No kidding!

Multitasking, a gift

The key word here is needs, "whatever is useful for us shall be beautiful." Utilitarianism is the way to go in this battle.

I think worrying about whether others think you're a serious reader or not is kind of silly. The idea of "poser academics" is funny because on paper academia is the polar opposite of "cool," which is the only reason someone would be a poser. I can just see the Vice article now: "Are Academics the New Hipsters?". Actually, I should stop here before the folks at Vice get any ideas.

Reading about the kindle at this point is like reading about the Motorola RAZR or the T-Mobile Sidekick. On paper, it's so recent, but it's so, so far away.

I don't understand how ANYONE can primarily read on a screen. Don't get me wrong, I know I'm the outlier in this equation, but reading on an iPhone is infuriating to me. I'll eventually adapt-- I'm not nostalgic about the feel of "old pages" or anything like that, it's just easier to me. Print is not dead-- yet.

While this is definitely useful for doing an extremely close reading, I definitely would not have the patience to visualize this kind of data. Talk about a lesson in perseverance.

Does anyone remember when Atlas Shrugged became a hot, political topic a few years back? I think it was in the 2012 election-- I remember CNN had a headline that read "Who is Ayn Rand?". You can tell there was at least one English major in the editing department.

I feel like Stein is a perfect writer to utilize data visualization for as much of her work revolves around repetition. For example, I would be interested to see how many times Stein says the word "patriarchal" versus "poetry" in Patriarchal Poetry.

quite possibly the beauty(?) of digital humanities. Collaboration is essential.

just a personal tidbit: personally found this useful while planning out my final project on a digital visualization project of "Bartleby"

going off of Kate's comment, I think a 21st century Stein might possibly embrace the concept of "digital mapping" to explore literary meaning of novels.

This use of syntax and grammatical analysis is so so so interesting. I would love to see Shakespeare processed in this way - we know how he plays with language and motif, but his use of grammar is oft overlooked.

close reading

http://lightmicroscopemagnification.blogspot.com/2012/11/magnifying-glass-short-history.html

I certainly feel that there isn't as much of a distinction between the two practices now - perhaps that's a flaw in my education, or perhaps a strength. What I mean to say, is that in a single reading (especially when assisted by digital media) I often take a longer analysis considering everything, rather than using multiple readings to delve further into the depths of the novel. I feel like this use of technology allows and enhances this - you engage all kinds of reading by being able to see and explore the novel swiftly and through these different visualisations and readings so easily.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/j.ctt24hzc6.9.pdf?acceptTC=true

I can't help but think of David Foster Wallace's use of diction in Infinite Jest

repetition such as refrains repeat and echo themes. It does give us a simplified way of reading.

In my opinion, this is the most common approach to literature, especially in the date-and-age of close reading. "Philosophy" is a word with many meanings; while we may not be referring to the Sophocles variety, one may say that each piece of literature works to express some sort of truth to its reader, no matter how "deep" the truth may be.

http://orwell.ru/library/essays/wiw/english/e_wiw

the idea of writing for "political purpose"

This argument can be used in reference to any literary work. It is more present or more effective within the lens of the modernist era?

Like Shadika says, this is so inaccurate in terms of accessibility, but also when considering the fact that anyone can edit and produce, creating a wider diversity of intellectual wealth. Then, you have to consider the fact that sure, gender, race, class etc. are, undeniably, indeterminable from online readings. However, it is from much literature too. Most people don't know that Arthur Miller was Jewish, taking plays like "The Crucible" as the allegorical pieces that they are, but on a very 2D scale. What is the argument here; that books and journals expose explicitly the "humanity" of the authors?

Uh obviously, was this even necessary to put in an article. Computers are only necessarily useful with quantitative data, I doubt a computer is reading and analyzing the data for figurative meaning.

face palm

Am I the only one completely confudled. (see that a unique word lol) what in the world is this graph conveying?

I find this funny that this what our technology is going to. I am not sure what the importance of word counts or uniqueness. Count and Uniqueness does not change overall message.

Knowing all of this gives technology a very human quality. As is, technology does not act on its own. Though we may think of google and certain things a magical technology all of these things have been compiled and ordered by human. Technology only creates access, it does not create material.

I think this statement is so inaccurate. In fact with the new digital technology today the "human" is more easily accessible. We are now more capable of interacting with said human and/or researching that human more efficiently.

