A great nerve, vibrating

Anti-fashion cartoon from 1913

2012-01-07T11:15:00.002-05:00

Life, May 8, 1913.

This 1913 cartoon anticipates our contemporary interest in the origins of consumer items (and their true non-monetary costs), sexist punchline not withstanding... [Click on image to read it]

New Harrison Cady Tumblr Blog

2011-11-27T13:32:00.000-05:00

Harper's Round Table, January 21, 1896.

I've been collecting public domain images created by Harrison Cady. I thought Tumblr might be a good way to display them. Here's the link.

Friedrich Kittler RIP (rage comic style)

2011-10-19T09:00:00.003-04:00

Click image to read small type

thanks, Dan Awesome's Rage Maker

Leaf Blower in Eden, or, The Industrialization of Suburban Landscaping

2011-10-15T09:40:00.000-04:00

Just a project that comes to mind as I sit in my office trying to read over the roar of a giant lawnmower across the street.

Birding the Net

2011-10-14T07:55:00.001-04:00

At last, a convergence of birding and advertising (Goodby is behind this campaign). Will probably see The Big Year this weekend.

Don't buy a used 2001-2003 RAV4

2011-10-03T16:19:00.000-04:00

The transmission will die, thanks to faulty computer software. And if you are like me and unlucky enough to be just two months past the extended warranty, Toyota will not give you a break.

I haven't yet decided whether this kills my relationship with Toyota forever. But I no longer trust Toyota cars to last longer than ten years. The Hyundai alternative is looking rather attractive, I must say....

Don't read this post until exactly 10:18 a.m.

2011-09-30T20:47:00.000-04:00

That was the moment The Clock, the new Christian Marclay video installation at the MFA, stopped working.

I'd come to the museum with the family to explore the brand new contemporary art wing. They left me to sit and watch The Clock. They'd come back at 11:30. I gave them my only timepiece, my iPhone, because I, of course, would know what time it was. And then The Clock stopped. First, no sound. Then an error message on the screen.

Turns out The Clock is more a computer application (Mac OS) than a conventional film. While I chuckled to myself at the difficulty of restarting the movie at exactly the right time, an onscreen cursor engaged an automatic sync function and The Clock started again, at exactly the right time.

The creation of a 24 hour movie out of clock-referencing Hollywood movie clips sounds more like a stunt than an art object. But Marclay is such a skilled and thoughtful editor the experience of watching the film is rewarding at many levels. I can't imagine watching all 24 hours in a row, though apparently some have tried. The danger of deep vein thrombosis aside, I think it is more a piece to sample when you happen to be at the museum for an hour or two.

I'm a long time Christian Marclay turntablism fan, all the way back to his collaborations with shamisen improviser Michihiro Sato. And indeed the sounds of The Clock are worth attending to. Marclay overlaps soundtracks, sounds and music from previous clips persisting into later ones like ghosts. This helps to bind the clips and affects their meanings.

I was also struck by how much the rhythm of the film was structured around the half-hour and hour marks. Before the hour, everyone is waiting for the hour to come; after the hour everyone is late. It also structures how people watch the films. My family was due to come at 11:30 but they actually arrived a couple of minutes early. I wasn't ready. Hey, I thought, it's not 11:30 y

OOO, OOIOO, OIOI, OIOIOIOI

2011-09-05T10:49:00.002-04:00

T-shirt design for academic philosophy conference

"Object-oriented Ontology" is superior to "Object-oriented Philosophy" or "Speculative Realism" as a name for post-correlationist philosophy because its initials, "OOO," present an image of objects set next to each other (non-hierarchical) and not touching (withdrawn from each other), thus expressing visually some of its key philosophic principles. Given the primacy of aesthetics in OOO this is not a trivial issue.

OOO proponent, Timothy Morton, has ventured into graphic design to promote the upcoming (9/14) OOOIII (or rather, OOOIII--these things don't work in serif fonts) conference. Here is his store. I'm very much looking forward to the conference (it will be live-streamed) but I'm sad that perfect graphic design possibilities will not recur until OOO30 (or OOOXXX).

At any rate, the playfulness of "OOO" reminds me of Boredoms offshoot band, OOIOO (sometimes confused with 00100).

OOIOO

This kind of play with the visual aspect of words comes naturally to users of Chinese characters, which can shade toward the pictogram. But the Boredoms have made an art form of typographic symbol play, particularly in the form of song titles--take Super Roots 6, for example, where all the songs have numbers for names and none of them correspond with their order in the track list. Apparently, "OOIOO" was swiped from a notebook of Boredom's leader, Yamatsuka Eye (there's the "eye," right in the middle) in order to name a fake band assembled for a photo shoot. "OOIOO" is a name with great visual possibility (you can attach the Os and make infinity symbols, e.g) and a rich set of references (there are apparently connections one can draw to classical Indian musical notation). And that fake band has matured into a great eco-themed group.

"OOIOO," incidently, should not be confused with "ooloo," common notation for the middle finger in online discussion forums.

Which brings us to the great pioneer in these matters, the Japanese department store chain, Marui and its famously ambiguous logo.

Marui logo

The company's name is "丸井" and the store is usually represented in katakana as "マルイ" but if someone asks you meet them at the Marui in Shibuya, you will need to recognize the "OIOI" to find the right building. The "O" is neither an "O" nor an "0" but a circle, or "maru." And the "I" is really an "1," or "ichi," shortened to "i." Marui seems to have simplified things for its online URL--0101.co.jp.

Because my last name begins with an "O" and my wife's begins with an "I" and we have three children who share both names, I will hereby propose a new family name logotype: "OIOIOIOI", coming soon on a zazzle t-shirt.

We need more hypocrites!

2011-08-01T14:34:00.002-04:00

"What we need are more hypocrites," he said. "We need hypocrites who aren't afraid of admitting it but will still fight for the environment. We don't need some sort of pure movement run by pure people. We need hypocrites!"--The DCR's Dan Driscoll in David Gessner's new book, My Green Manifesto.

Timothy Morton, of Ecology without Nature, says the same thing rejecting the cynicism that pervades academic discourse. Fewer "beautiful souls," please.

I'm halfway through Gessner's book, and am enjoying it, though I had to smile at his representation of the Needham riverscape as "urbanized." (I think you were already in Dedham, thank you...). As well as the questionable decision to camp off of the ditch in Cutler Park. (I think it was more likely gang bangers than a "fisher" that troubled your sleep that night, Mr. Gessner).

Meanwhile, I'm listening to Mount Eerie's "Get Off The Internet" via Spotify. (Mount Eerie is pretty great).

The Bird Fancyer’s Delight (BBC program by Sarah Angliss)

2011-07-30T19:20:00.000-04:00

A very cool BBC program with a well-researched companion blog post. For the time-being (it aired in the beginning of July) it can be heard via the BBC iPlayer (even outside the UK, which was a nice surprise).

I was already familiar with the odd assortment of devices that people have used throughout history to teach their caged birds (which used to include wild songbirds) specific songs. I was not at all aware of "roller canary" competitions or the fantastic derangement of Virginia Belmont.

This is not a program about birdsong per se. It is about human/songbird interaction, especially at the aesthetic level. Some of this interaction has a cruel side, as in the phenomenon of "stopped birds." At other times it is about mutual flights (sorry) of creativity (even if it is the human side that seems to benefit most).

The host, Sarah Angliss, takes clear creative inspiration from this topic. You can see her below, accompanied by a robotic crow, performing as a member of Spacedog..

How I want a robotic crow now. And a theremin...

Spotified

2011-07-19T15:10:00.000-04:00

OK, so I got an early invitation to Spotify and supposedly I want to brag about this to all my Facebook friends. I don't really. I was just interested in how it would work. But I do feel obligated to tell you some things, though it won't be long, I'm sure, until you all download it and install it and are stuck with it like I am. Which is not an entirely bad thing.

I subscribed to Rhapsody for many years, and emusic before that, so I am not a newcomer to online music services. (Oh, emusic, how I miss the magic wastefulness of the unlimited download). Spotify is free, though every once in a while there will be an ad in the stream urging you to upgrade or consider some artist you have no interest in. And there are apparently limitations in how much you can listen to in a month and how often you can listen to a particular track. So the free version is really, not unlike the iTunes store, a music sampling service.

There are at least two twists, though. One is that Spotify is built from the ground up with social networks in mind. Rhapsody has this but it was an add-on. Spotify wants you to share and share and share and share. The other is that the Spotify player functions as an mp3 vacuum, searching your entire hard-drive (I don't remember giving it permission to do this but apparently I did) for audio tracks and adding them to a central directory. It can be confusing initially to tell which are yours and which are Spotify's (many are both) until you learn that your own tracks have a little music note icon next to them. There is at least one other icon, however, that I see often and have been unable to decode.

But the real question is the Spotify library. How does it rate? I am happy to say it is entirely serviceable, though there are some strange gaps.

I use these services for two reasons primarily. One is to search for cool new music. The other is to revisit my increasingly receding youthful music tastes. My index for "cool new music" will be controversial, but hopefully good enough: the weekly CMJ rankings, as published on dusted.com.

Here's the current top ten with a note as to whether it is available on Spotify.

Unknown Mortal Orchestra YES
Bon Iver YES
Battles YES
Handsome Furs NO
Cults YES
Black Lips YES
Woods YES
Thee Oh Sees YES
JEFF The Brotherhood YES
John Maus YES

So the answer is, yes, if you want to listen to moody males singing in falsetto, you can have your pick on Spotify. The only missing album is the Handsome Furs, on Sub Pop. And in fact it would appear that the most recent Sub Pop releases from Shabazz Palaces, Vetiver, and Chad VanGaalen are also missing. So no very recent Sub Pop. But they do have Fleet Foxes. (You were worried, weren't you).

What if we delve a little bit deeper into dusted.com? The CMJ list is a trendy exoskeleton and the real treasures usually lie within. Let's look at the first ten reviews listed on the dusted side bar.

Ada YES
AMM NO
Biosphere YES
Brilliant Colors YES
Zachary Cale YES
Matthew Cooper (NOT RECENT)
Cut Hands NO
Esmerine YES
Marianne Faithfull (NOT RECENT)
Eleanor Friedberger YES

So, once again, not too shabby, though as you'd expect, the hit rate is not quite as high.

How about back catalog? One irritating feature is that Spotify lists artists' albums chronologically in order of most recent release, not original release. So it may take a bit of scrolling to find whether the album you want is really there or not.

So here is a handful of bands that I want to hear occasionally.

Devo (YES, though some tracks in some releases are not available)
The B-52s (NO to the first two records. Isn't that strange? WB waiting for better terms?)
Joy Division (YES)
Minor Threat (YES, the whole Dischord back catalog, it would appear)
Minutemen (YES)
Volcano Suns (YES, except for the out-of-print Homestead and SST releases)
My Bloody Valentine (YES)

Not a great test, given the relative prominence of these artists. What if we get a little more obscure?

