A book that is an app

There is a new app that is both a digital copy of Stephen Elliott's book "The Adderall Diaries" and also a digital community and other expanded features. I see this as a direction that could be highly appealing to adders. Buy a book that comes with a book club. Thoughts? I will not say more because there is a much better crafted article about it in the NYT today.

Place & space

I was just looking up an address on my iPhone, and glancing at the Google map, and I suddenly wondered: are digital humans in fact more geographically inclined or savvy than any humans before? I know we talk about computers keeping people from connecting with woods and so on, but by the way that digital humans can read maps so quickly, are we in a funny way more than ever tuned into actual, physical space? What does it mean that we can map space so (seemingly) effortlessly? Does the ability to navigate a Google map mean that we know the space that our bodies then move through? These are roughly hewn questions; help me out with this.

Down

I think yesterday's conversation went really well, and I would like to extend it here, if I may. (Because I haven't been repeatedly encouraged to post here, or anything.)

I've been thinking a lot about the difference between the internet and physical places. One of the themes which has arisen frequently in class lately is the very basic idea that physical places have maps. This is interesting, I think, when applied to the internet, because, while the internet is a series of pages, or rooms-- while the locations are divided into (usually) reasonable portions, as in Borges' library-- it is impossible to map a two-dimensional representation of those rooms-- at least, not without some spectacular innovation. And this is because there is no down. There is absolutely no orientation. Actually, I'm about to contradict myself. There is orientation. It just isn't up or down. Maybe I should think larger. Maybe the internet is less like the surface of the earth, something that can be mapped two-dimensionally, and more like outer space.

Because the closest things we have to orientation on the internet are these, what shall we call them, these points of convergence-- there is a better word for this, I know it-- where a lot of trails on the internet will lead. Wikipedia, for instance, is a cluster of articles, all of which are closely interlinked, and if you Google search any given term the Wikipedia article for said term will be sure to top the list because so many people link to Wikipedia every day. It's common practice in the blogosphere, when referring to something of which people may or may not be aware, to link to the Wikipedia article, so they can explore the topic at their leisure along with any adjacent and relevant topics which they made find interesting. So Wikipedia is an enormous-- I want to use the word fulcrum, but that isn't it-- point of convergence, as is Facebook. Most major sites would act as points of convergence, and this is the closest thing we have to orientation, because these points of convergence exert a sort of gravitational pull-- the larger a site is the more likely one is to link to it or to utilize it as a reference. So the closest thing I have to a map of the internet in my head is this enormous sphere, because I have to make it some sort of limited shape and I like spheres, with thousands of different, hair-thin, almost imperceptible links stretching from one place to another and converging in densely-packed planetlike structures. What I'm doing with this in my head, and this is entirely arbitrary-- I'm making the links silver on a black background, and as I've said they're hair thin, so you can't see them unless they intersect rather a lot. And because a point of intersection has to be fairly densely packed to be seen, the information-masses are scattered across the blackness, like stars. And as links are constantly made, shifted, and broken, the map changes and grows.

This is fanciful on my part, but probably the most realistic thing one could devise which would act as a map to the internet would be something like Google or Bing-- sites which orient you by helping you find areas with the greatest gravitational pull. I am trying desperately not to compare Google to the North Star because at some point this will just become ridiculous. I'm going to end this here.

The Obstructionist

After reading Barry Lopez's "The Mappist," I began to think about my own habits in comparison to Corlis Benefideo's "comprehensive" but not "quick" enough way of operating. The story filled me up with all of these arguments and counter-arguments about technology and the fastest, most convenient way to do things versus the most personal, detailed way. Ever since I received the iPad, I've found myself more and more confused about what the "right" or most efficient way of doing things really is. I've often found myself wondering, "How much is this piece of technology really helping me? Sure, it consolidates my books and notebooks. I don't have to carry as many things around. I use less paper, but is it really making my life easier?"

I know that the iPad and other devices like it (eReader, netbooks, etc.) are supposed to be advancements in technology, designed to make people's lives easier, bit in a lot of ways, my life has become more challenging because I'm trying so hard to incorporate this piece of technology into my routine. I've found that in doing so, I've had to rework and/or delete many of the habits that help me function on a day to day basis. For example, I can no longer doodle when I take notes if I want to do it on the iPad. I've scoured the app store looking for something that will simulate a blank notebook which I could easily type notes and doodle on, but I've found nothing. The apps that I have found for just doodling (I've tried out 3 different ones) are really more like the "Paint" program on a computer than drawing on paper. As much as I've practiced, I still find it incredibly difficult to draw or even to write legibly on the iPad (or with the "Paint" program). I spent the entire hour of last class trying to sketch a really simple doodle of our classroom, something that would have taken maybe 5 minutes with pen and paper, and by the end of class, I still hadn't figured out how to make the tables proportionate to each other. For the first few weeks of school, I took notes in all of my classes with the iPad "Chapters" app, which allows for typing in a variety of fonts but not doodling. Around maybe week three, a sketchbook somehow snuck into my bookbag, and my inner doodler had this kind of vicious awakening where I didn't take notes at all for about two days and instead I just doodled throughout all of my classes. At this point, I'm trying to strike a balance to appease my inner doodler and to make use of the iPad. In classes where the teachers draw a lot of charts, I write my notes by hand because it's really difficult to draw a chart on the iPad without having to import it from one program to another. In classes where the teacher talks really fast, I use the iPad because it's faster for me to type than to write.