This methodology continues to proliferate these days: http://www.cinemetrics.lv/

Brings to mind the PowerPoint chapter of Jennifer Egan's "Visit From The Good Squad". Also, a beautiful piece of academic language.

Failure as an epistemological strategy is a kind of seeing in relief. However, the more that I think about what an array of misreadings might yield in terms of analysis, I suspect that the text at hand dissolves deeper into being art rather than the merely mediated literature it was before the digital method was applied. Granted, I may be splitting a hair that doesn't even exist.

Sweet and thoughtful, if not defensive and alert.

A notion of flexibility necessitates a material object to show the effect of that characteristic. In dealing with data, we've given up the possibility of thinking about these problems in terms of stacks of books in rooms.

It seemed that this thought is increasingly commonplace in general perception of how we interact with technology. Derrida would have enjoyed the Snowden revelations.

This is a really compelling notion of pleasure, and I've heard it said so frankly.

The visual metaphor is both helpful and necessary. Similarly, in accompanying our deconstructive turn in analysis, a mechanical way of picking apart the constitution of texts makes sense given where we're going. At the same time, it will soon become outdated to create distance between ourselves and the apparatus-- for that seems to be what early critics purport shortsightedly when they claim dehumanization-- and the sanctity of the humanities is swallowed up as we become cyborgs.

Smoke 'em if you got 'em, but also, that's a really beautiful and clever way to pose a question.

There seems to be a poetic dimension to a lot of the language that has developed around digital technology, and this particular word combination feels like it illustrates it.

For now!

There has been an extreme academic focus on close reading, as we have spoken about at length before, and it is interesting to see the other approaches to Literature, such as crafting infographics and data mining, that can also be utilized to analyze a text. Too often, it seems like there is only a singular way to approach a text, and utilizing quantified data, while not altogether replacing close reading but instead supplementing it, is simply another method with which one can tear apart and interact with a text.

Be it in a single novel or an entire genre! I saw a series of brilliant infographics done on the gothic novel genre a while back here.

And therefore, also how we write!

Once again, the use of data and statistics allows for two pieces to be directly contrasted. While one may have had to battle context in so far as comparing the two works, with data and graphics, one is able to deal almost solely with crunching numbers (words) and quantify the work itself while also comparing it to others.

We may need technologies but technologies needs us. Technology can go far until a certain extent where things needs to be organized and interpret by us.

who knows how to read this table? I'm confused on what it's representing.

We use what has been created for us to use. Even though sometimes we take advantage of what we can get out off the tools.

Here the argument gets really weird but/and interesting: Stein has written a text that only computers can read? Stein writes like a computer? Computers can write like Stein? I don't want to get too delirious here, like the "dreamy" bit from Voss and Werner above, especially since Clement's central point is that computing power is a tool in service of making meaning. But the example of Stein, whom many readers have found unreadable (for better and for worse) does push one's thinking in this direction.

Like Jeremy, I find this a weak broth. Quantifying approaches risk doing what social scientific disciplines sometimes end up doing: confirming what we already know with more data.

Consistent reminder that analog cultural tech is still tech: that the card catalog or magnifying glass is as technological as the database or search tool.

So it's not just "distant" reading; rather, it's using computing to pose and answer a wide range of questions, some of which may be quite traditional.

It shouldn't be a binary though; as Greg mentioned before, the computational practices are designed by humans.

I wonder what studying the pervasive modulated repetition of "Melanctha" would reveal.

Another mini-tangent, sorry. I recently read this interview with Alexander Galloway in which he says the following about the two main approaches to DH (investigating the nature of letters and numbers versus focusing on the use of letters and numbers for other means):

Ultimately it comes down to this: if you count words in Moby-Dick, are you going to learn more about the white whale? I think you probably can — and we have to acknowledge that. But you won’t learn anything new about counting. That’s the difference between the two approaches, and I think a lot of the misunderstanding between the two methods (or cultures) of working with digitality is due to this difference.

Shakespeare infographics/data have been ALL over the Internet recently, probably because of the 400th anniversary of his death. Here's a great one about character interaction in the tragedies:

Tangential, but fun: Sir Ian McKellen and Heuristic Media recently released the first "Heuristic Shakespeare" app.

