iMovie is a nice chunk of technology and I approve of it. I am definitely, but definitely, not cut out to be a film editor. Or director. Maybe a storyboard artist, but if so then I need to get a lot faster with my pencils.
I was pleasantly surprised by the fact that it lets me record voiceover audio, which means that all the trouble I went to in recording mpg files of me narrating was unnecessary, but hey. The MacBook Pro has quite a snazzy little mic. Had to screw around a lot with the ducking levels and am still not happy with it, but eh, it's at least coherent and you can understand it, and the pics are reasonably good-looking.
Enjoyed watching bits of the Rally For Sanity yesterday online. Christ, I can remember when 28.8 was FAST INTERNET. Did I really do online chat with graphics back in those days? It's hard to believe, but I remember having lots of conversations with a chap calling himself Methodin Madness, in a chat room consisting of a (bad) CGI beach/deck/promenade, in the persona of a white-haired black-eyed woman who went by something utterly abysmal like "Aevanis."
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Looks like it'll be the BS Tower. I've just recorded a bunch of clips of me narrating. Question: Can I extract the sound files from the .mpg and use that?
God, I wish I knew everything already. Decided agin Summerland due to having to request a huge horrible number of copyright permissions from the guy who's done the biggest investigation into the concept so far. BS Tower I can do with mostly my own pix and hope that basic fair-use will cover the rest.
God, I wish I knew everything already. Decided agin Summerland due to having to request a huge horrible number of copyright permissions from the guy who's done the biggest investigation into the concept so far. BS Tower I can do with mostly my own pix and hope that basic fair-use will cover the rest.
Saturday, October 23, 2010
tweet this
Cate and I are PARTNERS! for the looking-at-forms-of-electronic-publishing project, and we're working with Twitter. I've had a couple of twitter accounts over the past year or so, and just started up one for Jean-Paul Marat to accompany my Joseph Bazalgette twitter. I have one of my own now, though, @alientaxpayer.
Cate's idea is to use Twitter as an actual real-time interactive literary tool to create a story, or a narrative, or a conversation--not just between us two students but with as many people as we can get to join in. It's kind of the 2010 equivalent of those stories where you take the sentence the previous person wrote and write your sentence in response/continuation.
Cate's idea is to use Twitter as an actual real-time interactive literary tool to create a story, or a narrative, or a conversation--not just between us two students but with as many people as we can get to join in. It's kind of the 2010 equivalent of those stories where you take the sentence the previous person wrote and write your sentence in response/continuation.
So, videos.
I'm not one of Nature's videographers, and I'm certainly not one of Nature's narrators or on-screen talent. For the most part I think my video project is going to be pretty much entirely a slideshow, maybe with some stock footage, because I know perfectly well I won't be able to get the quality of video I'd find acceptable with my dinky little PowerShot's movie feature--and I don't have access to professional-grade cameras or someone who knows how to use them.
I think I'd like to do either something like a video version of one of my essay entries about the Earhart disappearance/Gantenbrink's door/the search for Andrew Irvine or a little mini-history-lesson on something like the Bromo-Seltzer tower (as a companion piece to the essay on the tower in November's UB Post).
I'd really like to do a tiny documentarylet on the two Pajarito Site accidents, Daghlian and Slotin, or something on the Summerland disaster...wait. Summerland might actually work, on account of I have a lot of the pictures and I know a ton about it based on my research--and I can probably find some really brief news footage of the actual conflagration. Maybe I'll be focusing on that. BS Tower is a good fall-back as I've got some of the work on it done already.
I think I'd like to do either something like a video version of one of my essay entries about the Earhart disappearance/Gantenbrink's door/the search for Andrew Irvine or a little mini-history-lesson on something like the Bromo-Seltzer tower (as a companion piece to the essay on the tower in November's UB Post).
I'd really like to do a tiny documentarylet on the two Pajarito Site accidents, Daghlian and Slotin, or something on the Summerland disaster...wait. Summerland might actually work, on account of I have a lot of the pictures and I know a ton about it based on my research--and I can probably find some really brief news footage of the actual conflagration. Maybe I'll be focusing on that. BS Tower is a good fall-back as I've got some of the work on it done already.
Monday, October 18, 2010
i was a teenage phone psychic
Actually I was a twenty-something phone psychic and it only lasted a week or so because jesus christ was that unbearably depressing. At least with the UB Post horoscopes I don't have to worry about people believing the tripe I come up with.
Oh wait. Yes I do.
A Concerned Reader wrote to me after the inaugural horoscope column to complain about my characterization of Aquarius. I had explained that, contrary to expectations, Aquarians aren't all about crystals and homeotherapy and moxibustion and indigo children and similar, and suggested that if people with this sign wanted to indulge in new-age rubbish they ought to pretend to be Pisces instead, as Pisces are supposed to be bigga-time practitioners of woo.
I'm not entirely sure which is more disturbing, a) that she apparently didn't twig that the entire goddamn column was a send-up of newspaper astrology in the first place, or b) she takes her astrological sign seriously enough to complain when she feels it is misrepresented.
It's harder than you might think to make up horoscopes. They're all basically the same: this (day, week, month) you will find yourself challenged by (some conjunction of planets, stars, etc) in your (career, love life, finances), plus (other conjunction of planets, stars, etc) will give you much-needed support in making decisions about (career, love life, finances) but you could easily be led astray by (conjunction, etc) so you should not make any important decisions while (planet) is (in location). The trouble is making them interesting.
Sigh. Oh, well. At least I have some fun articles in the next issue.
Oh wait. Yes I do.
A Concerned Reader wrote to me after the inaugural horoscope column to complain about my characterization of Aquarius. I had explained that, contrary to expectations, Aquarians aren't all about crystals and homeotherapy and moxibustion and indigo children and similar, and suggested that if people with this sign wanted to indulge in new-age rubbish they ought to pretend to be Pisces instead, as Pisces are supposed to be bigga-time practitioners of woo.
I'm not entirely sure which is more disturbing, a) that she apparently didn't twig that the entire goddamn column was a send-up of newspaper astrology in the first place, or b) she takes her astrological sign seriously enough to complain when she feels it is misrepresented.
It's harder than you might think to make up horoscopes. They're all basically the same: this (day, week, month) you will find yourself challenged by (some conjunction of planets, stars, etc) in your (career, love life, finances), plus (other conjunction of planets, stars, etc) will give you much-needed support in making decisions about (career, love life, finances) but you could easily be led astray by (conjunction, etc) so you should not make any important decisions while (planet) is (in location). The trouble is making them interesting.
Sigh. Oh, well. At least I have some fun articles in the next issue.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
So, food.
I was lucky enough to grow up in a household run by people who had spent their college years in de facto poverty: it meant that both my mother and father had a lot of experience making meals for very little money that would feed them for several days and still taste of something worth eating.
