searching for the ineffable
E-mail mckin-at-edrex-dotttt-com. Go ahead, do it.
(E-Fest 06 is being held at the McKinney Conference Room, at the Watson Institute for International Studies.)
Now, if you ever see a sticker somewhere with an email address ending in @edrex.com on it, you’ll know what to do.
Hello from E-Fest 2006, being held at Brown right now. It’s lunchtime; the first session of papers has passed, as has the first evening of performances (last night, natch). A few thoughts so far. They aren’t intended to be an exhaustive review of the event, just things that occurred to me so far.
The most immediately striking thing, for me (thanks to reading Dr. B et al., and recent women’s issues debacles in the news*) is that, out of the twenty-two official participants, three are women. Three.
Aside from that, however, the event’s pretty interesting thus far. One of the highlights at last night’s performance was Aya Karpinska‘s reading of open.ended. Aya will be the next electronic creative writing fellow in Brown’s Literary Arts MFA program.
Judd Morrissey did a fantastic reading as well, but I can’t find it online; structurally it was similar to his The Jew’s Daughter, which is also a worthwhile read.
Nick Montfort‘s presentation particularly interested me from a pedagogical perspective. He has been working on software that, when overlayed onto a pre-existing piece of interactive fiction (in yesterday’s case, the classic Adventure), allows the user to read the game’s text transformed into different narrative styles. Victorian, for example, peppers setting descriptions etc. with “Reader,”; explicit, when you say “go west,” informs you that you have decided to go west; you have relocated yourself westward; you are now in $otherlocation; you see objects around you. That sort of thing. It seems that, applied to [IF in] other languages, this could be a useful tool for language learning!
Then there’s today. Today’s first session was titled “Memory and Real Time.” It was pretty whirlwind, but one thing that Braxton Soderman was talking about caught my attention: the place of criticism, theory and critical thinking within the increasingly real-time digital culture. (I could be misquoting; will correct later if needed, but this was for me the essence of his talk.)
Briefly: text encoding as literary analysis/research is critical thinking “on the run” (which, for Braxton, was: you get an idea and “run with it”). On the other end of that, the software that eventually shows you a larger picture is also “running”. This feels more real-time than paper writing.
Networked publication of that research, as well as online collaboration (VHL, instant messaging), are also much more real-time than publications in journals and then responses published at a much later date.
Not particularly deep, but a useful snippet for theorizing RolandHT!
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*And speaking of South Dakota’s legislative idiocy, check out the fuck-you message sent by the president of the Oglala Sioux Tribe to the white boys in the state senate there. How much ass does this woman kick?! Needless to say, please donate… or don’t, but we’re not having an abortion debate in the comments, mmkay?
Welcome, Sylvana Campbell Gruesz, daughter of Colleen and Carl! A big one she is, 9lb 3oz. Born last night by c-section for positioning reasons, mom and baby seem to be doing fine so far. I hope to see them soon, perhaps even today.
Dance the dance with us, baby. We’ve been waiting for you.
(I was thinking of diminuitives to her name last night. Sylvana – Syl – Sylly!)
Toasted fennel seeds, left over from yesterday because what you actually meant to toast was cumin. By themselves, nothing else.
Big blog updates, what? So many things I keep meaning to write about, and they just never get written down. Have to start again somewhere.
Oh, all right. Here’s some content: Y: The Last Man is a great graphic-novel (you know, comic book) series. Well written, intriguing in its treatment of gender, beautifully drawn.
Today Albert Hofmann, the chemist who first synthesized LSD (and took it, back on Bicycle Day, 1943) turns 100 years old.
I can think of few scientists who changed the Western world as much as he did during the 20th century while managing to create nothing destructive. Thank you for the insight, for the tools, for the kindness and courage, Dr. Hofmann.
Check out this symposium being held in Basel, Switzerland in his honor.
2006 has been decidedly a mixed bag so far. An extended family visit was emotionally draining, despite its many shining moments. Driving home through sleet was about as much fun as it sounds, and when we got home we were so exhausted that there was immediately a vicious fight and subsequent bad feelings lasting well over half an hour.
…I’m pretty lucky, huh? E. and I have our problems, and it’s been a difficult couple of weeks, and there are issues to work on, but I have never experienced a long-term relationship in which love truly does conquer all. Quickly, even.
Today, I am sick; mostly, it seems, from allergies to Aki the Cat Who Charmed The World (Including His Catsitter). Muscle pain too, though, so it might still be a cold caught from Tesher the Nephew Who Couldn’t Stop Coughing (But Who Is Still Charming As Hell). See lucky, above: Ethan has been cleaning the house for the past hour or so, while I’m sequestered in the living room.