From the website:

The Tempest from Heuristic Shakespeare is the first in a collection of thirty-seven separate apps. Each app is a tool for demystifying a play and making it more enjoyable for a modern audience. Sir Ian McKellen and Professor Sir Jonathan Bate take us on journey of discovery using the world-famous Arden Shakespeare texts and their extensive essays and notes. The apps are not meant to be a replacement for seeing the plays in the theatre or on the screen but instead bring the text to life and help readers understand the language.

Agreed! Why view a text through only one lens?

Highlighting this section because it might be useful for my final project (lit crit wiki).

I can't help but think Stein would have appreciated certain digital tools given her work with William James and interest in classifying personality types.

The medium is the message?

Is Clement talking about formalist approaches?

So digital methodologies become another method in the system of analysis that we're used to rather than exist as an entity separate from original decryption methods.

Taken all from the good ol' first page of Finnegans Wake.

For those who are interested, I made a very informal guide on tackling the first page of the work:

http://digitalrelay.nyc/2016/03/15/wakeipedia-an-extended-reading-of-page-1-of-finnegans-wake/

For those who don't know, Gerty MacDowell is a handicapped (21?) year old girl.

Concordances have become an awesome thing for situations like this.

http://www.writewords.org.uk/word_count.asp is a good resource for that if you're ever curious to try it on a text.

Therefore giving them a human element. We aren't in an age of autonomous indexing: everything still has to be programmed by human hand.

What's more human than utilizing the tools we've created to learn?

I remember during football season the New York Times posted this ridiculous page on it's back cover with a data visualization of all of the ways that the New York Jets could clinch the playoffs. In each alternate timeline certain teams would win and lose and drift further into alternate timelines. It seemed as if the data visualization itself was commenting on the unpredictability of playoff sports, or perhaps, the dismal chances of the NY Jets (who, ultimately, did not make the playoffs.)

This is interesting, as in this case, the platform for the information becomes information (an argument) within itself.

Interesting how this might be able to be used in literary research papers, an area where I previously assumed to be entirely separate from the realm of data and statistics.

It's this exact reason when I spent my childhood pouring hundreds of hours into the Sims. The imagination it leaves you with is unmistakable.

This is very reminiscent of the alternate reality game for the 2008 film "Cloverfield." I remember running home from school to uncover fake websites for fake brands and dig through enigmatic websites with forums full of archaeologists such as myself.

Thankfully, in video games we're ultimately seeing shifts towards ambulatory games-- games without "leader boards, points, badges, etc". This is aided by the development of indie games.

I always disliked the rhetoric of "serious games" within the gaming community because I feel like it missed the point of games to begin with. Take a game like Donkey Kong that's entirely presented in 8-bits, literally takes it's narrative from King Kong, and contains three stages. However, this game, is (in many instances, for me) a lot more enjoyable than repetitive FPS franchises that keep releasing the same game (cough Call of Duty cough).

I feel that this is especially poignant as IVANHOE inevitably leads to "contextualization" no matter which way it's utilized. When I played Billy Budd I was unable to see past the realm of my role (Melville) after the game concluded. Contextualizing Melville's biography proved not only to be interesting and fruitful, it legitimately altered my real life reading of Billy Budd.

Perhaps it would be more interesting if the participants didn't agree to collaborate in re imagining the text? Although such a game may not be as academically fruitful, it could be more insightful as to how one originally thinks about a text and track how the different viewpoints flow and ebb, perhaps change, each other throughout the context of the game.

Sounds more like Harold Gloom, am I right or am I right?

crickets

Somewhere, a graduate student is smiling in his sleep.

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

And in accordance with everyone here, I don't see any kind of difficulty that the reader has in remixing original works; it happens so rampantly, and the intensity of close reading that happens in high school and college classroom often births the accusation that ANYTHING could be said about a text provided you can dig up a cursory word or two to drive that interpretation home. Contrary to McGann, maybe it's time for us to think a little bit more about authorial intention. The mishandling of anti-Semitism in Ivanhoe is fodder for nuanced critical and historical work-- the way out is not to rewrite Ivanhoe along lines that helps us sleep at night.

I understand that the Humanities stems from this attribute, of being humane, but this word choice seems so strange to me.