We didn't go by cookbooks, in my house, except for things like sponge pudding or particular baked goods that required exact measurements to turn out right. I learned to cook basic food without needing a recipe, and how much is enough of this herb and that herb to throw into a dish by watching my parents--and by trial and error. Living on my own, cooking is a bit more complicated than it would be for more than one person: ingredients need to be bought in the right proportion and stored until needed, whereas in a household of three or more you don't need to worry about aliquoting your veg or bread or whatever into freezer-ready bits so it won't spoil before you can use it.
I've spent some time looking at cookbooks from the Lurid Vintage era of cookery, and what strikes me most obviously about them is that almost every meat recipe contains sugar. Here's a representative but fictitious example:
Polynesian South-Of-The-Border Cheesy Meat Roast Bake
Mix one pound of ground beef with half a pound of Velveeta (if using real cheese, add half a cup of vegetable oil and three drops of yellow food coloring). Add 1 one-pound can of pineapple tidbits, drained (reserve syrup). Mix in one cup packed brown sugar, half a cup of vinegar, two cloves, one quarter teaspoon of black pepper, and one can sweetened condensed milk. Mix to emulsify.
Grease a pyrex baking dish sufficient to hold the contents and pour in your meat batter. Bake at 350 for 2 hours or until pretty much done. 10 minutes before removing from oven, pour syrup from pineapple bits over meat and replace in oven to glaze. Garnish with radish roses. Your family will love it!
It's most obvious in the dishes made from pig--almost nothing pig-related in the fifties, sixties, or seventies was included in recipes without honey, brown sugar, molasses, more honey, or fruit syrup of some description. It's an interesting sociological point when you think of what you might say today if someone offered you Ham With Nectarines or Piquant Meat Ring (containing half a pound of refined sugar).
Tonight, for example, I had ghetto caprese salad consisting of chopped cherry tomatoes and fresh mozzarella cubes with a dressing of olive oil, salt*, black pepper, and basil. Followed by a chicken breast butterflied and stuffed with tarragon and marjoram and baked with garlic and onion. Neither of these dishes contained any form of sugar other than that included naturally with the tomatoes, and surprisingly enough I did not miss it. Perhaps the era of sweetened meatloaf has passed.
We can hope.
*okay so it was pink himalayan salt but don't judge me, that shit is amazing
We didn't go by cookbooks, in my house, except for things like sponge pudding or particular baked goods that required exact measurements to turn out right. I learned to cook basic food without needing a recipe, and how much is enough of this herb and that herb to throw into a dish by watching my parents--and by trial and error. Living on my own, cooking is a bit more complicated than it would be for more than one person: ingredients need to be bought in the right proportion and stored until needed, whereas in a household of three or more you don't need to worry about aliquoting your veg or bread or whatever into freezer-ready bits so it won't spoil before you can use it.
I've spent some time looking at cookbooks from the Lurid Vintage era of cookery, and what strikes me most obviously about them is that almost every meat recipe contains sugar. Here's a representative but fictitious example:
Polynesian South-Of-The-Border Cheesy Meat Roast Bake
Mix one pound of ground beef with half a pound of Velveeta (if using real cheese, add half a cup of vegetable oil and three drops of yellow food coloring). Add 1 one-pound can of pineapple tidbits, drained (reserve syrup). Mix in one cup packed brown sugar, half a cup of vinegar, two cloves, one quarter teaspoon of black pepper, and one can sweetened condensed milk. Mix to emulsify.
Grease a pyrex baking dish sufficient to hold the contents and pour in your meat batter. Bake at 350 for 2 hours or until pretty much done. 10 minutes before removing from oven, pour syrup from pineapple bits over meat and replace in oven to glaze. Garnish with radish roses. Your family will love it!
It's most obvious in the dishes made from pig--almost nothing pig-related in the fifties, sixties, or seventies was included in recipes without honey, brown sugar, molasses, more honey, or fruit syrup of some description. It's an interesting sociological point when you think of what you might say today if someone offered you Ham With Nectarines or Piquant Meat Ring (containing half a pound of refined sugar).
Tonight, for example, I had ghetto caprese salad consisting of chopped cherry tomatoes and fresh mozzarella cubes with a dressing of olive oil, salt*, black pepper, and basil. Followed by a chicken breast butterflied and stuffed with tarragon and marjoram and baked with garlic and onion. Neither of these dishes contained any form of sugar other than that included naturally with the tomatoes, and surprisingly enough I did not miss it. Perhaps the era of sweetened meatloaf has passed.
We can hope.
*okay so it was pink himalayan salt but don't judge me, that shit is amazing
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
privilege
One thing I've learned over my years of being female, human, and existing in the world is that privilege is seldom actually recognized by the privileged.
Example: [heterosexual white middle-class person] complains about [members of group they don't belong to] being "oversensitive" or just "looking for a reason to cry sexism/racism/classism/whateverism."
Until you have been a member of the group discriminated against, you don't get to state what is and is not prejudice against that group. And I'm not even going to touch male privilege here: it's so utterly endemic and ingrained in our culture that pointing it out is like pointing out that water falls from the sky when it is raining.
You see, privilege is something you don't realize you have if you have it. Here are some rather eye-opening studies of the idea of privilege: Unpacking the Knapsack: White Privilege and Unpacking the Knapsack II: Straight Privilege. And because I know it's a lot of work to click links and read, here's some telling points from each. Can you say this and mean it?
White Privilege
I can if I wish arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time.
I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely represented.
When I am told about our national heritage or about "civilization," I am shown that people of my color made it what it is.
I can be sure that my children will be given curricular materials that testify to the existence of their race.
I do not have to educate my children to be aware of systemic racism for their own daily physical protection.
I can talk with my mouth full and not have people put this down to my color.
I can be pretty sure that if I ask to talk to the "person in charge", I will be facing a person of my race.
If my day, week or year is going badly, I need not ask of each negative episode or situation whether it had racial overtones.
I will feel welcomed and "normal" in the usual walks of public life, institutional and social.
Straight Privilege
I am not asked to think about why I am straight.
Nobody calls me straight with maliciousness.
I can be open about my sexual orientation without worrying about my job.
I can walk in public with my significant other and not have people double-take or stare.
I can choose to not think politically about my sexual orientation.
Because of my sexual orientation, I do not need to worry that people will harass me.
People don't ask why I made my choice of sexual orientation.
People don't ask why I made my choice to be public about my sexual orientation.
I do not have to fear revealing my sexual orientation to friends or family. It's assumed.
My sexual orientation was never associated with a closet.
People of my gender do not try to convince me to change my sexual orientation.
I don't have to defend my heterosexuality.
I can easily find a religious community that will not exclude me for being heterosexual.
I can be pretty sure that my roomate, hallmates and classmates will be comfortable with my sexual orientation.
If I pick up a magazine, watch TV, or play music, I can be certain my sexual orientation will be represented.
When I talk about my heterosexuality (such as in a joke or talking about my relationships), I will not be accused of pushing my sexual orientation onto others.
I do not have to fear that if my family or friends find out about my sexual orientation there will be economic, emotional, physical or psychological consequences.
I did not grow up with games that attack my sexual orientation (IE fag tag or smear the queer).