Shrubs (NO)
Crass (NO)
Blue Orchids (YES)

OK. At this point I can say there is relative parity with a service like Rhapsody.
One last test. Idiosyncratic. How about Japanese artists? (This is something that Rhapsody actually does surprisingly well).

Blue Hearts (NO)
After Dinner (NO)
Mayumi Kojima (YES, though only the ones licensed for the US)
Go!Go!7188 (NO, though it does list tracks unavailable in US)

So, in conclusion, I advocate the download. The free service (which may go away in a few months anyway) has some limitations but the depth of the library is reasonable and I actually like the local library feature--it collects all the tracks (including all my birdsong audio, unfortunately) currently divided between several iPod-dedicated iTunes accounts.

Conference on Communication and Environment 2011

2011-06-29T19:16:00.019-04:00

My desert-dusted shoes

Newly enrolled in the brand new International Environmental Communication Association, I decided to try out the Conference on Communication and Environment in El Paso, TX, a part of the country I'd never visited before. I will freely admit also being drawn by El Paso's birding potential, a new conference attendance criterion of mine.

I approached the conference largely as a spectator, trying to orient myself before getting more directly involved. (My natural tendency towards passivity wins out in unfamiliar situations I'm afraid). I'm happy to say I found a number of places where my interests fit and I left El Paso positively energized and committed. And connected, at least briefly, with some very good people.

I was also able to work out some of the lines of fracture that I'd detected but not fully understood in the Environmental Communication field. Part of this flows directly from the fragmentation (or shall we call it diversity) of the communication field generally, both methodologically (variable analytic multiple regression juxtaposed with Lacanian interpretations) and ontologically. To some, "environmental communication" is largely a context in which one can apply and extend the accumulated wisdom of the conflict resolution or social marketing or political communication literature. To others (and here I found my people) environmental communication provides an opportunity to think in new ways about the nature of communication itself. A couple of sessions gave me chills to the point of tears (unprecedented, I should note, in over two decades of communication conference attendance).

Like all academic conferences there was also an undercurrent of career anxiety and this (not inappropriately) dominated many interpersonal interactions. I'd like to see some applications from some of these talented folks next time there's a job opening at SSU...

What GreatCall needs to do better.

2011-03-22T18:41:00.002-04:00

[Note: this post replaces a cathartic diatribe that was good for me but probably not helpful for readers. Here's my attempt to make it a little more constructive.]

My experience with GreatCall has not started off well. And I think I'm not alone. After many calls talking with a wide selection of their customer service representatives, I think I am prepared offer some suggestions that might help save our relationship.

1. Don't forget who I am. Your customer service rep who took my information when I first called was very charming, even as she tried to up-sell me. But she shouldn't have deleted my information when the phone activation failed. This has made subsequent contacts with user support very difficult.

2. Don't demand an account number when I don't have one. When the phone activation failed, I was left without a phone number or an account number. You shouldn't keep telling me to provide an account number, no matter how politely, when I tell you I don't have one--every time I call user support.

3. Rewrite the customer rep protocol for activating the phone. You asked me to read the number on the phone's screen. I held the phone at arm's length in order to see the number. Your customer rep had a hard time hearing me clearly when I did this. And I had a hard time hearing whether the customer rep had the right number when I held the phone at arm's length. You might add the following language to the protocol: "Do you see a button labeled 'speaker phone?' Press it." "Write the number you see on the screen on a piece of paper and read it back to me." This might keep customer reps from mistaking "zero" for "c," thus fouling phone activations.

4. Don't lie to me. If the process to reset the activation number will take 48 hours, don't tell me it will take 2 hours. Or 24 hours. Or that you will be attaching an urgent note to "escalate it" through the system.

5. Don't make excuses. I know that "everyone makes mistakes." Unfortunately, that's not my problem, that's your problem. When the key person working on my problem failed to "show up" today, that's also your problem, not mine.

For my part, I will try to maintain my composure and be appropriately grateful if and when my problem is solved. But I retain the right to unleash my wrath against you using the mighty power of my blog if you don't come through.

[UPDATE: Big ol' FAIL for GreatCall/Jitterbug. The phone goes back to BestBuy this weekend.]

Nonhuman talking

2011-03-18T18:41:00.000-04:00

Ian Frazier has a nice piece in the New Yorker this week about the burgeoning seal population in New York waters. What struck me most, though, is his casual reference to a talking seal that once lived at the New England Aquarium. Huh? A talking seal? How did I miss this? (I'm amused that this writer in the Improper Bostonian had the exact same response). The seal's name was Hoover and his mimicry (and Boston accent) were truly uncanny. Here's my favorite recording:

Well, once you're on YouTube there's no limit to the number of talking animal clips you can see. I'll skip the famous talking cats and dogs from America's Funniest Home Videos (Lily and I have watched them far too many times) and move on to a talking elephant. (This one says some words--through its trunk--in Korean).

With birds it's almost too easy. African Greys etc etc.

But, there are some relatively unexpected (and even creepier) examples. Starlings, for example.

Or white-necked ravens

Even crows

It is rumored that you can even teach some canaries to speak, though I was unable to find YouTube documentation.

I'm not entirely sure what this all adds up to. For the most part (with the possible exception of the African grey) it is simple mimicry and might as well be the sound of police sirens or camera shutters. We are projecting humanness onto them and it doesn't quite stick (thus the pleasurable sense of the uncanny). On the other hand, it is a reminder that at some level the process of learning to communicate orally is shared between humans, starlings, and seals.

Here's a nice guide, if you are interested, to birdsong in particular with more attention than is usual in the birdsong literature to the mimicry of human speech and music. It includes recordings (in wma format, unfortunately) of the famous talking budgie, Sparkie Williams and a bullfinch singing German folk songs.

Earthquake warnings on Japanese TV

2011-03-17T07:01:00.000-04:00

NHK is in the top left. The commercial broadcasters were a little slower to respond...

Two top YouTube comments: The first calls commercial broadcasters the "dogs" of corporations. The second asks YouTube not to take down the footage despite copyright infringement because of its public importance.

It is worth watching at least the NHK feed on its own.

Lots of comments commending the "coolness" of the NHK announcer. The tsunami evacuation order is crystal clear (and in English and several other languages), though the anticipated wave height (6m) was much less than the reality (10m).

via Boing Boing

Advertisement Extraordinary.

2011-02-28T08:17:00.003-05:00

From Worcester (MA) Magazine, 1787. Just to remind folks about the unchanging character of (or really attitudes toward) political communication in the U.S. Appropriate right up to the last sentence, when sadly inappropriate.... And what does the author mean by the "bouncing line?" I've been unable to find its use anywhere else. Is it supposed to represent dynamic speech patterns? Or misshapen newspaper copy? Nevertheless, evocative.

Note: The "Advertisement Extraordinary" was a genre of newspaper satire that was popular as early as the mid-1700s.

Rachel Perry Welty 24/7

2011-02-21T15:53:00.000-05:00

Now at the deCordova, a solo Rachel Perry Welty show exhibiting a large sample of what makes this local (Gloucester) artist so interesting. I first learned of the show via an interview on Inquiry and tried to assemble my family for a visit. Sure enough it was a crowd-pleaser, intriguing everyone, even my 7 year old.

Welty's work is largely about the minutiae of everyday (I'm going to out on a limb and say "suburban") life. For me the hook is her take on consumerism. How do you re-purpose all this STUFF (from twist-ties, to cereal boxes, to answering machine messages) to make of it a meaningful, aesthetically-inflected life? I'm reminded a lot of the work of the early modernists, who went out of their way to include things like product packaging, advertising logos and newspapers in their cubist compositions. (I will also admit that I went through a phase when I obsessively collected cereal box cardboard in search of a creative purpose).

The show is not overtly critical (a relief, since the simple anti-consumerist stance is one of the most trite positions an artist can take) but Welty is aware that the bright, joyful shininess of, let's say package design, has its costs. One risk seems to be that of being swallowed up by it, as in the image above (from the deCordova website--see also her official gallery site). What happens when a system of consumerism is TOO effective at giving us the very things (bright and shiny) that we seem to want?

My favorite conceptual piece is her obsessive "deaccession" project--each day she keeps a record (photograph and description) of one thing she gets rid of (sometimes thrown away, other times sold or donated). She thus becomes a kind of curator of her (former) possessions. (See this example from a story in the Art Daily).

Monetizing the blog

2011-02-20T16:58:00.001-05:00

I've been doing this long enough to remember when Blogger didn't give you a choice--ads were part of the deal. But I've decided it is worth at least experimenting with AdSense given my stated field of academic expertise and the fact that summer teaching looks to be light this year (if anyone has any leads, I'd surely appreciate it!) Not that I expect to see any real money (I'll be lucky to see cents, never mind dollars) but I'm feeling the need to try anything that might work. Please let me know if the ads on any of the assembled blogs seem obtrusive or obnoxious. As I said, this is an experiment.

[Update: One week in and I've earned $0.00. But my RPM went up to $.07 one day! By the end of the month I might see $0.01!]

Experimental band, "snacks," used to sell snacks

2011-02-14T16:07:00.005-05:00

Has the cultural plumbing really gone this far down, the Baltimore-based electronic unit, snacks, used as a media platform to promote a fast-food chicken sandwich? (Yes, I know this is just ad-server randomness, but it is telling nonetheless). This goes beyond irony, I think. [UPDATE: Time to get a piece of the action, I think!]

How Hanno would have Deified himself.

2011-01-30T18:56:00.002-05:00

Hanno the Carthaginian through pride would not be contained within the bounds of Mankind, but designed to spread a fame of himself transcending that Nature which was allotted to him. For having bought many singing Birds, he brought them up in the dark, teaching them one Song, "Hanno is a God."

They hearing no other sound, learned this perfectly, and then he let them loose several ways, conceiving that they would disperse this Song concerning him. But flying abroad, and enjoying their liberty, and returning to their accustomed diet, they sung the notes proper to their kinds, bidding a long farewell to Hanno, and to the Song, which he had taught them when they were kept up prisoners.

Thomas Stanley, translator (1665) Claudius Aelianus His Various History. Book XIV (pages 288-314)

Telegraph Harp

2011-01-20T19:22:00.002-05:00

Wire Resonance Tones Induced by the Wind
via

Sounds like

HDT, 1851 09 23 The telegraph harp sounds strongly to-day, in the midst of the rain. I put my ears to the trees and I hear it working terribly within, and anon it swells into a clear tone, which seems to concentrate in the core of the tree, for all the sound seems to proceed from the wood. It is as if you had entered some world-famous cathedral, resounding to some vast organ. The fibres of all things have their tension, and are strained like the strings of a lyre. I feel the very ground tremble under my feet as I stand near the post. The wire vibrates with great power, as if it would strain and rend the wood. What an awful and fateful music it must be to the worms in the wood! No better vermifuge were needed. No danger that worms will attack this wood; such vibrating music would thrill them to death. I scare up large flocks of sparrows in the garden.

via

Bunnie States of America

2010-10-02T11:24:00.002-04:00

From Katherine C. Grier's book, Pets in America,
a wonderful account of a group of siblings who create an elaborate imaginative world around their pet rabbits. More than a hundred years ago.