Although I'm far from a self-described "gamer," I've had several experiences where gaming has helped me learn in the process of my youth. I did play strict educational games (in my opinion, both "Typing of the Dead" and "Math Blaster" were great fun) but I feel even "non-educational" video games had a pedagogical impact on me. A good example of this is the N64 game "Paper Mario," which was (even by today's standards) a tough RPG. I think it took me about forty to forty-five hours as a kid to beat the game. Recently I looked back at the structure of the game (through some YouTube videos) and I was astounded that I was able to play it as a child-- you are often given complicated directives, objectives, and are forced to creatively solve a multitude of platforming puzzles. Also, you had to choose very wisely the ways in which you upgraded your character. Choosing the proper sidekick, attack moves, defense moves, and items to keep in your repertoire was a vital part of success in the game. In fact, the beginning of the game was reminiscent of "Mistakes over Sucuess." The game takes the phrase "Every Game Over is the start of a new game" literally-- in Paper Mario you are immediately forced to face Bowser at the beginning of the game and it's impossible to win. The entirety of the rest of the game is you, Mario, training to take another stab at Bowser and rescue Peach.

Although not directly related to this piece, I think it would be interesting to see what the author thinks about the emergence of "two-screen" experiences. The author talks about "interactivity," which is related. When Microsoft was showing off the Xbox One before it's release they showed that you could plug your cable box into your XBox to enhance your experience-- I believe the demo reel showed player statistics on the bottom of the screen and a live tweeter feed of a conversation about the game on the margins. In this regard, the game's marginalia becomes a fluid part of the game. This is true even without being on the same screen, for example, when watching the Mets play you can easily find pitch by pitch reactions by searching for the pitchers name or an associated hashtag. During a recent game the commentators were speculating whether or not Matt Harvey was pitching so poorly due to the viral buzz about his poor outings lately. Although people have been critiquing athletes for centuries, the accessibility and the ubiqiotusness of social media can surely broaden that criticism, and in turn, effect Harvey's performance. In this way there's an "interactivity" tangible on several levels.

This is a truly radical idea that I can get behind. Not only does this observation change the way we can view annotations or marginalia, rather, the experience of art itself. Especially within the context of the twenty-first century, where a new profit-model for any art form is constantly being made the new industry standard, it's important to attribute value to the art and not the medium. Simon & Garfunkel's music, for example, contains value-- not the 180 gram vinyl, the Tidal subscription, or the eight track.

Doesn't Infinite Jest already have three hundred pages of footnotes? DFW is on track to give Joyce a run for his money.

This is incredibly interesting to me as once I annotate a book I consider it "unborrowable" unless I have a close friendship/intimacy with the lendee. Also, annotating something that you know others are gonna read makes your annotations more faux-intellectual and less utilitarian. (Oh my god am I doing that right now, this is getting far too meta for my taste.)

I find Hypothes.is largely enjoyable, however I find it hard to stomach lengthy readings on a screen. Put the author and John Dickerson make a great point here, writing on .PDF's is a complete nightmare.

This catharsis reminds me of an anecdote a classmate in a modernism class once shared with me. She said that her mother was an editor for a publishing company and decided one day to pick up a copy of William Faulkner's "The Sound and the Fury." She was apparently so distraught by Faulkner's flagrant disregard of grammar, spelling, and syntax in Benji's chapter that she reorganized the entirety of the first two narratives with her own marginalia. Of course, following the expansive traditions of new criticism (and Barthes) this text would be viewed in academia as a completely different text.

Barthes' point on "filiation" is certainly an interesting one, given that many contemporary academics believe that most texts are written about past periods are inevitably going to be about the period they're being written in. For example, it's highly improbable that "The Crucible" acted as a platform for Arthur Miller to talk about the witch trials, and not, the HUAC trials happening in the United States. Although, perhaps, Barthes is arguing that the text goes beyond this interpretation. Reading "The Crucible" the reader is allowed to view it in the vein of McCarthyism, yet acknowledge the witches and every other reading. It's apparent that Barthes doesn't want the modern reader to say that a text is "about something" or that there's one end all, be all way to read a text.

This brings up an interesting point, when does marginalia becomes it's own text? Many (including myself) would argue that marginalia could always constitute it's own vitality, however, if readers are urged to bring their own "distinct voice" to their annotations, does marginalia only become an autonomous text if the reader goes against the initial point of the text? Surely, there must somewhere be a line between an echo-chamber and an autonomous text, but where is it?