I am not accused of being abused, warped or psychologically confused because of my sexual orientation.
I can go home from most meetings, classes, and conversations without feeling excluded, fearful, attacked, isolated, outnumbered, unheard, held at a distance, stereotyped or feared because of my sexual orientation.
I am never asked to speak for everyone who is heterosexual.
If you're a member of the majority and you don't bother to think about these things, think about them to the point where you actually become aware of your privilege informing everything you do, you do not get to tell any other group of people who do not share your privilege that they are being oversensitive or just need to suck it up and get on with life.
Example: [heterosexual white middle-class person] complains about [members of group they don't belong to] being "oversensitive" or just "looking for a reason to cry sexism/racism/classism/whateverism."
Until you have been a member of the group discriminated against, you don't get to state what is and is not prejudice against that group. And I'm not even going to touch male privilege here: it's so utterly endemic and ingrained in our culture that pointing it out is like pointing out that water falls from the sky when it is raining.
You see, privilege is something you don't realize you have if you have it. Here are some rather eye-opening studies of the idea of privilege: Unpacking the Knapsack: White Privilege and Unpacking the Knapsack II: Straight Privilege. And because I know it's a lot of work to click links and read, here's some telling points from each. Can you say this and mean it?
White Privilege
I can if I wish arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time.
I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely represented.
When I am told about our national heritage or about "civilization," I am shown that people of my color made it what it is.
I can be sure that my children will be given curricular materials that testify to the existence of their race.
I do not have to educate my children to be aware of systemic racism for their own daily physical protection.
I can talk with my mouth full and not have people put this down to my color.
I can be pretty sure that if I ask to talk to the "person in charge", I will be facing a person of my race.
If my day, week or year is going badly, I need not ask of each negative episode or situation whether it had racial overtones.
I will feel welcomed and "normal" in the usual walks of public life, institutional and social.
Straight Privilege
I am not asked to think about why I am straight.
Nobody calls me straight with maliciousness.
I can be open about my sexual orientation without worrying about my job.
I can walk in public with my significant other and not have people double-take or stare.
I can choose to not think politically about my sexual orientation.
Because of my sexual orientation, I do not need to worry that people will harass me.
People don't ask why I made my choice of sexual orientation.
People don't ask why I made my choice to be public about my sexual orientation.
I do not have to fear revealing my sexual orientation to friends or family. It's assumed.
My sexual orientation was never associated with a closet.
People of my gender do not try to convince me to change my sexual orientation.
I don't have to defend my heterosexuality.
I can easily find a religious community that will not exclude me for being heterosexual.
I can be pretty sure that my roomate, hallmates and classmates will be comfortable with my sexual orientation.
If I pick up a magazine, watch TV, or play music, I can be certain my sexual orientation will be represented.
When I talk about my heterosexuality (such as in a joke or talking about my relationships), I will not be accused of pushing my sexual orientation onto others.
I do not have to fear that if my family or friends find out about my sexual orientation there will be economic, emotional, physical or psychological consequences.
I did not grow up with games that attack my sexual orientation (IE fag tag or smear the queer).
I am not accused of being abused, warped or psychologically confused because of my sexual orientation.
I can go home from most meetings, classes, and conversations without feeling excluded, fearful, attacked, isolated, outnumbered, unheard, held at a distance, stereotyped or feared because of my sexual orientation.
I am never asked to speak for everyone who is heterosexual.
If you're a member of the majority and you don't bother to think about these things, think about them to the point where you actually become aware of your privilege informing everything you do, you do not get to tell any other group of people who do not share your privilege that they are being oversensitive or just need to suck it up and get on with life.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Done it.
http://home.ubalt.edu/students/UB13J07/unfoundisland.html
I have no idea why it took me so long to realize that I needed the eventual URL in order to make links that linked to something other than my USB drive or my home computer. It's tricky. I'm sure there's a better way to do it than the one I did, which I shall detail in the rewritten paper.
I have no idea why it took me so long to realize that I needed the eventual URL in order to make links that linked to something other than my USB drive or my home computer. It's tricky. I'm sure there's a better way to do it than the one I did, which I shall detail in the rewritten paper.
Welp.
EDIT: Ok, I know what the problem is. Oy. Ignore the stuff below.
I've got all the files for the site uploaded to my H drive, but (surprise of surprises) none of it seems to work. Much of it gives me 404 errors and when you go to the actual URL for my webspace you get the directory folder I created on the H drive to insert all my files into, but you don't get any actual, y'know, FILES.
I've been fighting with this all day and I'm starting to lose stability. At least I have all the files for the site, all the links work when previewed in Firefox, and it doesn't look as awful as I feared it would. Still can't do anything at all with the bg image/image map issue, and there's no adorable little animation on the home page when you hover over any of the links, because--again--they're image maps. And you can't do image maps on a bg image, you have to do them on an inline image, and I do not feel like using Flash to get round this.
All the websites I've found that suggest they know how to get round the issues I've come up against have this adorably coy way of showing you the code: they show you the snippets of CSS, but then when you go to the live example and ask it to show you source code, they don't actually show you their style sheet. Just the HTML. Which does not help.
Looks like I'll be handing in the flash drive. It is just so infuriating not knowing where to start troubleshooting something like this.
There's a very great deal of information in the site. The home page links to 4 main categories, each of which has at least four or five individual content pages, each of which link back to the homepage AND the about AND the bio. If I could just get it running, it'd be less embarrassingly inadequate.
Also there's not a lot of graphics involved. I'm going to hope that the header/footer/link .jpgs count as graphics.
I've got all the files for the site uploaded to my H drive, but (surprise of surprises) none of it seems to work. Much of it gives me 404 errors and when you go to the actual URL for my webspace you get the directory folder I created on the H drive to insert all my files into, but you don't get any actual, y'know, FILES.
I've been fighting with this all day and I'm starting to lose stability. At least I have all the files for the site, all the links work when previewed in Firefox, and it doesn't look as awful as I feared it would. Still can't do anything at all with the bg image/image map issue, and there's no adorable little animation on the home page when you hover over any of the links, because--again--they're image maps. And you can't do image maps on a bg image, you have to do them on an inline image, and I do not feel like using Flash to get round this.
All the websites I've found that suggest they know how to get round the issues I've come up against have this adorably coy way of showing you the code: they show you the snippets of CSS, but then when you go to the live example and ask it to show you source code, they don't actually show you their style sheet. Just the HTML. Which does not help.
Looks like I'll be handing in the flash drive. It is just so infuriating not knowing where to start troubleshooting something like this.
There's a very great deal of information in the site. The home page links to 4 main categories, each of which has at least four or five individual content pages, each of which link back to the homepage AND the about AND the bio. If I could just get it running, it'd be less embarrassingly inadequate.
Also there's not a lot of graphics involved. I'm going to hope that the header/footer/link .jpgs count as graphics.
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
public service announcement
There are many little annoying grammar and spelling mistakes people on the internet make over and over again, and for the most part I can skim over them with some concentration and effort. Some of them just jump out and grab the gaze and snag it, unignorable, unmitigated, excruciating. Such as this:
a women
STOP DOING THIS.
