The nearly-completed website for Tanwir, Oberlin's student Middle Eastern studies association.
That, ladies and gents (see above) is why I haven't yet migrated; I've been working to finish up Tanwir's website. 500-ish lines of CSS, twelve template files, and 300 lines of code to extend WordPress later, it's very nearly done.
I should have the new blog up and running later today, god willing. Of course, I'll announce it to all five of my readers once I do...
That lovely website is the alpha version of the new and improved Ich Bin Ein Oberliner. I've been working on it for the last couple of days (though, frankly, I've been a looking to have a little more flexibility than what Blogspot allows for quite some time...).
I will, of course, let you know when I'm ready to make the jump so that all two of you who still follow this blog can make it with me.
I just have to get the comments working, then we're ready to go--and of course, deal with the inevitable bugs that pop up when one does these sorts of things (building a template, with some truly beautiful CSS, from scratch, and extending WordPress, with some truly hideous PHP, from staring at the WordPress Codex until your eyes glaze over).
So that should be fun.
In other news, a couple people are wondering what a Mandelbrot Set is, and the Wikipedia page is a little unhelpful. Here's this layman's take on it. The Mandelbrot Set is what helped make the Chaos Theory famous. It's a set of numbers (which aren't really the important part) that can be used to generate a fractal image (which is the important part). Fractal, meaning that the shape of the whole is the shape of its constituent parts. Here's a thought experiment: Imagine a shape. This shape is, roughly, a triangle, but each of its sides have a half-sized triangle sitting on it, and each of those triangle's sides have a half-sized triangle sitting it. Continue ad infinatum. That is a perfect fractal shape.
So when I say that the tea party is a political Mandelbrot Set of masquerade, I mean that the tea party is a masquerade, but if you zoom in you'll see that there is a masquerade inside of that, and if you zoom in you'll see that there's anonther masquerade inside of that...
It's a goofy analogy, I know, but I was feeling fanciful.
Photo by Sophie Miles.
Well, Wilder Voice has just hit the shelves. It weighs in at 112 pages, only four fewer than the last behemoth. It contains the result of two--count 'em, two--surveys of the Oberlin student body, and it has a fold-out art section.
Covered in this issue: Freewheeling Guidos, Stuxnet, shaving, postal art, the peak-oil apocalypse, the internet as the apotheosis of oral culture, death and Facebook, a father's escape from Cuba, the ethical dilemmas of non-lethal weapons, Jewish identity and Israel - Palestine at Oberlin, the OCOPE - College labor dispute (in which Wilder Voice pisses off, you know, everyone involved), the rise of the neoliberal arts college, and a healthy dose of fiction, memoir, and poetry.
Suffice it to say, thank god I'm done.
In other news, I intend to blog again. What brought me back? The strange case of Julian Assange and Wikileaks.
I have to head off to class, and there's little chance that I'll be able to do any serious blogging today. Before I take off though, I just want to revisit the discussion of the five-paragraph essay from a couple days ago. Brian (from Bubblegum Aesthetics) has some fascinating comments to throw into the mix (and I'm not just saying that because of the flattering things he says about me...):
Yes, I absolutely have noticed the tendency, and so have a lot of my friends who teach both here and at other institutions of various sizes and structures (which makes me think that standardized testing, "teaching for the test," etc., plays at least some role in the process--it seems to cut across region, school mission, and so on).
Brian also offers a way forward:
also try to craft assignments that require other kinds of structures (like blogs, multimedia projects, short and long papers that explicitly forbid central thesis/five paragraph forms), because I do think that the new modes of writing/technology that you cite are something to explore rather than worry about or avoid (my friend Jeff speaks to this with far greater knowledge and passion than I could). And I also make jokes about it in class, because I think if I can let them know that avoiding the five-paragraph model is actually a good thing--if, in other words, their anxiety comes from "how will I be graded if I don't do this?"--then (I hope) it lets them know that other kinds of writing are not only ok, but preferred.
