Monday, January 23, 2012
Starting Something New
I haven't posted anything on this blog in awhile but I recently decided that I need something to document my creative outlets and my thoughts about the things I'm interested. Such as: fashion, art, motherhood, history, politics, food, crafts, ideas...pretty much any part of my life. So, like a journal of sorts. Visual, written, and recorded in a way to expose myself and my art to the world.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
FINAL
1. Book groups: The thing about book groups that was significantly different than the other medias of communication we used was how none of us were ever actually talking directly to anybody else when we did our first post of the week. Our replies were to a person because we were replying to their post, but we never knew who they were or engaged in any sort of conversation, there were simply posts and replies. I’d say the book groups were similar to the blogs and to the plurking in different ways. Plurking was similar to the book group discussions because we had the ability to reply to what the person was saying, yet the difference in the time lapse between responses was much greater than in plurk. Blogging was similar because of the idea of posting one’s ideas for people to read. Although people could comment on my blog I couldn’t respond to a comment they left. Also the blogs and book groups were similar because they were both a relaxed and unprompted way of putting our thoughts about the literature we were reading into writing that other people could (if they wanted) open up, read, and respond to. I’d also have to say that the book groups generated way less conversation between peers than inclass discussion or plurking did. I found that most people agreed with everything I had to say, except for once and even this one time the situation wasn’t like those disagreements in class where someone says something and others say how they feel and the conversation goes back and forth between multiple people and we get to see many different ideas and views of the spectrum. It was more along the lines of, “I don’t agree, I think…” then I responded with a more elaborate reason of why I felt the way I did, yet the response I gave was never responded to. I feel because of this “distance” between the book group members and the requirements of only needing three to six posts a week keeps, or kept, all of us from really engaging in active conversation. At the beginning of the quarter Kai mentioned something about plurking about our book, yet it never became organized and we never actually did it. I think it may have been beneficial although I never really enjoyed plurking and did the required once a week plurk in order to meet the requirements. But, had my book group formed a private plurk where we discussed the book at some length I think it might have been very effective. I think it would have worked well because of the instantaneous replies we would get from our peers to what we were saying; also the conversations may have involved more people and become more detailed than the postings on blackboard. Just like Blackboard, plurk gives us a sense of some anonymity which in turn makes me a feel more comfortable voicing my opinion. This anonymity aspect of blackboard was nice, but to pair the anonymity with a means of a more immediate conversation, like plurking, I think may have been a better way for the group to discuss their thoughts. It also would have helped all our karma!
3. Blogs: I decided to read Brynn’s blog for the quarter and see how hers compared and contrasted to my own blog. First I think I’ll start with similarities because there are only a few. In fact, the only thing we may have in common is that we both only have six or seven total blogs for the quarter. As far as differences go we both are very different in how we view things and how we organized our blogs. Brynn, for one, didn’t blog about the specific books that we read. I chose to title my blogs according to the books that we were reading at that time and to reflect upon how I felt about the book and what I found interesting or disappointing. Also, I mostly tried to do these blogs before the class discussed the book aloud so I could know what stood out to me and what I thought mattered before my thoughts and ideas were expanded (or tainted) by my peers views of the book. The content in my blogs pretty much sticks to the concepts I thought were interesting and why I thought the author was doing certain things. Brynn’s blogs mentioned a variety of different subjects, including discussions we had in class and her frustrations on the impact of her art class. Through reading her thoughts about these topics I see that she is much more inquisitive and critical of things than I am. For instance, we are both taking the same art class, and although we are in the same class we don’t sit next to each other and I really don’t know anything about her except that she has a really eclectic sense of style and beautiful cheek bones. But, her comment, “the critique was two hours of people explaining their projects which all looked the same,” was really interesting for me to read because I felt completely different. And this is where I see that she is much more analytical than I am. I saw the critique as a bit boring because I didn’t necessarily want to sit and listen to every single person tell me about their painting, I just wanted to look and them and appreciate how creative everyone was. I felt that the projects were all different, I don’t think they looked the same at all. I understand how she felt they all looked the same, but only to a certain extent; they all had the same elements in them so there were definite boundaries and similarities, yet I was impressed how everyone did something different with the boundaries they were given and did what they could to be original. The point of the project was to take the elements we were given and try to do something different with them, we had to include all of these things into our artwork. When I think about Brynn’s piece (which was really interesting) I see how what she said in her blog really illustrates how she thinks because hers was very different from everyone else’s. Brynn’s had meaning. She incorporated everything like everyone else, but she didn’t make it all artsy fartsy looking, she made a ‘story’ out of it. I think this is especially where we think differently. Overall, our blogs differ greatly because we organized them differently, wrote about completely different stuff, and we both think and write quite differently. Her writing tends to be much more thoughtful than my own. I merely pick what stood out to me about the story and she ponders upon subjects a bit more. Her ideas are more developed than my own, I can see that she’s sees beyond what I see. Her blog about tattoos was interesting and her view of how she’s was not, ”just another bro at the parlor,” told me that there is much more to her than simply following the flow. An act like getting a tattoo doesn’t define who a person is and if they’re trying to be a part of the ‘crowd,’ it takes much more than that. Yet, Brynn sounds like she’s aware of her actions and she does things for bigger reasons than becoming a ‘robot.’