Would you write "a men"? No. Because "men" is plural of "man." Just as "women" with an E is plural of "woman" with an A. They are in no way the same thing. They are disparate. They are not synonymous. They are discrete. Ils ne sont pas la meme chose. STOP DOING THIS.
a women
STOP DOING THIS.
Would you write "a men"? No. Because "men" is plural of "man." Just as "women" with an E is plural of "woman" with an A. They are in no way the same thing. They are disparate. They are not synonymous. They are discrete. Ils ne sont pas la meme chose. STOP DOING THIS.
Monday, October 4, 2010
of the day's positives, these
1) got drinks paid for by a charming and cocksure young lad I've spoken to before with whom I had a vivid and interesting conversation touching on, among other things, childfreedom, and was astonished that after bingoing me with "you're so smart you are totally the type of person who should breed" we got on to an honest and interesting discussion in which he did not mansplain to me excessively and did, in fact, agree that he had not thought some aspects of the issue through completely
2) at class, explained my problem with getting bg images to scale in css to both profs, and had both of them get to the point I was on Sunday where we were annoyed enough that it wasn't working to go keep looking for solutions on the internet, so now there's three of us looking for the answer instead of just me. also? this class is the definition of awesome.
3) got books signed by Mark Doty at his reading, <3 <3 <3
4) got home without incident, after Udo's little flailing I DON'T WANT TO GO INTO GEAR ON THE ENTRANCE RAMP TO 295 moment on Sunday afternoon I am paranoid that I am somehow awful enough at driving a manual transmission that I am capable of comprehensively fucking up a clutch without realizing it within three months, so it's nice to get from point A to point B without AAA. It would also be nice to have that lovely fleeting sense of NOT HAVING TO WORRY ABOUT MY CAR back, but not poppy nor mandragora nor all the soothing syrups, etc.
5) ROOF DID NOT LEAK DESPITE RAINS TODAY
6) earlier, landlord caught me on way to class and asked after roof; I said that it looked bone-fucking-dry when I stopped in before class to put on jeans and grab school bag, and he thanked me prettily again for the triple midnight trash-bag offensive, plus volunteered that he'd just put out more anti-rat without me even having to ask him nicely
On the whole, net positive.
2) at class, explained my problem with getting bg images to scale in css to both profs, and had both of them get to the point I was on Sunday where we were annoyed enough that it wasn't working to go keep looking for solutions on the internet, so now there's three of us looking for the answer instead of just me. also? this class is the definition of awesome.
3) got books signed by Mark Doty at his reading, <3 <3 <3
4) got home without incident, after Udo's little flailing I DON'T WANT TO GO INTO GEAR ON THE ENTRANCE RAMP TO 295 moment on Sunday afternoon I am paranoid that I am somehow awful enough at driving a manual transmission that I am capable of comprehensively fucking up a clutch without realizing it within three months, so it's nice to get from point A to point B without AAA. It would also be nice to have that lovely fleeting sense of NOT HAVING TO WORRY ABOUT MY CAR back, but not poppy nor mandragora nor all the soothing syrups, etc.
5) ROOF DID NOT LEAK DESPITE RAINS TODAY
6) earlier, landlord caught me on way to class and asked after roof; I said that it looked bone-fucking-dry when I stopped in before class to put on jeans and grab school bag, and he thanked me prettily again for the triple midnight trash-bag offensive, plus volunteered that he'd just put out more anti-rat without me even having to ask him nicely
On the whole, net positive.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
did you just mansplain that to me?
I'm lucky in a lot of senses in that I don't actually have to put up with tons of overt sexism on a day-to-day basis. I have to deal with EY EY EY EY EY EY BABY EY YOU IM TALKINTAYOU EY while I walk to and from work, but after years of this shit you just learn to blank it out as white noise. (I've never worked out what it is Men Who Yell actually expect me to do. Do they think that hollering EY BAYBEE is some sort of breathtakingly erotic mating call?)
I do, however, have to contend with a more insidious form of sexism all the goddamn time, and that is mansplanation. It's not "explaining while male," as piqued men tend to insist: it's explaining [to someone who probably knows a shitload more than the explainer about the subject but happens to be female]. Mansplainers like to explain things to women who know them already but just need the masculine point of view because their small hysterical brains are incapable of comprehending the situation rationally. Here's the progression:
MALE: Something's wrong with my [car, computer, phone].
FEMALE: Looks like it's [specific issue].
MALE: *totally ignores female* Something's wrong with my [car, computer, phone].
FEMALE: Why don't you check for [specific issue]?
MALE: Something's wrong with my [car, computer, phone]. I'll ask Male Colleague about it.
--time passes--
MALE: Male Colleague totally fixed my [car, computer, phone]! He figured out that it was [specific issue].
FEMALE: That's what I suggested you look at in the first place.
MALE: No, but Male Colleague said it was [specific issue]. You see, [proceeds to explain specific issue in excruciating and generally inaccurate detail].
FEMALE: ...
Doesn't matter how many degrees the woman has. She got da boobies, therefore she is incapable of coming to the same conclusions as a male, and also it's just generous of the male to explain things to her cause, you know, she just isn't going to get it on her own.
Mansplaining is a fact of life. These days I find it risible, and call mansplainers out on their bullshit, but when I was younger I totally found myself questioning and second-guessing things I damn well knew to be accurate simply because some dickweed suggested I didn't know what I was talking about.
For the men: Stop to think before you launch into full-on EXPLAINING THINGS mode. Does the person to whom you are about to explain things possibly already know these things? Could she by chance have studied the field in question? Might she not be asking for your input on this subject at this time?
For the women: As soon as a guy starts mansplaining something to you, lose interest. Check your watch, fish out your phone, talk to your neighbor, talk to the waitress. When he says some variant on "hey I'm talking to you," look at him with a sweet smile and tell him you were waiting for him to stop mansplaining, and that you will be very happy to talk to him when he's finished with that.
I do, however, have to contend with a more insidious form of sexism all the goddamn time, and that is mansplanation. It's not "explaining while male," as piqued men tend to insist: it's explaining [to someone who probably knows a shitload more than the explainer about the subject but happens to be female]. Mansplainers like to explain things to women who know them already but just need the masculine point of view because their small hysterical brains are incapable of comprehending the situation rationally. Here's the progression:
MALE: Something's wrong with my [car, computer, phone].
FEMALE: Looks like it's [specific issue].
MALE: *totally ignores female* Something's wrong with my [car, computer, phone].
FEMALE: Why don't you check for [specific issue]?
MALE: Something's wrong with my [car, computer, phone]. I'll ask Male Colleague about it.
--time passes--
MALE: Male Colleague totally fixed my [car, computer, phone]! He figured out that it was [specific issue].
FEMALE: That's what I suggested you look at in the first place.
MALE: No, but Male Colleague said it was [specific issue]. You see, [proceeds to explain specific issue in excruciating and generally inaccurate detail].
FEMALE: ...
