Totemic bliss

I may be cheating on this assignment. I'm spending more than one hour doing what I love. I am currently writing this blog post from: Disney world!! :) (I will not be back for class today) BUT I will be in totemic bliss!!

Take Away

I had a couple of take aways from class today.  My first take away was just how varied and interesting the projects were this week.  It is neat to see what people do when they are not fish bowled.  I liked seeing the differences: videos, tattoos, cookies, etc.  The second thing that stood out to me is that we need to be more aware of the difference between each of us in order for us to appreciate each other's work.  The videos we saw were great, however, it is important to keep in mind how everyone else will see your work.  Sometimes your point could be lost.  I think it is very eye-opening to consider those who are hearing impaired or may have another disability such as dyslexia.  When we create anything, for school, work, or pleasure, we want it to be able to be enjoyed by all.

Tyger tyger burning bright

I found this project to be slightly challenging at first.  The lack of a "fish bowl" is almost overwhelming.  I thought about a few ideas before I came up with the one I settled on.  My first idea was to compare my cat to a tiger and do something with that (yes, I may be a crazy cat lady).  I thought about the time one of my cats was held "captive".  He is typically an outside/inside cat and loves roaming the neighborhood.  Keeping him inside makes him angry and depressed.  One day he came home injured (not sure what happened to him).  After a visit to the vet it was decided he had to wear a cone and remain inside for one month while he healed.  This made him feel so distraught and upset, probably similar to the way a tiger in captivity feels.  But, I decided that maybe a difficult connection to make in class in our two minute presentation, so I started reading through my 50 questions and wanted to make something based off of those.  What was difficult here is that I could not come up with just one question to use.  So, what I did was made a collage based of half of the questions I asked.  I went through every other question and put something to represent it in a collage.  Once I settled on this idea, it became a lot of fun and somewhat challenging to find a way to represent some of my strange questions.  I would say that this assignment was more difficult than the book assignment just because it was like the bead assignment, very open.  I continue to be amazed at how it is challenging to come up with something given so much freedom.  Below is my collage.

What if Questions

What if that tiger could talk?

What if that tiger was free?

What if that tiger was lonely?

What if people didn't put them in cages?

What if I never saw a tiger face to face?

What if no one did?

What if tigers were extinct?

What if no one ever killed a tiger?

What if we didn't crowd them onto smaller pieces of land?

What if we never built what we built by crowding them onto smaller land?

What if we live in zoos?

What if our houses are cages?

What if our houses are a refuge?

What if you can't tell them apart?

What if its both?

What if a tiger liked his cage?

What if he could choose his cage?

What if we could cage our choices?

What if our choices are cages?

What if we thought like a tiger?

What if that made us uncivilized?

What if we aren't civilized?

What if tigers are civilized?

What if tigers wore clothes?

What if tigers were like apes and could learn sign language?

What if tigers felt shame?

What if tigers had personalities as varied as people?

What if some liked to show off at the zoo?

What if some hated finger pointing?

What if they hated camera flashes?

What if they felt like celebrities?

What if we knew?

What if tigers could fly?

What if tigers could swim?

What if tigers could drive?

What if tigers could ski?

What if tigers could build buildings?

What if tigers opened their cages?

What if they put us in cages?

What if tigers had to ask 50 what if questions?

What if tigers wore shoes?

What if tigers wrote books?

What if tigers told stories?

What if tigers were green?

What if tigers were friends?

What if tigers were vegetarians?

What if tigers had super powers?

What if tigers could create?

What if tigers could paint?

What if tigers could tell us their dreams?

