Project 2 Essay

Tom Myers                                    

What is happening to writing?

Writing is always evolving. From cave drawings to cuneiform, and scrolls to codices, writing is an animal that we will never truly harness due to its constant evolution. Writing is constantly changing, in a way eating the technology before it in order to evolve into a species with aspects from the previous technology and new improvements. The evolution from written text to digital text is out of control.

We are in the era of change. Bolter calls this the “late age of print”(1) However; considering Writing Space is ten years old we are more into the early age of digital. Print text has many rivals in the battle for human attention, “including film, radio, television, and now digital media” (3). Now when print text is faced against all these opponents at once it is easily cut down before it can launch its first attack. Bolter declares, “The idea of the book is changing” (3) He couldn’t be more wrong. As a culture, we have been very careful to keep print and digital separate. A book is still a book. When you go to the library and ask for a book the librarians do not sit you in front of a computer. They still give you a location on a bookshelf where to find a specific physical book with a cover and pages. Now if you have a book on a digital device such as a nook or Ipad it is called an e-book or electronic book. The book with a cover and pages is obviously a very different animal than the e-book which is just data. Bolter does make a logical statement for once, “The computer may make writing more flexible, but it also threatens the definitions of good and careful reading that have developed in association with the technique of printing.”(4) I could not agree with this more. When reading a text initially written on a screen the writing is very straightforward and to the point. However, when it comes to writing initially made for printed books, it is flowery and metaphorical. On a screen we know the text is not meant to be enjoyed but processed as opposed to the page where text can be enjoyed. Bolter hits the money spot when he writes, “In the late age of print, however, we seem more impressed by the impertinence and changeability of text”(4) As a society that is now hypermedic we want all the text we can possibly have as fast as we possibly can. Impatience and the constant stream of Wi-Fi are a deadly combination in digital texts role of ousting print as the popular medium. Bolter questions, “Will digital media replace print?” (6) The answer to that is very simple, however it requires me to tell a story.

This past weekend my friends and I needed to go to stop and shop for foodstuffs and the like. There happens to be a Barnes and Noble right next to Stop and Shop and we figured we might as well stop in to see if they have any good deals on movies. (notice how we are going to a book store to buy movies) Well when I opened the door the answer to Bolters question was right there staring me in the face. The first floor consisted of the following sections; Magazines, Starbucks, CD’s, DVD’s and a gigantic display of Nooks and IPads along with their infinite number of accessories. Now, the Barnes and Noble marketing department figures to put the popular stuff on the first floor near where you pay for all products. So on the first floor where the hot items are sold, there are no books. None at all. They are all on the second story behind the children’s section. So you even the children’s books are more popular than classic print novels. From this example it can be concluded that one is not replacing the printed word with a digital one but simply gearing the market towards what’s popular.

 In Terminator II Judgment Day, Sarah Connor sums up the coming of machines controlling us in a simple phrase, “The unknown future rolls towards us” Now I’m not suggesting that we’re in imminent danger from our smart tablets but it’s something to think about. As a society we are obsessed with how the newest technology in order to submerge us deeper into a state of complete hypermediacy. Now a new IPhone was due out a week or two ago but was postponed due to Steve Jobs death. Now many people are looking forward to this new IPhone since the last supposedly “new” IPhone was just a previous model with more storage. Well I recently heard a fellow student in the hall exclaim, “Alright, (Steve) Jobs is dead, give me my new freakin phone!” As a culture what has happened to us? We put our own thirst for technology over respect for someone who died after battling liver cancer for years. That seems base. If we are so caught up in this technology craze there is no limit to where it could eventually take us.

Carryovers and little trails that reveal that digital text did come from print are rampant. First of all, we still refer to pages on the Internet as we do with books. In the smart tablets you even turn digital pages when reading. Titles still remain prevalent and pages are still numbered. There are many similarities it’s just the tool that is changed. In this never ending cycle digital text has grown beyond our control.

Bolter, David. Writing Space. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. New York, NY 2001

Project 3 essay

Tom Myers                                                                                               November 27^th, 2011

Project 3

Cape Cod is not like a pristine beach. Our beaches when left untended are populated by blunt guts, needles and the occasional homeless man. It isn’t uncommon to find a dead fish or seal washed up on shore and even a human body isn’t that big a surprise. Tourists leave and filth starts accumulating again left by your corrupt businessman, his nose powdered, when stopping with his mistress to take another hit or your homeboy wannabe in his blacked out suburban peddling pot to kids in middle school. I have spent many a late night here in these illicit lots, but for none of the base reasons listed above. I’d drive by cars keeping a respectful distance from each other, about six empty parking slots and eventually I would park with my current girlfriend on the way home from dinner and a movie or rehearsal. Although I was always more occupied with how to take off her jeans in the cramped confines of my vehicle than the other cars around me it always lingered in the back of my mind what was going on under the safety blanket of darkness that enveloped each set of taillights as the motors were cut and the crashing of the waves returns to its dominant reign over background noise. Often a police car parked in the far corner; always lurking like a crocodile with just it’s bright eyes watching for any prey stupid enough to make a run for it. The other drivers only run if they are guilty.

