For about ten years now, I have limited my caffeine intake to one soda in the morning. This is not because I’ve particularly virtuous, as anyone who knows me can attest. I used to love coffee, but in my early 20s I found that cutting caffeine cured my insomnia and, more importantly, had the added benefit of lessening my back problems. They say you take your stress out on the weakest part of your body, and I damaged my back in a playground accident when I was 8 or 9. It hasn’t ever really been the same, and it’s the first thing that lets me know I’m stressed. I’ve dealt with pretty much daily pain as a matter of course since my early teens. Exercise and massage therapy help, but the most immediate, mundane, effective thing is to limit my caffeine and anger.

I didn’t start to think about caffeine and academia until I was at C’s last year, watching everyone and their coffee cups. Since then, I’ve pretty much come to the conclusion that the academy runs on the stuff. Coffee is an integral bit of process for almost all the scholars and writers I know. Jimbo and his caffeine units are a heroic example, and it seems like most bloggers write about coffee fairly often. When I’m struggling with a deadline, I often feel like I’m at a disadvantage with my lack of coffee. I settle instead for hits of green tea, with its negligible but present caffeine. Nevertheless, I always think if only I could jack myself up on coffee, I’d get so much more done.

Mister Boyfriend is another king of caffeination, and when I moved in with him I also moved in with a burr grinder, a Krups espresso machine, and a contant flow of fresh-roasted whole beans. This is a man who drinks multiple triple cappuccinos throughout the day, who never writes without downing a couple to start off. I haven’t been tempted by any of it, mostly because I’m intimidated by the whole process of achieving the perfect grind and the perfect tamp and the perfect froth and the perfect cup. Never mind all that, I’m busy, and besides I can occasionally steal a sip from him. But the espresso machine has been dying, and in a fit of pragmatism he went out last night and bought a Senseo. This is dangerous. Not only can I operate it (hell, a trained muskrat could operate it), but it makes a pretty decent cup of coffee. This morning, I have had one Diet Coke and two cups of coffee. The spasms have already started in my lower back, and I’m sitting here totally wanting another cup, just for the taste. If I keep this up, I’m going to end up sitting in the corner twisted up like something out of a fairy tale. And it’s not like I’ve experienced an attendant jump in productivity, either, sitting here writing about coffee and pain. Still, that damn machine is a siren, I tell you.

Posted at 11:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Plus, all the Syracuse folks don’t know much about me. And it was fun to read Madeline’s.

What time did you get up this morning? 4:56
Diamonds or pearls? Lots of tiny diamonds, probably. Although I’d be likely to lose them, like I have every other nice piece of jewelery I’ve ever received.
What was the last film you saw at the cinema? Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason.
What is your favorite TV show? I don’t really watch current TV anymore, but when I did was a typical Friends and Seinfeld person. Right now I’m all about Green Acres.

What did you have for breakfast? Cereal with soy milk.
What is your middle name? Anne
Favorite cuisine? Spanish or Italian.
What foods do you dislike? Beets and turnips.
What is your favorite flavor? Candy? Sour. Beverage? Constant Comment. Dessert? Dark chocolate.
What is your favorite CD at the moment? Two: You Are Free by Cat Power and Concrete Blonde’s Bloodletting. Plus Annie Lennox’s cover of Bob Marley’s Waiting in Vain, which iTunes claims I have listened to 29 times lately.
What kind of car do you drive? 99 Kia Sportage.
Favorite sandwich? Turkey, avocado and hummus on dark bread. Or, once each year in July, the perfect bacon and tomato sandwich on wheat.
What characteristic do you despise? Lack of follow-through.
Favorite item of clothing? Jammies.
If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go? Dublin. Or back to Scotland and on to the Hebrides, which I missed the first time around.
What color is your bathroom? Blue and white.
Favorite brand of clothing? Cheap and comfy.
Where would you retire to? A farmhouse someplace snowy. Something like the house Susan Sarandon died in in Stepmom. Not that I actually want to deal with a large chunk of land, or be away from the city.
Favorite time of the day? Afternoons. Best time for everything. I used to work with an old veterinarian who, everyday at lunchtime, would sigh and say, �This is my favorite part of the day.� And that’s probably my second-favorite time of the day. I love lunch, and if I lived alone I probably wouldn’t eat dinner at all.
What was your most memorable birthday? I refuse to answer this one.
Where were you born? Little Rock, Arkansas.
Favorite sport to watch? I don’t watch sports. If I was going to start, though, I’d probably pick hockey.
What laundry detergent do you buy? All Free.
When is your birthday? March 7, 1976
Are you a morning person or a night person? I was a night person for most of my life, but it seems to have flip-flopped lately.
What is your shoe size? 8-ish.
Do you have any pets? For the first time in my life, no. And I’m very unhappy about it.
Any new and exciting news you'd like to share with your family & friends? Not at the moment. The career thing seems to be going pretty well, but how I feel about that changes day to day.
What did you want to be when you were little? A writer.
What are you doing today? Writing.
If there was one thing you could do right now, $ is no object, what would you do? Travel the world, buying books and art at will.
If you only had a few days left on earth, what would you do? Get all my loved ones together and have a long, really relaxed party.

Posted at 10:43 AM | Permalink

Posted at 8:30 AM | Permalink

Thanks to the considerable skills of Ms. Lauren, this site now has a lovely splash page. The birdie is another Moe print, and I couldn’t be happier with the way the whole thing came together. Not all of the links are live, because I haven’t gotten my act together on reinstating the wiki or getting the blog bib project up and running.

