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You are the pilot.
Saint Exupery's 'The Little Prince' Quiz.
brought to you by Quizilla
My mom tried to introduce me to The Little Prince as a child, but I didn’t get it until I was about 16. It became one of the Sacred Tomes, and now I keep several copies around the house at all times.
When asked, I used to say,
“I want to be a doctor,”
Which is the same thing
As a child saying,
“I want to be a priest,”
Or
“I want to be a magician,”
Which is the laying on
Of hands, the vibrations,
The rabbit in the hat
Or the body in the cup,
The curing of the sick
And the raising of the dead.
“Fix and fix, you’re all better,”
I would say
To the neighborhood wounded
As we fought the world war
Through the vacant lots of Ohio.
“Fix and fix, you’re all better,”
And they would rise
To fight again.
But then
I saw my aunt die slowly of cancer
And a man struck down by a car.
All along I had really
Wanted to be a poet,
Which is, you see, almost the same thing as saying,
“I want to be a doctor,”
“I want to be a priest,”
Or
“I want to be a magician.”
All along, without realizing it,
I had wanted to be a poet.
Fix and fix, you’re all better.
- Paul Zimmer
Lately, I’ve become accustomed to the way
the ground opens up and envelopes me
Each time I go out to walk the dog.
Or the broad edged silly music the wind
Makes when I run for a bus . . .
Things have come to that.
And now, each night I count the stars
And each night I get the same number.
And when they will not come to be counted,
I count the holes they leave.
Nobody sings anymore.
And then last night, I tiptoed up
To my daughter’s room and heard her
Talking to someone, and when I opened
The door, there was no one there . . .
Only she on her knees, peeking into
Her own clasped hands
- LeRoi Jones
Even now, when I’ve so long abandoned literature for rhetoric, it’s poetry that saves me.
Why can’t I write about anything else?
There really is nothing else. Not right now.
Later. Later, that will change. Six weeks, supposedly, until I can start trying to walk again.
Right after my surgery, the orthopedic surgeon told Mister Boyfriend that he took a good look at my bones when he was working on them. Good bones. No signs of osteoporosis, good chances for solid healing. Apparently my lifelong love of all dairy products has paid off.
So ladies, that’s one way to solve the bone-density question. Have the doctor look at ’em from the inside.
Knowledge Management Systems, taught by Don Turnbull at UT Austin in Spring 2004.
Intellectual Property: International and Comparative Dimensions, taught by William Fisher III at Harvard Law in Spring 2002.
I’m so gonna be mining the reading lists from both of these.
In response to my carrying on about reduced productivity, QB left a link to this Guardian article on Woolf’s writings on illness, and the impact of infirmity on her life and work. It reminded me of an article I read somewhere years ago on the frequency of extended illness among successful creative types, mostly in early childhood. Warhol always comes to mind as an example. In the Diaries, he discusses his childhood bouts with St. Vitus’ dance, which demanded long periods of bed rest. He entertained himself by reading celebrity rags, tracing and drawing the stars within. It makes perfect sense in the context of his later work, or vice versa.
I know that my childhood sickliness has everything to do with who I am now. I had spinal meningitis at two and recurring ear infections thereafter. I’m not sure how accurate my memory is, but I seem to recall being sick about as often as I was well between the ages of 2 and 6. I spent a ton of time in bed with all sorts of books, and an equal ton of time sprawled on the floor or couch with a blanket, scribbling away and drawing. The art projects may not have made me an artist, but they did give me a certain sensibility. The words, on the other hand, took over my life. I read everything I could get my hands on, age appropriate or not, and eventually begin to write my own things as well. I’ve written steadily ever since, and I don’t think I’ve been without reading material in at least twenty years, having picked up the habit of taking a book along everywhere early on. Several years before I quit Industry to be a full time student, an associate and I were making a three-hour commute to a meeting. We asked each other what we couldn’t live without. He said music, and I said language. He thought I was crazy. I couldn’t imagine any other answer. All of that eventually led to here, where words and their arrangement and contexts are really all I do.
