My Archives: February 2006

Friday, February 24, 2006

There's Gonna Be a Change
After four or five years of good service (who remembers?), I am leaving behind Greymatter. It's a beaut of a little program, but it's run its course. I'll miss that funky interface with the little pithy quotes. That means that Yellow Dog will now be at its natural domain:
http://www.ydog.net.
It's gonna be hard not typing that "gm" at the end.
So, folks. Adjust your dials. Fasten your seatbelts. Open a Bell's. Come to the new gig. Make your links new so that Technorati treats me right. I'm still adjusting the blogroll over there, but the place is up and running. Bring the controversy next door if you like. There is much fun to be had still.

Posted by jrice @ 06:37 PM EST [Link]

Food and Wine
I'm also reminded of the recent Food and Wine issue. In it, a short essay by Pete Wells entitled "In the Belly of the Blog" drew some wrath from food bloggers.
Wells' crime? He wrote about the tendency of some food blogs to focus on the metaphoric "cheese sandwich" (i.e. what I ate today).

Wells seemed to mean that some food blogs do different things with the medium (for that, he finds them interesting); some don't (for that, he doesn't find them interesting). And he then offered some of the interesting examples; each does something with blogging differently than the other. To make that point, there is context, and there are examples.

It seems the article - and cheese sandwich metaphor - has driven the food bloggers into a frenzy. Somehow, this distinction was read as a "declaration of war" by some food bloggers. Protests. Nasty comments. Cheese sandwich day! has been issued as a call in the hopes of uniting the masses.

The cliché of community.

Now - what would a "serious" day look like? That would be a cool response. "We're serious and we're proud!"

Posted by jrice @ 10:53 AM EST [Link]

Thursday, February 23, 2006

From the Desk of Norman Mailer: More Advertisements for Myself
This whole "Serious Bloggers" thing has got some folks online upset. Cool. But not cool that all folks focus on was one word: anonymous. That was just one point; being anonymous belongs to a larger movement of heavy-handed approaches to a new medium. I wasn't arguing against being anonymous; I was placing it within a larger context. Folks: I don't care if you're anonymous. There is a question of ethos here, but I’m not arguing for you to stop or continue or whatever.

Yet - this morning, I started to think: Ok. Let's return one more time (aw, do we have to?) to this issue of being anonymous online. Do folks approach their academic writing with the same fear of being known? The answer - based on what irks anonymous bloggers - must be "no." But why not? Subject matter? Maybe. But the key seems to be that other dreaded computers and writing term, "access."
Access, you say? Oh yes. Because academic writing is just not as accessible as blogging. Google changed the interface of interaction in ways other search engines failed. But for me to access a fellow academic's work, I must:

Pay the heavy subscription rate (for one to three journals, that may be ok. But any more than that, and we have an expensive reading habit)

Be at a school where the library subscribes

Want to go to the library if that publication doesn't archive online

Hope that my library has collected ALL the publication's archived material and not thrown a certain time period in the trash

And since there are more journals than a human can read, and we don't all write for the same area of inquiry, the odds that I know who you are and where you publish are small (unless you have made Norman Mailer status in the field and become the next Gerry Graff or John Guillory or whoever).
But if the open source advocates and rah rah creative commons folks had their way, would these anonymous folks still want to be anonymous?
"NO! We don't fear repercussions for our academic work! There is nothing for us to fear when we write about X novel, X poem, X composition moment, X…."
Really? Why not? Is it because our academic ideas are "safe" and our desire to document the untold story of Plezure is "unsafe?" Is academic writing always so safe that no one gets upset when they read recent scholarship? Tell that to James Sledd. Tell that to VV. A moment for ideological reflection, no? Academic work is supposed to be "safe?" I think I hear the ghost of Berlin about to land and say a thing or two about writing and being safe.

If I think about and try to consider working with what non-academic writers do with the medium (like change the nature of archiving, document forgotten moments, etc) is that "unsafe?" Is blogging unsafe at any speed?

Listen: I wish access was different. I don't know if it would change the anonymous fear, but I do know, that out of my published writings, the one I wish was taken seriously and which could provoke a mass audience ain't this little InsideHigherEd thing. In the last couple years, I've published a few pieces I hoped folks would get irked about, or think about, or respond to. But nada has happened. Only the online pieces get attention. I wish I could upset someone with my academic work. At best, I hear a yawn - maybe because of quality, but also likely because probably half a dozen people read that stuff.