Also, Mister Boyfriend has up and redesigned his blog, which means he’s now up to tPA version 4.0. Run and look!

Posted at 11:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Over on the Networked Rhets blog, there’s been all kinds of discussion about blogs and genre. (My colleague Clancy also wrestled with this topic a while back.) I’ve been thinking about blog classifications a bit lately as well, since they figure into a research project I’m mapping out. In Bridging the Gap: A Genre Analysis of Weblogs, Susan Herring and her group seem to have developed a working schema that classifies blogs as k-logs (knowledge-logs), journals, and filters. Most people seem to work along these lines, and some (like Van Dijck) differentiate between diaries and journals. The thing is, I don’t see my blog in any of those categories. Mine shifts from week to week. This past week, it's looked more like an k-log than anything else. Last week when I was complaining about my car for days on end, it looked more like a journal. And none of that accounts for the pinups. My blog is a digital commonplace book, and I ended up adding that category to my schema to account for the other mishmash folks like me.

Posted at 5:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Madeline and Jen both wrote thoughtful comments on my previous post on this topic. If you go look at those before you read the rest of this, it’ll probably make more sense. I was originally going to respond in the comments, but it became too long and so here I am.

If I’m hearing both of them right, it’s identity - and specifically the element of original genius, the uniqueness that an individual brings to their work - that’s bothering them. This is an entirely valid point. However, I think it’s important to examine the fact that this concern is tied to the ways we think about authorship now, in this civilization. It hasn’t always been this way. Most Authorship scholars argue that the notion of original genius is a fairly recent (18th century) development, and that prior to that inspiration (creativity) came from an external source, i.e. the Muse or the Gods. The writer (artists/composer/etc) was said to be subject to fits of divine madness while creating, to literally not be in his own mind. What if we work from this vantage point? Does this make the notion of Author as brand more palatable? It seems to me that under that construct, the person we would call an Author was even more a label associated with a product that s/he was not viewed as directly responsible for.

What if we work from a high poststructuralist perspective? Barthes, in Death of the Author, says the birth of the reader is at the cost of the death of the Author, that once a text enters the world the physical Author ceases to be particularly important in connection with it. ("The Author, when believed in, is always conceived of as the past of his own book: book and Author stand automatically on a single line divided into a before and an after" (145).) In What Is an Author?, Foucault claims the Author is a function with four distinct traits:

• The Author function is linked to the juridical and institutional system that encompasses, determines, and articulates the universe of discourse.
• It does not affect all discourses the same way at all times and in all types of civilization.
• It is not defined by the spontaneous attribution of a discourse to its producer, but rather by a series of specific and complex operations.
• It does not refer purely and simply to a real individual, since it can give rise simulataneously to several selves, to several subjects - positions that can be occupied by different classes of individuals (113).

There’s got plenty more to say about this, of course, but I have an exam in two hours that I've got to get going for. I’ve been struggling with the identity card a lot lately, particularly when it comes to authorship in blogs, with their simple, pseudonymous, anonymous and multi-authored constructs. I followed the poststructuralist line in my thesis, and in the six months since my defense have become more and more unhappy with the way this line of thinking pans out. Any thoughts on how all that works are more than welcome, as is continued discussion of the topic du jour.

Posted at 11:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

(Still more test prep.)

A forthcoming article suggests that authorship is a form of “branding,” much like trademarks. In other words, authors need protection because they invest more than just “originality” in their works. Authorship is about creating an image�much like a brand�and that image should be protected as a trademark. Is authorship more like a brand than it is about creativity?

Authorship is certainly very much like a brand, and has been from the beginning. The Greeks differentiated an Aristotle speech from a Plato speech. Quintilian was concerned about protecting his brand, citing piracy concerns in the introduction to Institutio Oratio. Pliny was very much associated with Naturalis Historia. Today, we talk about the new Joyce Carol Oates novel, the new Tom Wolfe.

Perhaps one of the most striking examples of authorship as brand are the Rowley poems of Thomas Chatterton. Born in 1752, Chatterton is best remembered for a literary hoax. He claimed to have found a series of poems written by a Medieval monk named Thomas Rowley, which he provided to publishers. The work received widespread acclaim, unlike Chatterton’s own poetry. Not much later, it was discovered that Chatterton had written the poems himself and copied them onto parchment he had found in a rectory attic. For a brief time, though, he operated under two distinct authorial brands, one successful and one not. His “own” work never found popular success, and he committed suicide at 17. Chatterton was an icon to the Romantics, and is still a subject of study � but primarily for the Rowley works, not the writing he did as himself.

Modern and contemporary authors have also employed dual identities, albeit for less mendacious purposes; for instance, Stephen King is also Richard Bachman. King, who is very much a horror brand, is a much higher seller than Bachman, who holds the distinction of authorial credit for The Running Man. He wrote as Bachman during his early career because he felt that the public would only accept one book a year from an author and he wanted to publish two.

However, I don’t think that we can divorce branding from creativity. Without creativity there is no brand. Without an original, well-crafted story, nobody cares who the author is. The author’s unique creative voice is what we look for, and so we expect a different brand of creativity from Oates than we do from King, and a still different sort of creativity from Wolfe. Woodmansee defines the modern author as originary, proprietary, and solitary, and I would argue that ‘originary’ is perhaps the most crucial element of the bunch.