A substantial portion available via Google Books. See also a review in the New York Times and some additional info from Historic Cherry Hill.

I'm surprised that Boing Boing has never picked up on this...

The soda nature would drink

2010-09-29T08:18:00.002-04:00

I will post without comment, for now...

via AdFreak

Cyber-Shinto

2010-09-27T21:03:00.003-04:00

KIIA from QNQ/AUJIK on Vimeo.

QNQ/AUJIK video gallery

Home page is also very cool.
!
that's all I can muster for now.
via Pink Tentacle

The Wilderness Downtown

2010-09-03T13:57:00.005-04:00

Nearly destroyed me. Arcade Fire song about the suburbs paired with quintessential suburban experience. You may want to try it yourself Ideally on Chrome--Firefox is not as smooth but works too. Processor intensive.

Mild spoiler ahead.

It turns out that only one of my childhood addresses--the most resonant one, actually--has the streetview data that makes this a shocker. One of my most distinct memories (apart from being bullied every day) is of the flocks of red-winged blackbirds that roosted in the swamp at the end of the road.

"My" film. (you don't get to see the letter I wrote to my younger self, though).

via Boing Boing

Video games, appreciated

2010-08-09T17:17:00.003-04:00

Paul F. Tompkins on Angry Birds
PFT is coming to Boston in October. Looking forward to it.

Nicholson Baker on Violent Video Games
Link goes to New Yorker podcast. Baker's (long) article is in last week's New Yorker.

Kill Screen
I just bought issue 1. Should I subscribe? [no]

Unit Operations

This one, though, definitely.

Birds, Ads, Red Top Steel Fence Posts, Ads, Birds

2010-07-25T19:26:00.006-04:00

Let's start here: People's Home Journal, July 1918. The monthly page devoted to the PHJ's Bird Sanctuary Campaign. The theme of the page: an announcement that the "Gold Medal of the Permanent Wildlife Protection Fun" would be offered as a prize in the contest for most sanctuary acres. The centerpiece: a poem by W. Livingston Larned. "Bird Sanctuary." (Click image to read).

I'm not sure what the point is of sharing crumbs with robins (they won't eat them)--or maybe the author is British. But nice enough poem. And who was W. Livingston Larned?

A quick Google search reveals that Larned is best known for a sentimental poem about fatherhood. OK. More searching reveals he was an influential advertising expert, author of a basic text on art direction

and frequent contributor to Printers' Ink, including this column from 1920

Larned notes how the inclusion of a Red-headed Woodpecker as a detail in an ad for Red Top Steel Fence Posts was appreciated by farmers who understand how destructive woodpeckers can be to wooden posts.

I'm unable to find the woodpecker ad. But a search for Red Top Steel Fence Posts reveals several interesting ads from 1919. I must say I approve of their art direction...

But even more interesting, this 1918 ad with a World War I frame.

Like barbed wire and chemical weapons, good for both war and farming.

And what is the relationship between "Red Top" posts and "Red Brand" wire? Was the "marketing genius" who dipped the first wire roll into red paint inspired by the steel posts dipped into red paint by Red Top?

Regardless, additional searching for "Red Top Steel Post Company" reveals this letter supporting hunting license-supported migratory bird refuges, published in Migratory bird refuges and public shooting grounds: Hearings before the Committee on Agriculture, House of Representatives, Sixty-seventh Congress, second session. February 16 and 17, 1922. Series T.

Brooke Anderson, the president of Red Top Steel Post Co., was also president of the Campfire Club of Chicago. He was a member of the advisory group of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and in the 1930s he was an influential figure in Illinois efforts to reform duck and goose hunting.

Most remarkably, for my circular chain of Google searches, he was on a 1932 committee that presented William T. Hornaday with the "Outdoor Life" medal. Hornaday, of course, was chair of the Permanent Wildlife Protection Fund, whose medal was offered as the prize in the PHJ's Sanctuary campaign.

Recent A Forest sightings

2010-06-23T07:23:00.003-04:00

Sighting one:

June 13, 2010. Sudbury Farms grocery store. I'm browsing the cereal aisle. 80s music on the store sound system. Pulling mussels from the shell on heavy rotation. A Forest? Is this good shopping mood music? Store manager announcement interrupts halfway in. Song doesn't finish.

Sighting two:

June 22, 2010. Timothy Morton ItunesU podcast. Lecture on Wordsworth. Commute listening. My ipod playlist has shuffled the order of the chunks of the lecture. Morton calls A Forest an ecological song, dark ecology. Is he serious? Did he play the song for his class? I never hear.

EcoQuest's eternal relevance

2010-05-05T13:03:00.002-04:00

from EcoQuest: The Search for Cetus (1991)

Donations to the ABA for Gulf Coast Recovery here.

In the Lifetime of a California Redwood (Life 1908)

2010-03-03T12:50:00.003-05:00

"Man subdues the lightning to his will" is the pinnacle.

Handy Telephone saves a baby

2010-02-20T08:51:00.002-05:00

Just ran across this in a 1926 newspaper. Had not previously been acquainted with the exploits of Handy Telephone.

The metaphysics of snow removal

2010-02-11T07:19:00.002-05:00

As I am pondering the insanity of flying into snow disaster area Washington DC tonight, endlessly optimistic that the Library of Congress will actually open tomorrow, and that the Metro will actually have outdoor service to get me there, I am struck by this passage in the Metro's press release

There is a multi-stepped approach to clearing tracks of ice and snow. A heavy-duty diesel powered train called a prime mover clears the majority of snow and ice from the tracks. Then those trains move to the rail yards, where more miles of track are used to store hundreds of rail cars. Once the prime movers are off of the rails, trains equipped with de-icing equipment are run on the tracks to keep them clear of snow and ice build-up.

Yes, I realize that the term "prime mover" is a common one in the heavy machinery world, nevertheless, it pleases me to imagine that the Metro is pulling out the first cause of the cosmos to clear its tracks.

Also, Logan Intl could learn a lot from BWI's use of social media. Runways opened at 7!

Turn-of-the-century technology out-of-doors

2010-02-10T07:22:00.004-05:00

Ad for Victor (1902)

One of the fringe benefits of spending the day in turn-of-the-century publications is finding unusual images. Here, unexpected technology to find in the woods. (I'll ad to this post as I find more).

Image in Outing and the Wheelman: An illustrated monthly magazine of recreation (1884.)

New Blog: Thornton W. Burgess Research League

2010-01-17T08:44:00.002-05:00

The spring sabbatical begins. I'm shifting my energies to a new blog in support of a semester-long research project on Thornton W. Burgess. A post a day!

Sleep No More

2010-01-04T16:17:00.005-05:00

There I was in bed, watching the numbers of the clock turn: 2:09, 2:10, ... 2:48. It was probably the dinner-time coffee that was disturbing my sleep, but I wasn't sure. I didn't remember having trouble sleeping the first time we experienced the A.R.T.'s Sleep No More. But this time was much stranger and my mind was still racing. Had Macbeth, or someone else, murdered my sleep?

There is already a lot of online commentary about this production so I'll stick to two thoughts (and leave the overall description to others).

First, as some have noted, Sleep No More is an immersive interactive experience that operates according to some of the same rules as video games. I was reminded particularly some of the older CD-Rom titles such as Myst and (especially) Cosmology of Kyoto. There is an extraordinary amount of mysterious detail: drawers and closets to open, letters to read, "wiccan" glyphs to interpret. A working knowledge of Macbeth and the work of Hitchcock will help unpack much of it, but there is still a multitude of raw experience that needs to be processed. In fact, during our first visit my wife and I spent more of our time exploring the "set" than watching the "play" itself. And it motivated me to read Macbeth again, carefully, in the same way Cosmology of Kyoto caused me to investigate Buddhist iconography.

Once you figure out one simple rule, though, you can experience more of the "play": follow characters. But characters who share a scene in one room may depart for different spaces, forcing a choice of whom to follow. By the end of the evening, Macbeth will generally attract a crowd of dozens (unless you're tall you might not see much), but even relatively peripheral characters seem to attract one or two loyal followers chasing after them. And once in while you might be forced to make a choice that has personal consequences.

Here's my experience. I had heard (accurately) provocative things about the witch scenes, so I thought I'd check them out (my scholarly duty as a representative of Salem State...) I hang around the basement, where they reside. Quickly I'm singled out during a bar scene and become the subject of one of the witches (a harder edged version of something I've experienced during a San Diego flamenco show once upon a time). She sits me down, whispers something in my ear, stares me in the eye (one of which is blood red because of a broken blood vessel--maybe that's why she picked me...) while one of her compatriots (who would later dance naked wearing a goat's head) sings "Is that all there is?" and--most importantly--she ties a charm around my neck. When the scene is done, she takes me by the hand and leads me to another room, where we are immediately interrupted by an actor who tears us apart. They fight and then leave.

Here's the choice. Do I follow her or the other actor? She goes upstairs with her witch friend singing a jaunty refrain of "Is that all there is?" I decide it would actually be a little creepy to tag along so I stay in the basement. My next stop is in the card playing room. The dealer immediately spots me, leads me to a chair, engages me in card game that I don't understand (staring me in the eye all the while), and when I lose, he/she removes my charm. My immediate thought: what would have happened if I had followed the witch? Would my charm have been removed in some other way or would it have been a ticket to unlock other experiences? I'll never know--unless.... some kind reader who has had the same experience can tell me what happens when you follow the alternative path... (I actually googled "sleep no more walkthrough" to no avail.)

[UPDATE: some kind Facebookers did answer the question for me. The charms are mementos, just that.]

Which brings me to my second point--how much of the show incorporates conversation about the show. While you are in the "set" you are required to wear a mask and encouraged to be silent and at certain moments you may be separated from the people you came with. But there is a bar in the center of things, with a genuine jazz trio, where you and your party can return to share your experiences. [Curiously, the band--which is really good--seems to be bothered when people talk too much]. And then there's the internet (a small but active Facebook group, for example). So this show encourages both repeat visits (it's not cheap but not prohibitively expensive) and a lot of word-of-mouth.

State-of-the-art arts marketing, really. Diane Paulus, the new A.R.T. Artistic Director, knows what she's doing. Sleep No More, plus the other two major shows in Shakespeare Exploded (Donkey Show and Best of Both Worlds) have already made this my favorite season in the history of the A.R.T. and the year is only half done!