In a lot of ways, I sympathize with Corlis Benefideo, especially when he is labelled "an obstructionist," because I feel like in a lot of ways I am my own obstructionist; the habits that are ingrained into me get in the way of my ability to surrender to this faster, more convenient way of doing things.

I am an avid list-maker. I got the "Easy Task" app, which allowed me to put all of my homework assignments, chores, and whatever else I felt the need to put in a to-do list into one space. It even allows me to rank the importance of each task on a scale of 1-5. For some reason, however, I have taken to writing to-do lists on my dresser in Sharpie, as well as programming them into the "Easy Task" app. There is something immensely satisfying for me about crossing items off a tangible to-do list that the "Easy Task" app just can't capture. Also, with all of these tasks written on a rather large piece of furniture in my room, anytime I'm in my room, I am accosted by this brightly colored list of things that I should be doing. The closest that the "Easy Task" app gets to grabbing my attention is a little red number that sometimes shows up to indicate the number of tasks that are due that day or that are overdue. As much as I've tried to train myself to perpetually monitor this app, some part of me apparently wants to be oblivious to what I am supposed to be doing because I haven't yet been able to get in the habit. Surprisingly enough, I don't carry my dresser around with me all day, and I do carry my iPad with me; so, the iPad is where all of these tasks are first recorded. I do find it convenient that I can just pull out my lightweight all-in-one to-do list/calendar/notebook/Internet source whenever I need to.

That being said, I get this terrifying crippled feeling whenever I'm in a place that doesn't have Wi-fi, and I feel an overwhelming need to check my email or look up facts about Pope Joan or Iceland or something. I swear, I think of more things that I need to do involving the Internet when I don't have access to it than I ever think of when I have no problem connecting. I'm probably not the only one who gets this sense of panic when the Internet is unavailable. I think that my generation, as a whole, is used to instant gratification, and when we don't get what we want as rapidly as we're used to, it's hard to handle.

Anyway, something else that struck me when I was reading this story was the amount of personal detail that went into Corlis's maps. He drew them meticulously by hand, with more intricate detail than any map of which I'm aware, and yet he lost his job as a cartographer for the government because he did not work quickly enough to appear bureaucratically valuable. Mr. Trevino was taken aback by the personal detail and "the soul" in Mr. Benefideo's work because he felt that it was so rare, a kind of lost art. I found this comparable to something that happened to me a few weeks ago. Facebook notified me that one of my friends (not a particularly close friend, just someone I'd had a few classes with) was having a birthday. I went to his Facebook wall to wish him a happy 20th but decided against it when I saw that his wall was already strewn with happy birthdays from his other 100 Facebook friends. Because this was during my doodling rampage, I decided to hand-make him a birthday card. I gave the card to him the next day in class, and he seemed confused but pleasantly surprised. At the end of class the thanked me for the card, saying that he really appreciated the personal touch, that none of his other friends had gotten or made him anything for his birthday, and that the card made his day because of that. I probably spent about 10 minutes making this card, which is maybe 9 1/2 minutes longer than I would have spent typing "Happy Birthday" in a Facebook post, but I think that the extra 9 1/2 minutes were worth it. The personal touch with birthday cards has been dying out for awhile, though, not just with Facebook posts but with the generic Hallmark happy birthdays before that. However, if all of the birthday boy's friends had taken the time to hand-make him birthday cards, my crappy card would not have been very special or meaningful. I really don't know what I would do if I got as many hand-made birthday cards every year on my birthday as I do wall posts... Wallpaper my kitchen with them? Save them forever in a shoebox in my closet? I don't know.