Posted at 8:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

(More test prep.)

Can open source models serve as viable substitutes for copyright’s goals?

I’m assuming that we’re using “open source” to refer to specifically to non-proprietary source code models. And I’m also assuming that we accept that copyright’s goals are delineated in Title 17 and Section 106, as outlined in my post on Technology and Copyright. Assuming all of that, I would say that open source partially fulfills copyright’s goals. Open source makes the source code for a program public, and it requires that all changes to the code be re-released in a reciprocal manner. This spirit of reciprocity drives the progress of open source applications, since volunteer coders push them forward with new, innovative hacks. As such, it does fully promote progress and protect the commons.

Open-source licenses (particularly the GNU license) protect the author to an extent, since they allow individuals to profit from their contributions while at the same time contributing to the commons. They do not, however, secure Section 106 rights for programmers. This should not necessarily be construed as a failure of open-source, though. Instead, we should consider whether the standard rights are appropriate for an innovation commons like the Internet. 106 rights were developed for print, as was the rest of the code � the very same code that treats software as literature. Perhaps the standard rights to distribution, derivative works, performance and display are neither appropriate nor necessary in this instance. Software is certainly a prevalent enough force in our economy that it deserves to be considered as what it is, with its own section of code that addresses its unique concerns.

Posted at 9:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

(Still working on test prep.)

What major changes to copyright’s basic structure would you recommend and why?

As an academic who studies the commons and who watches countless colleagues wrestle with copyright issues, I’m most concerned with orphaned works. This is, of course, intertwined with duration, which is something I’m conflicted about. Eldred seriously began the debate about our current duration periods, and life plus 70 years is, from the perspective of a commons scholar or advocate, an absurd period of time. A return to the 1790 term of 14 years with the possibility of a 14-year renewal is commonly advocated by copyleft activists. I myself have argued for it in seminars. However, it recently occurred to me that this argument fails to account for the fact that the average lifespan in the 18th century was around 37 years, which meant that if you produced a copyrightable work when you were twenty, the copyright could potentially outlive you. One might reasonably argue that the founders created such a limit to ensure that if the copyright holder produced a profitable work and was scrupulous about filing for renewal, he would be potentially set for life. Shouldn’t today’s copyright holders enjoy similar security? If you truly produce a popular, heartbreaking work of staggering genius, shouldn’t you be able to live out the rest of your days comfortably? Perhaps, then, a term that lasts for the life of the author might be appropriate today*.

While this would be an improvement over current duration periods, it still slows the flow of works to the commons. This is where orphaned works become vital. Simply: Why bother to protect works that aren’t available, salable, or even claimed by their creators? Such works would previously have fallen into the public domain due to failure to renew their copyright, but the Berne Convention removed formalities from the American copyright landscape. Kahle argues that this removal of formalities has been detrimental to the public domain. The plantiff argues that 85% of protected works would never have been renewed when their term expired and yet are afforded protection under BCIA duration. The suit asks that out of print (�orphaned�) materials be returned to the public domain and that the registration formality be reinstated. This change would greatly enrich the public domain, making a wealth of material available for study and restoring some sense of balance in the wake of the Bono Act. The opening brief for Kahle was filed a week ago, so we shall see.

* I’m not saying that we should ditch notions about shorter terms, but I do think that sometimes adequate compensation for creators gets lost in copyfight discourse.
**It’s worth noting that both of these arguments are particularly American, since they fail to take into account European concerns about moral rights or IP problems faced by developing economies who are trying to build their own creative wealth while complying with Berne and TRIPS.

Posted at 8:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

(I’m working through a set of preparatory questions as I ready myself for an oral exam on Friday.)

What are the major functions of copyright law and in what way have new technologies transformed those functions?

Copyright�s original primary functions were twofold: to promote progress and to protect the Commons. These functions are codified in Title 17: “To promote the Progress of Science and the useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.” In the 1790 code, the Founders promoted a limited monopoly that would encourage production of creative and scientific works, which would in turn enrich the information commons of a foundling nation.

In the 20th century, copyright was largely reinterpreted (in practice, if not in fact) as protection of the author, whether simple or complex. Section 106 secures specific rights for the Author: the right to reproduction, the right to prepare derivative works, the right to distribution, and the rights to public display and performance. The incremental increase of duration terms has reinforced the notion that copyright exists to protect the creator, not the commons.

I wouldn’t say that new technologies have transformed the functions of copyright. Rather, I might suggest that new technologies have reminded us of the original functions of copyright, and are pushing us to reconsider what it has become. Technological developments have transformed the physical nature of content and the means of production, most obviously for works that exist in digital spaces. Digital works facilitate reproduction and derivative works in ways that previous forms didn‛t. It is easier to rip-mix-burn, to left-click-save-as, than it ever was to reproduce a hard copy, and digital reproductions don’t suffer the loss of quality that analog reproductions did. Thus, we’ve been forced to start reconsidering the extent of protection afforded the creator, and how we make something that was developed for print work for something that isn�t really print. Software ain’t literature, but we’re still trying to legislate it as if it were. Are the periods of duration that we found reasonable for print still reasonable when digital reproductions are needed? Is the digital Author the same as the print Author? Both Authors have to eat, so how do we distinguish between them when it comes to rights? Should we distinguish between them at all?, if we want to promote progress in the digital commons? Should code be closed? Should mash-ups be permissible, and is repressing them denial of free speech? What about nonprofit bloggers who want to reproduce art on their blogs as homage?