I might chime in and point out that one of the advantages of incorporating new technologies into assignments is that it uses a form with which my generation is familiar, while at the same time forcing it into the realm of more analytic thinking. One of the great strengths of new writing technologies is their malleability; that is, it melds the immediacy and agency of oral forms of knowledge-gathering with the more iterative and non-conservative (in Walter Ong's, orality is about conserving, not creating, knowledge) attributes of writing.
Plato has Socrates saying to Phaedurs that
writing is unfortunately like painting, for the creations of the painter have the attitude of life, and yet if you ask them a question they preserve a solemn silence. And the same may be said of speeches. You would imagine that they had intelligence, but if you want to know anything and put a question to one of them, the speaker always gives one unvarying answer. And when they have been once written down they are tumbled about anywhere among those who may or may not understand them, and know not to whom they should replay, to whom not: and, if they are maltreated or abused, they have to parent to protect them; and they cannot protect or defend themselves.
Now, I think Plato's critique is mostly wrong in that texts ought to be treated as living things, but he does have a point in that writing is often less of a discussion that speaking.
It seems that the best way to ameliorate the problem that Plato sees here is not to give up on writing (as Plato was advocating), but rather to come up with a technology of writing that allows for the back and forth dialogue of speech.
In this, the sort of assignments for which Brian advocates seem to make the most sense, both because they free students from the well-meaning but often crippling stricture of the five-paragraph essay, and also because they allow for the best of both the oral and written worlds.
Zak Smith
"...Jessica at the roadside struggling prettily with a busted bicycle..." (page 39 of Gravity's Rainbow
(1) First things first. There's something off with the numbering of the "morning updates." I believe that this is correctly numbered XXXIII, and I've adjusted the others to follow suit. Here's the thing: Including this one, only 29 are tagged, which means I'm missing two. It's a puzzler. If any enterprising reader wants a free Ich Bin Ein Oberliner mug, then go through the archive and see if you can't figure out what's going on. First (correct) one wins.
The last word? Unless someone gets back to me with the correct answer and documentation on the number of "morning update" posts, then I will never ever speak of this again. How's that for a tie in!?
(2) Second things second. I didn't really want to write or deal with the controversy over the proposed Islamic cultural center in New York. I really didn't. But, like a moth to a flame, I am drawn to teh stupid.
I know that most--if not all--who regularly read this blog probably think the conservative hubbub over the "Ground Zero Mosque" is not only stupid but bigoted and crazy to boot. I feel the same way. What more is there to say?
Well, a few things, I guess. Here we go, and may I never write about this again.
(3) Ezra Klein on the evolution of the controversy:
You get a lot of these mini-manias in the 24-hour news cycle, and it's always hard to say which you should take seriously and which you should ignore. After all, if you jump on everything that cable news makes into a big deal, you've become part of the problem, because you're helping the story along. But you don't want to just dismiss everything, either. The test I try to use is this: Could I imagine a world in which this thing was happening but no one ever thought to comment on it?
Well, yes. I can't imagine that world for unemployment, or financial-regulation reform, or the Afghanistan Wikileaks. But it absolutely could've been the case that Imam Feisel Abdul Rauf decided to build an Islamic community center and no one really noticed, or cared, and maybe a few local politicians from both parties showed up to help cut the ribbon. As it happened, a few opportunists went after it, which brought it to the attention of a few sensationalistic media outlets, and then some opportunistic politicians jumped on board, and then their colleagues felt compelled to comment, and then more legitimate media outlets had something to cover, and on and on. The story is a story because of the incentives of the people making it a story, not because there's something about an Islamic community center a few blocks from Ground Zero that just screams out for national attention.
(4) It's fair to say that few of the actors involved in this mess have any self-awareness at all. Glenn Beck never did, and that's no surprise; the media often doesn't, which somehow still surprises me; and the Democrats can't seem to understand why no one takes them seriously when they go around to the base and claim to have anything resembling a back bone.
Klein is close to something, but a little too dismissive. He's correct, of course, that:
You get a lot of these mini-manias in the 24-hour news cycle, and it's always hard to say which you should take seriously and which you should ignore. After all, if you jump on everything that cable news makes into a big deal, you've become part of the problem, because you're helping the story along. But you don't want to just dismiss everything, either.