Proust, of course, relied on bed rest as a central impetus to his work, and the Guardian piece suggests that Woolf wasn’t all that far behind him, at least periodically. I don’t plan on taking things that far. I do think it might be kind of convenient after I get my strength up a bit more, though. This semester is a rare semester, because all of my courses align precisely with my interests. The readings are really pushing my thinking along. I have an article mapped out in my mind. The conditions should be sort of perversely optimal for really getting something done. Right now there’s too much pain and not enough energy, but soon...
*Not that I would compare myself to Warhol. Or Woolf. or Proust.
I still remember exactly where I was when I heard that Jim Henson was dead. It was a brilliant spring afternoon. I asked my algebra teacher if he had heard, if it was true, and he said yes. And there is a small, little kid part of me that has never gotten over that day.
Over Time is a beautiful, eerie tribute to Henson, perfectly done in black and white and set to Inconsolable by the by the Silberman Orchestra. It made me cry.
(Via 12 frogs)
Schedule prior to breakage: Get up at 5:30 am, read blogs until 7ish, shower. Work in one form or another until around 5:30 pm. Do something about dinner, hang out with honey/work until 9. Try to work at least ten hours per day, but never less than eight. Go to sleep.
Schedule now: Get up at 8:30 or 9, depending on when pills wear off. Read blogs, eat breakfast, undertake journey to bathroom. 10:30 - start work. If teaching online class, one hour of reading/responding to email is about the limit. If reading, 30 pages is limit. Either way, eyes cross by noonish. Eat lunch. Nap for a couple of hours. 2:30 - read more if possible. 15 pages is about the limit this go-round. Check email. 5:00 - too tired to do more, start watching old episodes of Friends on DVD. Eat dinner. On alternate days undertake shower, which is 30 minute hour-long endeavor. Collapse back into bed about 8. Go to sleep.
Good thing everyone is being so understanding about my situation, because reading 45 pages a day ain’t the way to keep up with two doctoral seminars. I considered Monday my first day back at work and tried to work a six hour day, thereby accomplishing nothing except emails, trashing myself, and ruining my energy for Tuesday as well. A girl’s gotta know her limitations. Even though they said "major surgery," I somehow didn’t really think it applied to me. I mean, open-heart surgery is major surgery. All that happened to me was the opening of a major joint and the insertion of 11 pieces of steel titanium, some larger than others. Why am I tired?
I spent awhile trying to figure out if I should be concerned about sleeping so much, and decided no. I’m not sleeping out of depression. I’m sure a certain amount of it has to do with the painkillers, but I only take full doses of them at night, so it’s not like I’m loading up on them. I remember reading somewhere that the body does most of its healing when it’s asleep, and my mom reminded me of that the other day. This body has been through quite a bit, and I’ve decided I’m not going to begrudge it some rest.
I promise not to let this blog lapse into a carnival of whining. Seven weeks to go until I can begin to walk (knock wood).
Schedule prior to breakage: Get up at 5:30 am, read blogs until 7ish, shower. Work in one form or another until around 5:30 pm. Do something about dinner, hang out with honey/work until 9. Try to work at least ten hours per day, but never less than eight. Go to sleep.
Schedule now: Get up at 8:30 or 9, depending on when pills wear off. Read blogs, eat breakfast, undertake journey to bathroom. 10:30 - start work. If teaching online class, one hour of reading/responding to email is about the limit. If reading, 30 pages is limit. Either way, eyes cross by noonish. Eat lunch. Nap for a couple of hours. 2:30 - read more if possible. 15 pages is about the limit this go-round. Check email. 5:00 - too tired to do more, start watching old episodes of Friends on DVD. Eat dinner. On alternate days undertake shower, which is 30 minute hour-long endeavor. Collapse back into bed about 8. Go to sleep.
Good thing everyone is being so understanding about my situation, because reading 45 pages a day ain’t the way to keep up with two doctoral seminars. I considered Monday my first day back at work and tried to work a six hour day, thereby accomplishing nothing except emails, trashing myself, and ruining my energy for Tuesday as well. A girl’s gotta know her limitations. Even though they said "major surgery," I somehow didn’t really think it applied to me. I mean, open-heart surgery is major surgery. All that happened to me was the opening of a major joint and the insertion of 11 pieces of steel titanium, some larger than others. Why am I tired?