2. Limits:
1- how have these limits made you think about language: I’m not entirely sure that plurking made me think of language at all. I had a tough time getting involved with plurk. At the beginning of the quarter I logged on and created my plurk account and I remember looking at the various plurks people put up and it reminded me greatly of a chat room. I couldn’t find the connection with the class. People seemed to write about nonsense, like buying xbox 360’s and how they were about eat a burrito. As the quarter progressed and we were given certain plurk assignments I realized that there was in fact a method to this madness. I knew the requirements were to plurk once a week, and I found out much later that we were apparently supposed to read all the plurks from our classmates, but I found this to be unnecessary. It would take up a lot of time to read everything that people wrote, and since most of the comments weren’t even directly related to the class I chose to spend my valuable time doing my art homework, reading the various books that we were required to read, and doing the required writing for the class. I will say that the one way I think plurking made me possibly think about language is how, since it is done via internet, punctuation doesn’t seem to matter, and small comments from people can in fact generate whole conversations of small comments from other people. So, instead of people talking in person and explaining everything they’re saying with great detail (the large), plurking allowed people to make a small (sometimes insignificant and sometimes intriguing) comment back, which in turn made the dynamics of the conversations quite a bit different had people been talking face to face about the same things.
2- how have these limits made you think about the small: plurking has made me think about the small mostly in how it takes up virtually no space. Everything takes place in the virtual world, nothing is being wasted like paper or pens. Yet, although plurking is small as far as taking up physical space it is very large in the way that the timeline stretches through weeks of time. The actual words and conversations take up no physical space as well as the timeline itself, but to sit back and scroll through the weeks and weeks of conversations all the little comments that people have made or conversations that happened between different individuals has created this huge collage of ideas and thoughts. All these little, minute to minute and day to day comments have contributed to this very large concept. So, when I think about the small, I can’t help but think about the large as well.
3- how have these limits helped you with your writing: I think these limits have limited the writing for me. If that makes any sense. Plurking wasn’t real writing; it consisted of little bits of information, comments made back and forth. There was no amount of writing where skill would be involved. If my writing was improved in a way it may have been in the blogs, but even in this sense there was no means of practice or concepts that were taught as far as the actual writing goes. My thought processes were improved by these limits because I had to become comfortable with turning in work online instead of creating a tangible draft of something to be turned in at the beginning of the class. Plurking and blogging made it much easier to procrastinate because there’s this level of wondering whether or not the instructor is truly expecting everything to be done at a certain time, the wondering whether or not the due time is in fact stressed. So, I pushed the boundaries and found that I did the work when it fit into my time schedule because I didn’t have to physically turn anything in to the professor. Had I been required to write a formal and tangible 750 word ‘reflection’ on the books we were reading I feel that I would have had them done at that particular time, but via internet means the teacher reads the blogs whenever they are posted. Late work may not be accepted, but the dynamic is totally different. I feel like the limits online were much more broad as opposed to turning work in during the actual class time when everyone was present. Although the deadlines may have been just as strict it took an extreme (and I mean extreme) amount of unknown self-discipline for me to turn the blogs and plurks in when they were supposed to be.
3. Animals and Machines: The difference between animals and machines. There are the obvious ones, I suppose, like the fact that one is human made and the other is naturally created, animals need food to survive as machines don’t, and animals are apart of the circle of life and are either the hunter or the hunted. The biggest difference is the first one I mentioned because without this difference the others wouldn’t exist. Animals are born to the world through natural processes, either asexually or sexually. Machines exist because humans have figured out through the ages how to manipulate the phenomenons of the world to work in their favor. Machines are created to do something specific, they’re created to do things we humans either can’t do or can’t do well enough to be satisfied. First, this need for finding easier and better ways of doing things came when we figured out how to use animals to do the hard labor for us; such as in farming in the fields. But, as we became more and more greedy and more and more materialistic or industrialized the machines became a much more “perfect” way of doing the hard labor. No longer do oxen pull our carts or plow our fields, we have cars to take us where we need to go and tractors to plow our fields. Our societies have become so fixated on the sense of the immediate. We want things done fast, and perfect. We want the most out of the less. Animals are good to eat, and for enjoyment (domesticated animals: birds in cages, dogs, cats, horses), yet machines can do things for us. We program them to do what we want them to do and it makes our life easier. As time progresses I find that the only difference between machines and animals would be how we use them for our benefit. But within this so called difference there are many things that are in fact the same which makes it hard to say there is a difference between machines and animals besides the biology of them. Humans manipulate everything, that’s part of being human, that’s part of how we became human. We started out as an animal living through the conditions that the earth put upon us and slowly evolved into a being where we no longer let our environment run our lives instead we have the cognitive power to manipulate our environment and master it instead of being subject to it.
