Some Interesting Things I've Stockpiled

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2243176
I'm allergic to bees, and therefore they're about the only thing that really scares me. But this was just hysterical.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFP0q4qzGw4
For Cynthia--you may or may not have seen this, but it's my favorite viral video ever.

YouTube - David Sedaris on Letterman
I love David Sedaris. A lot. This was the first time I ever heard anything from him and it was years ago. Since then I've actually heard quite a lot about... the product in question. I don't know, I just like him. =)

tallyhall.com/media.php
youtube.com/tallyhall
These are some really good friends of mine, and I feel like I've probably mentioned this before. The internet show, though, is one of the things that actually got them started. On their official site is the Tally Hall Internet Show (THIS), and I recommend episode 2. You can also head over to their youtube page and check out all of their stuff from when they were in college as Atlantic Records has finally deemed fit to put them back up.

Better Than Ezra - Absolutely Still
I tend to hate music videos. I think they made sense when the market was closed and labels relied on markets like MTV to sell records, but nowadays they tend to be stupid, cliched, or just plain bad. This, however, is the only one I've liked in a long itme

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mji82PQTYeo&feature=PlayList&p=1C899B263451A4E6&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=47
This was the first viral video I ever saw and it still makes me laugh.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hRgzRSazIs
This was the second one. Again, still hysterical. Also socially relevant, because it's funny how angsty people get about their web browser. Yes, I use Safari. I like Safari. I will use Firefox if I have to, but only as a last resort (ie. anything to not use IE). Just weird like that.

For 11/19

Microcosms
I liked it. I mean, it was seriously creepy and I had some nightmares, and I don't ever think I'll be able to purge the image of the slug sex from my mind. But I liked it. I was a big PBS girl growing up (mostly because we simply didn't have cable until I was 13) and I watched every nature show there ever was during those 13 years. I also have a passion for the macro lens. It's how I shoot my photos--I like to get really close to things, see details. With people, I like to get a little closer than most people are comfortable with. It's fun. And this was kind of like that. Except with slug sex.

William Boroughs
I was going to say something sarcastic about how he should stop doing crack because it's clearly affecting his faculties... but it appears that actually happened so maybe it would be best to just say I think he's out of his mind and move on.

John Cage
We were actually talking about John Cage in one of my ISes the other day--the professor was at a piece where he sat in a class room, just occasionally dropping things and making gutteral noises. Apparently it became a piece revolving around audience involvement but until they realized that's what he wanted (about 13 minutes in) it was so boring he wanted to run out. I think that maybe had I been there and had that experience, I would not think he's completely lost his mind... but unfortunately, I do. What is with us elevating the "work" of crazy people to such a level? Have we lost so much of our own collective minds? Seriously, dude. This is ridiculous. That piano stuff was crap. I've heard some pretty horrible music doing what I do, but that was ridiculous.

NMR For Classes 8 & 9

Chapter 10 - The Construction of Change by Roy Ascott

• 1960's - Cybernetics & art continue to retain focus - the distinction between participation & interaction
• Art of the Electric Age focuses on the interaction and relationship between the work & viewer.
• 1980's - Telematic art: communications & collaboration between people far apart
• Relationship between art, science, & behavior, a flexible structure to bend science & art

Chapter 11 - A File Structure for the Complex, the Changing, and the Indeterminate by Theodor H. Nelson

• Nelson coined the term "hypertext" & offered a complex, reconfigurable structure for info
• Thought about the web years before it came to be commonplace

Chapter 12 - Six Selections by Oulipo

• Developed a system with the potential to create computer-mediated textuality
• Enhances the readers ability to create literature
• Renegotiates the relationship between the work, the creator, & the viewer
• Yours for the Telling
• Like Choose Your Own Ending books we used to read in elementary school
• Allows the reader to take an active role
• Computer and Writer by Paul Fournel
• Outlines the different relationships between creator, computer, art, & viewer
• Talks about math & literature
• Prose and Anticombinatorics by Italo Calvino
• Examples of how computers help create literature
• Chooses compatible possibilities

Chapter 13

• "The medium is the message"- McLuhan.
• 1962 - Typographic technology causes a change in western thought
• Printing press - Gutenberg - people can be hypnotized one sense at a time by a new technology
• 1964 - "The Medium is the Message
• This essay makes me want to claw my eyes out.
• Talks about the idea that the media itself overshadows the content it puts out.
• Hate.

Chapter 14 - 1967 - Bauldrillard's critique of Understanding Media

• 1965 - Influential artist were gathered from various groups in Europe and New York
• 1966 - E.A.T was founded, Experiments in Art and Technology
• 1970's - Advancements of technology and art together
• The Pepsi Expo Pavillion is created as a collaboration between artist and engineers.

Basically, McLuhan is a nutcase. A brilliant, brilliant man, but a nutcase. Why do brilliant people feel the need to write in such a way so that it takes an average person a lot of serious work to figure out what they're saying? A lot of McLuhan's ideas and concepts can be restated in a way so the average high school student could understand them, but they're so convoluted that I don't want to read it because it makes my brain hurt.

For 11/5 & 11/12

Scots & Lasers

I'm sorry, but so? Get over it. Who cares if you can scan it on the computer? Go there and see it yourself. As for urban planning, I really don't see how this is going to help. You only can scan something after you plan it. Whatever. Yet another invention that doesn't actually do the world any good.

Lifelog

This is absolutely retarded. Not only is it a waste of way too much money, but it's pointless. What's the point of filming your entire life? It would take your entire life to watch it all. And the whole "outsourcing mental tasks" thing is just retarded. Why don't we just offload our consciousness onto hard drives now and live as computer minds in a virtual world?

Scott McCloud

Interesting. I might actually be able to use this in one of my interdisciplinary seminars, and I think the only reason I watched the whole thing was because it was a video. If it was a paper, I would have been far less interested.

Marshall McLuhan

I'm actually reading Marshall McLuhan in another class. He's really freaking smart (duh) but I really hated reading his stuff. I'd rather read other people's readings of his stuff. Nutcase!

And I don't want to watch anyone's wake online ever. That's just weird. Specifically not watching that because of the creepiness factor.

Piano Stairs

Fun. I like it. They should find some big staircase with 88 stairs and have a bunch of people play some Brahms.

Erin McKean

I'm amazed it took this long to come up with this. It's really interesting, because I like words a lot, but it doesn't really excite me. It's just another dictionary, like urban dictionary that anyone can modify. So both exciting, but anticlimactic. I really like her presentation though, she's an excellent and very entertaining speaker.