But his test isn't doesn't catch 'em all. There's something about this story and the way in which it arrived that's important. It's important, not only because it encapsulates what's wrong with both parties (one's crazy, and one's spineless), but also because it's emblematic of an ailing media (and I don't just mean that it's susceptible to right-wing pollutants).
Consider the headline in today's Minneapolis Star Tribune:
POLITICS OF THE MOSQUE DEBATE
First, while it is a debate over a "mosque," it really should be a debate over a community center that includes prayer space. But I guess that really isn't the point now is it.
The truth is that the "politics" of this debate are shaped by the media coverage of this debate, which seems to be lost (or at least only tacitly recognized) by the media actors involved. One of the upshots of the entwining of commentary and journalism is that you end up with journalism that can masquerade as commentary and commentary that can masquerade as journalism.
That, all too often, is happening here. And of course, Fox News practically invented the modern incarnation of this effect, but that normative wolf in positive clothing is not limited to Fox. When Newt Gingrich says that we wouldn't allow the Nazis to have signs in front of the Holocaust museum, and the "journalist" merely nods and asks some Democrat to respond, that journalist is (1) creating false equivalence and (2) ignoring the facts--Nazis are perfectly within their rights to have signs in front of the Holocaust museum.
By acting as though this is just another two-sided debate--like always--the media is endorsing the idea that both sides have equal standing. But they don't, and the media shouldn't act like they do. After all, it's not the "Ground Zero Mosque," despite what it has been dubbed; you can't see Ground Zero from the damn community center. The hubbub over the "radical" imam is ginned up; President Bush and he worked together. I could go on.
And so, with the media's blessing, the story floats along in this strange context-less bubble, and instead of popping the damn thing, they report on it, and it grows ever-larger and swallows up ever-more of the already small space American's have that isn't devoted to watching people lose weight and sing shitty pop songs.
I'm reminded of what Roger Hodge wrote in Harper's:
The disease manifested itself almost everywhere at once, but the superficial effects were most spectacular in our national mirror: the Media, which absorbed and digested the once proud opposition of the Press and made of it a mere legitimizer of horrors. The self-refuting absurdity of the Bush presidency, with its pretensions to manufacture an imperial reality, parallels the rise of the aggressively oxymoronic genre of “Reality Television,” with all its unintentional ironies. Among so-called news programming, Fox’s “Fair and Balanced: We Report, You Decide” is of a piece with Anderson Cooper’s “Keeping Them Honest” and, to give an extreme and perhaps gratuitous example, CBS Evening News with Katie Couric. More perniciously, the self-importance with which the quality newspapers fawned on George W. Bush and his retainers in the decisive years after September 11, 2001, particularly in the months leading up to the invasion of Iraq, bears comparison with the bitter satires of G. K. Chesterton and Evelyn Waugh.
The disorder from which we suffer—known among its close observers as Self-Satirizing Syndrome, or SSS—is a cruel one. Not only have we been made to witness the betrayal of almost every promise made by our Founding Fathers, and seen their direst prophesies confirmed, we must also suffer the indignity of seeing our constitutional ideal turned into a shabby mockery of itself. Somehow, by a trick of dialectical cunning, the United States of America has vaulted over the tragic phase of history in favor of a relentless pursuit of historical farce.
It's endlessly fascinating--though perhaps not all that surprising--that The Daily Show's takedown of both the controversy itself and the media's reaction to it remains one of the best I've seen.
Fascinating because The Daily Show is in a sense utterly ajournalistic and yet on occasion it gets at the truth--an ever more elusive specter in these times--better than journalists. Not surprising because what the media lacks, self-awareness, The Daily Show has in spades--albeit in the form of a healthy dose of ironic distance.