When the tourists come, the Cape becomes a place of sun lotion and beach balls. Colorful kites populate every beach’s sky along with seagulls. The occasional biplane will soar by with a banner advertising the newest iced coffee from Dunkin Donuts or the newest of Captain Morgan’s Rum. The normal Cape vacationer drinks coffee to keep them up, and booze to keep em down. The sun will shine and shine but the breeze keeps the temperature bearable. The ocean skyline always has boats. Whether they are wianno seniors on a Sunday race or a power yacht lazily churning up the surf, boats can always be seen. The Wianno Senior’s captains are all drinking buddies at the end of the day but during a racing series they are more alike to pirates than comrades. The old sea dogs know the area well and use their decades of tricks to constantly baffle the younger sailors home from college. It is all in good fun, the cursing, the beer guzzling and the taunting as the boats round the marks. It is hard to imagine the stressed shouts these sailors have over a few silver bowls on pedestals when you stand on the beach. You hear the ring of the ice cream trucks and the calls of the gulls much alike to those of mother herding their small clan of eight year olds to wash off their feet to get in the car. The crash of the surf is always in the background, like a constant reminder of a presence that is hard to explain. The sea is a powerful entity, one to be feared and respected. Rip Currents can easily pull even a strong swimmer out farther than intended. On the Cape, you can always drive far enough and run into the ocean. Despite this there are still those who live on the Cape who don’t know how to swim.

Cape Cod is essentially one giant sandbar. Its edges are constantly changing due to hurricane tides and the will of the moon. Thus the beaches change from year to year, which is a good thing since it keeps the tourists coming back year after year. That is the bread and butter of the Cape, tourism. Many adolescents become lifeguards or Ice cream truck drivers. Many shops advertise your average boogie board or inflatable whale. These tourist traps snag even the resident occasionally. Down by the wharf of Hyannis, it is just as easy to book a pirate cruise on a mock ship around the harbor, as it is to take a ferry to Martha’s Vineyard or Nantucket. Walk up Ocean Street far enough and you come to the Kennedy Memorial. The Cape uses these tributes of royalty to attract your average sightseer. You can take tours of Hyannisport, hoping to glimpse a Kennedy or go to the Kennedy Museum. It’s ironic some peoples fascination with this somewhat ambiguous presence. Many natives wouldn’t know a Kennedy if they bumped into them on the street.

            Towering over all Hyannis is the new addition to the hospital. It’s 8 stories, which is a big deal on the cape where zoning laws can prevent you from planning an extra petunia plant in your garden. You can see this structure from the bay and the High school. When they did safety checks they pulled highschoolers to splash some blood on their faces and pretend to be patients, firefighters carried them all the way down the stairs strapped to beds with neck braces banning all opportunity to actually see what was going on. The School itself is interesting. Remodeled in the late 90’s it still contains traces of my father’s time when he sat imprisoned in the same walls that hold students today. Other things are much newer. The 1400 seat auditorium with a lowering orchestra pit is constantly fought over by the Cape Cod Symphony orchestra and the school. When the orchestra has a show an ambulance comes because the average age of audience members is at least 80. The drama club has won awards and puts on aesthetically beautiful shows that draw big kid-friendly crowds such as Beauty and the Beast and the Wizard of Oz. A recent addition to the school is a new track despite its recent disfigurement. Last years powder-puff football game turned into a brawl suspending students and teachers as well as sending students to the hospital. The football coach refereed and some girls upset with the calls decided to mar the new track by running with cleats on a couple of laps. Then the coach was fired for swearing at the football team. Sports in Barnstable have a hard time keeping coaches. The girls hockey coach left a after death threats were sent to her on facebook and the sports director didn’t back her up by removing the threatening students from the team. He sided with the bully parents. In the Barnstable school department if you raise a big enough stink you’ll get what you want.

To find out the real stench of the High School your nose could follow the cigarette smoke to the bathroom. The bathrooms are like an ancient library with each stall wall a stone tablet recording ancient myths. Many of these were “I’m a foot long when hard” or “Johanna likes it in the butt”. One person decided to write “Big Dogs Rule” on every stall door in the school. I always wondered why there was so much graffittti in such a private place. Above the urinals some hobby-less individual had even scrawled into mortar between the tiles, “Santa isn’t real” If you have the compulsiveness to scrawl that into an area so thin and unnoticeable as your way to exhume your rage against the machine than you seriously need to see a doctor. These grimy cubicles were often the location of bomb threats and cigarette smoke. Many deals went down there as well, for drugs or the answers to a test.