[UPDATE: It just occurred to me that the flamenco experience referenced above occurred directly after I delivered a conference paper on Cosmology of Kyoto (paper is available here) titled, "Lose the Body." In a sense, with Sleep No More's intense focus on the body (and bodily encounters), it is a direct response to the themes explored in the paper. Weird.]

HEY, KIDS! THIS IS ADVERTISING!

2009-12-16T13:45:00.005-05:00

Look at the top right corner of this little Burger King toy insert.

A mandatory legal notice wrapped up in entirely contradictory nonverbals.
Reminds me of the now standard boilerplate in kid-oriented TV sweepstakes offers: "Many will enter! Few will win!" delivered with positive enthusiasm.

The language, "Hey Kids! This is advertising!" also shows up on kid-oriented messaging from McDonald's, suggesting that this is an industry-standard solution to this legal problem. Judging from blog commentary, the language has been around since the at least the beginning of 2008.

The question is whether it is appropriate or not. The spirit of the law is to "warn" children about the fact that they are being persuaded to buy something. I can look it up in my dictionary of "speech acts" but off the top of my head, I believe that to count as a "warning," an utterance needs to be delivered with at least a hint of negative force... What if instead of telling kids that they are being exposed to "advertising," the legal language were rquired to be more direct? "Hey Kids, we're trying to sell you something here! Watch out!"

[UPDATE: This language has been used since 2003, at least.]

Print maybe cares after all (or maybe it doesn't)

2009-12-11T06:55:00.004-05:00

Gawker spots this insane cover laziness.

[Hoax: Here's the real 2007 cover. ]

or Hoax Hoax

Trendsmap

2009-12-08T07:09:00.003-05:00

Real-time geo-linked twitter tag clouds displayed on maps. Here's Boston (7:10 a.m. today). See for yourself. Click on a tag to see posts in real time featuring that keyword (sometimes with explanation).

Right now just English language. But it's fun to move around the world and see what people are talking about. Here's the UK below.

Freedom Tray is confusing my irony detector

2009-12-05T08:40:00.006-05:00

My first reaction: Are they serious?
My second reaction: Does it matter?
My third reaction: Is there another Boston area tourist attraction name that can be converted into a "As Seen On TV" product?

Is the concept of "freedom" in the US really so debased that conceits like "Freedom TV"--a fake home shopping show wrapped in red, white and blue--can be taken at face value? Or is someone playing an elaborate game with us? Are they baiting urban ironists into making fun of "real" America?

From the FAQ:

Is this a patriotic tray?

The Freedom Tray is a tribute to the world class manufacturing and dedication of the hard working people of this country. We are proud that the Freedom Tray is completely made and manufactured in the USA with US-made materials. Also, as the name implies, the tray provides you the freedom to live an organized, spill-free and uncluttered life without changing your day-to-day routine.

[UPDATE: The Liberty Belt!]

The real meaning of werewolves vs vampires

2009-11-25T18:41:00.005-05:00

I know, I know, the "werewolves" in Twilight/New Moon are "shapeshifters" who happen to take the form of wolves.

But what's the deal? Why can't werewolves and vampires just get along? And what's the recent American pop culture fascination with their conflicts?

Back in the 1970s, vampires and werewolves got along fabulously. Yes, I'm talking Groovie Ghoulies.

Was the universal language of music the key in keeping them together? [Actually, I just watched the clip more carefully. At about 3:50, I believe we see the beginnings of discontent. "One of these nights, Wolfie. One of these nights."]

Actually, more seriously (though not very), I've begun wondering if there isn't some connection between werewolves vs. vampires and the de-centering of the US as a superpower (especially post 9-11). In most of these stories we aren't asked to identify with the vampires or the werewolves, but rather with humans who are caught in the crossfire. [I mentioned this to my students and they thought I was crazy].

Stand-up comedy as communication research

2009-11-11T15:11:00.009-05:00

I've become hooked recently on comedy podcasts, or more accurately podcasts hosted by comedians featuring comedians. Smart ones, not stupid ones (though that's debatable). Here's my current list:
The Best Show on WFMU
Jordan Jesse GO!
Comedy Death-Ray Radio
I Love Movies
AST Radio (currently on hiatus, it seems)
Never Not Funny (the free version)
Most of them are at least loosely associated with the Upright Citizen's Brigade and I tend to gravitate towards the ones featuring folks like Paul F. Tompkins and Patton Oswalt and Jen Kirkman (who is from Needham and was at Emerson while I was teaching there, it turns out...)

Anyone who has ever taught a class like Interpersonal Communication knows just how close to stand-up teaching can be (mostly in content--close observation of everyday behavior--but sometimes in delivery too). Discussions of "interpersonal distance" generally lead now with Seinfeld's "close talker," for example. [By the way, the teaching/stand-up connection is not an original observation--see this article, for example]

But what I really appreciate about stand-up is the research/theory-development aspect of it. As in the classroom (and the advertising field), there is a situational demand for constant tinkering and experimentation and the development of at least local theories for figuring out what's going to work and what's not. And with stand-up, the fact that you get immediate feedback (people are either going to laugh, or not, or heckle you), makes the experimental aspect particularly salient. "Audience analysis" becomes so crucial (both before and after a set) it can lead to neurosis.

Tompkins, who has made me laugh to the point of tears more than anyone recently, is also one of the most articulate "theoreticians" of the field, particularly curious about motivations and personalities [as can be heard on this AST profile interview] as well as comedy ethics [as demonstrated by his recent exchange with Improv Everywhere]. Also worthy of note, Comedy by the Numbers, a McSweeny's Book that beautifully illustrates one of the chief ironic tensions in "alternative comedy"-- that even full knowledge that something is a cheap laugh doesn't keep that thing from being funny.

Two rabbits discuss Walt Whitman commercials

2009-11-01T16:41:00.005-05:00

(I can't figure out how to preview xtranormal movies, so I didn't know the gestures would be so awkward.Oh well. The commercials themselves are embedded below.)

Arm & Hammer "Useful Bird" Cards

2009-10-31T08:44:00.004-04:00

A wonderful early example of cause-related marketing. When they first appeared in the late 1800s Arm & Hammer's bird cards were just another promotional trade card series--featuring "Beautiful Birds" (as in the canary card below).

By the third series, they explicitly featured the kind of environmental rhetoric promoted by the National Audubon Society: We should protect wild birds because they are useful to us. Here is the back of the chickadee card.

Note the language about the chickadee's usefulness:
None of our birds do more good in destroying injurious insects and their eggs. 454 plant lice have been found in the stomach of a single Chickadee.
And the exhortation at the bottom:
FOR THE GOOD OF ALL, DO NOT DESTROY THE BIRDS.

Later series would feature the art of Louis Agassiz Fuertes (I actually prefer the primitive quality of the earlier cards, even though they are not ornithologically sound)

and would maintain the "useful bird" messages.

For poor rural families these cards functioned both as persuasive devices (bobolinks had been especially persecuted in the South) and affordable field guides that might inspire some interest in the lives and varieties of birds in general.

Note: There were other companies that used birds as a trading card scheme--most notably Singer. These would lack the "useful bird" theme. It should also be acknowledged that the "useful bird" theme was ultimately problematic. Certain hawks, for example, were demonized as bird killers that didn't deserve protection. It wouldn't be until the 1970s that anti-hawk prejudice would lighten enough for Arm & Hammer to distribute its Fuertes bird-of-prey series.

Commercial Remix Commercials

2009-10-28T14:47:00.002-04:00

My students pointed me to this commercial, which I couldn't believe was actually being aired. I was wrong. It is real. Slap Chop Remixed. Over 6 million views.

For me it reinforces the notion (a prejudice, I know) that aesthetics are completely irrelevant to the success of direct response ads. As long as the demonstration is convincing and appealing you'll make your 1 out of 100. At the same time, it shows a savvy embrace of YouTube randomness. Why not leverage what consumers are doing with your messages, even if it's kind of goofy.

Here's the original. Intended for remixing?

I doubt it, but you never know.

A student also pointed me to another seemingly innocuous TV commercial for a children's toy: Apple Grove Pals. Apparently it's getting a lot of late night play, turning it into a bit of a cult phenomenon. Relentlessly cheerful. In fact scarily so. Warning: you will not be able to rid your mind of the jingle.

In honor of the crappy commercial remix trend, I made my own. Have a Happy Halloween!

New Toyota Prius Commercials and Kinchan no Kasoh Taisho

2009-10-27T19:00:00.005-04:00

Some of my students find the new Toyota Prius commercials creepy, others find them mesmerizing. I see both sides. Embedded below is "MPG"

What fascinates me is the sheer complexity of the production. While I'm watching I'm asking "how did they do that" and suddenly I'm not paying attention to any messages. And isn't there a kind of hellish subtext, despite all the color and sunshine?

Well, questions about the production are helped below. A combination of costumed blue-screened extras and digital post-production (After Effects or something even stronger).

When I first saw the new Prius commercials I was immediately reminded of a uniquely Japanese televised competition called "Kinchan no Kasoh Taisho." [The official show title is somewhat longer]. When I saw that the director was Japanese (Hideaki Hosono--here's his blog) I knew I was onto something. There's no easy way to describe in words what this competition is all about, so here's an example:

"Human Art" seems to be the favored English-language description. And this is really what the new Prius commercial embodies.

For more examples of Kinchan no Kasoh Taisho performances, see this JapanProbe post about the 2007 competition.

This is probably the most famous example:

The Soothing Syrup Man

2009-10-26T15:37:00.005-04:00

Jeremiah Curtis, one of George P. Rowell's Men who Advertise (1870), could be a character in a Bob Dylan song. Here is Rowell's (approving) description:

There is Mr. Curtis, the " Soothing Syrup" man. He has made the name of Mrs. Winslow as familiar as that of Fanny Fern throughout the land. The result is that, tens of thousands of mothers quiet their babies on his syrup. He has a magnificent office on Fulton street, dresses in costly silk-velvet, wears brilliant diamonds, owns a fine house, keeps an establishment, lives at his ease, and is a gentleman.

Students of the patent medicine era will recognize the Mrs. Winslow brand as a particularly noxious kind of tonic remedy. Active ingredient: MORPHINE. Scores of mothers would accidentally overdose their children, some fatally. But here is Mr. Curtis, heavy advertiser, with his diamonds and costly silk-velvet, a "gentleman."

Indeed, some of Curtis's advertising is quite remarkable. For example, this poster depicting Mrs. Winslow's as "the mother's friend."

Or this excerpt from a 1860 newspaper ad (notable for the way it plays off the perceived conflict between male modernity and female tradition)

A down-town merchant, having passed several sleepless nights, disturbed by the agonies and cries of a suffering child, and becoming convinced that MRS. WINSLOW'S SOOTHING SYRUP was just the article needed, procured a supply for the child. On reaching home, and acquainting his wife with what he had done, she refused to have it administered to the child...That night the child passed in suffering, and the parents without sleep. Returning home the day following, the father found the baby still worse, and, while contemplating another sleepless night, the mother stepped from the room to attend to some domestic duties, and left the father with the child. During her absence he administered a portion of the SOOTHING SYRUP to the baby, and said nothing.