Technology has not transformed the functions of copyright, but it has transformed the dialogue surrounding it. Eventually, it will transform the policy. In order to do that, the dialogue will continue on for quite some time.

Posted at 8:47 PM | Permalink

So I eventually did borrow Mister Boyfriend’s car and meet G. at the Minneapolis Art Institute, and we had a lovely lunch and spent the afternoon in the new Asian galleries. G. has travelled extensively in Asia, but I had no idea how much she knew about temple art. I am now much better educated about the differences between Cambodian, Burmese, Thai, and Chinese Buddhas. (Length of earlobes, style of topknot and hair, physical build.) Thanks to reading placards, I also know more about the “well appointed tomb” and the scholar’s study “in support of an intellectual mission,” a concept that charms me. Very pleasant afternoon, particularly due to the companionship.

Note to self: I must remember to come back in April for the St. John’s Bible exhibit, featuring the first modern-era illuminated Bible.

Posted at 5:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

My bestest friend in the whole world is in town this week. Today, we’re supposed to go to the Art Institute. I have looked forward to this immensely, because I have been to zero museums or galleries since I moved here, which means I, though pursuing a humanities doctorate, am even less culturally aware than I was in Little Rock.

So I ready myself and warm up the car. The very same car that I paid a total of $300 to get back from the service place yesterday, a car that I have only driven home and parked since then. This car will now not shift out of park. At. all. Not one little bit. And, ironically, the Kia guys worked on the console around the shift column yesterday.

I am beyond redheaded angry. I am sitting very still, very quietly, and that is never ever good for anyone involved, including me. Further bulletins as events warrant.

Posted at 10:56 AM | Permalink

Got the car back today. With a new squirter thingie. Cost for said thingie? 40-effing-dollars. $5 for the part. $35 for the labor. For installation of a part that snaps on. A part that, in Arkansas, they would have replaced for free.

That is all.

Posted at 6:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

AKMA is live-blogging Blogwalk Chicago, complete with a Flickr stream. Looks like I’m missing out on all kinds of good stuff, including sightings of the elusive window wiki.

Posted at 2:31 PM | Permalink

I made ginger cake yesterday from this recipe. You make something resembling an oil slick from a cup of sugar, a cup of oil, and a cup of molasses, and then you add a big wad of fresh grated ginger, a teaspoon of black pepper, and a bunch of more typical ingredients to it. You also get to dump baking soda into boiling water, which is kinda fun. It came out very well, but they aren’t kidding when they say to use parchment in the pan.

Completely unrelated:
Not being a math or biology person, the pragmatic physical issues involved with scaling people and monsters up and down in B-movies never really occurred to me. Pharyngula points out The Biology of B-Movie Monsters, which is quite the fascinating examination of the subject.

Posted at 1:54 PM | Permalink

First up on the Network(ed) Rhetorics reading list is Lilia Efimova’s post, Blogging as Breathing, a response to discussions at BlogWalk Umea. I was fascinated by the answers to this question, particularly Ton’s post that she links to (which I use often in presentations) as well as AKMA’s briefer one (which is totally unrelated to BlogWalk, so far as I know.)

I keep blogging because it’s become part of what I do: part of how I learn, part of how I write, part of how I teach, part of how I think, part of how I keep up with technology.

When I give talks on blogging, I always talk about this most recent stage - because academics always want to know how anyone could have time for something like a blog. Not only have blogs become a strong element of my research, they've become part of how I do that research. I find articles and books through other bloggers. I keep up with developing research as the researchers blog it. (Same for developing technologies. I would never have known about deli.cio.us if Jill hadn’t been so enthusiastic about it.) I store research and catalogue it on my blog - witness the ten zillion categories (currently under revision). The blog is where I put all the stuff that needs to be filed and all the stuff that has nowhere else to go - the posts about rosemary and cymbal monkeys and redhead pinups. I say on my About page that I think of the blog as a commonplace book (a la Tom Matrullo), and it really is like a digital version of the big blank artist’s books that I scribbled in and pasted stuff into for years. Elouise Oyzon calls her blog her “external memory”, and I think that’s quite an accurate description too.

Finally, of course, the blog really is a link to a social network. I never really expected blogging to have professional benefits, but I wouldn't have known Collin or Derek or any of the folks in the CCCC Blog SIG* if not for our blogs. I wouldn’t have the opportunity to take this class. Heck, I probably wouldn’t know about half of my colleagues if not for blogging. And I wouldn't know all the other wonderful folks on my blogrolls, the artists and poets and everyday magic folks. After reading someone every day for years, you feel like you know them, even to the point of inviting them to stay at your house. (I’ve received two invitations from long-time blog buddies in the past three months, both of whom have never really met me, ever. And I’d be just as willing to have them in my house, assuming that we actually had a room that was comfortable for them.) And, of course, I likely wouldn’t be with Mister Boyfriend if not for his blog. (Although that was before I started blogging.)

So blogging isn’t “extra” at this point. It’s how I live many aspects of my life. It is, as Lilia says, like breathing, like drinking. After two years, it’s just necessary.**

*To which all you Networked Rhets folks are coming, yes?
**None of this enthusiastic rambling explains my equally necessary annual summer hiatus, but that’s a whole ‘nother post.
***This post was brought to you by the letter K, the number 3, and the parenthetical reference.