Cape Cod “spirit remains a mixture of pride and provincialism”(Lopate) due to its history of pilgrims. These same pilgrims are often thought to be the ghosts that haunt the north side of the Cape. Cape Cod might be like a civilization. Social hierarchy is rampant. The politicians, inheriting money from ancestors of crime and fame from assassination, the retired who drive slow just like they’re ways and the minorities, who the town tries to hide in affordable housing. That leaves your middle class, taxed enough to never be able to move up but making too much to ever move down. The children of these groups follow in the footsteps of those before them, Politicians daughters marry movie stars, The retiree’s children have kids of their own and the minorities’ kids grow up in a never ending cycle where they will never get anywhere due to their own chains of addiction and abuse. The children of the middle class run off Cape unless they to have fallen prey to the vices of self-indulgence. 

Blog 10 of 12

Rodney Jones is arguing that Language is better than images because with images you convey other senses besides sight. These include sound "A shout from the beach" and smell "coconut milk and 150-proof rum

and dumped it white into the waves" You can show a picture of coconut milk, 150 proof rum and waves but no picture can describe the sense of all three of those smells smashing into you. There's another! touch. The last stanza about trying to replicate the sensation described above of his hand reaching down to scoop the liquids back yet it is impossible the moment has gone.

Blog 11 of 12

These four letter word projects are not writing. They do not constitute of alphabetical symbols in specific groupings to form words, sentences, paragraphs but are just plain symbols. Lacking the alphabetical qualities proves that these 4 letter word projects are not writing but something else. They are however compositions since they are composed of a something. In this case, composed of pictures and in some projects sound as well.

Blog 9 of 12

When I put on text I don't recognize it I just am wearing clothes to be warm. If I'm wearing an interesting shirt I do get comments. My audience when I tweet is anyone who happens across my tweets randomly while wasting time on twitter.

Blog 8 of 12

I do think the flexibility of voice can lead to flexibility in ALL things. I believe the manipulation of voice can lead to expressing ones self in different forms. I find it hard to say that it will change all things because people have a set persona. Although this is can shield people. the voice is a powerful tool that can be conformed to everyday interaction.

(written in purple crayon, portrait, printer paper)

Blog 7 of 12

My writer is not influenced by her writing implement. Her argument is clear concise and to the point as opposed to the scrunched up lettering a crayon user normally finds themselves reverting to. The writer is neither more nor less expressive. It is in the middle, very average writing. This writing is very good because it is essentially a well crafted thesis with supportive characteristics.

Blog 6 of 12

When ever I tweet/blog I really don't fell like there is an audience. I fell like those mediums are just kind of a folder that is open but no one cares about it or even knows it exists. I legitimately feel like there is absolutely no one out there reading my tweets or blogs. Even my video on youtube has 2 views. once when I showed it in class and once when I showed my parents. So there is the proof that there really is no one out there

Blog 5 of 12

The rhetoric of a poem and a president are completely different. A poet is there to create emotion in the reader where as a president is there to create emotion in the reader about himself. The goals of each are completely different. The poet is making art and an object that is to be marveled at. The president needs followers and in order to do that he needs to create an argument where he has to be the leader.

Blog 4 of 12

"adding a new kind of knowledge to a different kind I already had" 179 What type of knowledge is Zadie talking about? is memory knowledge like the locations of places in the town or is it knowledge of history of the town?

"In Dream city everything is doubled, everything is various" 184 If everything is doubled then why do "you have no choice but to cross borders and speak in tongues"(184) ? If everything is doubled why do you need to cross tongues in order to speak to someone if there's already two of you?

"To a certain kind of mind, it must have looked like the mask had slipped for a moment" (185)What is this certain kind of mind? is she referring to those who don't agree with Obama because then isn't she contradicting herself?

"Those qualities that we cherish as artists condemn politicians" (189) What qualities are these? And the only thing condemning politicians are there own mess ups with mistresses and illegitimate children so are those the qualities of artists?

"Is it not, for example, experientially true that one can both believe and not believe in god?" (190) How is that possible?

"Before long, the only voice you recognize, the only life you emphasize with, is your own" 194 Is this the same thing as saying that when it comes down to it the only one that matters is yourself? and that you should always ut yourself first for after all, you are you.

Blog 12 of 12 Do you have any advice for those of us just starting out?

The biggest piece of advice I have to offer is to keep an open mind.
In WSC 1 especially, it is important to be able to roll with the punches.
If at first it feels uncomfortable to be blogging and commenting, the more you do it the more you will be comfortable with doing it, it just takes getting used to.
Also don't be afraid to open up.
Thats where your inspiration will come from, yourself.
Don't be afraid of how you will be judged or graded, if you stay honest with yourself and your audience you will do fine.
Participate; doing is learning.
And when you get back a first draft that looks more like a victim and you're lost on an assignment
STOP


"Then start again"(22)