That night all hands slept well, and the little fellow awoke in the morning bright and happy. The mother was delighted with the sudden and wonderful change, and, although at first offended at the deception practiced upon her, has continued to use the SYRUP, and suffering, crying babies, and restless nights, have disappeared. A single trial of the SYRUP never yet failed to relieve the baby and overcome the prejudices of the mother.

Eventually medical common sense and Ladies Home Journal muckraking would end the reign of Mrs. Winslow's. By 1916 it would be forced to change its formula and it soon disappeared into obscurity. Jeremiah Curtis was, of course, long gone by then.

But here's the twist: Jeremiah Curtis perceived himself as a social progressive, not a predatory capitalist. As a young man he ran as an Abolitionist candidate in Maine, and his daughter, Laura Jane Curtis Bullard, was at the center of the woman's rights movement in the late 1800s. Indeed, Mrs Winslow's Soothing Syrup was sometimes portrayed as a boon for women, particularly poor working women who couldn't afford to lose a night's sleep due to a sleepless child.

Everybody's Magazine Advertisement Assignment

2009-10-24T16:29:00.006-04:00

Here's your assignment. Read through the advertisements in this issue of Everybody's Magazine (click above to get started). Then select the one you think is most effective and write an essay about it. Mail the essay to Everybody's Magazine. The ten best essays will win a cash prize of $25. In 1907.

This contest attracted 950 essays on 135 different ads from the November 1907 issue. 508 essays on 111 different ads were then collected and printed in a 1909 book, Effective Magazine Advertising, with an introduction on the "Science of Advertising Copy" by Francis Bellamy.

Take this ad for "Nufangl" Trousers.

It inspired six essays. Here are excerpts from one of them:

...The erect position suggested by even that part of the trunk still appearing in the picture is in a way inspiring—as pleasing as the erect figures in a military parade. The symmetry of the circle on the right also pleases the eye. It is especially pleasing, matched up as it is and contrasted with the vertical lines of the body which bisect it.
...
The fantastic, almost grotesque, position of the circle to the man's body creates curiosity, and curiosity quickly passes into interest. As a further stimulator of interest, the terse headline, "See that Snap," compels the reader to investigate, and as a natural result his eye alights on the arrow pointing straight at the button. He simply must read the text because he is by this time really interested.

As I now sit at the table with my eyes closed, the most prominent mental image is again that of the circle intersected by the man's body. This then fades away and gives place to the sharp arrow pointing at the snap on the waistband, which in turn suggests the trade-mark on the snap itself, "Nufangl."

Both the text and display of this advertisement are so well done that the principal points stand out in my memory like burning lights—remembered.

Note: this essay did not win $25 for its writer, though I admire his mastery and application of the AIDA model (which, you can see, is really really old).

Personally, I (and 100 correspondents) preferred this one.

Bellamy, in the introduction, extracts a series of rules, most of which will sound very familiar: use readable type, be brief, convey sincerity, be stimulating, use appropriate visuals, present a personality, remember that the ad's style and medium suggest things about the product advertised, use full pages when possible. And remember that although most people prefer an ad where the visual conveys the main idea, there will be some who demand a "reason why."

My overall impression is how much the official ad copywriting curriculum (as embodied in textbooks particularly) still reflects these 100 year old ideas. The specific products/problems/appeals may be different (we don't have to worry about cat in our crackers anymore...I hope) but many of the rules of effective copy and layout continue, for better or worse.

Advertise. How? When? Where? (1863 version)

2009-10-24T15:30:00.003-04:00

"The plan of advertising on the pavement is almost out of date," asserts William Smith in his 1863 tome on advertising media planning.

Instead, why not employ animal media, such as branded rugs thrown on the backs of oxen when they are driven through the streets?

(Smith presents several cases of the specific use of the "canine medium".)

And if you are going to use sandwich boards to advertise, don't attach your message to some seedy guy.

Isn't it a better idea to select a well-dressed gentleman for the job?

The maid with the gun or the camera girl

2009-10-16T14:33:00.003-04:00

A choice Bird-Lore (Audubon Magazine) asks us to make, in verse.

June 1915

FTC kills "results not typical"

2009-10-06T07:14:00.003-04:00

Here's a milestone in the re-emergence of common sense at the FTC. For years advertisers, particularly for weight-loss products, have been able to use testimonials by atypical users (either unusually lucky or unusually committed) as long as they used a disclaimer indicating "results not typical." In other words, you could suggest a powerful benefit as long as you immediately withdrew it. Newly revised FTC guidelines target that phrase in particular; now if you make a benefit claim, it has to address the general experience that might be expected by a user. Of course, judging by the vast number of YouTube parodies, most consumers have been hip to "results not typical" as a red flag for a while.

The unintended consequences of Glee

2009-09-20T19:24:00.007-04:00

My daughter, heavily into singing and musical theater, confesses after watching the new TV series, Glee--"I never knew that glee clubs were uncool."

We try to convince her that singing IS cool in our town [not a lie--Needham has high expectations for its middle and high school choirs] and that it really is "show choirs" that are kind of silly. But something has changed in her perception of things. Reminds me of the notorious DARE program failure, which was very successful in convincing kids that not using drugs would make them very very unpopular.

[UPDATE: Or maybe, just maybe, cultural authorities will discover that Glee has made Chorus "cool?"]

Life and Palmer Cox

2009-09-20T08:36:00.005-04:00

I was delighted to discover that Google Books has recently added a run of Life (the turn-of-the-century satirical publication, not the 20th century photo mag) starting with Vol 1. (1883). To read it is frequently bewildering, as its satires reference current events that have been largely forgotten.
Take this excerpt from January 1884:

"Need more be said?" Why, yes. For example, was it perceived as a good thing to be from Salem? (During this era, it seems that Salem was a kind of seat of aristocracy, a perfect object for Life satire).

Life is also full of cartoons. I am particularly fond of the following beautifully composed and deliciously vague panel from 1883.

One of the cartoonists whose work is featured in the early years is Palmer Cox. (My former colleague, Eileen Margerum, has written extensively about his work, so I recognized his name right away).
I was immediately struck by how modern his work seems. See the strip below,from 1883, which is practically a Tom and Jerry cartoon.

And then I started seeing influence--clear examples of swipes by Harrison Cady, for example, in his Burgess illustrations some 30 years later.

And the one below can't be a coincidence, can it?
The first is a scene from Cox's collection, Queer people with wings and stings and their kweer kapers--a retelling of "Who killed Cock Robin."

Notice the figure of the tall bird with the bow. Here's a scene from Disney's Robin Hood.

We know that Cox was an innovator when it came to character licensing (his Brownies were extremely popular at one time) but is it possible that he actually fore-shadowed the entire history of children's animated cartoons too?

[By the way, the pleasure of reading old issues of Life is frequently punctured by the casual racism and antisemitism typical of American publications of the time]

Monopoly City Streets

2009-09-12T08:20:00.008-04:00

Monopoly City Streets is slow and glitchy (and doesn't exactly fill me with confidence toward the commercial City Streets game it is supposed to be promoting). But it is kind of fun to "own" and "build" things on streets you know. Makes me interested in the kinds of creative and imaginative overlays one can build for google maps. (BTW, I own Loring outright but someone else has claimed Lafayette even though I technically own it. So I put a prison on it. Expecting retaliation soon.)

[UPDATE]

I thought I would have a little educational fun with the game, so I signed up for another account (a flaw/feature in the game that has allowed massive cheating). This time I am "Nathaniel Hawth." I was able to buy Harding St and place a home on the House of Seven Gables but Union St (the actual birth site) doesn't seem to show up on the list of buyable properties. Brook Farm Rd was also still available as well as streets around Tanglewood. I'm fudging things a little with Concord, placing homes kind of near the Old Manse and the Wayside and Sleepy Hollow and with Liverpool (where I ended up buying the Cavern Club's street). Now I'm waiting for Herman Melville and Ralph Waldo Emerson to join the game.

[NEW UPDATE]
Well, they reset the game so everything above is history. I was able to buy Lafayette outright this time and built a large structure where the library is on the map. Then this afternoon my "library" was bulldozed by an opponent. Perfect simulation of the future of the SSC library! "Nathaniel Hawth" is also back, though he can't seem to buy either Hardy or Union this time. So he invested in Concord's Monument St--he got the Old Manse, at least. His plan--trying to keep large scale development out.
Oh, and the reset features much more specifically promotional Chance cards.

Tori Pan: Popular bird-feeding manga

2009-08-31T20:52:00.009-04:00

I can't think of a comic in the U.S. that is primarily about bird feeding, or about humans' everyday relationship with nature, for that matter. (Mark Trail is about as close as we get).
Which is why I love "Tori Pan," ["Bird Bread"] a four-panel serial running in Morning by "Torino Nanko." It recently published its seventh volume (cover above). The strip, which seems to be at least semi-autobiographical, features the observations and musings of a single woman living in northern Tohoku, Japan. The humor is very light, often revolving around some curious bird behavior. Such as the page below--my translation. Click on the image to read it.

As you can see, the strip is full of seasonal and regional references as well as stories about about her relationships with birds (the brown-eared bulbuls [hiyodori] take center stage but others abound--listed midway down this wikipedia entry]. I wonder if there would be a market for a translated version in the U.S....

Below is full-color sticker insert pulled from Morning (and partially used) a few years ago.

Red Colored Elegy and Garo

2009-08-29T12:38:00.013-04:00

I finally got my hands on a copy of Seiichi Hayashi's Red Colored Elegy (thanks, Newton Library), a serious manga work dating from the early 1970s published in translation last year by Drawn & Quarterly. It has been reviewed rather extensively and I agree with the positive tone of most reviews. The work is very much of its time and place but the art is idiosyncratic and haunting and the story satisfyingly moody, if not downright depressing. Hayashi stylizes his main characters but occasionally bursts into highly detailed and sometimes grotesque pen and ink sketches; one of his conceits is the deliberately blotting out of facial detail (obscured by shadows, overly cropped, or just left blank) which reinforces the overall theme of alienation.

For me, though, the real hook is the time and place. The main character is desperately trying to become a published manga-ka. The target for his efforts: the legendary alternative comic, Garo. [Curious self reference--Hayashi's comics actually appeared in Garo, though his character faces only rejection]. My favorite panel is below (you can click on it for a larger view).

For me the key is the otherworldly surrealism of both the empty faced man and the scene behind the curtain. While Garo ran a mix of genres, including Sanpei Shirato's politically inflected action narrative, Kamui, I've always considered it THE home for comic dreamworlds. Indeed, the panel references Yoshiharu Tsuge's famous surrealistic Garo contribution, "Neji-shiki."