I'll let Hodge play me out:
The medicinal literature I have in mind is not fiction, though fiction can serve in this role as well, but the literature of fact, a variety of narrative journalism (of a provenance far too ancient to be called “new”) that has long sought to place a strong bulwark of wit between the reader and history’s perpetual invitation to despair. Today that protective coating has become a medical necessity. In times such as these, healthy citizenship requires the insertion of a human proxy into the stream of historical happenstance. What we need is an experimental subject, an “I” sufficiently armed with narrative powers both literary and historical, gifts of irony and indirection, and the soothing balms of description and implication, to go forth and find stories that might counteract the unhappy effects of our disorder. What distinguishes such dispatches is what might be called the radical first person: the individual consciousness of the writer becomes paramount. The reader is thereby privy to the writer’s experience and receives direct confirmation of its truth value. What results is not mere consumable opinion, the mystical commodity of mediated capitalism, but the raw material of a considered judgment, whether aesthetic, political, or ethical. In that judgment lies the cure for our affliction.
You may remember the first big sell out, when Oberliner had Google Ads. Of course, that didn't end up being nearly as lucrative as I had hoped. Then there was my foray into professional blogging over at Oberlin Blogs, in which I may have gone pro but kept it real (expect a new post later today, by the way).
But now, I've discovered another way to sell my integrity for negligible amounts of money: Amazon Associates.
Basically, whenever I review a book, I can put a link to its Amazon page. If you click on the link and buy it, then I get a bit of money. Sweet!
This is Ich Bin Ein Oberliner, trading in hard-earned integrity for unearned money.
You may have noticed a few changes in the layout around here. I'm futzing with the CSS code. If something doesn't work, just let me know.
It seems to me that 'Father's Day' should really be 'Father's Day,' but on this holiest of days, who am I to nitpick? At any rate, my dad's persistent and prolific blogging has gotten me thinking that I should probably restart blogging.
In the meantime, here's a charming Father's(s') Day story from Geoffrey Pullum over at Language Log:
"I don't really believe anything any more," said my dad, reflecting on the increasing skepticism to which his old age was leading him.
"Hold on, dad," I said, "you can't be right there."
"If you think your claim is true — and I assume you must, if you were sincere in stating it — then it's definitely false, because you do have at least one belief: the belief that you have no beliefs. A false belief, as it turns out, but a belief nonetheless."
"Oh," said my dad, looking at me thoughtfully, ruminating perhaps on how odd it is that a skeptical thought can feel perfectly plausible despite being so readily refutable.
Or alternatively (though I hope not — it's Father's Day) he may have been ruminating on the fact that there really is a down side to having a son who's a theoretical linguist married to an analytic philosopher.
Have a good Father's Day, dad. And keep believing.
The advent of powerful programs like Excel lets me do things like make this utterly unnecessary graph. Hope you enjoy it. If I've learned anything from it, it's Don't stop posting. Ever. Even for a couple of weeks, because you will lose visitors.
In other news, I'd like to announce a few changes to the blog roll. I'm adding a blog written by my father (congrats on entering the liberal blogosphere, dad!). It's called How Are We Doing Today. The subtitle: "Musings of an unabashed liberal about how the current administration of the US government is performing."
Go, read. And comment, he really wants you to comment. Dad, one blogger to another: readers rarely comment. Don't let it get you down; they're reading. I think there's some kind of tipping point your readership has to reach before they're willing to comment. Someone should do a study, but my guess is the upper hundreds per day results in comments.
I'm also re-adding my brother's blog, Pronto Pup now that he's posting again, and I'm reflecting the change in my sister-in-law's blog, as it is now called Word Savvy not The Savvy Mom.
Well, it seems that Marc, whom you all know from his excellent column, "An Episodic Life," has gotten some buzz. Kieron Gillen, the writer of PHONOGRAM, linked to Marc's review from twitter and his blog:
Other news? This is a particularly good article on The Singles Club generally, and well worth reading.
Y'all stick with Oberliner, cuz it's goin' places.
I'm back--I hope. If you're wondering why posting's been spotty (well, nonexistent) these last few days, look no further than these two delightful projects:
If you're wondering why posting has been light these last few days, then you're one of the elite few who reads Oberliner on a regular basis. Congratulations!