4. Filth/Censorship/Mores/Sexuality and Technology: In the classroom, of course, our anonymity is at zero. When a person says something everyone know who said it and knows a little more about that person. Through blogging and plurking the anonymity is greatly enhanced and people feel more comfortable voicing their opinion because it’s done through typing and without the physical presence of people’s eyes on you and worry that a lot of people have about judgement. Mostly I heard people’s views and resistance of these books through the in class discussions. And the in-class discussions were limited to a few people who felt comfortable enough to say how they felt aloud. I know for as far as I go I didn’t say a word in-class, not because I was afraid of people judging me, but I felt very unqualified to give my input because I felt other people knew way more about the topics than I did, or maybe not the amount that they knew but the ways they were able to listen to the conversations and think analytically about the topics at hand. Maybe this is a judgement issue, but I never felt like my comments would enhance the learning aspect of the discussions. I felt more like my thoughts were opinions that I felt because of my experiences and my life as I know it, but others made connections that weren’t biased (although there were some biased opinions stated and sometimes I felt annoyed when a person’s opinion was stated as though everyone felt that way). So, to consider the consumption of porn in the red states. Am I supposed to consider the irony? I found it to be ironic that the most “religious” states were the states that were most into pornography. Of course I feel like the reason for this would the essence that you want what you can’t have. Things that are the most forbidden often have the most allure. Although, I don’t think there’s a reason for porn to be forbidden because there’s nothing wrong with it. I wonder who it is that’s consuming this porn. I would assume that it would be the men just because it’s generally assumed that men are the ones who like to look at pornography. And then, why is it that the men in these states feel like they need porn? Are they trying to fill a void? Are their wives so religious that they’re prudes and feel like an exciting sex life is full of sin? I’m curious as to what other reasons there could be. Or possibly it’s not heterosexual porn that is being consumed, maybe it’s gay porn and it’s being consumed at a much bigger rate than the blue states because red states are less open to homosexuality than blue states are. And, therefore, the men are married to women because that’s what they’re ‘supposed’ to do yet the void they’re trying to fill is the one where their heart truly lies. Burroughs and Morrison’s stories are stories where the sexuality in people’s lives aren’t hidden behind closed doors, it’s out in the open where it’s exposed and “normal.” The real world phenomena of porn consumption is weird because it depends so much upon the context and the views of the people every individual is surrounded by. Sexuality is so hidden in our real world, with a few exceptions, that our society has judgements placed upon it. Although men tend to have no problem admitting (at least in blue states) that porn is something they enjoy women may only admit it to men that they enjoy it as well. I think the difference between men’s sexuality and women’s sexuality says a lot about this topic. The fact that men are ‘sluts’ and not judged by it but the opposite where a woman is a ‘slut’ demeans her in our society has somewhat to do with how women are portrayed in these stories. In Burroughs, for example women are nonexistent, there is another means of procreation that makes having women unnecessary because men’s sexual pleasure can be met by themselves. And the pleasure in the sexuality almost has nothing to do with it, the procreation is the most important, the sex itself means almost nothing. In, The Filth, the society has evolved to where women have expectations put upon them by The Hand and for them to not be sexual would be surprising. The Hand expects the women to engage in these activities because it’s what they’re supposed to be, they’re not supposed to be the hero or make a real difference.
Lastly, why does porn work? I’d say porn works because visually seeing erotic images turns a person on. It brings out the animalistic urges (especially in men) where the semi-orgasmic feeling of being aware of a part of your body has an effect on your mind and the trails of thoughts your mind goes through. Seeing the images and replaying them in your mind has an effect on your body and your body responds to these images.