I spent awhile trying to figure out if I should be concerned about sleeping so much, and decided no. I’m not sleeping out of depression. I’m sure a certain amount of it has to do with the painkillers, but I only take full doses of them at night, so it’s not like I’m loading up on them. I remember reading somewhere that the body does most of its healing when it’s asleep, and my mom reminded me of that the other day. This body has been through quite a bit, and I’ve decided I’m not going to begrudge it some rest.
I promise not to let this blog lapse into a carnival of whining. Seven weeks to go until I can begin to walk (knock wood).
It’s really great when one of your oldest blog friends goes to the trouble of finding the Amazon wish list that you never link to for fear of tackiness, digs through all the work-related detritus to find a non-work book you want, and ships it to you as a surprise get-well gift from one cook to another.
Thanks, Steve. You made my day. And the rest of you must go read Steve’s immortal How to Make a Potato Salad immediately. Your life will be better for it.
So the Happy Tutor was was giving me shit for my disclaimer, which ticked me off, and it’s somehow turned into this sort of interesting thread involving Brands and Authorship, culminating in descriptions of a floating devil’s anus (as these things so often do when the Tutor is involved). Just so you know.
For those who want to know, Mister Boyfriend and I will not be attending CCCC this year. My lack of inner ear balance makes me rather untrustworthy on crutches, and neither of us can imagine negotiating the trip and conference with a wheelchair. There’s also the small matter of whipping a paper into shape when one is physically wiped. All in all, better to stay home.
I’m disappointed, though, because I had looked forward to meeting so many people there, especially all the Syracusans who I feel I know more every day. And all the people from my previous department. And all the bloggers all over the place. I’ll also miss San Francisco, which is one of my very favorite cities, and a city Mister Boyfriend hasn’t seen in twenty years.
Sigh. Maybe next year, eh?
Various individuals have asked how my department has handled my injury and absence, and their tones imply they expect a grad student horror story. Just for the record, my department could not possibly be more supportive than they have been. My course section has been covered, I’m still being paid, and my advisors have been very reassuring about my currently reduced work capacity.
Lately, there's been agitation for a grad student union on campus. Having worked at UPS for years before coming to grad school, I’m in favor of unions. But one of the big argumentation points they’ve pushed is our low salaries, and that’s a skewed argument, at least from my viewpoint within this department. I just wrote a grant that required me to wade into the salary and fringe benefit jungle to figure out the budget, so I have a fairly good idea of what standard salary and fringe work out to. Our grad student salaries are fairly low. I was offered more by other departments last year when I was on the Ph.D.-program-market. But here I (and every other grad student in the department) have full medical and dental insurance, for which the department shells out nearly as much as my salary. This is the only program in my area that I know of that offers such benefits, and the total compensation comes to $7,000 more than the best salary offer I received. This insurance just saved me approximately $20,000 in medical bills that would have ruined my chances at completing this Ph.D.
So thanks for asking, but no. I’m not feeling particularly oppressed at the moment. However, I still feel strongly about unionization, because I know just how damn lucky I am. Graduate students, as a rule, do not get health insurance. Every grad student in every department deserves to have basic medical coverage, both for the routine bodily whatnots and the major catastrophes. I cannot begin to imagine how I would deal with the costs of this accident - a capricious accident, one involving an unlucky slip on a bit of ice. It would, simply, have ruined what I have spent these past years working for.
You people have to be tired of hearing about the pain, the pain, but I’m fascinated by it. I had no idea that there are so many varieties to be had. Really, the only way to deal with it is to sort of lie back and watch it play as color and music on a screen built of your body and mind.