Fear of retribution is not our problem. Access, I can't believe I am saying this, is.

Posted by jrice @ 10:22 AM EST [Link]

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

Theory and Practice

From the Lectures of the Cliché: Theory and Practice

Forgive poor transcriptions. Neighbors won't turn their radio down.

(CREAAAAAAAAAK. Door opens. In walks the good Dr.)

Class,
What are we talking about? We're talking about practice? Practice?
Compositionists fret over practice. "We must practice!" Practice?

(inaudible mumbling in class; sound of someone leaving the room, maybe more than one)

The (still) emerging field of computers and writing/writing with technology/composition and technology, however you all may scribble it into your term papers, still wonders about practice. How do you put "that idea" into practice? We no longer have lore; we have practice! Our field is becoming a series of Time/Life books: How to manuals. Hackerism. The will to practice. "In this article I will show how I practice multimodal/multiliteracy/multimulti writing in my class. . ."
The Compile search engine for composition scholarship brings up almost 10,000 hits for "practice" and less than 3,000 for "theory." Practice! Practice has won the search engine war!

(barely audible question from students)
"But Dr. Don't you tell us not to draw binaries?"

Indeed. You ask a good question. I will give you a "C." It is neither A nor F. So it, too, is not a binary.

Quintilian told us to practice the places of argument, not just know them! Jay David Bolter asks us to practice our theories, not just explicate them! Who among us really works with applied grammatology? But what are we talking about?

Student: "Uh, practice?"

Correct! In his CCCC chair address, Donald Stewart asked: "How can historical knowledge liberate composition teachers from theory and practice which are dated and ineffective?" I give you your notes. Why do you people not read your notes from this course! A history which lasts only one or two weeks, and you forget! You over there! You're not even taking notes! What the hell are you doing?

But I digress.

What were we talking about?

Posted by jrice @ 08:15 AM EST [Link]

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

Public Writing
Now I know how Michael Berube feels!

But SERIOUSLY!

A little public writing (I said a little!) goes a little way on the Web. It was interesting to see my hits triple and to get a little blogosphere action on the side, outside of the usual suspects I run with here. Some folks think I'm talking about stand-up, some don't like the word serious, some got too hung up on the context I introduced regarding being too heavy handed (being anonymous), some say, yeah, maybe, some remember their past habits as trolls and relive that experience again, some want public conversation to always be a debate (You're wrong! You're right!). No one really wanted to talk about new media (it's new cause it didn't exist before) and conventions, particularly how we are drawn to maintain conventions (or, we say, gasp! how we are interpellated!).

The disagreement is, for the most part, cool (I really don't like the debate aspect; however, regardless of which side a response takes). It's just a short piece. But you get a few folks talking that you normally wouldn't talk with, and that's not bad. Overall, public writing (outside of blog writing) is not entirely for me (because of space, form, debate responses, and language limitations), and without the invite, I wouldn't have done it. I said entirely! It was a bit enjoyable as well.

My favorite response is the one from the guy who can't help but STILL be mad that I (and someone else) told him a year ago he wasn't up to speed with current scholarship regarding his topic.

Maybe it’s as simple as meaning intended is not necessarily meaning received. My point is that we need a lot of care with humorous writing to avoid as much missing of meaning as possible. If a joke is hurtful to some people mentioned in the joke,” is it rightfully funny?

To which I say: Yes.

Posted by jrice @ 07:04 AM EST [Link]

Monday, February 20, 2006

Serious Bloggers

A few weeks ago, I was invited to do an IHE piece. So here it is:
"Serious Bloggers".

Posted by jrice @ 06:47 AM EST [Link]

Sunday, February 19, 2006

Blogshares
Even if I am dangerous, I find this weird:

Stumbled across it by accident yesterday. To whoever is trading my website on the fantasy stock exchange:

You have the wrong "its."

You have the wrong "its" twice.

Loop Di Loop is a day trader with bad breath.

What's up with this "Humanities" listing? Yo. I'm New Media.

"Recent performance"? Hey. None of your business. But thanks for the shout out.

Where's my cut, dude?

Posted by jrice @ 08:43 AM EST [Link]

Saturday, February 18, 2006

Dangerous

A reader from Salt Lake City (who did not sign her email) writes:

Dr Fabulous:
Aren't you upset that you didn't make David Horowitz's 101 Most Dangerous Professors list?