Doesn't matter how many degrees the woman has. She got da boobies, therefore she is incapable of coming to the same conclusions as a male, and also it's just generous of the male to explain things to her cause, you know, she just isn't going to get it on her own.
Mansplaining is a fact of life. These days I find it risible, and call mansplainers out on their bullshit, but when I was younger I totally found myself questioning and second-guessing things I damn well knew to be accurate simply because some dickweed suggested I didn't know what I was talking about.
For the men: Stop to think before you launch into full-on EXPLAINING THINGS mode. Does the person to whom you are about to explain things possibly already know these things? Could she by chance have studied the field in question? Might she not be asking for your input on this subject at this time?
For the women: As soon as a guy starts mansplaining something to you, lose interest. Check your watch, fish out your phone, talk to your neighbor, talk to the waitress. When he says some variant on "hey I'm talking to you," look at him with a sweet smile and tell him you were waiting for him to stop mansplaining, and that you will be very happy to talk to him when he's finished with that.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
fighting with technology
I'm going to win. I'm going to win despite the fact that you can't float a table with text in the cells over an image map. For the most part this won't be a problem as the image maps will be limited to the main section pages and the home page, but it's dashed irritating when I'm trying to add links in a footer that happens to be part of the same background image.
So I'll be cheating. And borrowing code from a page that DOES what I want to do, so that I can make my page do that same thing. I've had to separate out the unfoundisland header and footer, and it'll probably look okay with those as individual images, but I'd really like to be able to float the bubble-chamber shot behind the text in the various story/essay/whatever pages.
I don't want to have to resort to wordpress, so I'll be stealing css from, say, this blog. I want the header to remain fixed and active as a link while the text in the middle section scrolls up past it. Then I need to work out how to make the footer also fixed while the middle section moves.
God, this is annoying being at work and away from dreamweaver. I need a USB mouse for my macbook--the one that came with my tablet all those years ago is really not sensitive enough to be satisfactory. (Maybe I can borrow a spare mouse from work.)
*twitches* *wants to be making websites, dammit*
So I'll be cheating. And borrowing code from a page that DOES what I want to do, so that I can make my page do that same thing. I've had to separate out the unfoundisland header and footer, and it'll probably look okay with those as individual images, but I'd really like to be able to float the bubble-chamber shot behind the text in the various story/essay/whatever pages.
I don't want to have to resort to wordpress, so I'll be stealing css from, say, this blog. I want the header to remain fixed and active as a link while the text in the middle section scrolls up past it. Then I need to work out how to make the footer also fixed while the middle section moves.
God, this is annoying being at work and away from dreamweaver. I need a USB mouse for my macbook--the one that came with my tablet all those years ago is really not sensitive enough to be satisfactory. (Maybe I can borrow a spare mouse from work.)
*twitches* *wants to be making websites, dammit*
Monday, September 27, 2010
It's rather frightening but exhilarating to think that I will finally be able to put my stuff up on the web without having to do it through LJ or IJ or Blogger. The issue being, of course, why would anybody visit the site in the first place: how to draw traffic to my site?
But I'm really liking the way the graphics are turning out. I'm going to be using image maps for pretty much all the pages of the site. So far it looks like this:
HOME PAGE links to:
"About," "Bio," and "Email" in the footer;
"Stories"
"Non-Euclidean Food"
"What Went Wrong"
"Essays on the state of things"
"Links"
"Stories" page links to:
HOME PAGE (header)
Individual story pages
"About," "Bio," and "Email" in the footer
Etc, etc. All of them have the contact info and the link back to the home page.
If I can manage it there's going to be tiny animation on mouseover for the individual links on the four main subpages--a tiny square graphic would fade into existence and then out again when the cursor was removed from the link.
I really hope this works.
But I'm really liking the way the graphics are turning out. I'm going to be using image maps for pretty much all the pages of the site. So far it looks like this:
HOME PAGE links to:
"About," "Bio," and "Email" in the footer;
"Stories"
"Non-Euclidean Food"
"What Went Wrong"
"Essays on the state of things"
"Links"
"Stories" page links to:
HOME PAGE (header)
Individual story pages
"About," "Bio," and "Email" in the footer
Etc, etc. All of them have the contact info and the link back to the home page.
If I can manage it there's going to be tiny animation on mouseover for the individual links on the four main subpages--a tiny square graphic would fade into existence and then out again when the cursor was removed from the link.
I really hope this works.
Friday, September 24, 2010
Worshipping a brand
Among the many traits with which I was not born is Enjoying, Understanding, and Tolerating Organized Sport. I really cannot think of a single analogous phenomenon I actually like, either. The lengths to which people will go to support their preferred sports teams boggles me, especially since individual players can move from team to team and therefore the actual makeup of any given team is not guaranteed. People seem to like [the idea of] team X rather than the specific members of team X.
Reduced to its essentials, pretty much all team sport can be defined as "a group of people, typically male, who get paid obscene amounts of money for running around after an object of no intrinsic value." Step back several centuries and instead of this definition we have "a group of males engaged in mock warfare with one another," which is a lot more entertaining. I'd so watch jousting on ESPN, or single combat with claymore, mace, or shortsword. It's the very real danger of being killed that makes these activities a) interesting and b) worth doing in the first place, unlike running around after a ball. It's perhaps worth noting that I would totally watch American football if the ball exploded on touching the ground, or if the losing team didn't get paid. That'd be a lot more fun, and I'd mind a great deal less about the utter traffic clusterfuck caused by people attending the games.
On the telly this morning I saw the apotheosis of all sports-team obsessions. Perky Anchorperson Joel D. Smith was on location at the home of a family who have apparently taken the Baltimore Ravens as their lord and savior. Not only were the rooms of their house painted lurid purple with white and black trim, their furniture was dyed to match, their curtains were made of Ravens-logo print cotton, and the remote for their massive wall-mounted Ravens-watching television had been spraypainted purple and plastered with Ravens logo stickers. It didn't end there, either. Outside the house was parked a white Hummer with purple Ravens vinyl cling decals all over the bodywork and windows. The center brake light had been hidden behind another cling decal of the Ravens logo's eyeballs, so that when the brake was pressed, these eyes lit up red. The alloy rims had also been customized with Ravens logos. It was without a doubt the second most revolting assault on the concept of taste I've ever seen (the first being the house close to my parents' home whose owners think neon orange plastic palm trees are the height of sophistication).
What astonishes me is not so much the determination and the money that had gone into ruining an otherwise acceptable house and a godawful vehicle, but the absolute and slavish devotion to [concept of team] over all else. These people had committed their lives to the worship and magnification of a logo.
We can, of course, take the lateral step of pointing out that worship of a symbol is basically what Christianity is all about, but that can of worms is for a different blog. But it got me thinking about the power of symbols to transcend the medium in which they are portrayed: it didn't matter that the purple-painted walls and logo-print curtains looked hideous, what mattered was that they referenced that holy symbol in the first place. I do not doubt that if a sports team were to have a logo depicting a naked mole-rat there would be families who insisted on plastering naked-mole-rat logos all over their house, car, kids, and dog.