I also thought it was really interesting how much work Corlis put into studying the places before he actually created the maps. To other cartographers, it may have seemed like a lot of unnecessary work, but to Corlis the process was completely essential to the creation of his project, his vision. I identified because I go through similar processes before I write any big assignments. If I'm writing from a text, I always print the text and write all over it until all of my ideas are on the paper with the text (unless it's a book, then, if I own the book, I write in it, if not, I use a separate notebook or write lightly in pencil). Next, I write a very skeletal outline of what I want to say. After I've rewritten the outline several times with enough details added in, I start writing my paper, either by hand or on my typewriter. This forces me to re-type my work and thus re-read it, hopefully catching any errors and working out any clarity issues. That being said, it takes me a very long time to write things. It's probably not the most efficient way to do things, but for me, the process helps me to work through all of my ideas, to organize my thoughts, and to go through a series of revisions before I ever begin writing. In order to write this blog, I kind of condensed this process, but I can already tell that this blog isn't going to be as organized or concise as I would like it to be. It's already sort of stream-of-consciousness in some places...

I particularly liked the conclusion of the story because I felt like Corlis was talking directly to me when he was saying, "You represent a questing but lost generation of people... But the real question, now, is what will you do? ...don't make the mistake of thinking you, or I or anyone, knows how the world is meant to work. The world is a miracle, unfolding in this pitch dark." Really, it was this giant "aha!" moment for me where it felt like Lopez just reached out to me and said, "Holly, chill out. You're not doing anything wrong by using your iPad and pen and paper. There is no 'right' way to do things; do whatever feels most right to you." For some reason I've been really stressed out by trying to use the iPad whilst staying true to my own habits, as idiosyncratic as they may be. This story has reminded me that the iPad is really just an experiment. No one knows how the world is meant to work, and therefore, no one knows how we are meant to work in the world. I can decide whether using the iPad is right for me, but I can also choose to use a notebook, a computer, a typewriter, a planner, or yes, Robert, even a stone tablet, if something else works better for me.

(As an end note, I am typing this on my laptop [shame on me, I know] because when I try to type it on my iPad, the New Post screen will open, but it won't let me type anywhere other than the title box. It lets me highlight the page, and then it freezes. I don't know why I am having this problem, and Google doesn't seem to know, either, so for now, posting on my laptop is what's working for me.)

Final Presentations

This week, you are to choose one of the following titles. You will be responsible for reading this book and presenting a review to the class (perhaps utilizing an iPad app) at the end of this semester. Specifically, you should discuss how the book relates to our class discussions so far, and what the book offers us in terms of questions or problems that we might follow up on, next semester.

To 'claim' a book, leave a comment below this post with your choice.

Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide, Henry Jenkins

The Dumbest Generation, Mark Bauerlein

Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology, Neil Postman

The Culture of Narcissism, Christopher Lasch

The Shallows, Nicholas Carr

The Book is Dead (Long Live the Book), Sherman Young

From Gutenberg to Google: Electronic Representations of Literary Texts, Peter L. Shillingsburg

Writing Space: Computers, Hypertext, and the Remediation of Print, Jay David Bolter

Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace, Janet Murray

The Economics of Attention: Style and Substance in the Age of Information, Richard Lanham

Electronic Literature: New Horizons for the Literary, N. Katherine Hayles

Hamlet's Blackberry: Hamlet's BlackBerry: A Practical Philosophy for Building a Good Life in the Digital Age, William Powers

The Late Age of Print: Everyday Book Culture from Consumerism to Control, Ted Striphas

Program or be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age, Douglas Rushkoff

BBB #2)

Sorry, I guess the test got a little bit messed up... but heres the link:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/aug/04/barnes-and-noble-for-sale

Books, Banks, Buyers

Barnes and Noble bookstore chain put up for sale

Sad tale for US giant, which owns 720 high-street shops in all 50 American states but saw profits slump

• Andrew Clark in New York
• The Guardian, Wednesday 4 August 2010
• larger | smaller

America's largest chain of high-street bookshops, Barnes & Noble, last night put itself up for sale in the latest sign of distress in the literary retailing world which has already seen the demise of the Borders book chain in Britain.

B&N, which owns 720 high-street shops in all 50 American states, announced it was calling in the investment bank Lazard to advise on strategic alternatives including "a possible sale of the company" after a 45% slump in share price in the last year.

In common with other booksellers, B&N has struggled with changes in customers' habits. Readers are buying more books online, while digital readers such as Amazon's Kindle are rapidly becoming popular alternatives to traditional books.

Although B&N has digital and internet offerings including an electronic reading device called the Nook, three-quarters of its turnover still comes from bricks-and-mortar stores which suffered a 4.8% decline in like-for-like sales to $4.3bn in the year to May.

"A review of strategic alternatives is the appropriate next step to take full advantage of our compelling digital opportunities and to create value for shareholders, customers and employees," said B&N.