Dear Reader:
Yes. I'm really upset. I'm steaming. I kicked a can this morning!
I know VV has called Sirc "The Most Dangerous Man in Composition," but I'm pretty dangerous too! I mean, just dig these rhymes I wrote on the way to the gas station this morning:

My rhymes are fantastic
Elastic
Not spastic
They stretch around you like plastic
Arrive at your front door
Like a fruit basket

No way you want your kids in my writing course! I also wear jeans to class. And I blog!

Now, if the issue is you have to first be tenured to be dangerous, then, of course, I'm still pretty safe. But I still plead my case!
Still - just a few names I have learned are on the list:

Mark Ellis, Baylor University

Miriam Cooke, Duke University

Laurie Brand, University of Southern California

I don't know who any of these people are! How dangerous can they be! Have they wrestled a turtle with their bare hands? Have they used non-Western bathroom facilities? Have they earned the scorn of WPA-L? Have they left a comment at The Blogora? No siree.
But Dr. Fabulous, now there's a name all over the Internet. 11 million hits via dear Google. And someone thinks I'm a dentist. Man, there are few folks more dangerous than dentists. Ever see Marathon Man?

So - I suppose I still have work to do, more rhymes to write, places to go, people to see, papers to grade, beers to drink.....uh....where was I?

UPDATE:
Madlib sent me an email to remind me of some choice rhymes I penned (and he took) one weekend when we were working the boards in L.A.

I'm so dangerous that it's scary
I got more talk
Than Harry
Reasoner, you heard it here
Park your car, get out your beer
60 Minutes of me making you fear
The ultimate attack, like dirt against Blue Cheer

Man, I don't remember that.

Posted by jrice @ 10:27 AM EST [Link]

Friday, February 17, 2006

The End of Evaluations
After reading Collin's insightful critique of his university's Facebook fiasco, I have realized that we have reached the end of evaluations' efficacy.
By saying that, I mean the online variants which have materialized: Facebook comments, RateMyProfessor, etc. But also the institutional evaluations we cling to for purposes of pay raises, checks and balances, grad student performance, and so on.
Because course/instructor evaluations do nothing. They stroke our egos when they are good - "They like me, they really like me!" - and break our hearts when they are bad - "How could this person say that! I tried so hard!" They very seldom, if ever, teach us about our work, help us get better, or even recognize what teaching means and why professors assign and produce for courses what they do. Evaluations have become revenge tools for imaginary crimes: "I'll teach you for making me do homework." They become signposts of apathy: Many come back in the envelope unfilled in. They reconfirm our sense of self-esteem: Aw. This person liked the assignment where we run around and jump up and down.

When I was WPA, I saw evaluations used as pretext to fire adjuncts. In grad school, bad evaluations became a detriment for continued funding; good evaluations were slapped on to CVs and applications (sometimes like movie blurbs in a newspaper advertisement: "Best course ever!"). Never is there context. Never do we consider the abilities of students to understand the nuances of a profession they don't know anything about. Never do we think about student immaturity. Never do we think about the day to day activities, the forgotten moments of a semester, an instructor's effort and care, misunderstandings, cultural difference, and so on and so on and so on. If anything, evaluations are the moment of no-critical thinking. They are just accepted. As is. Signed, sealed, and delivered.

So listen up, universities. Give up evaluations. Let the online world continue to be stoopid. But we need to move on and realize that this is another level of pedagogy and administration that has run its course and died.

Posted by jrice @ 08:32 AM EST [Link]