Can anyone who doesn't lack the Appreciating Organized Sport gene explain to me why it's so important to tell everyone that you like [concept of] Team X? Does it confer benefits other than the pride of having spent money on making everybody know you really, really, really, really, really like the Ravens?
Reduced to its essentials, pretty much all team sport can be defined as "a group of people, typically male, who get paid obscene amounts of money for running around after an object of no intrinsic value." Step back several centuries and instead of this definition we have "a group of males engaged in mock warfare with one another," which is a lot more entertaining. I'd so watch jousting on ESPN, or single combat with claymore, mace, or shortsword. It's the very real danger of being killed that makes these activities a) interesting and b) worth doing in the first place, unlike running around after a ball. It's perhaps worth noting that I would totally watch American football if the ball exploded on touching the ground, or if the losing team didn't get paid. That'd be a lot more fun, and I'd mind a great deal less about the utter traffic clusterfuck caused by people attending the games.
On the telly this morning I saw the apotheosis of all sports-team obsessions. Perky Anchorperson Joel D. Smith was on location at the home of a family who have apparently taken the Baltimore Ravens as their lord and savior. Not only were the rooms of their house painted lurid purple with white and black trim, their furniture was dyed to match, their curtains were made of Ravens-logo print cotton, and the remote for their massive wall-mounted Ravens-watching television had been spraypainted purple and plastered with Ravens logo stickers. It didn't end there, either. Outside the house was parked a white Hummer with purple Ravens vinyl cling decals all over the bodywork and windows. The center brake light had been hidden behind another cling decal of the Ravens logo's eyeballs, so that when the brake was pressed, these eyes lit up red. The alloy rims had also been customized with Ravens logos. It was without a doubt the second most revolting assault on the concept of taste I've ever seen (the first being the house close to my parents' home whose owners think neon orange plastic palm trees are the height of sophistication).
What astonishes me is not so much the determination and the money that had gone into ruining an otherwise acceptable house and a godawful vehicle, but the absolute and slavish devotion to [concept of team] over all else. These people had committed their lives to the worship and magnification of a logo.
We can, of course, take the lateral step of pointing out that worship of a symbol is basically what Christianity is all about, but that can of worms is for a different blog. But it got me thinking about the power of symbols to transcend the medium in which they are portrayed: it didn't matter that the purple-painted walls and logo-print curtains looked hideous, what mattered was that they referenced that holy symbol in the first place. I do not doubt that if a sports team were to have a logo depicting a naked mole-rat there would be families who insisted on plastering naked-mole-rat logos all over their house, car, kids, and dog.
Can anyone who doesn't lack the Appreciating Organized Sport gene explain to me why it's so important to tell everyone that you like [concept of] Team X? Does it confer benefits other than the pride of having spent money on making everybody know you really, really, really, really, really like the Ravens?
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
It's official.
I have removed 10 mL of staples from No Longer Employed At This Institution's "filing."
Here is how a normal person attaches related documents:
1) Stack documents neatly one atop the other
2) Insert one staple at top left corner
Here is how this individual attached related documents (and "related" in this case is used loosely: some of the bits of paper I found are for an entirely different fundraising campaign):
1) Stack documents in a staggered fashion so that the one on the bottom protrudes above the top of the next page up. Points for stacking three or more documents in this fashion. Do not forget to scribble indecipherable hieratic all over each document in red pen, and then highlight random sections of your scribble.
2) Staple each layer individually down the left-hand side of the stack, as well as at the top of each individual piece of paper, so that you achieve a sort of puff-pastry cliff of paper peppered with staples.
It's like a book! A little book of crazy.
The staples I removed from these lumps of inefficiency fill a 10 mL beaker to the top.
Here is how a normal person attaches related documents:
1) Stack documents neatly one atop the other
2) Insert one staple at top left corner
Here is how this individual attached related documents (and "related" in this case is used loosely: some of the bits of paper I found are for an entirely different fundraising campaign):
1) Stack documents in a staggered fashion so that the one on the bottom protrudes above the top of the next page up. Points for stacking three or more documents in this fashion. Do not forget to scribble indecipherable hieratic all over each document in red pen, and then highlight random sections of your scribble.
2) Staple each layer individually down the left-hand side of the stack, as well as at the top of each individual piece of paper, so that you achieve a sort of puff-pastry cliff of paper peppered with staples.
It's like a book! A little book of crazy.
The staples I removed from these lumps of inefficiency fill a 10 mL beaker to the top.
Friday, September 17, 2010
Graphics and design elements
Again, I'd have to say that the graphics of the site would be very simple and almost entirely limited to the navigational links. I'd like, perhaps, to have a very very faint background image on the individual category pages (stories, essays, etc) in the same color range as the main text. Not opaque enough to distract from the links themselves, just to give it some more visual interest. And I have to admit I'd like, not require, there to be a tiny bit of animation when one mouses over a link in the individual category pages--just as simple and self-contained as the dock in OSX expanding when you mouse over a particular icon, only rather than expanding that selected area, it would fade in a background graphic and then fade it out again as soon as the mouse was moved.
If I had ImageReady I could so make a gif of this. That really takes me back, I haven't made animated icons since about 2006.
The graphic itself would be something like the bubble-chamber shot I used in my mockup. Something beautiful and not immediately representative of anything specific: people who know what it is would go "oh, that's a bubble-chamber shot" and people who didn't would go "oh, that's a cool bunch of scribbles and spiral lines." Obviously I would need to make sure that I secured the appropriate rights to use whatever image ends up being on the page, and for that reason it's unlikely to actually be the bubble-chamber shot, but I'll keep looking. I can of course create an abstracted version of the image--fanart, if you will--which would be my intellectual property to mess with as I chose.
The site I'm envisioning has very few graphics that are not text-based, which is a new direction for me. As you can see in the background of this blog I tend to go in for dense multilayered collage-type images, text and picture and layer effects all mishmashed together to provide an overall effect or experience. With Unfound Island I'd really like to let the text stand on its own. I'm rather happy with the way the mockups came out, even if I had no access to Overused Font #1 (Zapfino). Probably turned out better that I had to use High Tower Text instead of Trajan-and-Zapfino, my general go-to font pairing.
(I cannot wait for Typography.)
Also--the poem from which I snagged the blog title is worth a look in and of itself. I copypasta it here for the sake of general edification. Think of the site's subtitle as "lost in time, and lost in space."
I
But most beautiful of all is the Un-found Island:
The one that the King of Spain got from his cousin
the King of Portugal with the royal seal
And the papal edict written in Gothic Latin.
The Young Prince set sail for the fabulous kingdom,
He saw the Fortunate Isles: Iunonia, Gorgo, Hera
And the Sea of Sargasso and the Sea of Darkness
While looking for that island...but the island wasn't there.
In vain the big-bellied galleons with swollen sails,
The caravels in vain put up their rigging:
Despite the papal guarantee, the island disappeared
And Portugal and Spain are looking for her still.
