Poetry | Footenotes

July 16, 2012

Image courtesy of Dan Century at flickr.com

Well, what’s in the news this week? I’m going to skip the Obama/Romney shadow boxing for now because Lord knows there’s going to be plenty of that in the coming months. But come on Mittens, show us the money. I want to know what was in those tax records that made Sarah Palin a better candidate for VP. Speaking of, can you imagine if they had won? I don’t mean that in a partisan way, just as a thought experiment. Take the next two minutes to imagine it. Like, picture the Arab Spring and then we send Vice President Palin over to Egypt to make sure the Israel/Egypt treaty is going to stand. I know, right? I know.

Whew.

Actually I was just writing that to get your blood pressure up because we really do need to freak out a little (but just a little) now. You might recall several months ago that the CUNY Academic Commons and basically everyone else on the internet pitched in to stop SOPA/PIPA. For a minute there it looked like we had managed to get an out of touch congress to slow down and think about what was happening. Things were looking better as late as this month with ACTA failing to be ratified by the EU, essentially stalling international support for similar legislation. But deep in the heart of Texas, Rep Lamar Smith was busy crafting some new legislation — the Intellectual Property Attache Act or IPAA. IPAA isn’t nearly as sweeping as SOPA but it is basically a big chunk of that old bill reformatted with an emphasis on influencing foreign countries to create legislation that could help change the internet as we know it. Though SOPA failed, bills like this could achieve the same result in piecemeal if we don’t stay informed. Eyes on the road.

Meanwhile on the Commons — CUNY gets some guns!

Or rather, CUNY had some guns and used to shoot them a lot. I can’t believe College of Staten Island had a rifle club. I went to Hunter, where was my rifle club? I think we had a fencing team. Anybody over at CSI know if they still have the rifle club? Wait…do we still have the rifles? What other slightly dangerous and yet oddly compelling sports do we have around CUNY? Archery? Falconry?

Tim Wilson, long time blogger on the site, took the Commons back to its roots with some poetry this week. For those of you new to the community the Commons had a deep poetry phase especially around Poetry Month that has, sadly, been on the wane. I know Grindley has been hard at work on some other projects so that leaves you, Tim Wilson, holding down the fort. New people — write some poems! Blog them!

If you, like me, missed Pete’s Mini Zine Fest at Pete’s Candy Store then be sure to head to Brooklyn College for Brooklyn College Library’s unveiling of the Zine Collection. I love the blog and after completely missing the BC Zine crew at ZineFest earlier in the spring I can’t wait to check out the collection. Mark your calenders folks!

Till next week.

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April 14, 2011

Round-Up! 4/6- 4/13

Hello Commons!

First off – here’s a picture of ducklings:

Why?

Because Chris Stein hates ducks… Good shot with camera though.

I’m afraid that if I say anything I’ll totally jinx it, but with that risk considered and I’m going to go ahead and call us out for being a great community on the blogs this week. Not that we aren’t or haven’t been for a long time of course, but I think this was the first week in a while where I combed through all of the blogs and just seen tons of wonderful conversations happening everywhere.

It probably doesn’t hurt that it’s finally spring and we’re not smothered in grey death clouds all of the time now.

Seriously though, take a look!

For starters it’s April which means it’s Poetry Month again. For those of you who weren’t around the Commons last year we had a bunch of our resident poets step up and make some contributions. As always Carl James Grindley @Grindley is cranking out an unbelievable amount of material. Carl usually holds down the poetry fort here on the Commons all year but it’s great to have a month long marathon of work. For Poetry Month this year we have new-comer Erica Kaufman@Ericakaufman from the Graduate Center. She has two poems up so far and we’ve still have a couple of weeks to go. Also – great choice in blog theme Erica!

Maura Smale @MSmale over at The Living Laboratory blog started a conversation about possible applications for the new Openlab Project they’re working on. What I love about this post is watching potential users help drive the features in development. As you know we tend to do version updates here on the Commons quite frequently and we bundle new features with them that are largely driven my feedback from you. I can’t stress it enough, if there’s something you want to see on the Commons shoot one of the Community Facilitators an email or use the ‘feedback’ tab. We always try to make sure our development features are community driven and its great to see that at work in Openlab as well.