The chain's founder Leonard Riggio, who started the business with a bookstore in New York's Greenwich Village in 1965, immediately declared that he was a possible buyer, sending Barnes & Noble's share price up by 25% in unofficial after-hours trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

Riggio is B&N's biggest investor with a stake of almost 25%. But Riggio has come under criticism from an activist investor, billionaire Ron Burkle, over a deal in which he sold his family's chain of college bookstores last year to B&N for $514m – a price that Burkle claimed was excessive.

The rise of the online bookstore Amazon has caused trouble for high-street retailers for years and the recent economic slump has made matters worse. In Britain, the 45-strong Borders chain went bust late last year. The US version of Borders came close to bankruptcy but survived after a debt refinancing.James McQuivey, an analyst at research firm Forrester, said taking B&N private may allow Riggio, or another buyer, to make tough decisions outside the gaze of public markets.

"They might feel they want to buy the company back now and take it public later and reap the windfall," he said. "But there aren't a lot of investors who will be that certain about the probable outcome of that bet."

• guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2010

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/aug/04/barnes-and-noble-for-sale

Scribin' it up. 10/6/10

notes for ipad class: 10/6/10

Schaberg: we need to discover the path our course is taking, the goal we want to arrive at in the next few weeks

Schwartz: in last few weeks, we'll submit paper syllabus for next semester

Schaberg: let's hear from each of us, where would we like to go? what have we learned or want to learn?

Schwartz: utilize blog--very empty. formulate idea of what we're talking about.

schaberg: aphoristically! Each experience is different, expand on yours.

Rolando: wtf is up withevernote?

Bell: Mccay is using class login to post stuff, not her personal one.

Mccay: OHH SHIT. I'll get on that. How do I do it?

Schaberg, bell: ever note world. log out then log back in again.

Schwartz: satellite thing. I'll show you later.

Bell: Utilize blog, so much potential, we have limited class time, so use that space and don't let it go to waste. Ex: Borges.

Holly: I was confused, posted about it... maybe I was wrong, cause no one else did it.

Bell: wahhhh. nope, use it. not even as an assignment, but as a space to talk about it. Have no fear! use it! don't wait or hesitate.

Bell: Well what'd you think of the story?

Holly: was it a story?

everyone: pshh yeah. what'd you think it was.

holly: I was confused. I printed it out.

Schwartz: interesting that in discomfort, you printed it.

kalee: I was all wahhh!

Bell: Story was a bad word. "Text" maybe? He's even toying with the idea of "what is a story?"

Schwartz: why did you think we asked you to read it? did it relate?

rolando: I can think of one. anticipated information age on the part of borges. he mentions the suicides, etc influenced by the overpopulation of information. Search for the ONE BOOK. Though there is no evidence...

Schwartz: well in such a library, there must be such a book, right? parallel.

Amelie: there's got to be books that claim that they're that book.

everyone: right, yep.

Jeffrey: but then every book cancels everything else out, if so.

Schaberg: pyramid shaped e-book. Problem: in principle, infinite regress into informatic levels

Chris: the one book as a cipher, that will clear up all misinformation?

Schaberg: like dictionary definitions! think you're getting exact definition, but more than one may f/ with you.... cereal box mirrored endlessly on box.

schwartz: mirrors in room. Endless

bell: "to speak is to talk in tautologies" potential of an infinitely hypertext-text. infinite, everything you click on takes you further away.

All profs: IT IS!!!

Jeffrey: tales of WAC lab distractions online, examples of hyperlink adventures. Six degrees from Jesus.

Joshua: tales of bets on similar web exploits. Laugh laugh laugh

Schaberg: six degrees of separation? Interesting points...

Mccay: infinite possibilities.

Bell: So is library the problem for borges or is the quest the problem? Example: bing commercials. quest for origin or key? kabbalistic mysticism for text in a way, in borges?

don quixote-esque exercise

Schwartz: on what level is it quixote-esque? in the universe there are particulars, so is the universe something we cannot traverse, but what's within it we nevertheless have to?

Bell: something we can traverse, but cannot know. We must accept that inability in order to function in this reality and not go crazy.

schwartz: conceptualizing: how do you picture this library? Art of it?

all: there are some!

schaberg: shows one. How do you conceive of this new landscape of information?

mccay: well, it's not necessarily new. that old analogy, journey more important than object. No one can complete the quest. It's a kind of fable about living in a world of incompletion.

Bell: heisenberg's uncertainty principle. problem at the certain level, with the idea of knowing something b/c of our interaction with it. We know it, or our knowledge of the it?

Schwartz: experience is that which we create. the book we search for has to be created, it exists because we are searching for it... by definition, your thinking of it proves its existence or if not, then the thinking creates it.

Amelie: library should have been looking through and for the librarians. They are the needed mediation for filter, for usefulness.

profs: kudos amelie!