II
The island exists. Appearing now and then in the distance
Between Tenerife and Palma, veiled in mystery:
"....the Un-found Island!" the wise Canarymen
from Picco high above the Teyde point it out to the foreigner.
The pirates' ancient maps make mention of her:
"How to Find It Island," "Wandering Island"--
It is the charmed island that slips through the seas;
Sometimes the navigators see her nearby...
They graze with their prows that happy shore:
Amid flowers no one has ever seen the highest palm trees sway,
The heavenly forest, thick and alive, sends forth its fragrant odors,
The cardamom tree is crying, the rubber trees are oozing...
She is noticed first by her perfume, as a courtesan is,
The Un-found Island...but, if the pilot goes toward her,
Quickly she disappears, like a mirage,
Tinting herself with blue, the colour of faraway.
--Guido Gozzano
If I had ImageReady I could so make a gif of this. That really takes me back, I haven't made animated icons since about 2006.
The graphic itself would be something like the bubble-chamber shot I used in my mockup. Something beautiful and not immediately representative of anything specific: people who know what it is would go "oh, that's a bubble-chamber shot" and people who didn't would go "oh, that's a cool bunch of scribbles and spiral lines." Obviously I would need to make sure that I secured the appropriate rights to use whatever image ends up being on the page, and for that reason it's unlikely to actually be the bubble-chamber shot, but I'll keep looking. I can of course create an abstracted version of the image--fanart, if you will--which would be my intellectual property to mess with as I chose.
The site I'm envisioning has very few graphics that are not text-based, which is a new direction for me. As you can see in the background of this blog I tend to go in for dense multilayered collage-type images, text and picture and layer effects all mishmashed together to provide an overall effect or experience. With Unfound Island I'd really like to let the text stand on its own. I'm rather happy with the way the mockups came out, even if I had no access to Overused Font #1 (Zapfino). Probably turned out better that I had to use High Tower Text instead of Trajan-and-Zapfino, my general go-to font pairing.
(I cannot wait for Typography.)
Also--the poem from which I snagged the blog title is worth a look in and of itself. I copypasta it here for the sake of general edification. Think of the site's subtitle as "lost in time, and lost in space."
I
But most beautiful of all is the Un-found Island:
The one that the King of Spain got from his cousin
the King of Portugal with the royal seal
And the papal edict written in Gothic Latin.
The Young Prince set sail for the fabulous kingdom,
He saw the Fortunate Isles: Iunonia, Gorgo, Hera
And the Sea of Sargasso and the Sea of Darkness
While looking for that island...but the island wasn't there.
In vain the big-bellied galleons with swollen sails,
The caravels in vain put up their rigging:
Despite the papal guarantee, the island disappeared
And Portugal and Spain are looking for her still.
II
The island exists. Appearing now and then in the distance
Between Tenerife and Palma, veiled in mystery:
"....the Un-found Island!" the wise Canarymen
from Picco high above the Teyde point it out to the foreigner.
The pirates' ancient maps make mention of her:
"How to Find It Island," "Wandering Island"--
It is the charmed island that slips through the seas;
Sometimes the navigators see her nearby...
They graze with their prows that happy shore:
Amid flowers no one has ever seen the highest palm trees sway,
The heavenly forest, thick and alive, sends forth its fragrant odors,
The cardamom tree is crying, the rubber trees are oozing...
She is noticed first by her perfume, as a courtesan is,
The Un-found Island...but, if the pilot goes toward her,
Quickly she disappears, like a mirage,
Tinting herself with blue, the colour of faraway.
--Guido Gozzano
Navigation
This overlaps for me with the graphics/design elements part of the page. The design of the page and the navigation thereof are, at least for what I have in mind, inescapably intertwined.
I've been messing about in Photoshop and came up with a really basic mockup of what I think I'd like the site to look like. Here's the home page: clean, really basic, and while it's not necessarily as obvious and transparent what the categories represent, here's the hovertext I'd add.
Each of those categories is a link to a separate sub-page. Here's a mockup of what you'd get to if you clicked the "Stories" link: the little tiny bubble-chamber graphic would appear under each story title if you hovered over it. I don't know if there's a way to do that without using Flash. If not, then I'd make the text viewable without Flash as opposed to giving non-Flash users the PLEASE DOWNLOAD THIS PLUGIN alt-text. (It's worth noting that I borrowed the bubble-chamber shot and would almost certainly have to create a different image of my own so as not to be infringing copyrights left right and center.)
And here is an individual story page. The text would appear in a new frame under the Unfound Island/stories header, with no outlines or background, so that the text would appear to scroll up without the background of the page moving.
Based on my really really simple understanding of HTML from several years ago, the splash page would have to be an image map or something, wouldn't it? I really need to get into Dreamweaver and see how it tells me to do things. The point is that I like navigation that is very very simple and very very clear: you would not have to name a link "This Link" because it would be named for the contents of the page you would get to if you clicked that link. No unnecessary Click Here To View, and as little animation as possible.
I've been messing about in Photoshop and came up with a really basic mockup of what I think I'd like the site to look like. Here's the home page: clean, really basic, and while it's not necessarily as obvious and transparent what the categories represent, here's the hovertext I'd add.
Each of those categories is a link to a separate sub-page. Here's a mockup of what you'd get to if you clicked the "Stories" link: the little tiny bubble-chamber graphic would appear under each story title if you hovered over it. I don't know if there's a way to do that without using Flash. If not, then I'd make the text viewable without Flash as opposed to giving non-Flash users the PLEASE DOWNLOAD THIS PLUGIN alt-text. (It's worth noting that I borrowed the bubble-chamber shot and would almost certainly have to create a different image of my own so as not to be infringing copyrights left right and center.)
And here is an individual story page. The text would appear in a new frame under the Unfound Island/stories header, with no outlines or background, so that the text would appear to scroll up without the background of the page moving.
Based on my really really simple understanding of HTML from several years ago, the splash page would have to be an image map or something, wouldn't it? I really need to get into Dreamweaver and see how it tells me to do things. The point is that I like navigation that is very very simple and very very clear: you would not have to name a link "This Link" because it would be named for the contents of the page you would get to if you clicked that link. No unnecessary Click Here To View, and as little animation as possible.
So, content.
If we want to look at this experiment from a writerly standpoint I suppose I ought to be considering how to present myself As A Writer to whoever ends up looking at the site. The problem here--and it's not limited to blogging, it's a general issue I have to deal with in real life as well as online--is that I prefer to present [interesting topic] by writing about it, rather than going "look at me write, see my writing, I put words together in sentences of such scintillating brilliance that all must applaud my genius, oh and I happen to be writing about [interesting topic]."
I draw pictures but I don't consider myself An Artist; that implies having A Vision and Conveying that vision Through My Artwork (or just Work, depending on who you're bragging to). I write articles but I don't consider myself A Writer so much as Someone who Writes About Interesting Things.