I’ve noticed that for me, pain correlates with colors and vapor states. The original, first pain was primal and hysterical, a deep swirling cloud filled with occasional gusts and lightning bolts. After the reducing, there was a chaotic pain, much more frightening. It was like a rain symphony, swelling throughout the day and reaching its crescendo at nightfall, just before my surgery. It was a deep blue pain. The pain since then has been more ordered, a consistent still lake with occasional eddies and tides. Some sting-y creatures live in it and occasionally come out. This pain is still blue, but more of a greenish blue than the others. Everything is more; a drop of water on my big toe is a wave, a brush against a jacket hem a slap.
I find that sound affects it as well. Especially rattley, crinkley sounds. The first night home, Jeff wadded up a plastic sack, and the pain crinkled with the plastic. Last night, he opened our vertical window blinds, which always sway and clack when they’re moved. Every clack was a quick stab. Better to observe than be upset, because noises are a fact of life. I fired up iTunes this morning to fill the silence, but Tom Verlaine’s Warm and Cool set everything a-jangle. Perhaps silence is better, so I can float along on the tides and just watch.
Via Ernie the Attorney: Are group blogs partnerships? Quite possibly so, according to Professor Bainbridge.
And, passed on by the Very Alert Mister Boyfriend: The Weblog Question, which examines ownership of content in weblogs.
The thing to do, I think, is to ask myself: how did I get here? I got here by walking out of my front door into an early evening snowfall last Wednesday. I was going to see Mister Boyfriend off to class and then walk across to the apartment office to pick up some packages. I helped Jeff sweep the snow off his car, kissed him goodbye, put the broom back in the Kia, and then turned and slipped.
I always assumed that one would know the moment of breakage, would feel the snap and crumble. It’s not so. All I knew was that I wasn’t getting up soon, and that I was almost directly behind the passenger side of Jeff’s car, which would shortly be backing out. I started yelling and banging on the side of the car – banging in time with the drums on the stereo, as it turned out. For the longest time it seemed that he would never hear me, and then he did and turned the car off, and I collapsed back on the ice and snow. He came around the side and looked down with horror in his face, and knelt to lift my torso up off the ground. He wanted me to move to the foyer, where it was warm, but I refused. I asked him to go inside, get a blanket, and call 911. While he was gone I began to wonder if I had really broken something or if it was just a bad sprain like the one I had in 2000. I rolled my ankle experimentally, and it felt like gravel and icy slush inside. Completely broken. I am not a person who breaks things. This did not just happen to me.
Jeff came back with a blanket and held me. One of the maintenance guys called 911. A neighbor brought another blanket, and an aspirin. The police came, and we all waited for the ambulance. Finally it came, and I began to wonder if these slight, fit paramedics could lift my substantial self onto the gurney. I hardly had time to wonder about it before I felt Jeff lift me and place me there himself as they guided my legs. I screamed when they took off my shoe and when I was set on the stretcher. Inside the ambulance, I finally began to shiver and chatter my teeth, and they piled on blankets. I had been on the ground for perhaps 20 minutes, and early hypothermia had set in, dipping my heart rate. And they had begun to try to start an IV, which is nearly impossible - my veins are not a jungle or a forest, but a twiggy thicket. Tiny, hard to tap, and liable to collapse. After four attempts (one of which left a butterfly-shaped bruise still visible five days later), they gave up, shot me full of morphine, and we set off for the University hospital.
Once the morphine kicked in, I began to babble and couldn’t shut up. Do I have hypothermia? What are the symptoms of hypothermia? I have no veins. My name is Krista. What’s yours? Yes, I know my Social Security number. Yes, I know my address. Yes, I know my phone number. Can I have more blankets? How much further? Is Jeff following us? Oh, here we are. It’s cold on my toes. This kept up through ER admissions and amused Jeff to no end. He said, "I saw hints of this before and knew it was possible, but I’ve never actually seen you go on like this." And, "You are so bullheaded. You know I love you for that."