Unknowingly, I opted to turn my annotations on Hypothes.is off right before I read this line. Fitzpatrick, and the author of this piece, both have great points, however, if anything annotations are distracting on the page. While it would be interesting to see if numerous people/scholars find the same passages noteworthy, if anything, it becomes unaesthetically pleasing on the page. Although aesthetic is (rightfully) unimportant in most open-source educational software there has to be a firm middle-ground between endlessly scrolling to the end to see annotations or being overwhelmed on the page. I think Greg in our class made a good compromise and remedied this problem through his final project for #Allred399.

Collection of text and materials, a library is always cool

Interesting. This comment reveals how fans, as well as authors, can also be driven by unconscious biases.

Again, fabulous transition that pushes the argument in a new direction without losing the prior thread.

Cool. You make me think about temporality here, too: we think of novels as existing somewhat out of time, but these practices (not to mention the midnight vigils to buy new of HP novels) create an intense simultaneity for readers that makes them more like TV or film.

This archive begs for "distant reading" modes: how does this body of writing compare to the "original" texts?

This is a funny idea, no? Does Rowling know Dumbledore's sexuality better than her readers do? Who controls the authority of textual interpretations? You also might consider the rather aggressive role played by readers who want to prescribe X or Y depictions of sexuality here: do you see a problem with stipulating how "out" a character is in a text?

Lovely connection, and rhetorically speaking, a fabulous transition.

This is WONDERFUL: hilarious and true.

See above on "naturalizing."

Avoid naturalizing print as the "traditional" here, since you're making very broad arguments encompassing oral-print-digital: it seems that your point is that "tradition" is evolving in ways that hearken back to pre-print tradition!

I would include MYTHOLOGIES rather than this later text, which is more illustrative of poststructuralism: Barthes is a convenient pivot-point between pre-late 60s structuralism and poststructuralism, since he's central to both periods.

I feel like this super telling as I, annotating this piece, found myself looking for other annotations for points of interest. Although this is definitely useful, as it's beneficial to know where others found merit, it could also discourage readers from uncovering their own interesting passages. Although I'm no master of pedagogy, wouldn't it be more interesting to have every student annotate a single passage they see as important, and compare the findings in class?

This is unconstructive, but that Comic Sans really threw me for a loop.

page 28-29 last paragraph

I chose not to paraphrase this passage because I thought Marx said this better than I could ever imagine to. Also in including a humorous Marx and Engels I thought it would make the character seem more like the Chorus of an old Greek play.

It's interesting to learn how/why Edison developed the technology necessary for audio recording-- I feel that this course as recurring theme in which the main use of an invention is never what it was intended to be. Pretty much any time a new technology is invented someone figures out to capitalize on it or completely perverts it. I highly doubt Steve Jobs, struggling over the initial concepts of the iPhone, imagined me mindlessly swiping through OkCupid on the bus.

I think the growing interest in "found poetry" represents how these are being (slowly) acknowledged as forms of writing. Recently I saw a (comical) tweet that took the photos out of a Buzzfeed list and claimed it worked as a "strangely affecting" poem. I've done similar art projects in the past; going through Craigslist "Missed Connections" pages and making compilations of sincere, straightforward, wistful feelings of regret. "Content" is no longer just king, content is everything. This annotation is content. The tradition continues.

I feel like the tone of this piece is vaguely condescending to those not enrolled in Penn State. The author seems surprised that non-academics were able to enjoy a novel in a case where (most likely, pretentious) college kids weren't able to enjoy it. I wish the author had a little more faith in the quality control of non-academic readers.

I don't want to be friends with anyone who criticizes a novel for being "too cerebral."

It is strange that the main character of a novella can have such few words. Melville did not think he needed many and neither do I. There is strength in Bartleby's silence. It can be interpreted as a sort of passive resistance.

This is not a typo or confusion of homophones. This is just a pun on words. This context of this message is from Public Enemy's song "fight the power." The song is about the struggle of blacks against systematic oppression; but it also works in a capitalistic setting as well.

Just thought it would be funny, it is what I imagine Marx to have sung if he grew up in the epoch of hip hop.

It is important to keep Ginger Nut's statement as short as possible. The only mandatory inclusion for Ginger Nut's statements is "sir." This is a phrase that he so often repeats that and it greatly highlights how obedient he is to the Narrator.

This is especially poignant due to the developments and huge advancements made in the field of VR. Ivanhoe may not appeal to the casual reader, however, being able to visually "play" a novel might change the average consumers mind.