Bell: like our relationships with individuals, how we crave and relate to that personal connection.

Schwartz: And giving it to the librarians creates a network of control. LIKE google books, who decides what they can or cannot publish.

Amelie: shows necessity for gatekeepers.

Bell: If it's good that we have gatekeepers... well, is it?

Schwartz: Or maybe not good or bad, just necessary.

Bell: WOOWWW we need it! Bing, not google! puts onus on the individual to create.

schwartz: still about the journey, the librarians will put us on the path.

collapse simultaneously. wikipedia: "quine noted that information is finite...signification, cipher. everyone can recreate something in a matter of seconds." babel excerpt.

Jeffrey: Like in books and info search...no shuffling process... a program could do it for you.

schwartz: again, gatekeeper!

Jeffrey: Borges says people are doing this!

Schwartz: so are we making any progress on our own discursive journey? what do we do, ultimately with a story like this in a class like this?

rolando: like that cultural belief of that sphere of knowledge... It's a false one... when we think we've found it, we realize we cannot find it.

Schaberg: so what do we do with it in regards to real things like copyright law and such? There are real stakes here as people, creators, consumers. How do we use it? we are certain of some things, kind of... certain enough to have operative laws and regulations and be able to change them. How do we have civil society if not?

Mccay: you have to make a choice. existentialism. that's the only thing we have left, is choice.

Schaberg: why do we have that?

mccay: you could say we have none, actually, what with advertising and such. Something or someone is deciding for us...

Schaberg? Yes. so how would choice enter in?

JOsh: everything happens at once because everything happens. Infinity. all is eternal because it' all happening at once. opposing too because of infinite universe.

Bell: parallel universe? potential for multiple things occurring at once. I am certain that I am dead but also simultaneously alive. That's what we're settling on, which, in order to have conversations: infinite or questionable reality?

Schwartz: pg 87: he says, "infinite...the library is limitless and periodic." That's a way out of existentialist infinitude. WE encounter them in episodes. Copyright law: changes from death of the author, 20 years to 100 years.

Mccay: big fight over the books in 19th century, brendan and bishop. remember?

Maria: no.

Schwartz: SEE! Episodic knowledge!

(Bell & mccay fight over details)

Mccay: ANYWAYY that's where it all began.

Amelie: All of the books have the same number of lines and letters, etc, he says, so how does he see adding lines and stuff? how does he rule that out?

Schwartz: well, then why hexagonal shapes? he's trying to show finitude in infinitude.

BEll and Rolando: circular, sphere of knowledge and one book

Schaberg: brings it back to holly's question IS it a story? are we looking for a truth to graft onto or is there something methodological we can take from this?

Schwartz: I suggested we read this because while reading darn ton and trying to conceptualize what we're trying to communicate, this story kept popping up. Not sure why, but this is how I conceptualized THAT book, but now I'm trying to conceptualize this one and I'm dragging you along for the ride.

Schaberg: He sees the landscape of info in a finite, pragmatic sense. Borges piece undermines darn ton's project.

Schwartz: I see it as revealing it.

Schaberg: He wrote this long ago, but I don't see Borges as being serious. Absolutely parodic and ironic. absurdist.

rolando: Borges is on the border between wit and truth.

Schwartz: good way for learning, humor to show truth.

Mccay: I'm completely confused.

Profs: That's good! What's the confusion?

Mccay: pshh I don't know. That's why I'm confused.

Schaberg: Does Darnton avoid certain confusions? Skirt them so to speak?

Schwartz: well stuff is developing as he's writing. hard to keep up focus as all changes.

Schaberg: infinite regress: how oriented slash confused are you in this?

Jeffrey: I experience this a lot. Research papers lead to way too many dang books. too much information to utilize, I cannot possibly use all this info for limited paper space.

Schaberg: LIKE writing a book! How do you say confidently and w/ discipline say it's done? what's that point?

Schwartz: that's what Borges is saying!

Schaberg: I disagree!

Chris: everyone has a different stopping point.

Schwartz: right. distinct from Borges.

Bell: at some point we must decide, we can't just keep going.

Rolando: all phil is about why NOT to commit suicide.

All: mehhhhhh.... is class over?

Schaberg: All worked up about this! We can get worked up in it all, but the unfolding of life is not so dramatic. establish at what point do we decide, in day to day life, what am I saying, soapbox.

Amelie: At some point we will leave this and focus on what we're having for lunch.

Schaberg: Yes. Life.

Bell: This book is about life!

Schaberg: welllll... how are the darn ton and borges pieces in competition?

Schwartz: Someone else assign a story now.

Schaberg: I'll post it later this week on the blog.