Hours went by. Three nurses came to try to start the IV, and finally they gave up and got The Mystic, the final nurse who is always summoned from another part of the hospital and who can tap any vein. She was wonderful, and slipped the needle right in. More morphine. The floor doctor came. More morphine. Then X-rays, and then more morphine. I was still in denial, thinking that these things don’t happen to me, except when they obviously do, so surely they’ll just be able to pop it back in place and send me home. The orthopedic specialist came, and nicely informed me that I had broken the fibula, the tibia, and another crucial bone. Ironically, I had managed to accomplish the very same break that Jeff had experienced three and a half years ago, before we met. Surgery would be required. But first, my ankle had to be reduced and so we talked about reducing - the process of pulling the ankle back into something resembling its original shape so as to reduce the swelling and then splinting it to await surgery. From the look on everyone’s faces, I could tell it wouldn’t be pleasant. They promised to render me unconscious before doing it. After everyone left to prep, Jeff told me that reducing was the worst part, and that everything would be downhill from there. He had been fully conscious for his, not even offered the choice of anesthesia. I figured the only way out was through.
The nurses came back to prep me. As they cut away my wet clothes and began to attach me to the various monitors, I became quietly angry, and then suddenly very clearly understood what subjectivity means, and that it was what I was angry about. All the signifiers of infirm and patient were being attached to me, a person who was being forced to give up her conviction that this was not happening to her. And then I wondered what sort of geek has blinding flashes about Lacan when being prepped for unpleasant medical procedures. Probably better to stay in the moment.
When everything was arranged, they began to give me shots of anesthetic. After a few minutes, the floor doctor tapped my forehead and said, "Can you hear me?" Yes, I could. Another dose. And another. And another as I chatted away, until we were up to six times the original dose. It became clear that I would be very much awake for the procedure. Everyone was as pleasant and concerned as they could be, and a nurse held my hand as I screamed through every twist, crackle, and pop. Jeff, down the hall and around the corner, heard me and moved his chair to the hall outside my room. As soon as they finished, he came in to hold my hand. More morphine.
And then I was situated in my hospital room, waiting to be worked into the OR schedule for the next day. I was still convinced that this was not happening to me, that it was a very vivid dream that I would wake from shortly. I fell asleep around one in the morning, and dreamed vibrant morphine dreams until dawn. The next day was the waiting day, waiting to be scheduled and then waiting for my 5 pm surgery. I hadn’t been unconscious in ten years and had never had anything approaching major surgery; my only previous experiences had been having tubes put in my ears as a child and having my wisdom teeth out as a teenager. My nurse that day was Bintou, from Mali. She was incredibly patient with me, doling out the morphine and chatting. Jeff was in and out throughout the day, reassuring me that the surgery was minor compared to reducing, and that I wouldn’t remember a thing about it. As the day passed the pain and the fear grew worse, and by the time pre-op rolled around I was heavily sedated, wide awake, and trying very hard not to cry. Meeting the surgeons, anesthesiologist, and nurses beforehand helped. The last thing I remember is looking at the blue-on-white tile design of the OR and noticing how everyone looked like folks loitering around waiting to start their shift, not that different from any other workplace. Thankfully, the anesthesia worked much better this time around. I remember nothing of the procedure, which lasted more than two hours. (Jeff has written about how it felt from his side.) They said later that I asked for him in the middle of the procedure.
When I woke up the first thing I felt was an overwhelming urge to pee, and I hopped down off the recovery table to the bedside commode. The surprised nurses let me, and wanted to know if I needed any help. I said, "No. Shoo" and they pulled the curtains and stood outside. While taking care of things I apologized for being rude, and they said, "Oh, you weren’t. It’s just that we’re not used to independent people." I thought it was odd that they put it that way and climbed back up on the table, unaware that I would be very unhappy about getting out of bed for any reason in the next days, and asked where Jeff was. Turned out that no Mister Boyfriends are allowed in recovery. After an hour or so of observation they let me go back to my room, where I slept until morning. The next three days were full of sleep, physical therapy, flowers, phone calls, and much fiddling with narcotics as we tried to figure out what worked for me. Vicodin caused vivid nightmares. Tylenol with codeine wasn’t strong enough. Darvocet with Vistaril turned out to be the ticket.