3. Blogs: I decided to read Brynn’s blog for the quarter and see how hers compared and contrasted to my own blog. First I think I’ll start with similarities because there are only a few. In fact, the only thing we may have in common is that we both only have six or seven total blogs for the quarter. As far as differences go we both are very different in how we view things and how we organized our blogs. Brynn, for one, didn’t blog about the specific books that we read. I chose to title my blogs according to the books that we were reading at that time and to reflect upon how I felt about the book and what I found interesting or disappointing. Also, I mostly tried to do these blogs before the class discussed the book aloud so I could know what stood out to me and what I thought mattered before my thoughts and ideas were expanded (or tainted) by my peers views of the book. The content in my blogs pretty much sticks to the concepts I thought were interesting and why I thought the author was doing certain things. Brynn’s blogs mentioned a variety of different subjects, including discussions we had in class and her frustrations on the impact of her art class. Through reading her thoughts about these topics I see that she is much more inquisitive and critical of things than I am. For instance, we are both taking the same art class, and although we are in the same class we don’t sit next to each other and I really don’t know anything about her except that she has a really eclectic sense of style and beautiful cheek bones. But, her comment, “the critique was two hours of people explaining their projects which all looked the same,” was really interesting for me to read because I felt completely different. And this is where I see that she is much more analytical than I am. I saw the critique as a bit boring because I didn’t necessarily want to sit and listen to every single person tell me about their painting, I just wanted to look and them and appreciate how creative everyone was. I felt that the projects were all different, I don’t think they looked the same at all. I understand how she felt they all looked the same, but only to a certain extent; they all had the same elements in them so there were definite boundaries and similarities, yet I was impressed how everyone did something different with the boundaries they were given and did what they could to be original. The point of the project was to take the elements we were given and try to do something different with them, we had to include all of these things into our artwork. When I think about Brynn’s piece (which was really interesting) I see how what she said in her blog really illustrates how she thinks because hers was very different from everyone else’s. Brynn’s had meaning. She incorporated everything like everyone else, but she didn’t make it all artsy fartsy looking, she made a ‘story’ out of it. I think this is especially where we think differently. Overall, our blogs differ greatly because we organized them differently, wrote about completely different stuff, and we both think and write quite differently. Her writing tends to be much more thoughtful than my own. I merely pick what stood out to me about the story and she ponders upon subjects a bit more. Her ideas are more developed than my own, I can see that she’s sees beyond what I see. Her blog about tattoos was interesting and her view of how she’s was not, ”just another bro at the parlor,” told me that there is much more to her than simply following the flow. An act like getting a tattoo doesn’t define who a person is and if they’re trying to be a part of the ‘crowd,’ it takes much more than that. Yet, Brynn sounds like she’s aware of her actions and she does things for bigger reasons than becoming a ‘robot.’
2. Limits:
1- how have these limits made you think about language: I’m not entirely sure that plurking made me think of language at all. I had a tough time getting involved with plurk. At the beginning of the quarter I logged on and created my plurk account and I remember looking at the various plurks people put up and it reminded me greatly of a chat room. I couldn’t find the connection with the class. People seemed to write about nonsense, like buying xbox 360’s and how they were about eat a burrito. As the quarter progressed and we were given certain plurk assignments I realized that there was in fact a method to this madness. I knew the requirements were to plurk once a week, and I found out much later that we were apparently supposed to read all the plurks from our classmates, but I found this to be unnecessary. It would take up a lot of time to read everything that people wrote, and since most of the comments weren’t even directly related to the class I chose to spend my valuable time doing my art homework, reading the various books that we were required to read, and doing the required writing for the class. I will say that the one way I think plurking made me possibly think about language is how, since it is done via internet, punctuation doesn’t seem to matter, and small comments from people can in fact generate whole conversations of small comments from other people. So, instead of people talking in person and explaining everything they’re saying with great detail (the large), plurking allowed people to make a small (sometimes insignificant and sometimes intriguing) comment back, which in turn made the dynamics of the conversations quite a bit different had people been talking face to face about the same things.
2- how have these limits made you think about the small: plurking has made me think about the small mostly in how it takes up virtually no space. Everything takes place in the virtual world, nothing is being wasted like paper or pens. Yet, although plurking is small as far as taking up physical space it is very large in the way that the timeline stretches through weeks of time. The actual words and conversations take up no physical space as well as the timeline itself, but to sit back and scroll through the weeks and weeks of conversations all the little comments that people have made or conversations that happened between different individuals has created this huge collage of ideas and thoughts. All these little, minute to minute and day to day comments have contributed to this very large concept. So, when I think about the small, I can’t help but think about the large as well.
3- how have these limits helped you with your writing: I think these limits have limited the writing for me. If that makes any sense. Plurking wasn’t real writing; it consisted of little bits of information, comments made back and forth. There was no amount of writing where skill would be involved. If my writing was improved in a way it may have been in the blogs, but even in this sense there was no means of practice or concepts that were taught as far as the actual writing goes. My thought processes were improved by these limits because I had to become comfortable with turning in work online instead of creating a tangible draft of something to be turned in at the beginning of the class. Plurking and blogging made it much easier to procrastinate because there’s this level of wondering whether or not the instructor is truly expecting everything to be done at a certain time, the wondering whether or not the due time is in fact stressed. So, I pushed the boundaries and found that I did the work when it fit into my time schedule because I didn’t have to physically turn anything in to the professor. Had I been required to write a formal and tangible 750 word ‘reflection’ on the books we were reading I feel that I would have had them done at that particular time, but via internet means the teacher reads the blogs whenever they are posted. Late work may not be accepted, but the dynamic is totally different. I feel like the limits online were much more broad as opposed to turning work in during the actual class time when everyone was present. Although the deadlines may have been just as strict it took an extreme (and I mean extreme) amount of unknown self-discipline for me to turn the blogs and plurks in when they were supposed to be.