What disallows viral YouTube videos from this equation? Although their virality may make them a less "personal" experience, they convey wavelengths and bring people together. Especially as the years progress, the internet has it's own distinct language. Everyone I know that isn't connected to the internet a significant portion of time finds no merit in "dat boi,"which I personally find hysterical. Call it a decline in humor standards, but I was born well after someone wrote a hit Christmas song about "an Italian Christmas donkey."

While this is most certainly true, it's essential to note the importance of the "Internet boom" through all of this-- these mediums and startups were able to gain prominence because the online market place that simultaneously built around it. Imagining my parents in the mid-1990's, when we bought our first personal computer, I can't imagine them being very focused on building an online community.

Everyone scoffs at the English major until they're forced to cohesively utilize the written word. This is a great point by Kircschenbaum, the English departments are probably they only group of people that would know what to do with the various tools that came to fruition in the early days of computing.

The need for more expansive digital humanities programs in schools is so apparent. The fact that I personally know four people that have the term "social media" in their job title shows the sprawling nature of the twenty-first century job market. However, these jobs are usually scoffed at by baby boomers and other forms of narcissists (too low a blow?) because disciplines like digital humanities don't have enough visibility in the public sphere.

The origin of the hashtag is so interesting because how quickly it's initial purpose became hijacked by corporate entities and comedic communities. Of course, I say this as someone who uses hashtags almost exclusively for the sake of irony. I feel that the use of hashtags, as well as memes for that matter, have ultimately closed discourse in areas where it should be opened up. For example, there's no real political value by searching #NeverTrump or #ImWithHer or #BernieOrBust-- you're either gonna stumble upon an echo chamber or trolls just looking for a fight.

The proletarian revolution is a revolution theorized by Marx and Engels. It is a revolution in which the working class come together and overthrow the bourgeoisie. This revolution is largely based on the French's unsuccessful February revolution in 1848. During this revolution the french attempted to overthrow the elected government of the Second Republic, which had begun to take a conservative path. This government was elected after France over threw King Louis Phillipe)

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/Manifesto.pdf [Page 10-11]

http://www.age-of-the-sage.org/history/1848/french_revolution_1848.html

This passage was taken from Karl Marx's earlier writing on Capitalism; it is stated on page 11 to be specific. The idea that capitalism isn't merely owning wealth but also owning power over others is one that persists today. It is with this idea that the upper class has driven a large wedge between them and all others.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/Manifesto.pdf

This statement was made based on Marx's remarks on page 15 last two paragraphs. Historically the Bourgeoisie have made a revolutionary impact on the class issue, but today what was considered to be the bourgeoisie may now be considered to be upper class.

This game is being written as if it were happening in the early 2000s and Marx were alive to comment on it. which is why Marx has claimed he was wrong about that statement. The modern Bourgeoisie is what spawned the #occupywallstreet movement.

Interesting thing about John Jacob Astor is that he was an actual person in history. He had his things in many of businesses; money was his passion. To say his name rings like bullion-gold is an accurate statement. Our narrator's continuous reference and association to him allows us to know that he is not part of the lower class like his workers. (http://titanic.wikia.com/wiki/John_Jacob_Astor_IV)

You may have not noticed but this "no image" image was purposely chosen for Bartleby. IT would only make sense since the narrator knew nothing of him and he preferred not to disclose that information to the reader.

For these particular characters I decided to describe them using only words from the narrator/boss. It is essential that the viewer of the game understands that the characters/workers are only measured by their worth. I was very careful of using parts of the descriptions that the narrator said pleased him or was beneficial to him.

Taken from the 1883 Preface to the German Edition of the Communist Manifesto, written by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. Most of what will be said will be taken from the Communist Manifesto. Though it is said that only Part III of the Manifesto was Marx's actual words, Engel credits all of the ideas in the manifesto to Marx.

Billy Budd, the good kid

Setting is the ocean, we must be on a boat

Main Character

Main Character

Main Character

Main Character name is Ishmael

Not true anymore.

Not really. Art has always been about reacting (in some part) to the works that have come before it.

This is an ebook on a collection of popular culture journals online in book form with literal page flipping and no option to highlight the text. Why.

This is bad ass.

** Best description.

Couldn't this be said about anything and anyone?

* Important.

"Hypotext" and "hypertext"

Great sentence.