Here's a taste of "Neji-shiki" in untranslated animated form (via the tremendous manga blog, Same Hat!).

Garo was near the end of its publication life when I lived in Japan (1989-1990), but I bought it faithfully when I was able to find it. (Now my small collection lives in a box in the basement along with the first three issues of Comic Baku--another story).

Here's a taste of Garo from the June 1990 issue. (See my very own manga ink finger print on the cover).

This is a two-page panel from a story by Katsuhiro Mochizuki titled, "Doubutsuen" [Zoo]. (Click on the image to get a better view. I apologize for the blur in the center.)

It doesn't take long to notice that there is something wrong about this zoo. And in fact, the comic soon slips into pure dream-space.

I especially like the sinister giraffe.

Mochizuki Katsuhiro's work, by the way, now appears under the pen-name "Imiri Sakabashira." Sakabashira's Wikipedia entry indicates direct inspiration from "Neji-shiki." Sakabarashi has gone on to do a Hikashu album cover, among other things.
[UPDATE: Drawn & Quarterly will be publishing Sakabashira's The Box Man ~~next month~~ November.]

If you want a fuller taste of Garo, Journalista (the blog of Comics Journal) got its hands on a 1992 issue and uploaded a whole bunch of scans.

Cool Primitive Animal Ink Stamps

2009-08-29T11:26:00.004-04:00

Found at Roger Williams Zoo, these awesome hand-carved animal ink stamps from India. Mass-produced by hand (so lots of little imperfections). Mostly birds, plus a squirrel, and one unknown beast.

SONGBIRD

OSTRICH

PIGEON

PEACOCK

DRAGON?

DUCK

SWAN

SQUIRREL

WHAT DO YOU SUPPOSE THIS IS?

Cicada Skins as Original Playthings

2009-08-27T22:10:00.004-04:00

A great crop of cicada skins under the white pine in the front yard. Lily helped me look for them. We found about a dozen. It occurred to me that cicada skins represent a primitive but very versatile sort of plaything, and in the pre-plastic years could have been a good imaginative resource. Especially as monsters. And thus inspired this dumb little piece of digital storytelling. (Captions via roflbot. Please view full screen for full impact. I need help with LOL SPEAK.).

UPDATE: Not that you asked for it, but here are some other cicada skin uses.

1. Fashion accessories.
2. Lamp decorations.
3. Hairy Monkey toys (A Chinese art form).

Unnamed faces

2009-08-18T18:45:00.003-04:00

Four year old iMac dies (8 kernel panics on average before a stable boot) and a new one arrives. Larger screen (I mean REALLY LARGER) and iLife 09. I'm pleased that the revamped iMovie no longer completely sucks AND that iPhoto has included some interesting new features, e.g., face recognition.

Face recognition is a two-stage process on iPhoto. When you import photos, it tries first to find faces, any faces. Then it tries to match the faces to faces in the database. It has gotten pretty good at recognizing most of us, but Lily can be a mystery to it because there are so many photos from so many angles.

I'm enjoying the faces that iPhoto finds that aren't exactly there. I've started a collection.

Start with creepy bronze boy from Needham center.

Obama on a t-shirt.

But sometimes iPhoto makes it difficult to understand what it is seeing. Where are the faces in the following three photos?

Inquiry (WICN)

2009-08-11T13:26:00.002-04:00

I recently discovered the weekly show, Inquiry, on WICN. (Mark Lynch, the host, posts links to MASSBIRD when there is an natural history-oriented guest). It isn't available as a real podcast (I haven't figured out how to subscribe) but a couple years worth of programs are available for download/streaming. I downloaded a dozen of them and have been consuming them like candy. Lynch has a knack for getting interesting guests and is an enthusiastic, knowledgeable interviewer. He is also an old alt rock guy AND a hardcore birder AND a manga fan, able to reference SS Decontrol AND Hume's tawny owl AND Osamu Tezuka. It made me wonder how often those interests cluster--is there a predictable path from underground pop culture maven to amateur natural historian?

Higher Ed Taglines

2009-07-10T10:07:00.002-04:00

I'm having the print copywriting students develop ads for "Salem State University" today. I came across a great resource: "HigherEdTaglines.com," a database that collects slogans and mottoes from colleges and universities. Most higher ed taglines are pretty sad, revolving around cliched themes ("journeys") and/or overused keywords ("excellence"). Salem State's current slogan (one of the few actually tagged as a service mark) is "Educating you for life." This line has the benefit of focusing on SSC's mission of supporting life-long learning (unsurprisingly, a very common theme among institutions of higher ed). It is interpreted differently, however, by students who have been here for five years without graduating....

Vasily Aksyonov

2009-07-07T07:00:00.004-04:00

There was a time I was deeply into late-cold war Russian literature (I have a box of books--Alexander Bitov, Yuri Trifonov, Fasil Iskander, Andrei Voznesensky et al--in my basement to show for it). I owe this interest to Vasily Aksyonov, who died yesterday.

As dramatized in his book, In Search of Melancholy Baby, Aksyonov shamed my class of aspiring writers at JHU into being more interested in literature beyond our borders. Each class he introduced us to one of his friends--he had surveyed them about the creative process in preparation for the class. [I got name-checked in his book for my paper on Iskander, which was super cool.]

My favorite moment in the class, though, was the day he brought in a scratchy old record by Vladimir Vysotsky, which we listened to on an ancient AV cart turntable, drinking champagne, dreaming of being part of a real literary scene.

The internet is making me smarter (and dumber).

2009-06-05T07:21:00.008-04:00

My favorite podcast is Robert Harrison's Entitled Opinions (about Life and Literature). Each week Harrison, himself a renowned Italianist and eco-critic, converses with a colleague at Stanford. Recent topics have included: Friedrich Nietzsche; "The Re-enchantement of the World (with a guest host); "Brazil and Nuance." I approach this show with the giddy undergraduate feeling that I might just learn something that transforms the way I look at everything. (One example, a show last season about the philosophy of moods--defined as ways of being attuned to the world-has proven to be a good cure for solipcism). And Harrison really likes birds (not so much consumerism).

I am also a frequent visitor to popurls.com, which comprises the most popular RSS feeds on a single page. It is a good way to survey the day's web memes. I feel obligated, given my academic area, to know what is going on. But it doesn't make me feel smarter. On the contrary, for me it is an IQ sink rewarding the shallow, easily stimulated parts of my brain. This despite the fact the feeds include some relatively nourishing content (New York Times, Slashdot, Metafilter). My only explanation is the headline/link nature of the site, which demands a mode of evaluation that can only be superficial. Or the fact that I am too easily tempted by fark-style dumbness. Regardless, off it comes, today, from the bookmark toolbar. Begone, popurls.

Yoshimi for Glico

2009-03-17T20:11:00.006-04:00

Two of my favorite things have come together. Boredoms music and Japanese snack food commercials.

Lily and I were cruising my old CM links (it's been a couple of years) and we stumbled upon this commercial for Glico's Karujaga (titled "Potato Trance"). We watched it over and over, transfixed. Later I checked out "the artist" link at the bottom of the page, and sure enough the music was by Yoshimi (complete with links to both the Boredoms and OOIOO homepages). The animator, Goto Shoji, worked with OOIOO on a video a few years ago. The video, for the song "UMO", features similar characters and similar tribal music.

The original has more eco-apocalyptic fantasy and fewer potato sticks; the newer one is actually more kinetic than the original, and it looks like the chief drummer has switched genders. And, most importantly, in the commercial, the trance word "UMA" has been repurposed as "UMAI" ("delicious"). (This is a pun freely offered by Thrill Jockey, OOIOO's American label).

Marketing the Trustees of Reservations

2009-02-20T12:42:00.003-05:00

Noteworthy Globe piece about a Bentley University partnership with Trustees of Reservations. The goal is to find ways of connecting with "Gen Y," to grow membership among young adults. Making the Trustees "sexy"--I'm looking forward to seeing the results... [Seriously, given SSC's closer proximity to the Trustees' headquarters, I'm thinking this is a relationship we might try to cultivate]

Quick, what's different about these three photographs?

2009-01-26T07:59:00.004-05:00

Answer: Each was chosen by a different head photo editor [Vincent Amalvy (AFP), Santiago Lyon (AP), Jim Bourg (Reuters)] as an image that captured the "character" of Bush and his administration. Errol Morris interviews each about the reasons for choosing these and other photos.

Obama Blingee

2009-01-20T19:47:00.003-05:00

Myspace Glitter Graphics

(This isn't mine, by the way). I think it's significant that there is a special blingee Obama genre.

Required listening: George Mathew on Radio Open Source

2009-01-17T09:21:00.002-05:00

A conversation that gave me chills. George Mathew talks to Chris Lydon about his direction of Mahler's Third, to benefit Children of Aids. Mathew makes a solid case that the kind of listening required of musicians in an ensemble is a model for listening in civic discourse. At one point Lydon challenges him to draw the connection between Mahler's Third and the Children of Aids. Listen to Mathew nail the answer.

Wii repair

2009-01-05T08:32:00.002-05:00

Our wii's disk reader broke (I think because we left it on all the time/let it heat up). Using Nintendo's online wii support page, we arranged for repair, paid for and printed out a fedex label, boxed it up, dropped it off at Kinkos. And when we got home from vacation, there it was waiting for us, all fixed. I love it when things like that work. (Cost: $75 plus shipping).

Because save files and miis are stored on the wii itself (and save files on SD cards can only be used on one machine), we are paired with this particular device forever. So the model is repair, not replace.

Kindle-ing

2008-12-06T12:28:00.003-05:00

People keep asking me how I like my Kindle, so I thought I might just lay it all out here.

First, I've use it almost exclusively to read the Boston Globe. I could no longer justify getting the print edition, so this is a reasonable (and inexpensive) substitute. (Though, as in the print world, every once in a while the Globe gets "delivered" late.)

I used it extensively this past vacation to read other things: The Lace Reader, which I felt obliged to experience, but not at hardcover prices; a selection of academic articles that I'd converted from pdfs; a manga "raw" that I'd downloaded. Amazon allows you to download samples from books for free, so I waded through a number of first chapters (and am going to get the books from the library...)

I also used it this vacation to access the web (I was staying in a wireless-less zone). The built in "experimental" web browser is so slow it is barely functional but, if you are traveling and are willing to wait, it can give you everywhere-access to gmail or google maps. I figure that part of the high price of the device is a perpetual subscription to Sprint's data service.

So all in all I think it was worth getting. What I miss most (and I've discovered a craving for it): art direction.