Posted at 6:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

From The Annals of Improbable Research, which nearly always brightens my day:

I would like to call your attention to two scientists whose contributions, perhaps, are worthy of recognition.

Leigh Van Valen has expanded the horizons of paleontology into Middle Earth by naming at least 21 paleocene mammals after characters from Tolkien, including Bomburia, Earendil, Fimbrethil ambaronae, and more. Tolkien has inspired other taxonomists, too, but none others to such an extent.

Neal L. Evenhuis excels at scientific names as an art form in themselves. He is perhaps best known for Phthiria relativitae; his other contributions include Carmenelectra shechisme, Meomyia, Villa manillae, Iyaiyai, Pieza pi, Pieza kake, Pieza rhea, and Pieza deresistans, and more.

Posted at 7:14 AM | Permalink

For several weeks, I have been planning to go to BlogWalk Chicago. I spent the earlier part of this week clearing out tasks in preparation. And now I am not going. Because of my car.

The silly part of all this is that the car runs just fine. What happened is that Mister Boyfriend was being Nice and clearing the snow off my windshield and accidentally popped off the driver’s side windshield-washer-squirter thingie, which was decidedly Not Nice. I took it to the shop to have that and the back latch replaced, plus routine 75,000 mile maintenance. Minor, minor stuff. The Kia people now swear that they were mistaken about getting it back to me today because it appears that there is no 99-model squirter thingie and or latch anywhere in the Twin Cities. Grrrrr. (And frankly, not quite believable.) They might get it back to me late tomorrow, and I was planning on leaving in the morning. But demanding it back now isn't going to do me any good, because this weather makes squirting the windshield quite necessary. Can’t drive if I can’t see. I’d just shanghai Mister Boyfriend’s car instead, except it’s scheduled to get new tires and new brakes next week, with good reason. So possibly that’s a bad idea.

For want of a squirter thingie, Chicago was lost. And I shall have to live yet another 9 months without meeting AKMA, until I make it to Chicago for AoIR. Life is certainly incomplete.

I am going to take a hot hot hot bath and go to sleep. And I will take some comfort, I guess, in the fact that I am sleeping in Minneapolis, which the AARP says is the very best place in the U.S. to sleep. Chicago did not make the list.

Posted at 8:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Yesterday in "Rhetoric, Intellectual Property, and the Internet," we examined Gorgias’ Encomium of Helen as an indicator of classical Greek attitudes toward authorship. One might argue that the final paragraph is particularly indicative of Gorgias’ view of himself as an author by Woodmansee’s defintion (solitary, originary, proprietary):

I have by means of speech removed disgrace from a woman; I have observed the procedure which I set up at the beginning of the speech; I have tried to end the injustice of blame and the ignorance of opinion; I wished to write a speech which would be a praise of Helen and a diversion to myself.

Posted at 6:44 PM | Permalink

Today’s the first day of "Rhetoric, Intellectual Property, and the Internet." I hadn’t realized how unaccustomed I became to talking about copyright outside of the law (and the law course environment) last semester. Today, my professor asked us about copyright duration and I immediately asked "For single authored works?" Dork. And then, later, he asked if rathergood creations should be considered parodic, and I said, "Depends on if we can consider it social commentary or not." Both of those questions would have been trick questions over in the law school, and I answered like I was still there and expecting Socratic questioning. I forgot that I’m back in the land of ought rather than is. I’m the official Over-Excited Student in the class. I’m used to being accused of being too intense, but I’m usually not quite like this.

Posted at 2:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

elearnspace links to an extensive list of knowledge management bloggers and the 5 best KM discussions. I'd add a lot of these to my blogroll, except that I've finally gotten to the point that I consider it unwieldy. 200-ish* links might be nearing a bit much, and I haven’t added everyone from Networked Rhets yet.

*What with the sidebar and then more stuff stashed over on Bloglines.

Posted at 8:17 AM | Permalink

Is the first book review always the hardest? At least now I know why I did all those book reports in elementary and high school.

Posted at 7:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

50 Strategies for Making Yourself Work
Hack Your Way Out of Writer’s Block

Perhaps helpful for all my dissertating compatriots, and also for me and my endless quest to make. self. work.

(via 43 Folders)

Posted at 10:28 AM | Permalink

I don’t know how I missed it, but several days ago Chuck Tryon wrote a nice post about his own cinematic education in response to mine. Go take a look.

Posted at 2:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Languagehat links to a New York Times report on Pearson’s fair use suit against Little, Brown. The suit claims that Yiddish with Dick and Jane, which discusses adultery, drug use, and other adult issues, is not a parody and therefore an infringement:

The book, by Ellis Weiner and Barbara Davilman, with illustrations by Gabi Payn, states on the front and back covers, spine and copyright page that it is a parody. But the lawsuit says the book "is not a parody, but is an unprotected imitation" because it does not use the copyrighted characters "for the purpose of social criticism."

Posted at 12:25 PM | Permalink

There’s an discussion going on over at CultureCat, where Clancy has responded to Ayelet Waldman’s essay that both Lauren and I quoted from. I’d be participating if I weren’t up against a deadline.