DISMISSED

The Mappist

After reading "The Mappist," I am struck by the fact that we, as a society, are in a continuous rush. We want convenience (fast food drive-ins, or, in relation to this class, e-books). This isn't a bad thing, of course, it is simply the way things are done nowadays. What better way is there to buy books in less than a minute? However, in a way this harms the publishing industry as well.

Over the last few days--okay, I'll be honest, in the last month--I have become a Amazon Kindle shop-aholic. I can admit it. My favorite thing to do is scour through the countless e-books that Kindle has to offer. There is, unfortunately, a problem with this: many of the books that pop up have yet to be published. At first glance, this isn't bad--it gives people like me, and countless others, the chance to have their work broad-casted across the internet. The problem begins to arise once you begin to read...the grammar is horrendous, the structure of the page even more so; the plot lacks all originality and I barely make it ten pages in before I delete the book off my iPad for good.

Now, before anyone jumps down my back, as I said before: having the chance to show one's work is not the problem, but the lack of professionalism in some of these e-books is. One thing that the author of "The Mappist" loves, is the eloquence and perfection that Mr. Benefideo's work exudes. It is because he takes the time to give his work the attention that it deserves--he spent 15 years on a series of maps and we left with the impression that his work will continue. Granted, I'm not saying that we should spend our entire lives on the development of one book, but when it comes to writing, or publishing, I think the wait is integral. It might just be me, but I think that as the age of e-books continues, we have the chance to make it what we want. Nostalgia aside, it doesn't matter whether the information is being processed on paper or on a digital screen, but time and effort should not be shoved to the back burner for the sake of putting out content that is less than satisfactory.

In addition, I apologize for the rant, but I felt it was necessary if only because I getting a little frustrated about the e-books I stumble across that can't even distinguish "their" and "there." =(

-Maria

Babbling

I'm writing this on my iPad.  It's 12:30 in the morning; I've been up thinking about our class yesterday, madly wracking my brain in response to Janelle's challenge to come up with a reading that might serve as a catalyst for next week, much as Borges's "Library of Babel" inspired us to think about Darnton's fantasy e-book that he plans to write—or in Darnton's excited words: "An electronic book about the history of books in the age of the Enlightenment! I can't resist. I'll take the leap." Instead of leaping, I want to slow down. (For those of you who have been reading Edward Abbey in Green Literature, I might take his cue and crawl.)  

But I am already in an uncomfortable position. My neck hurts.  My posture is terrible: I'm sitting cross-legged on my couch, hunched over this glimmering machine (tablet, miniature obelisk, or what have you) and writing on the app iDo Notepad.  I really want to close this iPad and switch to my MacBook Air.  But I won't, not yet.  For the sake of the class, I'll continue to use the iPad.  But I'm not convinced that this new media device lends itself to essay-thinking.  I'm feeling Chris Langer's weirdly contemporaneous nostalgia for the laptop as a serious writing tool—oh, for that old feeling of composition that I know so well!  For the familiar and kind layout of Microsoft Word!  Instead...plunking away on the iPad, trying hard not to think about what else I could (or should?) be 'doing' on it.

I want to revisit and unpack some of the frustrations I was feeling in class yesterday.  Around our discussion of "The Library of Babel," we tried in earnest to visualize the postmodern aesthetics and logical puzzles laid out by Borges.  Mary invoked existentialism, and advocated "choice" in the face of the abyss.  Josh called on Nietzschean theories of eternity and recurrence.  Robert raised the Heisenberg uncertainty principle.  Rolando referred to yet a second Borges story.  Janelle cited Italo Calvino. All these references, spinning wildly around one another, seemed to somehow 'apply' to the Borges piece ("The Library of Babel"), and perhaps also to Darnton's wish image for the e-book (as explained in Chapter 4 of The Case For Books).  

But were we in danger of conflating these philosophically distinct and historically unique expressions?  Nietzsche was critiquing a specific form of morality, within the context of German Romanticism, and offering a jubilantly alternative way to think about human existence (whether he even really 'believed' it or not is another question; it was, in many ways, a thought experiment: 'creative writing' at its best).  Sartre, Camus, and other existentialists were responding to historical episodes in the early 20th-century that threatened to render human activity mundane and meaningless at best, and hugely destructive at worst.  I am not too familiar with the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, or what specific historical circumstances it emerged from (and I am not going to refer to Wikipeida right now, lest I fall inevitably into the informational abyss of internal links that Jeffrey narrated so well in class)—but I do recall how the Ethan and Joel Coen deployed this trope in a quasi-scientific way in their neo-noir film "The Man Who Wasn't There", where the idea (as I recall) seemed to function as a sort of cultural intrusion into and break from the black-and-white certitudes of mid-century Americana.  Borges, finally, plays with genre expectations and the possibilities of the story that invites the reader into a mise en abyme; one might suspect that this aesthetic tactic stems from the sheer excess of meanings generated by what we loosely term "postmodernity."  