And now I am home, whiny, propped up in bed. I have the bestest, hairiest nursemaid in the world - not least because he knows exactly what it’s like to go through this particular process. And, re-reading, I notice two things. First, that it’s the first part of all this where time stretches out, where the memories are sharpest. Part of that is the lack of narcotics early on, but it’s remarkable the clarity that shock, pain, and adrenaline can bring. The other realization is that this is a love story, one more traumatic than might be wished for, but also one that removes any doubt.
So I slipped on the ice on Wednesday afternoon. The results were three ankle bones snapped, five days in the hospital, ten screws, one plate, and one major surgery. I had never broken a bone, had a cavity, major wound, or a baby, so this has been my introduction to pain. I’m told that this is one of the most painful breaks and corrective surgeries one can experience.
I’m mostly OK, though, and have been in very good spirits. Mister Boyfriend has been absolutely wonderful ever since he lifted me up onto the gurney. I couldn’t ask for a more attentive or sweeter partner. My family has sent phone calls and beautiful flowers. And all of you have been wonderful too - your comments cheered me up so much when Jeff printed them off and brought them to me. Thank you for all of your kind thoughts.
I’m sure I’ll tell the tale of all this more fully later. As it was all happening, I was hyper-aware and thinking of phrasing and paragraphs and whatnot. (How weird is that?) Now, I'm thinking of soup and another Darvocet. And then maybe a nap.
Mr. Boyfriend again.
Krista came through surgery yesterday very well. I printed out the comments you all made and took them to her, and she was thrilled that people cared.
So far, the people at the hospital and the people at the U have been great. I won't make any more snide comments about "Minnesota nice" — it was much better than the "southern hospitality" I got when I broke my ankle.
Mr. Boyfriend here.
Due to a bad break (of her ankle), Krista is not likely to post for a while. Surgery is scheduled for tomorrow.
If anything out of the ordinary happens, I'll post news here. Otherwise, look for Krista to tell the tale in a few days.
Oh, the hedonism of the tundra.
I was remembering what it was like to be a brand new blogger, and the things that people told me and the things I wish I’d been told. Thusly, here are five things I was most ambivalent about at the beginning and advice regarding them.
1. You may be wondering how much of yourself you can reveal on your blog. The answer to that depends on you, and you should respect your boundaries. If you want to be anonymous, be anonymous. If you want to be pseudonymous, be pseudonymous. If you want to be full identity, then go with that. Do what makes you feel most comfortable, because if you’re not comfortable with your space then you won’t keep blogging.
1a. Identity doesn’t come overnight. It will continue to develop as you go along, and will be partly dependent on pragmatic things, like how much you want to be able to blog about private aspects of your life.
2. The best blogs are smart and funny and true. However, you shouldn’t feel like you can’t post unless you have something smart and funny to say. Something true is quite good enough, and most days that’s the best any of us can hope for. And true isn’t as lofty as it sounds. Sometimes true is something that you noticed in the course of your mundane little day. Sometimes something true is just a link to something else that made you laugh or cry or think.
2a. Even the bloggers you think are always smart don’t necessarily think of themselves that way. I once wrote to a blogger whose intellect is universally respected in order to get permission for a quote I was using in a publication. He said, "Did it sound smart? It didn’t come from one of my stupid posts, did it?" This from a man who seriously has no stupid posts.
3. Mine the network. Work your blogroll, link within your posts, and keep up on your comments and trackbacks. Put a site meter on there so you know who’s coming to see you. Your blog will be better, your life will be richer, and your social circle will be wider. Eventually.
3a. Don’t worry if you’re writing to an audience of six people, four of whom are related to you. Do a good job for those six people. Keep linking out to others, keep commenting elsewhere. Eventually, they will come. But for most of us, building traffic takes time.
4. Make a commitment to a rhythm. Assign yourself to write every day for two months. Or to post more often than not - say, four days out of every seven - for two months. It takes awhile to build up the habit, to learn to sit down and see what happens even on the days you don’t think you have anything to say. After two months, take stock and see if this is the right pace for you. Alter accordingly.
4a. If, after keeping your rhythm up for a goodly stretch (say, six months or a year), you find that you need a break, take one. Hiatuses are not necessarily bad things, and are much better than forcing yourself to blog until you absolutely hate it and abandon it altogether.