Bookv2

After watching the video on ted, I looked up the definition of "book".  It is as follows: a written or printed work of fiction or nonfiction, usually onsheets of paper fastened or bound together within covers.  It seems to me this definition of "book" is outdated.  I think a book's definition could simply be a collection put together by one or more authors.  Then I started thinking about all of the different types of books there are and how they are changing with technology.  I began to re-envision the different books I had on my own bookshelf.  I started thinking about the "traditional" books I have.  Then I looked at the next shelf over and saw my own personal photo albums and scrap "books."  This got me thinking about how scrap "books" can change with technology.  My idea is to have an interactive "life store book."  I included a page to show some of my ideas.  There could be a family tree showing a child their lineage.  When you touch the person's photo, whether it is an aunt or a grandfather, a video of that person could come up where they are talking about the child.  From there, it could expand to them talking about their family or their life.  It would be so cool to see panoramic pictures of your childhood home.  Then you would be able to show that to your spouse or your children.  I know I would love to see an interactive book from my own parent's childhood.  You could swipe through pictures and see them on each of their birthdays or see what they looked like every year on Halloween.  Having this available in a digital document would be priceless for future genealogy.  It could be sold if it belonged to someone who later became president, then introduced into history books or digital biography books.  It could be shared digitally among family members as well.

How to "read" a book

The book from my own library that caught my eye is one called "this book wrote itself".  It caught my eye because it is a simple book, black and white cover, with what looks like a spiral binding printed on the edge.

On page six I put my finger right in the middle of the page. My finger landed on a sentence that read "my father meditates to my right". The letter p is seen five times in this paragraph. 

The paper is smooth and feels thick. The cover is thicker and has a roughness to it.  I cannot feel the ink on the words. There are no colors on the cover. Even through the paper seems thick, I can see trough it when I hold the page to the light and see the letters on the opposite side. The cover can be seen through as well. 

The book has been stapled together it the middle.  This is a book a bought from am independent poet traveling through town a few months ago. It is a paperback book.  This book does not have a signature and it has no glue on the spine.  This book was stapled together.

This book has no other writing in it than the printed words. It is exciting to be the first one to write in it. I typically always highlight or underline lines or phrases in poetry books that I find inspiring. I like knowing that any notes I make are mine, for my own personal reference.

There are no stains on the book. The edges of the pages have some wear and dirt to them. I'm sure this happened in transit of the traveling poet. This boom has no fingerprints, it has had a very delicate life so far.

The pages are fairly close to white. The have a little grey to them, but overall they are a very, bright close-to-white color. The other visual element I really enjoy is e spine. While it is printed on the cover, it looks like the spiral of a notebook. This makes you feel like book is very organic, like it came directly from the author's hand without edit.

The only evidence I see that someone else handled the book is the wear on the edges of the pages. It really can only be seen when a section of the pages are examined together. I'm sure other people who have read this book thought it was very unique and a personal look at the author's thoughts. I do not think anyone else has examined the boom in the same way I have today.

The sound of the pages flipping is a low, quick flip. I feel the short breeze coming from the pages moving.  I was not successful at moving another object with the book. It is very small and does not create much of a gust.  I do not think I would win any games with this book's power (unless the game was flip the pages and don't move anything).

The book barely makes a sound when dropped. It does not leave any vibrations for my feet to feel. There was no difference when I removed my shoes.

The book does not necessarily feel cold.  Surprisingly I did notice a temperature change. I have never noticed this before. I do not think I have ever noticed this because I never thought about it. I think I thought more about the content of the book and what I was reading than the way it looked and felt.

The book smells fresh and clean. It almost smells like laundry soap, that freshness of a dryer sheet.

The title of this book is "this book wrote itself". Her first poem is a response to Allen Ginsberg. I think is fits the title because the first poem because it wa inspired by another person. The poem she wrote was a response to someone else that naturally flowed for her experience on that day. 

I think the biggest new experience I had was smelling the book. That had absolutely never occurred to me to do that.  I have NEVER found books to be boring. I am somewhat of an addict and love them immensely!

You fishbowled the assignment by giving us specific things to focus on when looking a specific item. We had to get a book and we had to look for particular things and respond to particular questions. I think the point of this exercise was to get beyond the cover of the book and to explore a book further.  As we move to more and more digital books, I think the point was to see the romance in an actual book.  My takeaway is just that sometimes there are new ways to look at anything that you are very familiar with. No matter how much you know about an object (or anything) you can always learn something new.