But none of this matters. Yesterday, Rhode Island became the eleventh state in the Union with a medical marijuana law on the books. The bill was first passed last summer, and in his infinite scientific good judgment, Governor Carcieri vetoed it immediately. State Senate overrode his veto a while back; yesterday, the House did the same. HELL YES. Finally.
The document can be found here. It provides the opportunity to use marijuana for medical purposes, and protections that go therewith, to patients suffering from AIDS, multiple sclerosis, cancer and other debilitating diseases. Here are some excerpts:
Modern medical research has discovered beneficial uses for marijuana in treating or alleviating pain, nausea and other symptoms associated with certain debilitating medical conditions, as found by the National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine in March 1999 […]
According to the U.S. Sentencing Commission and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, ninety-nine (99) out of every one hundred (100) marijuana arrests in the United States are made under state law, rather than under federal law. Consequently, changing state law will have the practical effect of protecting from arrest the vast majority of seriously ill people who have a medical need to use marijuana.[…]
States are not required to enforce federal law or prosecute people for engaging in activities prohibited by federal law. Therefore, compliance with this chapter does not put the state of Rhode Island in violation of federal law. […]
Boo yah. The distinction between medical and non-medical use is made loud and clear, and the lawmakers were careful not to include any politically inflammatory language regarding the war on drugs in general. Damaging and senseless as the marijuana prohibition has been in general over the past… oh, eight decades or so, this isn’t the place to fight it. The point is, people in Rhode Island who spend their days in pain and misery can now alleviate that pain without being considered criminals when no other pain reliever works.
Thank you, Rhode Island legislature. This step toward sanity is courageous in the current political climate.
I haven’t known whether to blog about this or not: I’m just on the periphery of this one. But it is affecting my community, and some of my dearest.
Kevin “Frostbyte” McCormick, 29, died last Sunday, it seems from a heart attack. He was a brilliant light artist and an MIT alum. He fostered community, was generous with his time and his energy and his art.
I might have more to say about this later. For now, I am just glad that at this year’s Burning Man festival, I finally got to have a conversation with him after having seen him around for years, and to join in the chorus of appreciation for his light.
I’ve been in a slump of varying sorts. Luckily, it’s ending.
Work is going… well, it’s going. At least some of the projects that had been stalled, are moving. The way this was accomplished means a lot more work for me, but at this point I’m happy to do it, rather than battle communication issues.
I’m terrified of the impending end to the grant period (not until June, but still!). We’re running out of time. On the other hand, this makes things exciting, and now when I say “X has got to be done now” people can’t ignore me, or tell me to go take a chill pill.
Submitted an abstract for a conference right on the due date (of course), and a book review somewhere between a few days and two weeks late (depending on how you look at it… considering the book is 450+ pages long, and dense, I’d say not bad.)
Got sick on Monday with whatever it is that Ethan has. He’s almost over it; I managed to sneeze myself into a half-hour long nosebleed yesterday, and coughing hurts like a… a thing that hurts a lot. Have you ever tried to cough gently when sick? Yeah, doesn’t work too well.
My poor, long-suffering mother has to find yet another person to help her take care of gramma (who is at home with Alzheimer’s). This will be the fourth: the woman who lives with her currently has to leave for personal reasons. Sigh.
Been getting back into music while working. Don’t know why I took such a long hiatus, but finally made an iTunes playlist of all my songs with no lyrics (635 of them). It helps me work, it does.
Two good friends are due to become parents any day now! Making beef stew for them to throw in the freezer (which is, reportedly, full of tasty goodness made by various folk) was by far the culinary adventure of the month. I haven’t made food with so much intention in a while.
The world keeps spinning. Dick Cheney stuck his foot in his mouth big time – BBC’s article is fairly neutral, but the photo speaks volumes. The story of Sony’s viral software is more than meets the eye, says Wired – it’s a great article on corporate bullshit and companies that make virus “protection” software, please read it.
When I grow up, I want a hidden door in my house.
Speaking of labyrinths, Nick Montfort has released another interactive fiction piece, his first in a while, called Book and Volume. Looks interesting. I was kind of indifferent to his Winchester’s Nightmare and absolutely loved Ad Verbum. Haven’t played any IF in a long time, perhaps it’s time to start again? :)
Burning Man 2005 has been photographed from above, and someone posted a particularly beautiful shoton Flickr.
Just because I haven’t posted any more November-photo-month pictures, doesn’t mean I haven’t been taking them. In due time.
Time to catch up on work.
Via friend Harlequinaide:
Washington Post writes about Bush’s visit to Howard University. Just…. just go and read it. Wh… just…
How is it that anyone still supports him? How?
current mood: insanely angsty, for work-related reasons. it’ll be All Better this afternoon.