3. Animals and Machines: The difference between animals and machines. There are the obvious ones, I suppose, like the fact that one is human made and the other is naturally created, animals need food to survive as machines don’t, and animals are apart of the circle of life and are either the hunter or the hunted. The biggest difference is the first one I mentioned because without this difference the others wouldn’t exist. Animals are born to the world through natural processes, either asexually or sexually. Machines exist because humans have figured out through the ages how to manipulate the phenomenons of the world to work in their favor. Machines are created to do something specific, they’re created to do things we humans either can’t do or can’t do well enough to be satisfied. First, this need for finding easier and better ways of doing things came when we figured out how to use animals to do the hard labor for us; such as in farming in the fields. But, as we became more and more greedy and more and more materialistic or industrialized the machines became a much more “perfect” way of doing the hard labor. No longer do oxen pull our carts or plow our fields, we have cars to take us where we need to go and tractors to plow our fields. Our societies have become so fixated on the sense of the immediate. We want things done fast, and perfect. We want the most out of the less. Animals are good to eat, and for enjoyment (domesticated animals: birds in cages, dogs, cats, horses), yet machines can do things for us. We program them to do what we want them to do and it makes our life easier. As time progresses I find that the only difference between machines and animals would be how we use them for our benefit. But within this so called difference there are many things that are in fact the same which makes it hard to say there is a difference between machines and animals besides the biology of them. Humans manipulate everything, that’s part of being human, that’s part of how we became human. We started out as an animal living through the conditions that the earth put upon us and slowly evolved into a being where we no longer let our environment run our lives instead we have the cognitive power to manipulate our environment and master it instead of being subject to it.
4. Filth/Censorship/Mores/Sexuality and Technology: In the classroom, of course, our anonymity is at zero. When a person says something everyone know who said it and knows a little more about that person. Through blogging and plurking the anonymity is greatly enhanced and people feel more comfortable voicing their opinion because it’s done through typing and without the physical presence of people’s eyes on you and worry that a lot of people have about judgement. Mostly I heard people’s views and resistance of these books through the in class discussions. And the in-class discussions were limited to a few people who felt comfortable enough to say how they felt aloud. I know for as far as I go I didn’t say a word in-class, not because I was afraid of people judging me, but I felt very unqualified to give my input because I felt other people knew way more about the topics than I did, or maybe not the amount that they knew but the ways they were able to listen to the conversations and think analytically about the topics at hand. Maybe this is a judgement issue, but I never felt like my comments would enhance the learning aspect of the discussions. I felt more like my thoughts were opinions that I felt because of my experiences and my life as I know it, but others made connections that weren’t biased (although there were some biased opinions stated and sometimes I felt annoyed when a person’s opinion was stated as though everyone felt that way). So, to consider the consumption of porn in the red states. Am I supposed to consider the irony? I found it to be ironic that the most “religious” states were the states that were most into pornography. Of course I feel like the reason for this would the essence that you want what you can’t have. Things that are the most forbidden often have the most allure. Although, I don’t think there’s a reason for porn to be forbidden because there’s nothing wrong with it. I wonder who it is that’s consuming this porn. I would assume that it would be the men just because it’s generally assumed that men are the ones who like to look at pornography. And then, why is it that the men in these states feel like they need porn? Are they trying to fill a void? Are their wives so religious that they’re prudes and feel like an exciting sex life is full of sin? I’m curious as to what other reasons there could be. Or possibly it’s not heterosexual porn that is being consumed, maybe it’s gay porn and it’s being consumed at a much bigger rate than the blue states because red states are less open to homosexuality than blue states are. And, therefore, the men are married to women because that’s what they’re ‘supposed’ to do yet the void they’re trying to fill is the one where their heart truly lies. Burroughs and Morrison’s stories are stories where the sexuality in people’s lives aren’t hidden behind closed doors, it’s out in the open where it’s exposed and “normal.” The real world phenomena of porn consumption is weird because it depends so much upon the context and the views of the people every individual is surrounded by. Sexuality is so hidden in our real world, with a few exceptions, that our society has judgements placed upon it. Although men tend to have no problem admitting (at least in blue states) that porn is something they enjoy women may only admit it to men that they enjoy it as well. I think the difference between men’s sexuality and women’s sexuality says a lot about this topic. The fact that men are ‘sluts’ and not judged by it but the opposite where a woman is a ‘slut’ demeans her in our society has somewhat to do with how women are portrayed in these stories. In Burroughs, for example women are nonexistent, there is another means of procreation that makes having women unnecessary because men’s sexual pleasure can be met by themselves. And the pleasure in the sexuality almost has nothing to do with it, the procreation is the most important, the sex itself means almost nothing. In, The Filth, the society has evolved to where women have expectations put upon them by The Hand and for them to not be sexual would be surprising. The Hand expects the women to engage in these activities because it’s what they’re supposed to be, they’re not supposed to be the hero or make a real difference.
