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August 9, 2010

The Round-Up Where It Is Still Ruthlessly Hot Outside… 8/1 – 8/8

Seriously.

Remember a few weeks ago where I wrote wistfully of how you could feel autumn in the air.

That was dumb.

It is crazy hot. My cat is just laying on the floor epitomizing misery. Our very existence right now is an onomatopoeia, all sizzling sounds and wavy lines radiating off of both of us. I’d grab the laptop and head to a cafe with AC but then that’d be abandoning her, and I leave no one behind. Go on brave blogger.

Anyways, after a touch and go July I’m happy to be back here at the desk, heat be damned. I know you deserve better than that meager little Round-Up you got last week and I hope I can deliver. So with that…

On the Arts side of town It Cannot Be Trivial took the week off, but Helldriver @helldriver was here opining on the end of the orchestra. I had mixed feelings about this one and should probably take it over to the comments but since I’m here… I understand that, as popular entertainment, few of us are pulling on the wingtips and having a night on the town, but I wonder if we can say that as a mode or aesthetic the orchestra is near its end. If anything I think it’s interesting that we’ve come to a place culturally where orchestras are reserved for only the most pronounced forms of aural emoting. The hero returns to his home, lovers meet, a mother dies – orchestras in popular culture seem to be the privileged mode of music for the archetypal ‘big moment’ in much the same way that any action that takes place in a church is almost exclusively the domain of the Catholic variety; all big arches and marble floors. We might not be disagreeing at all, I just wonder if it’s fair to say that orchestras are less like dinosaurs and more like constellations.

I was nervous. A few weeks ago I had high praises for Jane Cramer @Janec and GovDocs I Love and I Hope You Will Too and then it went quiet. I was afraid I ran it off, but this week it’s back with a ton of info and resources available to anyone looking for economics information. After that blog I also can’t help but picture a dinner party where a grip of librarians (a murder, an unkindness, a pack?) surround a lone economist and shake him down for resources. Everyone already knows not to mess with librarians.

Speaking of new blogs, Amalia Torrentes @Atorrentes announced Accessible New York – a social networking and review site for people who want to stay on top of accessibility in New York City. I think it’s a grand idea and you should definitely forward it along to friends. The link is here. Please keep updating us so we can watch it grow.

What else, what else?

Aaron Kendall @akendall has returned from Iceland and is back to blogging about what went down there. Turns out that the dig was a success and the undergraduates that showed up had a good time. I thought it was funny to read how crestfallen they sounded at finding a stone wall from 800 years ago. I mean I get it, it’s not the epic sword I had rooted for in the beginning, but I still think it’s awesome to dig around and then find something that someone made that long ago, regardless of what it is. I assume it’s an uncanny feeling, to see a wall doing the same thing that our walls do today. We still build walls to keep the trash in one place. I don’t know, maybe you get over it, or maybe I’m just easily impressed but the idea that a couple of guys in Iceland 800 years ago being like, “Hey we need to build a wall to keep that trash in.” Thanks again for blogging about that whole experience and I’m looking forward to the wrap up.

Finally this week, we welcome back Boone Gorges! Boone @boonebgorges was out in the sticks working on some secret stuff for the government. Turns out the secret project is Anthologize, a WordPress plugin that allows bloggers to transfrom online content into an eBook format, and just like Oprah, if you look under your seat you’ll find that you (will soon) have your very own just as soon as we get up to speed with the WordPress update.

And before I take off – fellow Commoner Kristina Huang @KristinaHuang has an awesome interview up with Richard Ledes over at SocialText. If you’re interested in film or just some curious about the subtext behind Haiti in American cinema go check out the video and her interview. I’m always eager to hear about what everyone is up to, even if it’s off-site. Book signing coming up? Featured work somewhere? Tell me about it!

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July 5, 2010

The Round Up I Wrote After Not Seeing Any Fireworks 6/28 – 7/4

Mayor Mike, we need to talk.

I wasn’t happy about the third term thing, I thought it was a little beneath you actually, but I understood. There was the financial crisis and you always fought for gun control and Christine Quinn seemed really really into it so I thought, “what the hell” and shrugged it off. I know, I know I’m a lazy citizen, but after 8 years of basically being hysterical all the time and marching at everything I just didn’t have the energy to fight on this one.

And then you messed with the fireworks.

I didn’t move to Greenpoint for the perogis. I moved to Greenpoint so I could stand on my roof every 4th of July and have the best seat in the house. I know that you have nothing to do with the fireworks committee. You don’t sit around your desk in the days leading up to the 4th picking out flag pins for your lapel and making phone calls to make sure those stupid smiley face fireworks are actually going to perform their job and make a smile. I understand that. But if you’re going to flagrantly indulge in chop-shop democracy the very least you could do is take some time out of your billionaire schedule and put the fireworks between two actual boroughs of the city of New York and not between us and…it hurts to say it…New Jersey. The coast of New Jersey is just bunch of NYC ex-pats who wanted cheaper rent anyways – they’re turncoats – that’s why we shame them. You can’t just steal Brooklyn’s fireworks and give it to a bunch of people who have bigger, cheaper apartments in a whole other state. Their reward is there on earth, ours is supposed to be in the heavens.