Now these are all worthwhile humanist pursuits, and fascinating in their own rights.  But they are not aimed at a singular goal, and neither are their historical contexts easily equatable—I think we should be extremely wary of conflating them or even supposing any smooth interpretive links from one to the next.  Even more troubling to me, however, is whether any of these theories or aesthetic strategies is up to the task of thinking about the "new media" problems posed by Google Books, the iPad, Apps, Facebook, etc.  On the one hand, I completely agree with Mary that the "information landscape" (as Darnton calls it) is hardly 'new' at all.  On the other hand, phenomenally as well as phenomenologically speaking, we do have 'new' matters to attend to, and I want to rigorously probe the finite matters directly in front of us: the material culture and contextual realities that are driving 'new media' into everyday life scenarios.  Or to return to Janelle's insistent demand from a few weeks ago: what is the CONCEPT that we are addressing (or trying to get in view) here?  I'm not sure we have that concept down—and I'm not convinced that any of the above mentioned frameworks get us any closer to defining it.  I was intrigued by Amalie's claim in class that Borges's library feels all too real, all too well like like how her brain feels a lot of the time ("this is your brain on postmodernity"? Or: this is your brain, period?).  But I want to develop this impulse.  I want to know what this really feels like, by what actual structures and signs—and from what supposed center—we might be able to identify (or identify with) the informational phantasm at hand.      

So, what do I want us to read for next week and discuss?  After puzzling this over, my mind settled on Jacques Derrida's essay "Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourses of the Human Sciences" from 1966, a date that I admit might mark this text as also not being up to the task of thinking new media.  But Robert and Janelle and I have agreed to hold off on theoretical texts until next semester, and probably for good reason: we still need to arrive at a concept to theorize. So do not read that essay yet, even though I have linked to it; or read it, but hold it in reserve.  

A work of short fiction, then: a story by Barry Lopez called "The Mappist."  It's from a collection of stories called Light Action in the Caribbean (published in 2000).  I'll scan this story by Friday afternoon and post it on our course BlackBoard.  I want to think about how this story figures into the information matrix that we've been discussing, and also how this story calls forth the looming specter of 'infinity' that has popped up from time to time in our class.  Sometimes I think it is all to easy to invoke infinity, and yet perhaps a lot more difficult to talk about finitude: the real limits and physical boundaries of human experience and knowledge, which are perhaps masked or pushed to the side amid the new media frenzy.  

I'll end here, for now.  Okay, did I ever forget that I was 'writing' on the iPad?  Maybe, for a few minutes here and there, amid sentence constructions.  Maybe I was rash in supposing that the iPad is not up to the task of essay-thinking.  Maybe it's me who has to catch up to it.  I'm trying to track the double theme of our class: trying to read the digital human (the human being in a digital context), and read WITH the digital human—paying attention to how I am enmeshed in this context, in fact creating it around me (and in me) as I type each word here.  (And where is 'here' any more?  Has this word shifted its function? [I said I was ending "here" a few sentences ago—look how that location slides across space and time...])

Appreciation

So I've started reading a lot of stories on the NPR app and the new York times app and posting them in my Facebook. This ability to immediately share a story with the world is appealing. I think this was possible before with email and what not but it has pushed me into a more connected role with the world. No longer am I oblivious to the happenings around me. The news keeps me entertained.
One short article (kinda like a blog post) targeted the idea that this is the most exciting time for books ever, believing that although "books in the sense of paperback and hardcore may be having a rough go with the kindle and the iPad, the convenience of these e readers more than makes up for it. He talks of the how we take the conventions of literate for granted. In the guttenburg era, the invent of the index took 60 years! Who knew? That is such common thing now.

What conventions that are new with the iPad will become taken assumed in the next few years? Even in months? Aren't we already taking it for granted? I know I am. I think we need to realize the immense possibilities of this creation. Maybe some of younguys have, but I know i haven't,

Dear Everyone,

Were we supposed to write a blog for today? In my notes I have that we're supposed to "discuss the relationship between the two readings on the blog." I don't know if there is a secret place where I'm supposed to do that, or if everyone else is confused and has not done this, either. Or maybe I'm confused, and we don't have to write anything?

At the very least, I've read the article on blackboard and can talk about it's relationship to the Darnton reading in class.

Hopefully someone will be able to clear up my confusion before class time.