I think the way to reconcile the fact that I am in fact A Writer of some little capability with my preference to focus on the subject material and not the medium by which I present it is by compartmentalizing. Whatever site I end up creating is most likely going to include a bunch of subsites, one of them offering a selection of articles about disasters (the real motivation behind creating What Went Wrong), another presenting little fiction vignettes, another perhaps poetry, another making fun of hideous retro cookbooks, and so on. I'm not just one sort of writer: I'd feel dishonest, or disingenuous, making a site about only one little aspect of what I do with words.
Oh, and for those who're interested, "theriac" and "mithridate" are ancient compounds of various unpleasant substances thought to offer an antidote to poisonous bites. King Mithridates of Pontus (119-63 BC) is said to have been somewhat of an amateur toxicologist, experimenting on prisoners (and himself) with various poisons, until he came up with a substance he claimed to be a sovereign antidote for all sorts of venomous bites. (See A.E. Housman's Shropshire Lad for a wry take on Mithridates' experiments.) The Greeks then stole his idea and put together a gluey alexipharmic treacle called "theriac" which stayed in the pharmacopoeia until about 1884. I like the words because they're wonderful words and a delight to pronounce, and also because they're perfect examples of how the hell did we as a species survive into the twenty-first century?
I draw pictures but I don't consider myself An Artist; that implies having A Vision and Conveying that vision Through My Artwork (or just Work, depending on who you're bragging to). I write articles but I don't consider myself A Writer so much as Someone who Writes About Interesting Things.
I think the way to reconcile the fact that I am in fact A Writer of some little capability with my preference to focus on the subject material and not the medium by which I present it is by compartmentalizing. Whatever site I end up creating is most likely going to include a bunch of subsites, one of them offering a selection of articles about disasters (the real motivation behind creating What Went Wrong), another presenting little fiction vignettes, another perhaps poetry, another making fun of hideous retro cookbooks, and so on. I'm not just one sort of writer: I'd feel dishonest, or disingenuous, making a site about only one little aspect of what I do with words.
Oh, and for those who're interested, "theriac" and "mithridate" are ancient compounds of various unpleasant substances thought to offer an antidote to poisonous bites. King Mithridates of Pontus (119-63 BC) is said to have been somewhat of an amateur toxicologist, experimenting on prisoners (and himself) with various poisons, until he came up with a substance he claimed to be a sovereign antidote for all sorts of venomous bites. (See A.E. Housman's Shropshire Lad for a wry take on Mithridates' experiments.) The Greeks then stole his idea and put together a gluey alexipharmic treacle called "theriac" which stayed in the pharmacopoeia until about 1884. I like the words because they're wonderful words and a delight to pronounce, and also because they're perfect examples of how the hell did we as a species survive into the twenty-first century?
Monday, September 13, 2010
Page envy
What I really want to do with the internet is....perhaps a more legitimate version of what I already do with the internet, i.e. blither on it. But blither in a more structured and organized fashion about specific topics, with really nice graphics and simple navigation.
Over the past eight years or so I've been messing about with LiveJournal layouts. These days with the Russians in charge I use LJ less and less, but I still have a number of friends on there and check it fairly regularly. I've done some of what I consider to be my best design work for LJ backgrounds for the various journals and communities I've created over the years. What I've been working toward is basically a splash page effect, with a background image that doesn't scroll, over which text is laid with limited outlines. The idea is of words that have some connection with the image over which they float, words hanging in a void that allows them to be read but also allows them to be seen through to what lies behind them.
Almost all of my designs have interlaced text and image. I'm a fan of text that doesn't necessarily need to be read so much as observed, letters and words as visual objects rather than as encoders of specific meaning. The background of this blog includes: the ruined Union Carbide plant at Bhopal, laboratory glassware, and several of the user icons I've made over the years for my accounts at LJ.
Since I don't know anything about web design other than really really basic HTML tags (and now a couple of CSS shortcuts) I am forced to rely on a site like Blogger or Wordpress to do the hard work of constructing the actual website for me, while having to manipulate preexisting settings to get the effects I wanted in the first place. It would be nice if I could build my own site from the ground up, on my own domain--and have the convenience of plugging into Blogger's extant network of sites and people to draw traffic to my page.
An example of the kind of site I'd like to be able to create is James Lileks' lileks.com. This is the home of the original Gallery of Regrettable Food, Interior Desecrators, and Mommy Knows Worst, now all available in book form (subtext: I WANT A BOOK DEAL, INTERNET, PLEASE CAN I HAVE A BOOK DEAL), as well as the Institute of Official Cheer. What Lileks does is dig up interesting, amusing, horrific, and remarkable bits of popular culture in recent history--and present them to the modern eye with amused and gentle satire. He's the man behind the trend of Horrible Retro Food Blogging, which I've jumped on myself with the Non-Euclidean Food entries over at What Went Wrong.
His site is always changing its graphics, but its design is consistent: news and navigation on the front page and sub-navigation through links at the bottom of the individual series (back, home, forward).
What I really want, I suppose, is to make a site so fascinating with content so addictive that people will be willing to buy a book version of it.
Over the past eight years or so I've been messing about with LiveJournal layouts. These days with the Russians in charge I use LJ less and less, but I still have a number of friends on there and check it fairly regularly. I've done some of what I consider to be my best design work for LJ backgrounds for the various journals and communities I've created over the years. What I've been working toward is basically a splash page effect, with a background image that doesn't scroll, over which text is laid with limited outlines. The idea is of words that have some connection with the image over which they float, words hanging in a void that allows them to be read but also allows them to be seen through to what lies behind them.
Almost all of my designs have interlaced text and image. I'm a fan of text that doesn't necessarily need to be read so much as observed, letters and words as visual objects rather than as encoders of specific meaning. The background of this blog includes: the ruined Union Carbide plant at Bhopal, laboratory glassware, and several of the user icons I've made over the years for my accounts at LJ.
Since I don't know anything about web design other than really really basic HTML tags (and now a couple of CSS shortcuts) I am forced to rely on a site like Blogger or Wordpress to do the hard work of constructing the actual website for me, while having to manipulate preexisting settings to get the effects I wanted in the first place. It would be nice if I could build my own site from the ground up, on my own domain--and have the convenience of plugging into Blogger's extant network of sites and people to draw traffic to my page.
An example of the kind of site I'd like to be able to create is James Lileks' lileks.com. This is the home of the original Gallery of Regrettable Food, Interior Desecrators, and Mommy Knows Worst, now all available in book form (subtext: I WANT A BOOK DEAL, INTERNET, PLEASE CAN I HAVE A BOOK DEAL), as well as the Institute of Official Cheer. What Lileks does is dig up interesting, amusing, horrific, and remarkable bits of popular culture in recent history--and present them to the modern eye with amused and gentle satire. He's the man behind the trend of Horrible Retro Food Blogging, which I've jumped on myself with the Non-Euclidean Food entries over at What Went Wrong.
His site is always changing its graphics, but its design is consistent: news and navigation on the front page and sub-navigation through links at the bottom of the individual series (back, home, forward).
What I really want, I suppose, is to make a site so fascinating with content so addictive that people will be willing to buy a book version of it.
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