Bright Birch

Spook Country Exercise #1 -- Chapter Five, Opening Paragraphs (p.28)

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 19:49:22 GMT

Inventory

Brian: Describing reflection. Darkness, but light bag. Noodles. Japan. Tito likes mystery entailed by Japan? He's not sure what he's doing. How does he fit in? His role in shadow, darkness.

Deanna: "Japan was a planet of benign mystery, source of games and anime and plasma TV." Not just a country, but a planet. Implication is that it's worlds apart from his own. Source of entertainment stuff.

Joseph: Why emphasis on socks? More comfortable. He is glad not to be uncomfortable.

Charlie: Details matter more, perhaps, in texts where the principle of economy looms large. Think of text messaging. Yohji Yamamoto: who is that? Or what? Tie-in between that name and noodles and rumination on Japan.

For the second pass, look for individual words that leap out at you as potentially significant.

Also, look for comparisons. They tend to be burdened with a lot of meaning.

Joseph: austerity/austere. Havana vs. NYC.

Deanna: Tito doesn't understand how in NYC you can spend money to look austere. But he does get fashion.

Charlie: A suggestion that fashion -- asymmetrical lapels that Tito understands -- may be separated from economic realities that are hard to wrap one's mind around.

Electronic Reading: Remediation: Understanding New Media

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 16:04:51 GMT

As I noted earlier this week, some of the reading we will be doing will come in electronic form. In some cases I will provide you with links to short articles from newspapers and magazines. In others, however, you will need to take advantage of the University of Arizona library's ever-expanding electronic resources, though that can prove challenging at first.

One text I want you to read a portion of is Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin's Remediation: Understanding New Media. It's difficult reading and I'm only going to ask you to read the first chapter, which is forty-six pages long. Luckily, it's available as an "e-book."

You need to create an account -- it's free for enrolled students like yourselves -- in order to do this. Just go to the following internet address from a library computer and the option to do so should be available.

It might be easier, though, to just access the text itself through the university library's internet portal.

Nude Photos on Cell Phones

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 18:49:09 GMT

Here is that article I read you.

Books To Obtain

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 18:45:36 GMT

The links take you to Amazon.com, but you can plug the ISBN numbers in elsewhere for easy ordering. I want you to obtain the William Gibson book in town, though, ASAP.

William Gibson, Spook Country (novel)
ISBN-10: 0425198685
ISBN-13: 978-0425198681

W.G. Sebald, Austerlitz (novel)
ISBN-10: 0375756566
ISBN-13: 978-0375756566

Dennis Cooper, God Jr. (novel)
ISBN-10: 0802170110
ISBN-13: 978-0802170118

I can provide a hard copy of this list if you need one. Please do not hesitate to ask me if you have any questions.

Tue, 11 Jan 2005 20:40:37 GMT

This blog will be devoted to my teaching. I plan to use it to A) construct and manage communities for the classes I'm teaching and B) make it a resource to current and former students and colleagues by regularly linking to useful materials. My user info gives a sense of the topics I teach and the research I do, if you're interested.

Be advised that many of the links I will be putting in my entries here -- for the short term, anyway -- will be restricted, whether to students, staff, and faculty of the University of Arizona or only to students in my current classes.

If you see something you're interested in and cannot access it wherever you are, write me at my Live Journal address -- <bright_birch@livejournal.com> -- and I will try to help.