"sl" sounds

slick
slither
slit
slack
slant
slut
slide
slumber
slouch
sludge
slimy
sleek
slim

shakespeare's real woman

billy collins in "litany" and shakespeare in "sonnet 130" say the same thing, "i don't know what kind of women you hang around, but i haven't seen any supermodels in my house."  billy collins uses the reverse of the traditional form and shakespeare brings in the reality of the woman he loves.

"litany"

billy collins has a dry humor that i don't think would have come across had i simply read his poem for myself.his reading let me in on a sarcastic secret of his. when he performed it, he simply gave us the poem and nothing else. he let us in on a bit of his creative process and allowed us to form our own opinions.

fresh like dickinson

it's much harder to get a feel for the sound of "tell all the truth but tell it slant" because i don't know the way she spoke it as she wrote it. read by other people, the emphasis changes. for me, her writing is fresh because her message sits near the surface instead of being buried beneath twisting diction.

word [smithing]

shihan uses sprinklings of flash throughout his poem. i think that it's just enough to be effective. like mali, shihan uses his words to bring you in. if you truly want to understand what he's saying, you have to pay attention.

taylor mali through my ears

there is something that our eyes do for us, that our ears can not quite accomplish. they provide references to paint mental pictures too. video typography is a wonderful tool. words that before only washed over us, can now  make an even bigger impact as we watch their every placement. the rise and fall of quietly loud statements make themselves bold before us.

through the eyes of taylor mali

Taylor Mali uses more than just the words coming out of his mouth to convey his meaning. the inflection of his voice and the emphasis placed on certain words of his sentences allow us to develop a true sense of what his point is. He gives an example even as he tells you his position.

man versus machine

the question on hand lately seems to be is technology good or bad. everyone seems to agree that it's useful, we just can't decide if we are enjoying the consequences. [although the word
"consequences" has such negative connotation, it quite literally simply means, "the effects"]. Michael Wesch created a very well put together infographic video to explain his views on the subject. feel free to take your time to familiarize or [re familiarize] yourself  with it.



now, he makes it clear that his opinion is that the "machine" that we call the internet is using us, but i feel that it's a symbiotic relationship. it can't gain any information unless we use it and the information that it does gain is used to swell the amount of options we have to look at. we use it and take the information that it offers and it feeds off of our use and takes our time. the internet opens up more and more avenues for different kinds of writers to jump into the game. people who found pen and paper stifling before and now find a more fluid way to express their thoughts. [which brings into question the quality of  writing and the dedication of these "new writers" to the craft of writing.] to put it into perspective, the internet is a machine made of people. we need people in our day-to-day life, we will probably always need people in our day-to-day life, and there will be days that we wish  to be people free. take those days in stride. if you feel that the internet [people] is becoming too much of a controlling force, then take a break and a breath.

connecting to the internet

This blog is for class, so I'm never sure what format to follow. Should I follow my traditional blogging style (where I generally ignore capitlisation rules)? Should I keep it academic? I really don't know. How should i introduce a topic that I've been assigned to write about? Jump right in? I guess I'll have to try out a lot of different ways and just stick with the one most comfortable to me.

That said,  i should really get back to the assignment at hand. we were talking about Adam Gopnik's piece, "...How The Internet Gets Inside Us".  Gopnik sorts people into these neat little catagories of the Better Nevers, the Never Betters, and the Ever Wasers. at first i was skeptical as to whether or not i would enjoy this article let alone find some thing to connect to. but, as i delved into the article i found several views that i could agree with, if not in whole, in part. Gopnik brought up some relevant topics and points of view.

later on, we reviewed Nicholas Carr's article, "Is Google Making Us Stupid?"  he too, brought up relevant topics and points of view, but i immediately  wanted to resist all that he had to offer because he started off by saying that the internet was destroying the general population's drive to read. now, i am an avid reader and  i feel like the internet fueled my passion rather than making me less inclined to read. however, i can relate to where he's coming from.

i have a couple of questions for Mr. Nicholas Carr (and anyone else who would care to cogitate upon the following),

1.  Do you believe that "power reading" is degrading a love for reading the classics, which can't really be understood through skim reading?
2. If the internet was not a factor, do you believe that that some other Force would continue to work upon the literary proficiency of the general population?
3. What's wrong with being an "efficient" thinker?
4. Do you feel that Google is trying to perpetrate a "group" or "collective" mind?
5. There was a time when people said that the slow extinction of scripted handwriting would lead to the downfall of good, clear, cognitive thinking and the typewriter would hinder rather than help human thought.  i think that it's safe to say, for the most part, that this has yet to happen (at least due the the lack of script). Do you think that Google can push us further in that direction, or will this terrible revolution go the way of the typewriter?
6. Why should we care about why or how or even if the internet is changing our thought processes and brains?

Pantene Commercial Response

The deaf girl playing the violin is an essential part of the Pantene commercial. She presents a challenge - to the world, to the people around her, and to the viewers to dare to believe in her abilities. In retrospect, I suppose Pantene was trying to make a statement about how good beautiful hair can instill you with the confidence to overcome any obstacle, but didn't make it clear until the end.

This bothered me because I would have been more impressed with the commercial had they done more to show that this was their product. All in all, I think that perhaps they could have communicated their ideas better had they  reformatted the plot line just a little bit.

Crayon's Part Two

I guess that the right tool can make  the job more pleasant. Crayons proved difficult to write with and I think that discouraged a lot of people from wanting to write the well thought out essay they had devised in their mind. Writing is an important part of our communication process. That's why new and different ways to communicate keep evolving- to allow people of all levels and skills of communicating to get their point across. I know some writers are disappointed with the the way writing is evolving, but I think that it's a beautiful thing. I want more and more people to be able to share their thoughts and feelings in a way that comfortable to them.

Response to Crayon Assignment

To be quite honest, I did not enjoy the crayon assignment. Granted, when I first heard about it, I was quite excited. However, once I started, I realized that it was much harder than I had anticipated. The crayon dulled rather quickly and I found myself condensing most of my thoughts so that they could fit on the page. I felt that I could have done better; that I was using the properties of the crayon to take a shortcut. Perhaps, in the future, I'll learn from the experience and stop being a lazy writer.