you discussed in one of the previous screens?

All in all, besides what I mentioned above and a few spelling/grammar errors, I think you provided an excellent, insightful analysis of Hermeticon and covered topics an average net-surfer would not pick up on. I don't think what I said will spark any new ideas but I hope you feel very accomplished in a job well done!

-Kanani

Justin's Critical Review

Hey Justin.

I apologize for how late this response to your work is. I held off on responding because I kept waiting for you to put up more sections of the essay, thinking that all you'd posted were screen shots. It wasn't until just now that I realized the screen shots were themselves links to individual pages!!! Once again...I forgot to do a sweep of the page!! Grrrrrrrr!!

In any case...here are just a few thoughts and reactions to your scholarly review:

Organization
I like that you've used individual, chronologically ordered screen shots. Given the style of "Faith" itself and the importance of each individual screen, this seems like the most logical and comprehensive way of approaching the work. This clear, simple way of organizing your review made my life as a viewer pleasantly easy. All I needed to do was click on individual screen shots to view your analysis of that section of the work.

Navigation
However, I would consider using some type of navigation bar or hypertext link so that the viewer has multiple ways of navigating the site. As it stands right now, the only form of navigation available to me is the back button. Was this intentional, or have you just not gotten around to it yet?

Style
Again, I enjoyed the simplicity and legibility of the site's style...but you could always toy around with different color combinations and maybe a slightly smaller/more interesting font.

Critical Analysis:
I appreciated your detailed analysis of each screen shot, but was also looking for some tie-in to the criticial theory we've studied. Maybe some theoretical arguments from Hayles' work or from First Person might complement and flesh out your own personal analysis.

Other Screen Shots:
As it stands now, I believe the last three or four screen shots do not lead to linked pages. I guess you'll be finishing out these screen shots in class? Are there any other screen shots from Faith that you plan on analyzing?

Well...that's about it for now. Hope I've not been too nit-picky and that some of this is helpful. Best of luck as you complete your review!

See you in class! :)

text wrap with external style sheets

Aloha!

I learned how to wrap text around images but still be able to use an external style sheet.

You can use an inline style. If you look at my home page, you can see the coding. Resize your browser and you'll see it works.

http://www2.hawaii.edu/~mesulliv/

Of course, if you have a lot of images, an internal css might be the way to go.

Also, if anyone wants to create a personalized/custom background for their page, I have photoshop. Let me know if you want to play!

Aloha,
michael