Not that my 4th was terrible, I spent it in a hammock at a bar-b-que in Fort Greene sipping whiskey, but I’m still mad.

Blooooooooooooogggggggsssssss!

I don’t know what happened this week but we managed to summon all of these long dormant blogs out of the ground. Joseph Ugoretz @jugoretz at Prestidigitation had a lovely post asking whether or not we’ve yet to understand the capacity of the recorded lecture. For an excellent example of the potential of the medium Joseph linked to David Harvey’s latest:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOP2V_np2c0[/youtube]

The animation is certainly more compelling than the TED format, but I have mixed feelings about what it takes to make something like the Harvey lecture possible. I’m glad that a lecture of all things put some animators to work, but to what extent can we expect professors with a long view of their lecture to also be production crews? How do you slip something like animators across a department chair’s desks?

Pedagogy was also on Benjamin Miller’s @benmiller314 mind this week. Majoring in Meta made an appearance on the blog roll with a slightly neurotic look at whether meta-lecturing was instructive or just driving students crazy. I had to admire the candor of one of Ben’s students who basically told him to make a decision, but lolz aside, I think Ben’s on the mark. You don’t exactly get a ‘how to teach’ course with every masters and PhD. More to the point, on a good day the classroom isn’t just a person who knows something telling others who don’t, it’s a bunch of people in a room learning something new together. Teaching on the go facilitates that and can bring you to some unexpected places. That’s the real secret knowledge of the professor.

Adam Wandt @awandt did some investigative live blogging for us and discovered that ‘death grip’ has plagued iPhones well before the newest one. Not that it matters to the tech-mob I guess, I was at the Apple store on 5th Ave this weekend and the only death grip that counted was the one you could get on an employee. I have to say though, Adam, I think you have bigger problems than reception…

How can you read everything backwards?

Aaron Kendall @Akendall checked back in this week from Iceland. Still no sword…yet…but some nice pictures from over yonder. This week on the island our hero and team went digging around some farm land. Then John Locke flipped out and turned into smoke. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I still miss it. Apparently the lake near where they were ate away the midden and dashed any chances for some interesting finds. I feel like if I was an archeologist I would be constantly stressed out because apparently this sort thing is a persistent problem. I can barely cope when I can’t find the other sock so digging holes all day and then finding nothing usable would break my heart. Not to nag but you promised us some video!

Michael Smith @MSmith said he’d make a post a week and the guy is serious! This week we got Physical Chemistry, a tract about relationships, or atoms, or science yoga. I suck at physics. It’s ok, I know that. I can talk your ear off about gender construction or mid century shifts in theology but come at me with wave/particle stuff and you can almost see the cartoon birds orbiting my head. That being said, if someone had just taught me physics through art there’s no telling. I think you’re an attic’s worth of old art projects away from a syllabus.

To wrap things up Tony Picciano @Apicciano caught Maureen Dowd getting all sentimental on the 4th and encouraging us to let our “freakin’ flag fly” I’m not real sure what Maureen had in mind, but I’m gonna head to the park and read some more David Harvey.

June 28, 2010

That Round-Up I Wrote Recovering from Pride – 6/21 -6/27

Oh Commonsers,

My poor head aches, my shoulders are red with fury and my feet are exhausted – but what a day for a parade eh? Hunter and Baruch were out this year. I was hoping CUNY would have a float but it didn’t happen so I’ll make you a deal, right here on Footenotes; If we can talk CUNY into putting a float in the parade next year I’ll liveblog on top of the thing. Nothing sexier than a shirtless blogger.

I can’t remember if I saw these last year or not but it looks like the storied rainbow flag has some regional competition:

Personally, I like ’em. I was going to post photos of the Hunter and Baruch groups and these new flags that were everywhere, but my camera didn’t make it back home with me. Ah well – I hope it met another nice camera of the same gender and had a good time.

Alright alright, you get it, enough about my weekend.

The Blogs!

Thing were busy this week, I love it. We started off with a post from Michael Smith @msmith at It Cannot Be Trivial about his works on cross aesthetics. As I’ve mentioned before, the back-story on a work of art is often of more interest to me than the work itself. I think part of that comes from the fact that art is so often a subjective experience and yet it can create this plutocracy of ‘taste’ that may or may not just be a reflection of gallery reps and auction house interests. To hear the story of how a certain piece came to exist can really open up a work and give the viewer a place in it that was somehow closed before.

After I reread that little paragraph it started to look like I was saying I didn’t like this week’s display. To the contrary Ive been crazy about crosses regardless of their religious dimension since I was little. I was a spooky kid.

Speaking of crosses and spooky stuff, Michael Oman-Reagan had two posts out this week. The first was an early bird reminder about the AAR’s meeting in Atlanta this year. I know we have a couple of religion groups and programs here on the Commons so take note. The second was about Congress getting all nosy and bothering Steve Jobs. Turns out the gummerment is concerned about whether Apple might be overstepping it bounds with its Location Services features. Honestly I didn’t even know that was a feature and after hearing about it I still don’t know how threatened I supposed to feel. I mean if Jack Bauer can just triangulate a cell-phone call to find anyone on Earth then I’m doomed as it is.