Thursday, February 16, 2006

Blog Conversations
The Girl: What the hell is wrong with your blog?
Me:: What do you mean?
The Girl: It makes no sense. In fact, every day it makes less sense.
Me: I don't know what you are talking about.
The Girl: All that wacky crap you are doing. What is that supposed to be about? People are going to think you are messed up.
Me: I guess you'd rather I write about my day, how cold it gets in Detroit, my academic complaints, my anti-WPA-L stances, some co-authored review of a text on a super intense bloggers site, etc.
The Girl: Don't get testy.
Me: Blogs are fun. Blogs are enjoyable. Blogs can be Barthes' pleasure of the text. Blogs are not the new CV, as Clay implies, or at least not in a way the O'Reilly piece argues. If this is a CV, it is a digital one. It is a series of links and connections, alter-egos, explorations, thought-probes, as McLuhan might say. It is me, but not in the same way a CV represents me. It is professional and personal. It is the digital update of Barthes by Barthes. "In what he writes, there are two texts." Ah yes. Text I is the fear (oh bloggers know fear....they embrace it too much). Caught in fear, bloggers forget about Text II! "Text II is active, moved by pleasure. But as it is written, corrected, accommodated to the fiction of Style, Text I becomes active too. . ."
The Girl: Whatever. Now I'm hungry. I wish I went shopping today.
Me: The most boring blogs are the ones which shove the familiar into this daily hyperlinked space. They are as creative as the academic essays the blogs' authors write. That is why so many academic blogs are full of paranoia and short of any kind of thinking. THE FAMILIAR DOESN'T FIT! I'M SCARED. In place of new kinds of ideas, we get anxiety. The news can never understand technology because it is stuck in anxiety ("Do your kids blog or IM? Then you might want to hear how they might be in danger").
The Girl: STOP SHOUTING GEEK!
Me: We've seen this already with the essay. In the graduate seminar I teach, last week we discussed visuality and the digital (in specific and broad contexts). I introduced Barthes' "The Rhetoric of the Image" in order to explore the structured meaning (Italianicity!) and the non-structured meanings which come up in his later work. And what about Academicicity? How have we visualized it? I was reminded of how false such images can be when so much opportunity for exploration is there for us to seize. Academicicity has become as natural as the Italianicity in the image Barthes examines. And yet. . . there is no such thing as Academicicity except for the denotative and connotative meanings we apply to it. That is why we need third meanings, punctums, jouissance. We need other meanings - not as replacements, but as openings. If we are too stuck in denotation and connotation, we never understand those kinds of meanings (affective) that neither accounts for. Blogs need that too.
The Girl: I gotta go. The Daily Show is on. Bye!
Me: Hello? Hello? Hello?

Posted by jrice @ 10:08 AM EST [Link]

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Chapter Four
Brenda walked in. She slapped his face. There were carpets on the floor. The lights flickered. Her blog page was open on the computer. Brenda opened a book. She read from it. The first page said:
Chapter Four.

Posted by jrice @ 04:54 PM EST [Link]

Storytelling

Is blogging like storytelling?
Then where does this story begin?
Or: which chapter are we on right now?

Posted by jrice @ 01:10 PM EST [Link]

BitTorrent
Late to the game - but I finally discovered what the hell BitTorrent is all about. Now I can hear Howard Stern - a day or so late - but I can hear how Sirius is treating him.

Posted by jrice @ 08:27 AM EST [Link]

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Distributed Aesthetics

Distributed aesthetics, then, concerns experiences that are sensed, lived and produced in more than one place and time. This might equally be a sketch of reconsiderations of the operations of cultural memory or of phenomena such as endurance performances. But what we propose, through gathering together the disparate pieces in this fibreculture journal issue, is that techno-social networks are crucially constitutive of this distributed aesthesia. In various ways, all the texts here take up the mode through which ‘the network’ – the juncture and disjunction of here and there, you and I, social and individuated – functions as the crucial operand in dispersing and contouring perception, art practice and aesthetics.

Posted by jrice @ 01:33 PM EST [Link]

You did, dude.

Posted by jrice @ 01:03 PM EST [Link]

Who just wrote that?

Posted by jrice @ 01:02 PM EST [Link]

Getting Political
I don't like to talk politics, but it is quite ironic that the one who led the charge to war can't even shoot a quail properly on an organized "hunt."

Posted by jrice @ 12:58 PM EST [Link]

Monday, February 13, 2006

Plezure Records

At a late night party, winter 2001. P-Diddy mixes drinks. Plezure is obviously upset. Cher walks up to him.

Cher: Plezure, you sing like a girl. You need to quit this biz, honey, and get a real life. Face it. You suck.

Plezure walks away. Tears in his eyes. He tastes salt. His fists clench. "I'll show her," he thinks. "I'll show everybody!"

A sample of the track he recorded that night in his studio. It was never released, but can be found on Limewire and other P2P services.

"My Name Is Plezure" sample.

Posted by jrice @ 09:23 AM EST [Link]

Sunday, February 12, 2006

So What Did You Do in State College?