Lastly, why does porn work? I’d say porn works because visually seeing erotic images turns a person on. It brings out the animalistic urges (especially in men) where the semi-orgasmic feeling of being aware of a part of your body has an effect on your mind and the trails of thoughts your mind goes through. Seeing the images and replaying them in your mind has an effect on your body and your body responds to these images.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Postsingular 2
I was disappointed just like many other people in the classroom to how "normal" the ending of the story was. It was hard to wrap my mind around the idea that everything was okay and everyone had a happily ever after considering how different the whole idea and action of the book was. The concepts were so original and creative yet the ending wasn't strong. I think it may have been more effective for the book to end happily with the atomic bomb blowing the nants to shreds. Instead we were given a love scene between two lovers and the sudden epiphany Jay Jay had with the knowledge of the last chord. I thought it was interesting how the world that Jay jay dreamed about where the nants did take over became very under detailed and only people with money could afford to live in the areas that looked similar to earth, otherwise people walked on gray sidewalks and sat under trees with green triangles as leaves. I can't personally imagine living in a world where nothing was real, but generated from technology. The was this magical element to the story that also existed in the story Midnight Robber, and unlike the other novel we read this quarter the magical sense made the story come alive in a different way than simple science fiction. I really liked the concept of smart air. How cool would it be to be able to understand and work with the trees and the rocks? The natural telepathy was much more rewarding to the characters than the technological orphids. The orphids helped people but they also helped people be deceitful and the whole sense of privacy was abandoned because everything was visible through the orphidnet. The smart air, instead, gave people back their privacy and also allowed them to connect more with the natural earth and their natural brain instead of relying on the orphids to tell and teach them everything they needed to know. After all, the Big Pig was supposed to be a helpful source for people to use and in the end the "AI" became selfish and wanted everything under her(his) control. Which, in a sense was the same as the nants. The Big Pig wanted everything to be virtual because she would rule everything and become that much smarter. So, although I'm not impressed with the ending of the story I'm happy that earth didn't turn into vearth.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Postsingular
For me what really stuck out in the beginning of postsingular is how the man Jeff Luty wants to create a virtual world for him to live in. It's an obsession, even though we're reading the book through a person other than Jeff Luty we (the readers) still get a sense of his obsession with the loss of his childhood friend and how to, once again, be connected with him. Although I am unclear how a virtual world is going to make this possible because when something is virtual it doesn't mean it can be brought back from nonexistence. The only way he'd be able to be with him again would be if Jeff creates a virtual Carlos in which case he would be spending time with the Carlos he knew and not a real version who Carlos would be today. And, ultimately I think Jeff felt more about Carlos than just a friend, especially from the comment in the first chapter, "...said Jeff, enjoying Carlos's closeness." (17) I think he was in love with Carlos and he was losing more than a friend when he died but the person he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.
I'm a little confused on how the whole nants are eating Mars and how that effects the sky and what not. I also don't really understand the whole concept between the nants growing on their own. I feel as though they're a type of AI yet I don't understand how technology could grow and develope without the input of humans. As for the sky becoming bleached and nighttime being lost I would think that would be chaotic. So much of natural life thrives on night and day; plants have to have the sunlight and the dark to grow naturally, people also are conditioned (or born I guess) in the way that our body rests at night (unless, of course, we condition our selves to sleep when we have time like working a graveyard shift, for example, changes people's sleeping habits). Taking away nighttime is taking away the separation between the two different times of day. How would a world without nighttime function? I see it as chaotic because there would be no order for times of day or when a day starts or ends. When would people know to sleep, would they schedule a certain sleeping time for themselves and how it fit into their lives? Would it even be necessary for a 24-hour period of time from day to day? It would be day all the time, days would run into days and meld together into one big bunch of time. Would business owners be open according to the time they want to as opposed to 10-5? What would nightclubs do? Would people still want to go clubbing when it appears to be daytime? It would seem very out of place... How about Vegas? There would be no point for the lights on the buildings and there would be no such thing as a nightlife, it would all be daylife. And what's even more disturbing to me is the idea of seeing images in the sky as if it's one big huge television -- I love the sky and the stars at night...it's very hard to grasp this idea. The advertising in the sky was also very disturbing because media is something people are exposed to all the time. Through television, internet, signs on the roads and on buildings, but to imagine advertising and media shown on the sky it would be even harder to escape the modern world and the materialistic bullshit. In this case a person couldn't even escape the media in the most remote places (the desert, antartica, and the ocean).
I'm interesting to read more of the book because the ideas and concepts so far are interesting and even a bit disturbing which makes it all the more fun and interesting to read.
