Hypercompendia

There are only so many technology toys I can afford, most are luxuries these days. So when a friend mentioned I should read Mark Twain’s Mysterious Stranger, I added it to my Amazon book wish list. He mentioned that’s it’s available free on Kindle and since I don’t have a Kindle, said that a free download of “Kindle for Mac” on the Amazon site would enable me to read books on my Mac. Who knew? Somehow, when I know something’s sort of a luxury item I just don’t dig any deeper because I know I’ll just feel that much worse that I won’t allow myself to have it. (Man, would I love to have gotten a job!)

Meanwhile, I found book online at the Sam Houston State University at Texas. Here’s a view of the opening page:

Of course, I can make the print larger though it’s a decent size. It’s more the full page across that’s annoying. That too I can fix. But here’s the downloaded book via Kindle:

Obviously, the font, format, etc. have all been planned specifically for the reader’s normal enjoyable and preferred reading manner. To be fair, SHSU has done a great service by offering this (and much more) for free to the internet public, but the text is planned for reading, research, and literary review rather than pleasure.

I’m getting used to the Kindle for Mac format, and I do like it, mainly because I’m on the laptop for a large part of my waking day so this gives me a great opportunity to get back into reading the literature I just don’t seem to find time for lately. The image above is also a bit misleading: while the right-hand “notes and marks” would make this application extremely useful for organizing my notes for reviews (and keep me reading in longer spurts rather than dropping the book and running for the computer), it is inactive in the Kindle for Mac program. Why? I don’t know. I’m hoping they work on this. I’m sure it’s not the make or break decision to purchase the Kindle.

More on the story itself will be posted on Spinning.

Sometime last week or so I posted about a man I knew years ago who did panoramic photography. Well in reading around today I found an article on Wired called “Do It Yourself 3D” and that brought back memories too.

I worked/lived with a photographer a couple decades ago and so ran into folks seeking special photographic printing which my partner did very well (I did the picture framing and tried to learn photography on field trips taking rolls of film of a turtle on a stump). One of our customers did manage to rig up a camera system that took images in stereoscope (?) that produced a 3D effect.

Some things come through and stick. Some things come as a trend and fade away. And some things drift in and out like clouds, better each time for the passing.

Been playing in Tinderbox the last few days, trying to update the Literary Endeavors file with all current submissions–both straight and hypertext, stories and poetry–and it’s intensive. This is only because I’m backtracking with hundreds of bits of data from emails, spreadsheets, bookmarks and their websites, that have accumulated over the past maybe six months actively, though some of the info is on older stories and such that were sent out in spurts of ambition over the past few years, with years in between.

I’m caught up to a point that tells me a few things. One, the design of the Tinderbox file changes with the input; while I loved the threads of links from work to venue and luckily, was smart enough not to put return trails for all replies, a pattern established itself that proved itself to be the best way of keeping track of things at a glance at the mapview. This set a new method of linking submission to publisher.

What I’ve decided on now is to link from the story box to the venue via the publisher’s name, and including the name of the story within the publisher’s box. Doing it this way, I can see exactly how many and which stories are out there awaiting replies. When a reply comes in, the link is either deleted (with the date entered within the boxes) or turned into a happy bold red acceptance link from publisher to story.

Another thing this mapview tells me at a glance is that I don’t currently have much in the pipeline!

So here comes the next project on the agenda: to write, rewrite, throw away into the black hole, or send out, some stuff. The most important will be rewriting–and this includes the hypertext pieces that were done over last summer. It’s hard to find a home for a hypertext; so until these have been placed somewhere in some form, I discounted the initial idea of writing a hundred more this summer for the 100 Days Project. On the other hand, the discipline of a deadline worked for me…

Which means that while not a part of it, I’ll possibly be setting up a goal for myself to do X every day (for a grand total of 100 Xs) alongside the project–just outside the fence. What I’m thinking of now is either a hypertext poem (short and easy) or a short story a day, just enough to leave time for two other concepts I’ve been putting off–stretchtext and another flash piece or a movie.

And, of course, the garden, reading, and sitting around drinking wine.

A new digital story from one of my favorite writers of new media, Alan Bigelow, is now available at Webyarns.

It’s a flash piece, and as with all of Alan’s work, it is thought-provoking and contemporary in this day of wondering what the world is all about and how and where we happen to fit in. The carnival effect which is one of the backgrounds of the visual is so telling of what we often feel inside our brains, the whirl of movement, the noise of a crowd that surrounds us, the focus inward despite the blur that represents the world of people pacing at a different speed. I like the opening of military stringency that places a burden on the mind and body and the coughing that may indicate that we just don’t measure up–perhaps hinting at fatal flaw of smoking, or dependency that helps yet hinders our achievement of our goals.

I love the simple statements that are relevant to us all and yet reach beyond the norm: “My brain is in the past, present and future tense” and my favorite: “My brain is the last place I look for my keys.”Meanwhile, relevant facts of more physical reference float by as if secondary to the revelations of self-analysis.