Clancy’s done far more work with pro-choice and feminist rhetoric than I have, and she makes a solid point in saying that using real body terms such as "kill" and "child" reinforce the pro-life stance. (And she's also right in pointing out that the pro-life movement desperately needs a Lakoff.)

How rhetorically effective is it to say, "yes, it's killing (in some cases), but I should have the legal right to do it because I'm acting on my values and my personal truth"? I can already hear chilling, flippant responses from some who lack sympathy for the position, along the lines of the "who among the unwanted will be the next to be declared disposable" line of thinking Kissling cites, only far less sincere: "So I can kill gays and lesbians because to do so is to act on my values? Yay!" And exactly how will such a shades-of-grey pro-choice rhetoric be more "relevant to the contemporary world"?

Posted at 9:57 AM | Permalink

My Web Crush™, Ms. Vitriolica Webb, is auctioning off her work in support of tsunami survivors. Go forth and bid!

She also points to another interesting effort, the Tsunami Quilt Project, a collaborative quilting effort that will eventually be auctioned off for aid funds. It’s being coordinated by a fiber artist in Madrid, and she’s still seeking contributions.

Posted at 9:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The UMN Institute for New Media Studies and the Internet Studies Center are cosponsoring a showing of Chuck Olsen’s Blogumentary on February 3. Chuck’s project promises to be more personal than PBS’s Media Matters: Welcome to the Blogosphere:

We live in an age where everyone is a mediamaker. Blogs empower us to tell our story, spout and debate our politics, and share ourselves with the rest of the world - or at least the 5 people who read our blog. What compels us to blog? How does it affect us, each other, our work, the mediascape, the world? Do bloggers have anything in common? Does the blogosphere have a life of it’s own, like the emergent behavior of an ant colony excited by the discovery of food?

Posted at 11:21 AM | Permalink

Assigned texts for the semester, since some of you are interested in that sort of thing:

Rhetoric, Intellectual Property, and the Internet, taught by John Logie here at UMN
The Anarchist in the Library: How the Clash between Freedom and Control is Hacking the Real World and Crashing the System (Siva Vaidhyanathan)
Authorship: From Plato to the Postmodern (Sean Burke)
Copy Fights: The Future of Intellectual Property in the Information Age (Adam Thierer)
Copy Rights and Copy Wrongs: The Rise of Intellectual Property and How It Threatens Creativity (Siva Vaidhyanathan)
Digital Copyright (Jessia Litman)
Free Culture (Lawrence Lessig)

Networked Rhetorics, taught by Collin Brooke at Syracuse, complete with course blog. The full reading schedule is here.
Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software, Steven Johnson
The Laws of the Web: Patterns in the Ecology of Information, Bernardo A. Huberman
The Moment of Complexity: Emerging Network Culture (Mark C. Taylor)
Opening Spaces: Writing Technologies and Critical Research Practices, (Porter and Sullivan)
Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age (Duncan J. Watts)
Small Pieces Loosely Joined: A Unified THeory of the Web (David Weinberger)
The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference (Malcolm Gladwell)

Ancillary:
Promises to Keep: Technology, Law, and the Future of Entertainment (William Fisher III)
Remediation: Understanding New Media (Jay David Bolter)
We the Media (Dan Gillmor)

Posted at 10:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

(via boynton.)

Posted at 9:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is from a 1939 advertising insert for The Regent Institute at Palace Gate, London. Other headlines in it include "Write for Profit: A Second Income in Spare Time," and "Earning While Learning: Striking Letters from New Writers," in which 'typical students' thank the Institute for being so effective that they had already made back their fees through lucrative sales before even completing the course.

I’ve not made a study of British attitudes toward writing in the 30s, but I admire the pragmatic tone of this little pamphlet. No airy-fairy towers and muses here, just writing = extra money. Sensible and sturdy; one expects no less from a nation on the brink of the Blitz.

Posted at 11:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Ayelet Waldman discusses the need to couch pro-choice rhetoric within real language of the body, life, and death. She ends with some thoughts about the current polarized discourse:

To be relevant to the contemporary world, to be valid, the pro-choice movement must listen to pregnant women. We must listen to the woman and value her words. A woman who is unwillingly pregnant, whose pregnancy at, say, 10 weeks, is nothing more than a source of desperation, of misery, knows one truth and we must respect it and honor it. A pregnant woman whose 4 month-old fetus has Down’s Syndrome knows another truth, and we must respect that, too. A pregnant woman whose batterer kicks her in the stomach, trying to end her baby’s life, knows another truth. Respecting the truths of these pregnant women allows us to deal in shades of grey, to liberate ourselves from the straitjacket of the black and white.

Posted at 7:05 PM | Permalink

I started working on putting together a professional site last summer, but didn't get finished before school started. Part of the problem is that my reach exceeds my grasp when it comes to coding and design. I know more or less what I want, but need help getting there. Fortunately, the blogosphere contains wonderfully talented people. Bobbi made a banner for me out of a photo of hers that I love, and Lauren finished the coding and design over Christmas. They both comprehensively rock, and you can view the results over here if you’re so inclined.

Posted at 5:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Like scanning my hair in response to reader requests. Seriously, though, I’m not entirely sure this does it justice.

Posted at 3:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

I finally ventured forth to refresh my redheadness for the first time up here. It's always an adventure with a new stylist, especially when it comes to red dye. More people request blonde or warm brunette than red, which means that most stylists are less experienced with red, which also has about a million shades to work with. And then there’s the fact that my hair has a tendency to grab dye. The stylist and I hit it off, and she did a great job on the color and cut. But she couldn’t account for all the variables on the first shot, and as a result I am a shade of Harlot Scarlet that I haven’t been since I attempted to become tasteful in my early 20's.