I'm a little confused on how the whole nants are eating Mars and how that effects the sky and what not. I also don't really understand the whole concept between the nants growing on their own. I feel as though they're a type of AI yet I don't understand how technology could grow and develope without the input of humans. As for the sky becoming bleached and nighttime being lost I would think that would be chaotic. So much of natural life thrives on night and day; plants have to have the sunlight and the dark to grow naturally, people also are conditioned (or born I guess) in the way that our body rests at night (unless, of course, we condition our selves to sleep when we have time like working a graveyard shift, for example, changes people's sleeping habits). Taking away nighttime is taking away the separation between the two different times of day. How would a world without nighttime function? I see it as chaotic because there would be no order for times of day or when a day starts or ends. When would people know to sleep, would they schedule a certain sleeping time for themselves and how it fit into their lives? Would it even be necessary for a 24-hour period of time from day to day? It would be day all the time, days would run into days and meld together into one big bunch of time. Would business owners be open according to the time they want to as opposed to 10-5? What would nightclubs do? Would people still want to go clubbing when it appears to be daytime? It would seem very out of place... How about Vegas? There would be no point for the lights on the buildings and there would be no such thing as a nightlife, it would all be daylife. And what's even more disturbing to me is the idea of seeing images in the sky as if it's one big huge television -- I love the sky and the stars at night...it's very hard to grasp this idea. The advertising in the sky was also very disturbing because media is something people are exposed to all the time. Through television, internet, signs on the roads and on buildings, but to imagine advertising and media shown on the sky it would be even harder to escape the modern world and the materialistic bullshit. In this case a person couldn't even escape the media in the most remote places (the desert, antartica, and the ocean).
I'm interesting to read more of the book because the ideas and concepts so far are interesting and even a bit disturbing which makes it all the more fun and interesting to read.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
The Filth 3
Spartacus is a very interesting character. He creates chaos wherever he goes, but he has a mind full of legitimate reasons as to why he does the things he does. I like this comment he makes to Slade after he's given the president a boob job, "That's the great thing about democracy: ANYONE can be president." I like this because he's trying to redefine what it means to be someone "important" in our society (or any human society, now or in the future). He's showing us that the president is a person too, just like any of us, he makes stupid choices and does stupid things, but yet his choices change the way we (the public) think about him -- the choices we make don't necessarily change what people think about us because our choices aren't broadcast for the entire country to scrutinize. Although, there is a reason the president is the president and he/she is supposed to be someone that we trust enough to make the right choice for the greater good. We expect him to live up to our expectations and take care of us, and when he fails us we lose our respect for him and in that regard we also lose our patriotism. Also, I might add how Dmitri shoots the president and claims, “Another asshole will take his place and no one will smell the difference.” Dmitry isn’t human and is obvious with his dislike for humanity and how we choose to run things, “Humanity can eat my SHIT” (194).
Another thing Spartacus says to Slade, "In the END, humans always pick themselves up, ORGANIZE into roles and start piling up the building blocks of CULTURE again." What an interesting way of looking at our society or all societies for that matter. By ‘culture’ I wonder what he’s referring to…is Spartacus referring to the way we live our lives: the way we grow up, the way we learn, the way we enjoy ourselves? Or is he referring to the way humans have an innate sense of community and how the lack-there-of is devastating for us to imagine? Also, there are a few things that lead me to believe Spartacus isn’t human; one would be this statement he makes as if he’s not a part of humanity and is almost disgusted with our ritualistic ways of creating ‘culture’ and the second would be how he died in a previous section of the novel, but appears now as if nothing happened to him. Are there many Spartacus Hughes? Or is he simply an immortal, or is he real at all? Maybe he’s just a hologram.
So, I’m also wondering why it is that the women in the comic all talk like this, “Oh aye. Time tay get tay fukk.” (195). Well, not all the women, but all the women involved with The Hand. I don’t understand it, the guys and even the chimp talk normal. I doubt all the women are supposed to be from a different country and this is merely an accent. They sound less educated than the men. Also, I notice how most of the scenes involving women from The Hand involve sex. The women do other things, but I’ve noticed at the beginning of many scenes when the women are introduced they have sex, and then they go do some hardcore shit. The men are seen time and time again, but they don’t have sex (with the exception of the Tex Porneau scenes) unless there is a woman present. The women are only present once in a while and they’re always doing some kinky sex scene. For example: the first scene between Greg (or Slade) when the woman from The Hand is in his shower, the scene with the woman giving oral sex to the richest pervert, the scene with the woman blindfolding Slade, and another would be the woman interrogating Anders Klimakks. The women’s roles in this story are really baffling to me, are they helping or are they supposed to be there for certain unspecified reasons? Are we, as readers, supposed to get the impression that they’re not important at all in this futuristic society except to procreate, give sexual pleasure, and helpt the men when it may be necessary? I see women in the porno scenes on the TV and being almost nothing more than sexual toys…although one exception would be Greg’s neighbor who watches him from her window.