5. Make your blog what you want it to be, not what you think it should be. This is more difficult if you’re blogging to fulfill class assignments. Still there’s nothing that says you can’t intersperse those required reading responses with photos or essays or poems or whatever else your little heart desires. Make your blog your space.
5a. Worry about design as much or as little as you feel like. That starter template you’ve got up may be exactly what you need now - a blank, generic space, ready to bear the imprint of your immortal words. Or you may need to show off your CSS chops and customize everything within an inch of its life. You can even pay someone else to do it for you. But you are obligated to none of those options.
Blogging is a process, and how you feel about all these issues will change as you go along. That's part of the beauty of it - you end up with a record of your shifting self.
This week’s NetRhets topic is network literacy, which inevitably leads to some discussion of identity. Miles and Yuille list it as #5 on their Creative Computing Manifesto:
5. inside the networkWith my static professional site, I have a fairly good idea of how I’m representing myself to the world. Representation on this blog, however, is far more problematic to me. One of the wonderful and confusing things about blogs is the fact that they’re one of the only documents that permit shifting identities within the document itself. Print is fixed; the author/originator/creator's identity is fixed with it, at least within that volume. An author's identity may shift over the course of their ouvre, but once an individual work is fixed, things don’t change within it. Not so for the blog, which as a dynamic digital document is much more of a living thing. As the blogger changes, the document changes with it. This demonstrated, public change is part of what makes long-term blogging and blog reading so worthwhile - Dorothea, Bobbi, and AKMA have all grown and changed since I began reading them three years ago, and their blogs don’t look or read the same as they did then. The problems have more to do with external researchers than they do with the bloggers themselves (although Bobbi may disagree, given the process she’s gone through lately with hers). How do you categorize something whose identity is constantly in flux? How do you account for the changeable nature of the document? We can work with the larger genre of blog, but what particular identity does it present, and when is it which identity?
Network literacy is the ability to engage with and represent yourself within the network.
(Excerpt cross-posted to Networked Rhetorics.)
I just discovered Big Bunny through Infocult. If you’re a fan of things that are sort of dry and sort of dark and sort of horrible, you’ll sit down and watch all seven episodes back to back. Each involves children and the be-fanged Big Bunny, who tells a wildly inappropriate story to lure them in. Tasty.
I’ve been contemplating the logistics of being a deaf panelist. Specifically, the question-and-answer sessions. Last night, the moderator and I agreed beforehand that she would repeat the questions after they were asked. The arrangement (but not the reason for it) was announced to the audience and the panel before we began.
It worked moderately well. The problem is that the repetition broke the flow of the conversation. People forgot, or conversation broke out that didn't really allow for repetition. Fellow panelists were understandably eager to answer, and sometimes jumped in ahead of the moderator, who gave me sympathetic glances. As a result, I missed about half of what was going on, including several questions about my research area, intellectual property and networked rhetorics.
So, dear readers, help me out. This is hardly the last panel I’ll be on in the course of my career. Actually, another one is coming up in March. In classroom lectures and presentations, I usually remind people that I’m rather deaf, since they tend to forget, and folks are always very good about speaking up. I’m thinking that if the reason for repeating questions in Q&A’s is explained, people will be more accommodating about it. Any other ideas?
*If you don’t know already, this post will give you an idea of the nature and extent of my deafness.
So much for statues and vases. I hope books are not like them. Buy a vase, take it home, put it on your table or your mantel, and, after a while, it will allow itself to be made a part of your household. But it will be no less a vase, for that. On the other hand, take a book, and you will find it offering, opening itself. It is this openness of the book which I find so moving. A book is not shut in by its contours, is not walled up as in a fortress. It asks nothing better than to exist outside itself, or to let you exist in it. In short, the extraordinary fact in the case of a book is the falling away of the barriers between you and it. You are inside it; it is inside you; there is no longer either outside or inside.George Poulet, Criticism and the Experience of Interiority
Clancy points to Kaye Trammell’s blog bibliography. Lois Scheidt at Bloomington also maintains an extensive one.