I kinda like it, though. Hardcore hair color is so much fun. The last time something like this happened was about two years ago, when I accidentally became violet. These accidents always draw the highest amount of compliments from men, oddly enough. Women always want to know what the hell happened, but the men shyly work their way up to some compliment along the lines of "that color is so ... sexy." (And they’re always quiet and shy about it, unlike other instances.) I don’t really understand; maybe it’s a Suicide Girls thing?

Personally, I like having hardcore hair because it makes me feel more badass, more Run Lola Run. It‛s an excuse to break out my platform combat boots and wear lots of black clothes and silver jewelery. Fun while it lasts, which is generally about two weeks until the color fades.

Posted at 10:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

My venus flytrap has been featured over on Cheryl‛s Garden Party*. This is the same flytrap that spits out its food and is currently refusing to go to sleep. It should be in its winter dormancy because of the lower temperatures and reduced photoperiod in that window, but instead it‛s developed the tell-tale blush of healthy flytraps and continues to set new traps. Stubborn little thing. It‛s currently in a pot with a bunch of baby sundews and their mama since I didn‛t know any better. I‛m going to repot it by itself in a few weeks so it can go into a dark, cool closet next winter. If it won‛t go to sleep when it‛s supposed to, then it‛s so grounded.

*Nepotism might have something to do with it; Cheryl is my mother.

Update: There’s a better picture of it over here.

Posted at 11:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

It is with some dismay that I‛ve realized that I‛ll be working mostly online next semester. My class on Rhetoric, Intellectual Property and the Internet is a meatspace class. But my participation in Collin Brooke's Networked Rhetorics class at Syracuse will be necessarily virtual, and I‛m teaching an online section of Technical and Professional Writing. While I‛m excited about all the courses I‛m taking and teaching, I‛m concerned about what it means for my tendency toward hermeticism.

This is compounded by the fact that I‛ve never learned to work in the office as a graduate student. I did it all the time when I was in industry, but my previous department‛s graduate student offices consisted of four desks in an old, musty room that nobody ever went into. Working there was often more lonely and inefficient than working at home, because at home I had Mister Boyfriend and a DSL connection. Things are better here, where I have a very nice office that I share with one other person who‛s rarely there. It‛s a bit off the beaten path of the department, which makes it nicely quiet but also means that I have to go out of it in order to see anybody. At least one person has commented on the fact that I‛m rarely in the office. Since I wasn‛t teaching last semester, I didn‛t keep office hours, and it usually doesn‛t dawn on me to go in except on days when I have space between two classes.

This whole arrangement reminds me of last spring, when I was working on my thesis and teaching one course online. My only meatspace seminar met one evening per week, and there was nobody else in my department who dealt with my research area. In spite of a lot of lunches with friends, it was a pretty lonely, boring semester. Mister Boyfriend was always around the house too, but we had offices on separate floors and were both working on theses. I found that I missed the bustle of human energy, and it impacted my work processes. It was certainly not the most productive semester I ever had.

I‛m telling myself that this one won‛t necessarily be the same, because both of my classes are in my research area and will involve a fair amount of physical and virtual conversation. I‛ve made some friends up here, and I‛ll be sure to check in with them from time to time. Who knows, I may figure out how to work in the office again. And I may learn to read in coffee shops. Scott has told me for forever that I should do it in order to be away from TV, the Internet, and fascinating spouses. (In fact, he has a nice entry on coffee shop-as-office here.) I‛ve never bothered because I have a tendency to people-watch and because as an Internet researcher I need the Internet to get things done. So many places have wifi now that connectivity needn‛t be a concern, but I think that leaving the laptop at home and doing my reading someplace public would be a good way to remove my usual procrastination devices.

We‛ll see, eh?

Posted at 10:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Posted at 9:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm willing to delve into whackjob French theorists. I'm willing to deal with the grumpy German ones. I'm willing to wade through the swamps of postmodernism. Hell, I'm even willing to write essays that deal with the death of the author while simultaneously studying legal definitions of authorship and the relevant case law.

But I cannot expand my little brain enough to wrap it around the concept of Brigitte Nielsen and Flavor Flav as a couple. Try as I might, it just won't go that far.

(Via Thanks for Not Being a Zombie)

Posted at 12:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Want to hear about life and love and revisit forbidden parts of your vocabulary all at the same time? Go read The Rabbit.

Life is short, dippies. Today is the day to make your move. Buy some flowers, and a lottery ticket, and start to believe in the possibility that your life could be big and bright and pretty. As Frances McDormand says in "Almost Famous," "Be bold, and mighty forces will come to your aid." Magic, honkies! Believe in magic for once in your narrow little lives. Give up on the mundane for a minute, and open up your hearts, and listen to all the dead people in your office and on the street outside, screaming the same thing: "Live, motherfuckers! Stop planning and fucking LIVE."

The rest (and the backstory) is even better.