Notes from Last Wednesday via Chapters App

Holly is the scribe!
Question from Robert: who is using Kendel? Can't use the popular highlight feature for some reason
Makes Schaberg think about archiving personal emails in book we're reading, back to last class, what is the concept we are wrestling with? The potential of these devices? We need a critical concept
Josh: what he's wrestling with are boundaries between free market and the public good
Robert: I think it is a problem of will this library be run by one person?
Cait: issue is control of what knowledge will be used, narrow down knowledge to a commission of virtuous scholars
Schaberg: when using google books, usually a few pages are left out, but who decides which pages are left out? These pages may be important
Could another algorithm decide what is available for public?
Terra: it's like the guy who collected Shakespeare
Robert: we cannot get rid of "gatekeepers" but what happens when your gate keeper is an algorithm? What happens when google decides that there don't need to be more books about worms?
What will Janelle do?
What about google black market?
A jailbreak google?
Good that we know this will happen, but google will be backed by the state, move towards fascism
Jonas: the publisher gives permission now about whether books now are public or not, and now google books is becoming the library of the world, google is the gatekeeper
Mary: gatekeepers have been here for forever, this is not new
Robert: i find it personally problematic that we rely on google so much
Mary: this happened with yahoo in France, yahoo had to take someone looking for Nazis, france said this cannot be published here and yahoo had to take it down, yahoo is gatekeeper for china
Janelle: how do we make money w copyright? Google is taking public domain things and charging people to look for them, ex) William blake museum with originals charges her to use images from her own books
The idea of intellectual property is based on having an original, a lack of original is in the future with google books
Jeffery: you get less experience for a price with google books
Janelle: red dragon movie- scene with protagonist in museum eats the original Blake image, makes people cringe when the original is lost
Maria: I don't feel the same magic when I read something over the Internet or get a scanned first addition as when I have an original book from 1790 or whatever
Robert: we could turn that on its head and say that no book could do what an iPad could do
Jonas: so much of what we buy and consume is meant to be timeless
Disposable technology
Terra: I look study old books more and feel more attachment to old books
Maria: the smell of the book is important, we like the smell of books old or new
Jonas: does that have a place in our time? The absence of the sensory input
Jeffery: the smell of some books is awful, like moldy Katrina books, books misprinted and falling apart can be an issue
Amelie: sensory input you get anchors you to the fact that the book is Old, vs. On iPad when a book does not seem old
Schaberg: why wouldn't you believe it?
Mary: for me it's the pleasure of reading over the format the reading is presented in, when she was younger people said paperbacks would ruin the experience of reading
Cait: growing up teachers emphasized that books were more reliable resources than the internet, we think of books as much more truthful, the stigma of Internet sources, treats the information much more seriously
Schaberg: depth suggests a kind of verticality, talk about a hierarchy if authenticity, as if the book is more authentic
Terra/Jonas: a book is more personal, Internet is more disposable, the exchange feels more legitimate
Robert: issue with cultural conditioning of authenticity and legitimacy
The issue of an authentic experience obstacle, Katrina class has split between Katrina survivors and people who did not live here during the storm
Schaberg: cell phones, is an iphone less authentic? The economics of authenticity
Jeffery: if the book store doesn't have a book, I feel like, where do I get it? You're the book store
Robert: money is a fraud!
Terra: the personal exchange is what matters, the feeling of the book feels more secure, very different
Schaberg: difference is a fine way to describe books vs. iPads, it is not okay to say good or bad
Cait: we're not yet comfortable with this technology, the issue of making readers comfortable
Amelie: the internet is actually making us more ADD, some scientific support for this apprehension
Robert: being immersed in media vs using an eReader
Schaberg: the loss of randomness with using dictionaries and physically using up words
Kaleigh: there is a difference between me highlighting and covering a book in post-its, I feel more greedy with the iPad I want more, how fast am I reading? Look how much work I have done
Janelle: still able to flip through and find passages you're looking for in a book, if you have a visual memory
Kaleigh: the issue of citing pages you read on the iPad
Janelle: the search engine could make the memory better because you are forced to remember exact phrases in order to search a book
Schaberg/Jonas/Janelle: could this mean the end of citation
Robert: we will be forced to be our own gatekeepers, we must decide how to use the info we are given
No one in this room is crying about the loss of the stone tablet
The death of the author, it is theological, it is up to us
The death of the reader?
The loss of digital money, vs. The loss of money that is really only paper which we assign value to, could the e-world just serve to further expose this kind of sham?
Janelle: I wonder what a 7year old would say about the authenticity who has grown up with this, the authorities on this are younger and younger instead of older and older
We should Skype with people in Scotland who go to an iPad middle school!
Cait: when the power was off these kids were forced to go outside and play, they grew up in a Halo xbox world and are shocked by what we considered playing as children
For next time: read "library of babel" it is posted on blackboard, write on blog relationship between readings