Printer's Ink finally on Google Books

2008-11-25T07:14:00.002-05:00

Printers' Ink

I've been waiting for this for a while. Given the importance of Printer's Ink to the formation of American advertising, I've been surprised at the apparent lack of interest in making old out-of-copyright editions available. Google Books now has a few volumes up in full view (and available to download) scanned from the University of Michigan collection. Relentlessly practical (and thus very different from the advertising journalism of modern publications such as Advertising Age). The earliest volume Google seems to have is 1899. Hope they add more.

Bertucci's Sales Promotion FAIL

2008-11-21T17:32:00.002-05:00

Real exchange last night after I paid for my take-out at Bertucci's:

Her: I can't give you this receipt but at the bottom you'll see (she waves it at me) a special code that you can use online to get a coupon. Are you interested in the code?

Me: (shakes head). Uh, no thanks.

If I had said yes, I'm not sure what she would have done. Allow me to look at it so I could memorize the code? Loan me a pen to write it down on...something? Use the edge of the counter to rip off the bottom of the receipt? (Most likely, but still tremendously inefficient).

Type 1 and 2 errors and the TSA

2008-11-18T10:53:00.004-05:00

From Boing Boing, a link to a USA Today piece on the suspicious behavior detection program run by the TSA.
While Boing Boing's reaction, appropriately, is outrage over unnecessary and useless invasions of our privacy, I'm struck that it is a nice case to use when discussing balancing the risk of Type I and Type II errors. How many false positives (in this case over 99%) are acceptable when talking about airplane security (the only reason it's not 100% is because they have found people with drugs and fake IDs).
Nonverbal communication guru and program designer, Paul Ekman, ever the social scientist, responds with the real problem:

"The shortcoming is, we don't know how many people are showing suspicious behaviors and aren't being noticed," Ekman said.

My FLC Project

2008-11-16T16:16:00.001-05:00

This is for special readers only (it might not make sense to anyone else), though it is just a first draft so if unintended readers have comments please fire away.

The Google Map addiction kicks back in

2008-11-15T12:18:00.004-05:00

I'm proposing extensive use of Google Maps for my Global Communication class (the result of a Faculty Learning Community on Emerging Technologies that I'm facilitating) and have been spending a lot of time recently poking around. Google keeps adding useful layers: geo-coded photos and Wikipedia entries (does this kill off poor Wikimapia now?) and keeps extending the number of street views it offers. For me Japan is the real time-killer. I can basically reproduce the walk from my old apartment to the train station and explore the back streets of Machida (where I'm thrilled to discover a Subway Sandwich shop). You can do the same in Italy and (especially) Australia. While the layers and street views are useful learning resources for the class (there are also cool Youtube and Webcam layers available elsewhere), I am particularly interested in the collaborative mapping features. In fact, because you can insert text and links into your place markers, I'm thinking of using Google Maps as a kind of spatially-organized blogging platform for the class.

280 Slides

2008-11-14T21:17:00.006-05:00

Students are increasingly asking me how to embed youtube in powerpoint presentations. I would take them through the "video downloadhelper" to "flv coverter" to embed quicktime route, or just advise them to link to the video and bring it up in a separate brower window. 280 Slides is a web-service powerpoint replacement (nicer UI than google's presentation maker) that seems to be designed to make youtube embeds as painless as possible (you can even search for videos within the video placement dialogue box). [Of course, they might want to make that "double-click here to add text" invisible]

Ahhhh....

2008-11-14T20:22:00.002-05:00

Newly centered. Ready to rock.
Could it have something to do with this?

[Coverpop drawing from newseum's front-page collection]

Salem and the imagination

2008-07-29T08:09:00.002-04:00

The Globe ran a story today about the publicity machine organized to promote a new book, The Lace Reader, and how Salem is an integral part of its cross-promotion strategy. My first reaction was to worry about the inevitable disappointment for Salem--I see no long-term magical revitalization here. The book apparently leverages the "dark side" of the Salem brand (more witch trials, less rich maritime history) and the publicity has actively recruited the occult-oriented community here to help out.
[Scene from the book release party reported on the author's blog:

Some of the local witches actually brought pieces of lace they are learning to read. They spent a good portion of the evening gazing through the lace into people’s faces and predicting their futures (this in spite of the fact that I told them that lace reading is something I made up).]

The book features real existing city landmarks, so it offers yet another imaginative overlay to Salem's geography (joining ghost tours, life of Hawthorne, witch trials, et al) and there is a lot of hope that book fans will swarm here to experience the book's setting firsthand.

Salem is definitely a place that benefits from strong imaginative thinking. I have to admit feeling chills downtown when I've allowed myself to entertain the thought that all the spirit world stuff might be authentic--the desired ghost story experience, no? But this all rests on a complex set of performances, quite different than what you'd find at the other tourist bastion of colonial American experience--Plimouth. At Plimouth Plantations, the cast refuses to break the 1620s frame ["what is that strange device you are wearing on your wrist, kind sir?"] but everyone knows it's a game. In Salem, the line between performance and authenticity is blurred. We have "witches" who are perfectly willing to embrace a "made-up" fortune telling technique. After all, what fortune telling technique isn't "made-up, " really.

An old colleague of mine once confided to me that she was a witch and that she travelled the weekend occult circuit reading tarot cards. Her defense was that the cards were just a device --that a good card reader traded in empathy, an ability to read body language and the like. Fortunes were constructed out of inevitable personality consequences ["you have difficulty with relationships"] and apparent hopes and fears. But it only worked when it wasn't perceived as a game--that the suspension of disbelief was what allowed the real person out. She saw this as a true benefit for customers, not a con game.

Birds and WOM

2008-07-21T13:15:00.002-04:00

Story today in the Globe about a local birdsong researcher's discovery: that black-throated blue warblers sing after nesting (relatively uncommon) in order to inform others about good nesting locations (which the others can take advantage of the following year). Particularly interesting is the explicit comparison made in the story between birdsong and internet review sites. The lead author of a paper referenced:

I use the metaphor of choosing a coffee shop when you're new in town...Are you going to the one with nobody in it, or the one that's hustley and bustley?

[Cialdini calls this "Social Proof."]
The word "advertising" is commonly used to describe other bird behavior, particularly in respect to attracting mates and warning others about territory claims. Now there's one more line connecting modes of human and animal communication...

Tony Schwartz

2008-06-17T07:32:00.003-04:00

So long to Tony Schwartz, master recordist, ad man, and one of the few communication "theorists" practitioners could tolerate.
[UPDATE: An enlightening conversation between two men who knew Tony Schwartz on Radio Open Source] [Also an older NPR segment on Tony from Lost and Found Sound]

Eee PC time

2008-05-07T09:17:00.003-04:00

My new very small laptop (when reclined on the bed, "chest-top"). I got the BestBuy XP 4G version (and had to go to three different stores to find one in stock). A crappy Celeron processor and a crappy battery (1.5 hrs normally), but a remarkably versatile little device. The XP install, unfortunately, takes up most of the 4G SSD--with East Asian language support and Java and my college's VPN, I'm perilously close to the 200MB Windows warning zone. But I installed the portable apps suite on a 512 MB SD card I already owned and bought a cheap 2GB USB drive, so I'm OK to roll. I'm also hooked on the Eee PC users forum, where there are many suggestions for maximizing storage space and battery life that I haven't yet tried.

My favorite discovery so far--you can use the Eee PC as an e-book reader. (Finally, the screen orientation trick in XP is actually useful!) I have a massive collection of Google Book pdfs that might finally get read. [My new Lexar drive works fine between Mac and PC but the pdf files themselves load very slowly off the drive itself so I'm simply using it as a transfer device--could have bought a smaller one...]

Sharp Eyes A Rambler's Calendar of Fifty-two Weeks Among Insects, Birds and Flowers By William Hamilton Gibson

"Most of us live in the auditory equivalent of a county dump"

2008-04-29T15:55:00.002-04:00

My favorite new device is an Edirol R-09, a pocket-size stereo recorder with remarkable sensitivity and enormous capacity. I've been using it in a variety of ways, mostly to record birds (see other blog) and my singing children. My experiences in the field have made me interested in the experiences of other folk, so I've been voraciously consuming books like Don Stap's Birdsong (in which he follows Don Kroodsma and other folks around while they lug heavy recording equipment in search of the dawn songs of the chipping sparrow and the like) and Norma Stillwell's 1964 book, Bird Songs, in which she and her husband lug even heavier equipment on their recording tours across the country. [Anyone else notice the moment in Jared Diamond's recent New Yorker essay on revenge in which he stops by the side of the road to record New Guinea bird songs?]

While my R-09 means less lugging, I don't have a good wind screen or a directional mic so I pick up a great deal of noise. I actually enjoy the sound of birds in chorus, unlike the birders--who tend to try to focus on one bird and one song at a time--and I like the stereo soundscapes the omnidirectional R-09 provides. (Perhaps it's my communication theory background that makes me attend more to relations between things than things themselves...) At the same time, when I listen to my recordings, I am increasingly appalled by the noise of humankind. Most of my "nature" recordings have a bed of deep car rumble and interruptions of airplane thunder.

This is something that is just part of the deal for professional sound recordists, I know. And the leaf blower is a widely recognized sound demon. So I think most of us realize to some extent that our lives are filled with noise. It does make me wonder, though, what the long term effects are of living in what Don Stap calls, following Mark Slouka, "the auditory equivalent of a county dump." [Here's Slouka on an Australian radio show on media communications].

Recently, I recorded Lily singing along to the soundtrack to the Little Mermaid while I was driving her to daycare. [Here's the recording.] What strikes me most about the recording, particularly when I listen with headphones, is the way the car noises inject a dark ominous element (sometimes like a rumbling timpani) into the songscape. Is our sonic life now defined by a constant deep sense of foreboding?

The end of Kokoku Hihyo

2008-04-29T06:37:00.002-04:00

It is with deep regret that I note the coming end of the greatest magazine about advertising on the planet, Kokoku Hihyo (広告批評). According to Momus, its publisher has announced that the magazine will cease publication in a year. The reason? A combination of retirement age and the changing world of advertising. The CM is no longer the grand mass culture phenomenon it used to be (similar to the decline of the 30-second spot in the US).

The most recent issue is one of the best yet, focused on the cut and paste design sensibility of Morimoto Chie. In the age of quark and laser printers, Morimoto offers a return to the fanzine aesthetic of scissors and glue. The art direction of the entire magazine looks like something that might have been conceived by her kindred spirit, Michel Gondry.

Alas. One less thing to buy at Kinokuniya.

　

I'm concerned about this titmouse

2008-04-25T15:23:00.002-04:00

The battle for territorial rights to our neighborhood was pretty brutal this year for the titmice. This male emerged as the victor, but not without some apparent damage.

No giving up for this little guy. He just keeps coming back to the feeder, twisted neck and all.

Circling the Smiling Pond

2008-04-02T14:22:00.004-04:00

Introducing a new sub-blog, where I get some of the nature stuff out of my system. I explain it here. Right now it is primarily a place for me to dump photos (via Flickr) and brief accounts of local nature walks.

