doctoral candidate in rhetoric and scientific and technical communication
video
context is everything
13 years ago
cogdogblog recently blogged about goingtorain, the website that gives you a weather forecast in the simplest form possible. Is it going to rain? In my case, it was snow (and below the “yes,” it states “there will be snow today with a high of 27°f in saint paul, mn.”
What I love about this site is its simplicity. I’m constantly talking to my students about simplicity and context. It’s easy. Is it going to rain? In this case it means “will there be precipitation?” Yes. Simple. Easy. What is the context of that “yes?” Is it going to rain? Yes.
So what happens when you take a serious scene from the movie Downfall and put subtitles to it that change the context of the entire scene? How do we view the scene in the context of the subtitles?
For the record, the weeping women and the comment of “There, there. I hear he only shoots in jpg anyway” did crack me up.
wassup? voting
2As an instructor, I told the students in class today that I wanted them to vote tomorrow. I told them that I didn’t care who they voted for (because that’s not my job as their instructor), but that I wanted them to exercise the privilege of voting. I actually got some applause from some of the students for saying that. I also got some cheers.
They are smart people, those students.
I do care who wins, of course. But it’s not my job as an instructor to influence students who take my class to vote one way or the other. It is my job to encourage them to be good citizens.
My job as a good blogger, a good online friend, is to encourage those of you who are U.S. citizens and registered to vote to do so. So get out there. Stand in that long line, make your voice heard. It matters. Don’t think it doesn’t. Too many recent elections have been lost because people have forgotten how much their voice matters.
Vote. Please. It’s not a privilege everyone has and we’re fortunate to have it.
point and shoot
0The latest Magnum in Motion video podcast (under 4 minutes in length) is phenomenal. While the images themselves are really wonderful, it is the commentary that adds a special flavor to the video. Listening to the words and watching the corresponding images was an interesting view into what is deemed noteworthy in popular culture versus what is really happening in the world.
I especially liked the “blondes have more fun” segment.
What did you think?
pop goes the culture
33 years ago
I’m inept when it comes to pop culture. Oh, sure, I can tell you all of the cool tech things happening. I can also name a few popular television shows and *maybe* a few popular musical groups. But I started watching Battlestar Galactica when season three was ending. I didn’t get into Star Trek the Next Generation or Deep Space Nine until well into the shows, and even then, I didn’t actually see all of the episodes until I was living in Britain ten years after the start of the former program. I *just* started watching Farscape, Doctor Who, and Torchwood.
It may come as no surprise that while I may know quite a few songs on the radio, I don’t actually know who sings them. I kept hearing about this thing called “The Hills,” and about these big stars like Kim Kardashian, but I had no idea who any of them were until Joel McHale and The Soup told me (and now I wish I had remained blissfully ignorant). There are people on the covers of magazines in supermarket checkout stands that are not familiar to me at all. I have no idea who these people are. And really I don’t care.
This week, however, it became painfully apparent to me that I’m out of the pop culture loop. First, George Carlin died. Sure, I know who he is. He’s the 7-dirty-words guy. But I never watched his routines on television. Nor did I click on the YouTube links for his routines when they were passed around blogs, twitter, and friendfeed. I didn’t really *get* him (but that might be due to the fact that I didn’t really give him much time).
There was an outpouring of sadness on the ‘net that day. I mean, everywhere I turned, people were talking about him. I didn’t have anything to add. I didn’t know enough about him to be able to add anything. Nor was I moved to do learn more. He was off my cultural radar.
Then today I receive an email from a co-worker asking me if I had been following this Matt Harding guy over the years. What? Who the hell is Matt Harding, I ask myself. So I google him. Funny…a promoter of a very specific niche of viral videos. I’d never heard of him, but millions have followed his story.
Where was I during all of this? Have I been hiding under a rock for the past 40 years? Wait…if you ask me to give you detailed synopses of Pride and Prejudice or The Temple of My Familiar, I can. If you want a treatise on the causes of the Civil War, I could probably do that, too, without much effort. If you need research done on the socio-linguistic tendencies of fifteen-year-old girls in the San Fernando Valley, I can probably give you a good idea of how they establish many of the language patterns for the entire United States.
But George Carlin, Kim Kardashian, Matt Harding, and The Hills? Nope. I haven’t a clue.
reverse graffiti
2I may not agree with all of the things he says about paint graffiti and his somewhat elitist attitudes, but I love this different type of art.
What if we took different art forms and turned them upside down, inside out. Negatives from film are interesting. In fact, I’ve seen some beautiful negatives on display. What is poetry or literature reversed? Do we get alternate forms like the sestina or the short, short story? Does it become more interesting, less interesting.
What happens when the art is temporary, when dirt, or rain, can erase the hard work? Does it lose its importance? If a poem was lost when a piece of paper was burned or thrown away, we wouldn’t have record of it. Would we lose something because of it?
What kind of reverse art could you make, right now? I think I could paint my walls, still white, but if I painted in patterns, they would come out because the older paint has faded slightly. Or I could definitely do negative film prints (I have some film in my fridge right now, waiting for the big trip). What about you?
weather, the minneapolis way
13 years ago
I found this weather report via Jeff, a PhD candidate at the University of Minnesota, at this Public Address. It cracked me up, so I had to subscribe to their feed. It’s just so dang funny.
I can’t wait to see how they report the weather, and any other city ongoings, as time goes on.
And, on another note, I can’t wait to get up there where the weather is 80, instead of 88. Whew, it’s been hot here.
public service announcement
0Just in case you didn’t get one of these videos in junior high school, I want to share with you a sex-ed type movie from Walt Disney, who are masters of animation (but where is that brilliance in this?). Probably not safe for work even though it really is a harmless video (I mean, it does talk about…shhhhh…the vagina…)