But each opening space offers something else. Entering via a different path of “The Metaphor Room,” we are given a different pace, a dreamlike spot in the brain that oddly is more of a reality as it expands away from self to the interaction with others. with a seemingly more empirical knowledge of the world.

More of Alan’s work can be viewed at Webyarns, as well as archived at the ELO Directory.

Just saw Sony’s new iSweep panorama camera ad with Taylor Swift. Simple process of pressing a button to keep the camera open as it is swept along a view.

As a framer, I’ve framed many a 360 degree image and when I saw this ad it brought me back many years to a gentleman named Michael Lawton who shot for National Geographic and had some of the first panoramic images I’d ever framed. Mike is a true artist and he was as precise and demanding as he was interesting and willing to share.  It looks like he’s still active, and it’s taken a while for the industry to catch up to him.

One of my framing customers and friends, Kevin Osborne, surprised me with a DVD he left at my shop door when I wasn’t around. I knew that Kevin, an artist, had been working on a project of some Japanese prints but this DVD is a complete story in visual and text form.

Mutekikon is the fable of a boy who befriends an eagle and the lesson learned through the transition of changes that affect them both. Kevin’s narrative voice is strong yet gentle, completely bringing the reader into the story. His artwork has been filmed in a manner that suggests motion that follows the story, yet allows a contemplative background to the text that invites deeper reading and consideration.

I love what Kevin has produced in this merging of audio, video, text, and story. Here’s the website where a trailer and purchasing information (unbelievably reasonable) can be found: Mutekikon

This is one of the first physical DVDs I’ve had the pleasure of viewing in this new media method of storytelling, and it’s getting me more excited than ever about the possibilities it opens for writers and artists alike.

So the leaves have turned into a naked pregnant lady. And this is going to take more than a day for each, I can see that already. I sort of play with the object and add to it, form it whenever I am in the mood. This is the roughest, keeping-it-clunky stage because I’ve learned to get the form down first before any detailing is done. If I made her neck and face the right proportion at this point I just know that in working I’d likely knock off her head.

Also realized that if I photographed my work on this as it progresses, I could use it for a flash piece. Unfortunately, I lost all of the beginning of this piece, from the time the leaves were crushed into a snake, then a duck-like thing, and becoming more and more what she is at this point.

I’ve got this idea that using the same block of clay I can reform and tell a new story each day. I’m practicing now, with my first venture being these leaves. Mainly I’m trying to get the feel of the clay and one was too hard to work with (for me) while this 4.5 lb. block of white clay is really nice to work, but may be too soft to hold up to some of what I have planned for it.

Years ago, in clay class I found that I was not one of those who could manage throwing a pot on a wheel and getting it much higher than five inches, or thinner than a half inch. But I did love working with clay, and made several plaques, including one with my stuffed shrimp recipe in visuals and I molded a seated nude figure (she’d be about 14″ tall if she stood up, but she couldn’t of course, being clay and having only one arm). For some reason I threw her away just a few years ago and regret that now. She was unable to be fired since the instructor was afraid of air bubbles within her and if she blew up in the oven, she’d take all my classmate’s work as well.

So the idea is to mold a piece a day that holds a story, photograph it, and remold the piece into something else the next day. I’m also planning on playing with clay and photos to make stop-motion animation.

I was happily surprised to not only see my great-niece Zoee since she’s in a Navy family so I don’t get to see her and her brother and sister growing up but exciting to see that she’s, at fifteen and likely a junior, doing film projects for school. (She’s the shortest one–which cracked me up since that’s from our side of the family!)

I really like the fact that new media is being made available as courses in the high schools; this evidently was “Intro to Film and Video, and Zoee along with three friends produced this as a class project back in January. Particularly at the high school level–and probably earlier as well–and with kids so savvy now about technology, such courses are fun as well as necessary entry points into the college and career field of choices.

Hooray for this Tennessee high school!

This morning I received an e-mail from Amazon.com where I frequently purchase books.

Dear Amazon.com Customer,
As someone who has purchased or rated books by Roland Barthes, you might like to know that Health Insurance And Health Savings Account Made Easy is now available. You can order yours for just $9.95 by following the link below.

I’m still trying to figure out the connection between Barthes and Health Insurance and even with the longest stretch, I cannot see one. So? Obviously a sales gimmick to push a current hot topic on some configuration of their customers.

This is what bothers me about social networking and internet identifiers. Bad enough that folks don’t seem to “get” us in real life, but on the net where we’ve so carefully (and carelessly) let ourselves be judged by what we write, link to, photo-share, and buy? The old Animals’ tune is running around in my mind: “I’m just a soul whose intentions are good/Oh Lord, please don’t let me be misunderstood.” It’s one of our  fears, for many of us, one of our biggest.

So is an internet identity as cool as we think? Is what we put out there–real or wishful fantasy–something we want hanging in cyberspace well beyond our own physical presence has mouldered (or been crispy-fried) away? Interesting, this new technology, eh?