Speaking of development, our own Chris Stein @Cstein (aforementioned duck-photographer) had a great post up making some early predictions on what the web might look like in the future. Not only is this a good post for understanding where we are now, but it’s rich with links that I think make excellent resources for all of us on the open-source side of the internet. Amanda Licastro @Alicastro followed up with another post dealing more explicitly with changes and growth with the semantic web that’s started a conversation in the comments.

And finally, perhaps in the spirit of Poetry Month, Helldriver @helldriver went full meta. Regarding another feather in your cap – I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think of you when I saw the ad for Rush at Madison Square Garden. So…how was the show?

That said, I blew my whole concert fund for all of 2011 on three nights at Radio City to see what’s left of the Grateful Dead. First loves.

Till next week folks!

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November 9, 2010

First Week of November!

Hey remember when the Republicans took over the House and then we launched that missile that nobody could account for? Good times.

That’s how you start a week folks.

Things started off kind of tense last week when resident anthropologist Emily Channell @echannell had an internet throw down with some dude on an anthro listserv. Fortunately for us she blogged about it! I’ve been a big fan of this blog since I started and even though it doesn’t get updated every week it’s always worth the wait. Emily writes these great long posts that you can hang around at for a while and enjoy. This week’s tale of internet victory was no exception. I’m a little shocked at how careless that guy was considering all of the anthropologists and students I know tend to walk on egg shells about that kind of thing. Alright, maybe not shocked, just surprised.

ahh xkcd

Carl James Grindley is at it again. There had been a poetry hiatus with the book and all, but it looks like ‘Poems in Progress’ is back at it this month. So far November’s work is kind of breaking my heart so proceed with caution if you’re feeling tender.

Tony Picciano @apicciano spent the week at the Sloan Consortium International Conference. If the website is to be believed there were palm trees there. Apparently there were also some great presentations about online and blended learning that we’re waiting to hear some recaps of. Later in the week Tony wanted to know what everyone thinks of Obama’s re-election chances are in 2012. ‘The Obama Presidency‘ – I’m looking at you.

The Inference of Fraud took a look at A Death in the Family by James Agee. I’ll leave the book reviewing to the pros over there but if you’re looking for a work about kids haunted by things dying in ways that do not require reflection over many years let me point you to ‘The Reflecting Skin.’ Without having read the book I can’t say much about the two works together but it sounds like they might resonate. Plus I never get to plug that movie.

Noticeably absent from the blog roll this week was anything from CUNY PIE. If you were following the news feed at all this week you would have seen the chatter about some field trip to the world’s most mystical pizzeria. A pizzeria so amazing they had to hide at the very end of Brooklyn because if they built the thing even an inch further from the Atlantic ocean it would doubtlessly be swamped with so many customers that New York City itself might come to grinding halt. Or at least that’s the impression I got from seeing how excited Boone was about going.

And then silence.

Guys, you’re killing me.

Finally, fellow Community Facilitator Sarah Morgano @sarah_morgano put together a video this week talking about how to use the ‘favorite’ feature. Favorites are a great way to keep up with things happening on the Commons that you want to get back to and Sarah’s done a great job explaining them. Check it out!

Till next week!

March 12, 2010

What? No song this week?

So for last week’s round up – I had York College’s blog post about the Print is Dead MagMe video contest to start things off. Turns out that the death of print is on a lot of peoples’ minds. Tributaries went at the subject this week by looking into Craig Mod’s thoughts on the matter. There was also a great article about it over at The Millions about what we lose personally when we give up on analog books that’s worth a read if you’re a romantic.

Of course this is not a blog about books – it’s a blog about the Commons. Focus!

Earlier in the week we had a new post from Carl James Grindley’s handsome blog Poems in Progress. It’s great seeing faculty sharing work on the Commons, even if it ‘isn’t yet fit for print.’ Plus it might have inspired this post from Timothy Wilson at Le Pitre Nu. Even if it’s just a coincidence it’s nice seeing all this poetry around – it is spring after all, or kinda spring. Pseudo-spring?

Adam S. Wandt had a great post up about technology in the classroom. I’m looking forward to seeing what comments and conversations develop on that blog considering the great interest we have in technology and education here. I know the folks at The New Media Lab and the Committee on Online and Hybrid Education at Baruch College probably have some thoughts on that.

Finally, I can tell this post is meant for a selective audience but it was a nice surprise to open.

C’mon – “Inconceivable!”

Plus Wallace Shawn has a new book out…so get it while you can still buy one.

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