Next up in my queue of blogs to cover…oh…uh…so about what I said up there about print being dead…sometimes I just run my mouth without thinking. Apparently we’re all missing Book Expo America. Librarianship in Lower Manhattan blogged about this weird book-lover Xanadu with free booze and librarian worship. Awesome. Also – who knew that Kathleen Collins @kcollins , one of our own, had a book signing there? You have to blog about this kind of thing so we can show up!

Turf Wars @Akendall checked in and gave us an update on the Icelandic excavations. Turns out there are sheep and clay pipes buried in the earth. I’m excited to the see the video out of there and whatever else they managed to pull out of the ground. I’m a dork about that kind of thing. I do think we ought to start a pool here on what he’s going to find. My money’s on a sword. I don’t know why, it’s just a feeling. Come on folks, step right up and place your bets.

Maura Smale @msmale was up in Connecticut giving a presentation on a game she created called Quality Counts. Please don’t turn you game loose on Footenotes. We’re like dinner theater here: bad dinner, bad theater. That being said, she titled the post ‘Still in the Game’ and something struck me as familiar. Did you really reference late Steve Winwood?

Linda Wadas @lindawadas from over at ‘For the benefit of all sentient beings’ pointed out a couple of kinds of vetch that popped up in her yard. You can’t eat ’em but they look pretty.

And finally this week we’ve got a couple of new things from the Community Team.

Scott Voth @scottvoth – resident Wiki overlord – made a great post about integrating wikis into your blogs. This is a great resource if you’re using your blog for classroom work or online courses. I haven’t had a chance to play around with it, but I’m off to do that after we wrap up here. You can always message Scott with wiki questions, he’s here to help!

Sarah Morgano is bringing a new feature to the Commons that I’m really excited about: 5 Questions With… This week she talked to Adam Wandt @awandt about the Commons, blogs, and Twitter. Got something to say – go find her! Otherwise she’s coming to you…

and between Apple Location Services and her all around Jack Bauer-ness you can’t hide.

See you next week!

1 Comment

June 7, 2010

Late Edition 5/31 – 6/10

Otherwise known as ‘The Round Up I Wrote on Monday Morning Because I Spent All of Last Night Waiting For Godot”

It’s a long story, it’d bore you.

Let’s see, what happened this week in the blogs…

For starters there’s a new blog in town. Michael Smith @MSmith launched IT CANNOT BE TRIVIAL, which I gather is going to be an introspective project as he combs through a lifelong collection of his work. Beyond that it’s also shaping up to be the Commons’ first blog on the visual arts. There were two knock out posts this week; an eponymous post about using his work to subvert a rather stubborn Father’s particular definition of ‘Art’ and a follow-up piece about the intersection of the pencil and neutron. I can’t wait to see more and thanks for bringing this work to the Commons.

I’m tempted to use this as an opportunity to talk about my favorite state’s decision to ‘whiten’ the faces of minority children in public school mural, but I’ll exercise some restraint.

No, really, I promise.

Aaron Kendall @Akendall wins best summer prize. He’s going to be blogging (and filming!) about an archeological dig he’s involved with in Iceland for the summer. In short, having a better time than me. I don’t actually know anything about Iceland except that it covered the earth with a dark cloud of ash a couple of month ago and occasionally has government sponsored fairy exorcisms, but on some level that just makes the place better. Oh, and obligatory Bjork:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUNDkiRkrtk&feature=related[/youtube]

Michael Cripps @michaeljcripps posted an outline (and a call for help) for using blogs in an upcoming course…

Joseph Ugoretz @jugoretz I’m looking at you.

Timothy Wilson @twilson posted about Jack Miles over at Franglophone. In full disclosure I raced over there and geeked out in the comments when the post went up earlier. If you haven’t read any of Miles’ work it’s great for the summer. Heavy without being oppressive and more than relevant considering how much the word ‘God’ gets tossed around in political discourse. His literary critique of religion is also poignant without requiring any advanced knowledge of literary criticism or technique. Also – I love the French/English approach of Franglophone. I’m trying to dust off my French and the blog is a great way to dredge up all those forgotten verbs that are knocking around in the back of my head.

Wrapping up the week, Tony Picciano @Apicciano called out a David Brooks piece in the Times this week. I think I’m supposed to be unsettled by the fact that David Brooks is making doey-eyes at Obama’s education strategy. I think I might also kind of agree with David Brooks…so I’m not totally sure I’m glad I read the op-ed.

Whatever man; giant oil spills, 8 years in Afghanistan, Israeli/Palestinian/Turkish/Aid Flotilla the Middle East, Rush getting married again, that other volcano in Iceland…getting on with David Brooks for one op-ed might not be the end of the world.

Oh and bloggers, what happened to my posse? If you haven’t graded those papers by now they probably aren’t getting graded at all so get back to blogging!

See ya next week!

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