Neonmachi no Araiguma

2008-03-25T07:54:00.001-04:00

Another reason to live in Australia (or New Zealand)

2008-03-22T18:41:00.005-04:00

Lily is very interested in growing flowers in our garden this year. I'm trying to find flowers that will be pretty easy to grow. She was excited when I discovered Disney Princess seeds from Yates on the internet. Unfortunately, Yates only sells them down-under. (Boy-targeted seeds feature Toy Story and Finding Nemo characters). Like "Shark Buttercrunch Lettuce."
[By the way, Lily thinks "Burpee" is the funniest name ever.]

Deconstructing Dinner

2008-03-11T16:27:00.002-04:00

A terrific radio show (with an archive and podcast) from CJLY in British Columbia on food and the environment. Communications folk might enjoy their Primer on Pesticide Propaganda part I (future episodes yet to come). Of particular interest, Dow's 1947 industrial film, War on Weeds, which helped establish the rhetoric of war that has been used ever since to justify the poisoning of the environment.

Lost newbie

2008-03-04T07:33:00.002-05:00

OK, I'm not a complete newbie. I watched most of LOST season 3 and every episode this year so far. But ABC.com's streaming HD service has allowed us to begin to catch up. And watch full screen streaming HD (!) on Saturday and then teeny "normal" streaming when the full screen feed got too glitchy to tolerate. (I can't tell whether the bandwidth problem is on their end or ours). But regardless, it is a show meant to be seen from the beginning.

So let me, four years late, weigh in with my theories that I'm certain no one has thought of before (in my newbie imagination).
1) The island is Calypso. (Odyssey reference)
2) The island is actually Fantasy Island. (Bad 1970s TV reference)

There, I've done it. Can't wait to see what happens (or what has happened, I guess...)

What AT&T doesn't understand about communication

2008-03-03T08:28:00.002-05:00

The latest edition of my ongoing monitoring of boneheaded customer relation management tactics. Comcast forced me to switch to VOIP by discontinuing their regular phone service (I'm not too happy about it but I've made my peace, though not everyone in the family appreciated the phone cord I had to string around the house to reach the nearest working jack...). Because Comcast's service includes unlimited long distance, there was no reason to continue our relationship with AT&T. So I called AT&T up, talked with a scripted customer service rep and, after dodging a few sales pitches for other AT&T services, was able to get the cancellation done. (I think.)

On Friday evening, though, I was rudely interrupted by a phone call from AT&T. The robot on the other end wanted to know about my experience with the customer service representative. Not my experience with the irritating and highly scripted process that the rep was forced to take me through, but the rep himself. Now I don't make it my business to get minimum wage call center folk in trouble just for following the rules so I held my tongue and gave him all 5s. My fear is that in addition to helping this fellow keep his job/bonus my feedback will be used to bolster AT&T's annoying communication practices.

I actually laughed out loud at some of the questions on the survey and scrambled to write them down. My two favorites:
"Did [the customer service rep] make you feel like a valued customer?"
and
"Did [the customer service rep] handle your call efficiently?"

My natural response (not elicited by a follow-up phone call about the survey robot) was that while I might tolerate contemporary make-a-sales-pitch-at-any-moment-of-customer-contact practices as a cost of doing business, the follow-up phone call did NOT make me feel like a "valued customer" nor did it use my time efficiently. Rather it made me feel like a pawn in a company's own internal assessment process. You do not value me as a customer by interrupting my evening to ask me if I feel like a valued customer.

The Touch Me Book, Postmodern Edition

2008-02-20T16:08:00.008-05:00

I recently stumbled across our copy of the famous "Touch Me Book" published by Golden Books and remembered that I always wanted to write about it. You may remember the original from when you were a child. In 1997 they revised it. In a nutshell, it is a "touch me" book designed by someone who has no idea what a "touch me" book should be. I detail below.
Let's start at the beginning, with the cute dog on the cover. I quote:
What feels soft? Fur is soft...puppy-soft, kitten-soft...That's the way fur feels (etc)

Now let's actually touch the "fur." Oh, rough brown felt, not soft at all. Bad start, but I suppose felt can be soft, it's just that this particular piece isn't.
Next page
Wood is hard. Feel the table. Isn't it hard? (etc)

Uh, no. Attached to the book is not an actual piece of wood but a piece of WOOD-GRAINED VINYL. It may LOOK like wood but it sure doesn't feel like it. This is when I started to think that this was postmodernism in action. The reality of wood's hardness replaced by the IDEA of wood's hardness.
Next page.
OK. They got the bumpy texture of the doll's dress right. And the sandpaper sand is suitably scratchy. And the sticky tape is sticky. They got some things right. But not this.
A washcloth is squishy squashy!...Rub it! Feel it!

I happen to know they changed the text here. Because it used to be a piece of sponge, not a piece of washcloth. And while a sponge is "squishy squashy" a washcloth really isn't.
Next page.
Rubber is bouncy!

This used to be an elastic band. Now it's a round ball made out of a sheet of rubber. I would say the rubber has an interesting texture, kind of rough maybe. But it's NOT BOUNCY! You can't bounce this ball. You can only IMAGINE someone bouncing this ball. "Touch me" books, though, are supposed to be about direct tactile experience, no?
Last page, which offers the solution.
What feels ticklish? Feathers are ticklish.

You may remember this page from your childhood. The designers originally attached a feather right to the page. The feather would invariably come off and render the last page useless. So in the revised version, they replaced the feather with a piece of yellow fur. Not feathery at all. Not particularly ticklish. But, rather soft. Which, coming full circle, they really should have used instead of the rough fur on the first page.
The solution? Obviously, the old book presented many swallowing hazards. The feather is the clearest example, but I suppose the piece of wood could splinter and the sponge could fall to pieces. But in revising the book, they rendered it largely meaningless. Or perhaps simply wanted to prepare young children for a life in the realm of simulacra.

Vintage Ads!

2008-02-13T20:16:00.002-05:00

...must...stop...looking at...vintage ads.
Like this one. From way back in the 1990s...

Wren Invader

2008-02-08T15:44:00.000-05:00

I know, lots of birds recently, but I had to share this one. Someone left the basement door open this morning and this is what happened.

Superbowl ads

2008-02-04T18:54:00.000-05:00

This one pretty much sums it up.

Comment from actual client at American Copywriter.

San Antonio

2008-01-29T19:26:00.000-05:00

I'm here for the annual Educause ELI conference. It is one of the best conferences I've been to, each session full of new ideas and links to resources I didn't know about. And because the organizers are tech/communication savvy, lots of little touches. (One I noticed today--prompts by the break coffee pots reminding us to put an action plan into writing before we leave). I'm liking the teaching/learning conferences (I was also at AAC&U in the fall) more than content conferences--they are much more relevant to my life in education. I'm grateful for SSC for sending me.

The conference works you hard, though. Just today, I attended sessions on: Assessment, Second Life, Courses incorporating Web 2.0, Laptop classes, the 2008 Horizon report, and Social Networking in higher ed.

I was able to see pieces of San Antonio yesterday morning before the conference started. I got up early and walked (down a strip of urban desolation called Broadway) to the Botanical Garden. Mostly common eastern birds (lots of mockingbirds and grackles--more on them momentarily) but one little delightful vireo (Bell's I think) showed up to make it all worthwhile. The grackle thing in San Antonio is out of control. I know that people here are sick of it, but I can't help loving it. Grackles make the coolest noises (one at the Botanical Garden sounded exactly like a police radio, all static and whistles) and bring a real tropical vibe to the landscape. And at dusk they fly around in great flocks screaming their heads off.

Bird Fight!

2008-01-16T16:49:00.000-05:00

My little nature film. Song Sparrow versus the English Sparrow gang. Little Songy puts up a good fight. And don't despair, Songy got plenty to eat later in the day.

What do you think? Does it need a voice over?

Claire Andrade-Watkins and Civic Engagement

2008-01-13T15:08:00.000-05:00

A huge thank you to Claire Andrade-Watkins, our special guest and keynote speaker at the annual Salem State School of Arts and Sciences retreat. Claire (a former colleague of mine at Emerson College) is a model of the engaged scholar and epitomizes the kind of work we'd like to spend more energy pursuing at Salem State. After the success of Some Kinda Funny Porto Rican, her documentary on the displaced Cape Verdean community of Fox Point, Providence, she has become a key figure in the preservation of Cape Verdean American memories. And she is a terrific human being. Thanks, Claire!

Nodame Cantabile

2008-01-09T12:05:00.000-05:00

I am hoping that the Nodame Cantabile phenomenon, which has created a resurgence of popular interest in classical music in Japan, will move quickly to these shores. Del Ray has been publishing the manga--the original text--but the TV drama and anime versions have their own charms and deserve a wider audience. (The world of fansubbing has been very active in making them accessible to an English (and Spanish) speaking audience, as a quick peek at d-addicts and anime6 will reveal. )

What I find particularly interesting about Nodame Cantabile is the degree of musical knowledge expected of the audience. The manga seems to expect that you either know the pieces being referenced or will search out a recorded version. The live action drama, which begins every episode with the rousing theme from Beethoven's 7th and ends with Rhapsody in Blue, goes one step further, expecting the audience can distinguish between good and bad (or at least idiosyncratic) interpretations of said pieces. (The anime's contribution is its ability--Fantasia-style--to illustrate the feelings conveyed by the music). Throughout, the story dramatizes the tensions between strict, accurate interpretations and "singing" (cantabile) interpretations that express the feelings and personalities of their performers--through the conflicts and attractions of its two main characters (played in the drama version by the always charming Hiroshi Tamaki and Juri Ueno).

Of course, what I'm really worried we'll miss out on is the Wii game.
(If just to play Onara Taiso).

Sandy Fowler

2008-01-05T19:23:00.000-05:00

I lack the words to write a proper memorial right now. She was beloved by so many, the mother of our department, who fought so hard for us, and truly cared...
Globe memorial site.
Globe story.

Halloween and Candy Socialization

2007-11-03T10:35:00.000-04:00

Watching my three year old explore her Halloween candy cache this morning made me realize for the first time that Halloween from a marketing perspective is not just a sales and sampling opportunity, but really the time when kids learn the candy market as a whole. It is fascinating to watch not just the discovery of personal preferences (Peanut M&Ms were rejected as "too sour") but the beginnings of categorization (mints vs. fruit vs. peanut vs. chocolate) and brand loyalty (Reese's is always a good choice). Of course, it will be a blow, after all this learning, for her to return to check-out line candy deprivation mode. But her choices in rare opportunities are going to be much more specific and emotionally charged.

Global Communication, Pokemon style

2007-10-28T20:21:00.000-04:00

Those of you who want to see how our children are now communicating regularly, without difficulty, across national boundaries are advised to check out the Pokemon Global Trading System site. (You will need Flash Player 9).