Blogs

My presentation for Saturday at the Computers and Writing Conference. It's quite a mix of personal, expressive writing pushed through the screen with a hard backing of sound. Not sure what folks will make of it, but I've been in the zone for days composing the thing.

The organic mechanic
sets his ring tone,
choosing bird chirps:
the peep in the poplar
or, sometime later,
in the inking evening,
the distant owl
yopping its wahhoo!

The organic mechanic
runs his dog
down to the trail
in the truck
and then runs
his dog
down the trail
to the forking
paths,
the bend
in the road,
the tiny squares
of the lilac
blossoms,
thin
as paper
tissues
wrinkled
and round,
hole punched
and strewn
for confetti
to celebrate
the scented hues.
Lungs sucking,
twin hearts pacing,
animating
feet pushing gravel,
pads wrapped in rubber
soul synthetic
upper and
leather
skin around
eyelets,
riveted
eyelets.
 

A screencast mashup that I will present at the CCCCs conference. For the conference, I'm going to try to a.) find a beret and black turtle neck and b.) strip out the vocal track and read the words aloud ala beat poet.

I'm a Map I'm a Green Tree from Daniel Anderson on Vimeo.

Probably not the first or last, but an insight/researchy conclusion gleaned from the PIT Journal project: knowing how to conduct peer reviews does not come naturally or easily for readers. The first few days after closing the submission process a good deal of activity has gone toward strengthening the ability to review.

A message sent to participants, handouts, and a video all speak to the conclusion that the population of PIT participants and the process of developing the submissions benefit from support for developing reviews.

One of those obvious conclusions, surely, but of note nonetheless.

Publication decisions should be based not only on the quality of a submission but also on the quality of one's participation in the community of writers.

This is on one of my son's mix CDs left in the car. I like the way the folksy fiddle flow gives way to the drum and bass and then it all flows together. The video also tells a nice story.

 When watching The Searchers the other day I noticed something odd about one of the figures in the shot. Are those plastic sunglasses? Hmmm. Must be something to say about historical representation, revisioning, intertexuality. And it does look mighty bright.

We don't begin accepting submissions for two weeks, but the Web site is up and the wind is in our sails for the People, Ideas, and Things Journal. I'll be posting in various places over the next few months about the project no doubt. For now, it's nice to know that we have reached take-off velocity.

Idea for developing a design for the journal: identify a theme from among those in the drupal open source community--criteria tagged extendable, standard, sustainable, robust, etc. Recuit two or more people to adapt the design for the journal--image, layout, etc. Post your design. Get votes and feedback. Revise. Become site theme.

Related idea: try to get groups of people involved in every element of the journal's development, bring out their skills and creativity, a renaissance mode that spreads.

Action idea: get down the philosophy. There's the gift culture. Participant status. Education. Breakdown. Education: reading, writing, composing across texts, disciplines, social networks; gift culture: bring one, read one; participant status: if you read something leave a mark, gain recognition through reading and teaching.

Arching idea: learning how to teach something is the best learning.