Another thing Spartacus says to Slade, "In the END, humans always pick themselves up, ORGANIZE into roles and start piling up the building blocks of CULTURE again." What an interesting way of looking at our society or all societies for that matter. By ‘culture’ I wonder what he’s referring to…is Spartacus referring to the way we live our lives: the way we grow up, the way we learn, the way we enjoy ourselves? Or is he referring to the way humans have an innate sense of community and how the lack-there-of is devastating for us to imagine? Also, there are a few things that lead me to believe Spartacus isn’t human; one would be this statement he makes as if he’s not a part of humanity and is almost disgusted with our ritualistic ways of creating ‘culture’ and the second would be how he died in a previous section of the novel, but appears now as if nothing happened to him. Are there many Spartacus Hughes? Or is he simply an immortal, or is he real at all? Maybe he’s just a hologram.
So, I’m also wondering why it is that the women in the comic all talk like this, “Oh aye. Time tay get tay fukk.” (195). Well, not all the women, but all the women involved with The Hand. I don’t understand it, the guys and even the chimp talk normal. I doubt all the women are supposed to be from a different country and this is merely an accent. They sound less educated than the men. Also, I notice how most of the scenes involving women from The Hand involve sex. The women do other things, but I’ve noticed at the beginning of many scenes when the women are introduced they have sex, and then they go do some hardcore shit. The men are seen time and time again, but they don’t have sex (with the exception of the Tex Porneau scenes) unless there is a woman present. The women are only present once in a while and they’re always doing some kinky sex scene. For example: the first scene between Greg (or Slade) when the woman from The Hand is in his shower, the scene with the woman giving oral sex to the richest pervert, the scene with the woman blindfolding Slade, and another would be the woman interrogating Anders Klimakks. The women’s roles in this story are really baffling to me, are they helping or are they supposed to be there for certain unspecified reasons? Are we, as readers, supposed to get the impression that they’re not important at all in this futuristic society except to procreate, give sexual pleasure, and helpt the men when it may be necessary? I see women in the porno scenes on the TV and being almost nothing more than sexual toys…although one exception would be Greg’s neighbor who watches him from her window.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
The Filth 2
What an imagination these authors have...The sex is incredible, the idea of one man's genes becoming spread throughout all of mankind is crazy to think about. The giant sperms attacking all the woman and the man behind the madness was astonishing. It's all so surprising because of the ridiculousness (is that a word) of the concepts. Doctor Von Vermun is an interesting character; I was surprised to find out that he was in fact a villain instead of a hero. The idea of a weapon of increased time being created is out of this world. It would be the ultimate weapon; forcing people to age at an alarming rate to the point where they die of age or other diseases. It's scary to think about. One thing that really stuck out to me -- although I'm not sure how important it is but -- the way the comic fuzzes out the men's genitalia but women's breast are constantly displayed. Is this because if the dick was actually drawn the story itself would be considered pornography? Not that I really want to see drawn cocks, but I think it's unfair for the illustrators to display the women and not the men. The world in which this graphic novel is created is very different from ours in the sense that sex and drugs rule everyone’s existence (or so it seems) yet it is still a very male dominated society. Not that I'm saying our society isn't ruled by these factors, but it's not nearly as prominent and accepted like it is in this story. For example, the cop name Nick smokes crack (on and off the job) and although his partner doesn't do it himself he accepts it as a normal thing to do. In our society, (well around this area at least, I'm not sure what it's like in major cities like LA or New York, but I imagine it's not exactly like this) chances are the cop would try to hide it more. Also, he mentions it's a recreational drug and partnered with his apparent 'freedom' in engaging in smoking crack it's legal in the land where this takes place. I got a glimpse of the acceptance of substance abuse and drug use at the beginning of the comic with the dope smoking chimp, but it escalated into crack. It's surprising that it's even imaginable that a society would be accepting of something so corrupt and life damaging. I understand smoking weed (I don't even consider it a drug) but crack is another thing; most people can't live a functioning life when they're addicted to it, and half the time they don't live from the experience but die from it. Weed, on the other hand doesn't kill people it simply makes people unmotivated.Back to the idea of the male dominated society...the women are targeted when Tex Porneau (these names are hilarious by the way) unleashes his new "star" of his new or "ultimate" porno. Once again I see that women are thought of to be important or useful when considering procreating and discarded as mere sex objects when procreating is not the object of the man's desire. As this 'text' shows, men can provide sexual pleasure for other men but what they can't do is repopulate the world without women. I feel that obviously - based from the various (and obsessed almost) 'anal' references in Tex's movie titles - he views women this way (good for certain things because he obviously prefers anal). Although, our society is male dominated and so is this one, homosexual sex between men is looked down upon, and here it is almost preferred (although, on a side note, the porno magazines and movies have all involved women and men so this sudden change is odd and I'm not sure what to think). I also don't really get what Tex's ultimate agenda is. Why does he want the world to be full of Anders Kilmakks? Or does he even realize that this is what he's doing?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)