So fascinating how "metatexts" themselves are considered fanwork. Reminiscent of the Symposium, a collection of essays about fandom by its members that ran from 1999-2006. http://www.trickster.org/symposium/colyear.html#1999

This is a fantastic point-- "collaborators" are often invisible to the casual reader. Listening to a record passively one thinks of the songwriter not the session players, producer, mixing engineer, mastering engineer, A&R person, etc. There's significant ebb and flow in the creative process of anything, in fact, it's a new concept (brought to life by the combination of "DIY" culture and the accessibility of the internet) that one person can be oversee the conception and creation of something from start to finish.

True, however, isn't it acknowledged that all art is derivative and/or intextual? Melville's musings on his predecessors and contemporaries are noteworthy and interesting, but he's by no means an outlier.

"Incorporated freely" is a fantastic euphemism for stolen. However, this answers my previous question about the source of Melville's passages that were "incorporated," and really works as an adhesive to blend Melville's marginalia and Beale's work together.

Unrelated: This is reminiscent of Jack White's "secret" vinyl records that he hid in couches during his time as an upholsterer in Detroit. People are still coming across this records as their furniture falls apart.

I wonder, I'm sure a cursory Google search could answer this, if this is the same book that Melville "borrowed" from verbatim. Surely, such a discovery would irrefutably link both texts closer together, no?

I never think of this when looking at maps - I suppose it goes to show how used we are to just accepting graphics and visualisation! I think it's interesting too then, to consider in the abstract sense that we are beginning to understand the poor communication of scale in modern world maps - do we now transfer to using the "real scale" maps to more accurately portray things?

Nowadays there are options to have interactive graphs which can display data over time. I highly recommend that people play with http://www.gapminder.org/world/ and see how they can represent data to fit a certain lens through style changes.

Crucial point to make at the outset: dataviz is aesthetic and value-laden, not "objective" (whatever that means).

The reflection is very effective, subtly pointing out all that you packed into the voice of LM in the "move."

Here and throughout, you do a wonderful job of filling in the empty space around the "handsome" depiction of Budd. You really demonstrate how the game opens up imaginative possibilities of reading Melville in a "writerly" way a la Barthes.

Subtle allusion to the theory that Budd is Vere's son: I like it.

Source?

This fanciful riff nicely captures the creative process and I love the joke about wishing his characters could speak to him, which is quite possible in this game.

Claggart is a unusual name indeed, it stands out from the rest of the story. The name is pretty cacophonous and well it's never used before and probably will never be given the association given by Melville

http://goo.gl/oxGvuF(need Jstor access)

Billy would totally love emoticons!

Exemplary instance of using the gameplay to explore off-kilter, unusual angles on the plot. Here you channel B. Johnson a bit and explore the possibility that Claggart is sincere and Billy devious: I love it.

I love this crossing of the streams. And many critics note parallels between BB and BC in terms of the questions of vision, blindness, and justice.

I'm fascinated that both you and Jeannine have referenced comic books (she mentioned DEADPOOL) with regard to the text. There must be something about the play of the game that is comic-like, no?

Nice reading: exemplary instance of linking a creative performance to a more cerebral "close reading" in the same move. And I love that the "cat's paw" is a knot that is associatively linked with the knot in BENITO CERENO: I hadn't noticed that detail before.

I love the voice you create here for the D-man. I also am really excited by the back-and-forth that your group has invested in around this move.

I love how much interpretation you fit into this move: the idea that the Dansker is very lively and verbose on the inside, the comparison between Nelson and Vere.

Love the use of the strikethrough to capture things thought "under erasure": nice use of the blogging medium to do things that are not customary in print.

Contrast this to modern film and television adaptations of fiction. The death of the imaginary voice is joined by that of imaginary physicality. Granted, the extent of the latter depends on the text--certain works provide more physical descriptors than others. Film/television adaptation, however, also opens the question of how true the adaptation is to the text's original medium (the text itself!).

Seems that the number of choices had at least doubled by 2009, if the title of Kirschner's essay ("Reading Dickens Four Ways") holds weight.

Also: nice Benjamin shout-out.

Is "aesthetic format" code for "book as object"?

I assume Rubery is using "book" as a kind of metonymy for the content of a book.

In away, this greeting places the phonograph as an almost archaic prototype of Siri.

I really like this particular description of a game. It's not an unformed, empty, space, but a promise of possibilities of sorts between current modes of thought; universes within human intelligence.