(Via Unfogged)

Posted at 12:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I've had a very odd cinematic education. Up until the age of 7, I watched all the normal kid movies and a bunch of grown-up ones I probably shouldn't have seen. Between the ages of 8 and 15, conservative religious morés dictated my viewing, and I watched hardly any non-Disney movies at all. Even Disney movies with "occult" overtones (i.e. Escape from Witch Mountain,) were banned. At 16, I took it upon myself to investigate all the pop culture I had been missing, and made a fair bit of progress for the next few years. I managed to become current on mid-90s culture, catch up on the 80s stuff, and start to backtrack from there. Then, at 21, I rediscovered school. Between working full time and going to school full time, I didn't have much time to continue my cinematic education. I've kept up as best I could with current film (which means middling results), and never really gotten to many of the classics. This is compounded by the fact that the more theory I read, the more I want to watch truly stupid movies to balance things out.

Mister Boyfriend, who devoted his teens, twenties, and thirties to All Things Cultural, is understandably mortified, and has taken it upon himself to educate me. This has also had middling results, based on the varying factors of my crankiness, my busyness, and my ability to stay awake. But whenever there's a break in school, we usually watch movies every night.

That meant that this week, one of the darkest weeks of the year, one of the weeks of most intense cabin fever, we watched Gangs of New York, Taxi Driver, The Aviator, House of the Flying Daggers, and The Last Picture Show. Tonight was Requiem for a Dream. Great films, all. And also gut wrenching, all. Many violent, many sad. I am never watching Requiem for a Dream again. Ever. I can't take it.

I am watching Finding Nemo now as an antidote, and I have declared myself in charge of household cinema for the next bit. Let there be Zoolander! Legally Blonde 1 and 2! Pootie Tang! No more cinema, I want movies!

And then I want to watch Casablanca and The Maltese Falcon, because I've never seen those either.

Posted at 9:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

I undeniably win the Feministe Anti-Award for Reddest Hair! I somehow feel like Lauren created an award just for me.

Lauren demands pictures. Fine. Here:


Bright Sunlight

I am da redhead! Miss Clairol knows so!

Posted at 5:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

After some calendar shenanigans, I‛ve finally been able to confirm my attendance at BlogWalk Chicago on January 22. I‛m looking forward to it, both for the opportunity to discuss organizational blogging and to finally meet some folks I‛ve read and corresponded with for years.

I‛ll be staying in Evanston, where the meeting is, but I think I‛d like to take the opportunity to drive over to Lombard and see my aunt on Sunday morning. She‛s 81 and a handful. I first met her when I was four at a family reunion, and then not again until two years ago. We‛d had absolutely no contact in the intervening 22 years, but I walked in her door and we immediately started carrying on like old friends. If she and I had the opportunity to hang out together, we‛d get up to no good very quickly. I rarely have that sort of connection with someone right off the bat, and I can‛t wait to see her again.

Posted at 5:33 PM | Permalink

Donna Wentworth notes that Entertainment Weekly has named the Grey Album Record of the Year.

Posted at 8:45 AM | Permalink

1. When you suddenly realize that you have been inside for five days straight and are quite close to losing your mind, do not watch The Aviator*.
2. Do, however, contemplate the progress of the hyacinths you are forcing in water. They are much more calming.

*Do watch The Aviator if you are in a different frame of mind, as it is quite excellent - so excellent that it makes madness seem like something that could happen to anyone. One may watch it when one is in a funk, but with the consequence of waking up the next morning still contemplating the dank spaces in the human mind.

Posted at 11:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Today marks my second blogiversary. What started as an independent study project ain‛t done yet, I guess.

Thank you to all of you who have come here over the last two years, and who continue to be so interesting, supportive, and human. Without you, this wouldn‛t be nearly so worthwhile an endeavor.

To mark the occasion, Areté has become a little more human as well. This began as an anonymous, genderless space, but it quickly moved beyond that as so many of you have blogrolled me by one or both of my names. I‛ve finally added an About page to the sidebar, complete with a picture taken by the infamous Mister Boyfriend. Not all of the links are live yet, but all should be well by the time school starts.

Posted at 4:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

Here‛s my list of Big Things, inspired by New Kid, Liliputian Lilith, and Superhero Journal (who calls hers the Mondo Beyondo list.) I‛ve banned fitness and professional goals here, since those belong elsewhere. This list is about what one wants out of life, not work.

10 Things To Do Before I Die

1. Live in a place that truly suits both of us, which means close to a major city but not necessarily in it. We‛re both very happy where we are, but we won‛t get to stay here forever.
2. Build or restore a house there with my partner.
3. Travel extensively with same, particularly in Britain.
4. Maintain a serious garden. Not necessarily huge, but with a potager and well-planned flower beds.
5. Publish an unscholarly book.
6. Have multiple pets again. I had them all my life until the past two years, and miss them horribly. Life really isn‛t complete without a dog and two cats.
7. Recover and improve my ability to play the piano. I played for six years and quit in a fit of teenage rebellion. I miss it more every year, but don‛t have the time or space to pursue it right now.
8. Learn and become fluent in another language. Four years of mediocre Spanish don‛t count.
9. Maintain close ties to family and friends.
10. Create a solid body of work, in various senses of the term.

Posted at 3:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

It is strange indeed to write of your own past. “In those days” I have written ... but I am not at all sure that those days have been changed by time. All my life I believed in the changes I could, and sometimes did, make in a nature I so often didn‛t like, but now it seems to me that time made alterations and mutations rather than true reforms; and so I am left with so much of the past that I have no right to think it very different from the present.

Lillian Hellman, Pentimento, 26

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