The reason for the lack of posting is that I've been doing some home improvement (as evidenced by the new bookshelves last post). Today, I went to home depot, got some 2x4's, and made the beautiful bed stand you see above. I'm going to "finish" the part that faces out, but not tonight, because I'm exhausted and have work to do. (to "finish" it, I'm just sanding it down a bit and rubbing some olive oil into it.)
Posting to resume tomorrow.
Yes, posting was light, but I had many, many classes and far too much work.
Let me make it up to you: here's a kick-ass early music ensemble. They're called "Harmonious Blacksmith" (which is, I think, a Handel reference). They are quite good (and one or more of them may or may not be an Obie), and their shtick seems to involve lots of improv, which isn't a bad thing, necessarily. I'm guessing they're better life, which is saying something because they sound fantastic on CD.
Go, listen (that feels weird).
And it turns out that Wednesday, October 26, 2009 is not a real date. Why? Because as a commenter pointed out, it's Wednesday, October 28.
Did you know that I'm a copy editor?
Because I'm a narcissist and quite curious, I've been keeping track of how many unique visits I get on a day-to-day basis. The above is a graph of visits over the last couple of years. And I can only conclude that You like me! You really like me!, or, at least, you like me when I post.
You guys are also quite special. When I add the most recent 30-day average (15) to the eight people who RSS on Google Reader, that leaves a grand total of 23 readers a day.
Like I said, you 23 are quite special. If I could figure out how to monetize this shit, I'd be making, well, very little money.
I Love xkcd from NoamR on Vimeo.
I just wanted to draw your attention to a couple of things. First of all, as you may have noticed, my friend Marc will now have a recurring (weekly? bi-weekly? in the other sense of bi-weekly? monthly? Warren Ellis-monthly?) column here at Ich Bin Ein Oberliner. It's called "An Episodic Life," and it's about, well all art episodic. The first post is here.
Granted, Marc isn't an Oberliner in the sense that he went to Oberlin. But, were it not for the fact that Oberlin is in a cornfield, he probably would have fit right in here.
I've known Marc since middle school, and I've admired his writing since high school. He knows more about comics and tv than anyone else I know, and I have no doubt that you guys will enjoy reading his stuff.
So, yay!
Secondly, I have a new post up at the blog for which Oberlin pays me to write (Oberlin Blogs). Read at your own risk.
After months and months of waiting, I'm proud to announce the beta launch of the Wilder Voice
website. Yay! Considering that I've been working with my high school knowledge of html and a crash course in css, I'm just impressed I was able to make a website at all.So, the website isn't done done yet, but most of it is there. What's more, it's actually hosted by Oberlin now.
I'm hoping that all of you will check it out and tell me what you think. If it looks strange, then let me know what browser (i.e. Internet Explorer) and operating system (i.e. Windows Vista) you're using. A couple of notes: (1) issues 5 and 4 aren't up yet, but they will be soon; (2) Internet Explorer blows, so, for the love of god, download Firefox and use that; (3) I only have primary fonts up right now, but I'll load up secondary fonts soon, so, if you don't have, say, Optima, the site's gonna look pretty funky.
Anyway, I hope you all like it.
As the above poster suggests, there's a staged reading of a play I wrote, called Noah's Flood tonight at seven in Warner studio 2. Enrico Nassi is directing a stellar cast, and, from the rehearsals I've sat in on, it's looking pretty amazing.
More big news: I'm proud to announce a reoccurring column here on Oberliner, which will begin--hopefully--tomorrow. On all things episodic, by one of my favorite writers and best friends, I'm quite excited for this column, and you should be too.
Did I set the bar high, Marc? Sorry.
Well, these last couple of weeks have been marginally hellish. I'm heading up Montreal in a couple hours, and, so, soon my life will be much, much simpler.
For those of you who don't know, I'll be playing in The International Recorder Competition in Montreal. This is the semi-final and (with luck) the final round.
Of course, I probably won't be doing much posting while I'm up there, as I'll be busy hyperventilating before I perform and bomb horribly on the compulsory piece over which I've killed myself for the last month or so.
Anyway, I'm on hiatus... for now. I'll be back Sunday, and posting will resume in earnest.