This is much like Barthes's notion of Text. Barthes explains the way that a work can be transformed into a Text based almost entirely upon the way it is interacted with.

Much like the Choose-Your-Own-Adventure novels.

what about in terms of the colloquial term "internet addiction". I could suppose that many people get too connected in the online world.

completely supports his argument made earlier - e.g. cyberspace being images of capitalism.

literally a "second world"

This was highlighted completely at CES 2016. One example of integration was a washing machine with unique users which gave wash statistics and usage time through a user's home network. The person was able to then see efficiency and who wasn't using it effectively in his household. The scary part is, nobody is talking about data security.

Because networks might never be perfect, would this render the reach towards this singularity asymptotic?

I wonder if it took any inspiration from DeviousMUD (Runescape).

I would definitely have to credit second life with the initialization of the web currency model that affects real life. It has grown to be quite immense.

There is an anime that explores the idea of total sensory immersion. It's called Sword Art Online, basically the characters enter a RPG and are unable to get out. They sleep, eat and basically live their life in the game until they've beat it. It is possible to even die in real life if you die in the game. Anyways...I digress, back to reading.

I'm starting to get the feeling that this article is nearly a decade old. Why is it so preposterous to think that terrorists would not use Second Life, or any digital world for that matter, as a platform? They use facebook don't they?

This is a funny statement only because technology, like people is ever evolving. How can this Second Life be an end to something that should be considered infinite. The possibilities are truly limitless when it comes to technology and digital interaction. When was this article written anyway? lol

What are "cyberpunk fiction" and "tech-noir aesthetic"???

Studies pertaining to gaming go beyond observations of only body language now--companies employ psychologists to measure pupil dilation, body temperature, sweat to gauge adrenaline levels and emotional arousal, etc.

Was everybody kung-fu fighting?

Psh. Roald Dahl thought of this in 1964 when he wrote about transmitting candy bars through televisions via radio waves in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

I can't help but think of how we could apply Freud's ideas of manifest and latent content to digital texts.

Learning objective for our Billy Budd game?

Yes, if you're Jauss or Iser.

How does something like Google Glass fit here? The machine and the body are essentially joining physically...is that still coevolution?

Does bitcoin play a role here?

I have nothing specific to say about this excerpt; I just think it's really great prose.

Rainn Wilson's character on The Office (Dwight Schrute) is seen playing Second Life in the fourth season. Here's the extended, deleted clip, which does an interesting job of commenting on how "real life" affects the game play--it's more obvious if you're familiar with the show, but still.

Speaks to not only interaction but a directed type of interaction that functions in an open space, allowing "players" to not only freely interpret, but also dissect, to poke and prod and see what they find!

Where players can not only control the characters themselves, but the weather, natural disasters, etc. The God-like omniscience is even stronger here, interestingly enough.

Reminiscent of the Blair Witch Project and how the initial movie's promotional trailers were done entirely through the internet, blurring the lines between reality and fiction.

This is me taking a huge leap in playing the character of Claggart -- in which I am writing his voice under the auspices of him being self-reflective enough to understand the pure polarity, yin-yang relationship he shares with Billy. Most of what the reader understands of Claggart's character and his inner motivations is presented by the narrator in a purely clinical and analytical fashion -- speculative, but not fully grasping the subjectivity within his mentality. Based on what the narrator presents us, along with the differences he shares with the titular character, I'm asserting that Claggart (as someone who is intelligent, and can understand nuance, unlike Billy) is capable of understanding his own psychological motives, and the existential dynamic he is against in his relation to Billy.

Good point: serious readers should be defined not by their form of choice but by their content of choice.

For me, audiobook time was when I used to straighten my hair, which is a boring task that takes forever when your hair is a curly/frizzy as mine. Audiobooks made it slightly more bearable. Clearly, not bearable enough, as I no longer straighten my hair.

For me, storage capacity was overshadowed my immediate gratification, which is what I liked about e-readers when they were first popularized. I remember finishing the first book in a series at two in the morning; I was literally able to press a button to purchase and start reading the next installment within two minutes.

The most meta meta that ever did meta.

But it's not just the context that's changing; it's also the medium. Unless context and medium are the same? Or, does context dictate the preferred medium?

improvisional* oops - don't think there's a way to edit text after posting.

the rebus, derobed

Makes me think of the way in which there is sometimes more literary juice flowing when one is working in a word processor versus a piece of paper