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Wednesday, May 30th, 2012

Listening to Vonnegut, who could arguably be called the father (or one of the fathers) of postmodern literature, discuss dropping shapes into a computer to create stories is beautifully ironic as his work is anything but formulaic. Nonetheless, he’s right. Stories are made up of fundamental (read: ancient; timeless; played; spent?–I hope not.) human experiences. The trick isn’t discovering what those experiences are–we all live them and know them–or to come up with a “novel” set of circumstances that house that experience, but rather to find a (not the) objective correlative for that experience…the holy grail of storytelling. It’s that last part that computers can’t do. So, without further ado, I give you the Objective Correlative Machine acting upon one of my least favorite novels: Moby Dick.

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Daily Create 142: Annoying noise: Record a sound that sets…

Wednesday, May 30th, 2012

Daily Create 142: Annoying noise: Record a sound that sets your teeth on edge.

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Ups and Downs

Wednesday, May 30th, 2012

Thanks to the inspiration of my good friend (and constant inspiration) I have been posting positive learning moments on Facebook recently. She started doing so to counter the feelings all of the standardized testing was causing (she teaches third grade). I loved the idea and started doing so as well. It helps me to start my day thinking of these positive events.

One day last week I wrote this:

Fun learning moment for today: I headed out walking around our school this morning looking for objects which my students might wonder about and ran into a former student. She’s now a fourth grader and has a rough time at home. She walked with me looking for objects and had a great eye for ideas and thought about what my first graders would find most interesting. I wanted pinecones and she pointed out the right kind of trees (something I didn’t know). She was so thoughtful, it started my day off right!

That was a great up for my day.

The next morning I had to run back out to my car for something I had forgotten. As I walked towards my car I noticed the same girl sitting on the same bench in front of the school. She does so most days. I think she is just looking for a quiet moment to herself. (When it’s cold or rainy our principal will open her office window and call to this little one to come keep her company.)

As I watched the girl’s mother pulled up, got out of the car, and went over to yell at her daughter. I couldn’t hear the words but I could hear the tone. When the girl stood up she smacked her on the bottom, pointed to the car, and kept yelling until her daughter was inside the car. Then she got in and drove away.

As she pulled out of our parking lot she passed our principal walking in and they waved at one another. I walked over and shared what I had seen. My principal was quite surprised, given that the mother had just smiled and waved.

That was a serious down for the day.

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DS106: Letter home – week one

Tuesday, May 29th, 2012

Hey folks

Missing you loads from over here by the lake, with the conifers humming and guitar strings waving in the breeze….

First week at camp! As you know the flight from England was a little delayed so I arrived after everyone else, but the camp directors have been great at welcoming me and making sure that I’m set up to receive all the class info and swimming times.

So far I’ve sussed out a few of the gems of the camp, especially doing cross country on Sunday which I ran in a PB - check out some of our team’s movement pics here. Mine’s a wedding pic which I thought was a dud – but new friends have helped me see things differently and realise that a photo can be beautiful even if it’s not quite how you planned it. As a natural organiser, that’s a revelation!

You’ll be pleased to hear I’ve also made some connections. Over Monday’s muffins, I shared a pic of the train sign from last weekend which was more about how an image needs to be ‘connected’ than the theme itself, but also contained a cheesy pun related to both railways and the theme of the day (groan).

It’s not all marshmallows and campfires, though – today’s annoying noise task left me contemplating that the sounds that annoy us seem to fall into two categories. On a primal level, we’ve got the pitchy squeaks that offend our ears by being too unrefined, too unlike the rise and fall of the human voice, like my screeching violin example. And on a more thoughtful level we’ve got the ones like Mikeberta’s clock ticking, which demands a more cognitive response.

One thing that I’d like to get from next week is a bit more feedback from my fellow campers – but with bunkhouse buddies released today I’ve no doubt my new gang will be chatty bedfellows!

Must dash, the lake’s open for swimming so I’m off to practise my (s)crawl…

Love to you all

xxx

This post is a summary of week one of an online digital storytelling course

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Thank you Kurt Vonnegut!

Tuesday, May 29th, 2012

The shape of the Snow White Story

Snow white starts off as a princess with a stepmother. Gets chased out of the castle by a huntsman contracted to kill her. Finds a cottage in the woods, where she makes seven new friends. Eats poisoned apple and dies. Kissed by a prince and lives happily ever after!

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Hatchet Jack Gets an Idea!

Tuesday, May 29th, 2012

Today is a big day! We have bunkhouse assignments and we are busy working on our bunkhouse name and gettin all situated! How exciting! I love this time of the year! I am like all unicorned out!

I even had an idea for an assignment. There I was, staring at Twitter in my browser and I noticed the “trending” words and hashtags. I was instantly teleposted (that was a spelling error but I really like the word so I am going to stick with it) back to one of the early assignments I had enjoyed at a camp in the past that asked us to make a poem of a playlist. So I figured I would make a song/poem out of the current trending topics in Twitter.

So I did.

This is a #BattlefieldAmerica hello wake up!
I got a soul like #WhitePeopleLunches all bread and jam
and I only want more of #MoviesICanWatchAnyTime
Is this is just a momentary moment of Hard Knocks
like the #SignsOfAStrugglingStripper
who wins the Presidential Medal of Freedom?
Or is this a battle works like the Chrome OS and that is like a trip man,
Like a trip on LSD
where I meet Serena Williams
and I whisper I could Die In Your Arms

Not sure if it is a poem or a song or what? But it was fun and while I whittle away some moments here before lunch I thought I would share this. I’ll add it to the ds106 sit as soon as the powers that be get it rockin’ again….

I am very excited to have such a fine group of campers join in our adventures this summer! We are a luck bunch in the yet to be names Bunkhouse 4. My personal favorite possibility thus far is “The Hatchet Hotel” but that ain’t quite as happy as I suppose we should be? And it ain’t just my bunkhouse, it is all of ours.

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Neurosis Revealed

Tuesday, May 29th, 2012

Week 2 at Camp Magic MacGuffin and The Daily Create has us revealing what sounds drive us batty. For me, particularly, this is really more about revealing neurosis than a slight irritation.

For as long as I can remember, certain repetitious and rhythmic sounds drive me completely bonkers. My wife is convinced that this might be a symptom of deeper and darker problems (not really….I think). Here’s a quick list:

Clock ticking (any rhythmic ticking sound)- I actually cut the speaker wires for a more modern clock that artificially generated the clock ticking sound on a wedding present we received.
Wind Chimes - Forgive me if you like them. This tick is almost exclusively applied to little/high pitched jobbers (I’m okay with the lower toned chimes – those are actually cool). I’ve been known to ask neighbors to take them down.
Loud crunching while eating – This isn’t for the average everyday well-mannered eaters out there. This is for the barnyard escapees. This tick prevents me from enjoying crowded movie theaters. I’d much rather be in a matinee or renting the DVD.

I’ve been meaning to talk to a professional about these problems but I find the proactive approach of stopping the sound or avoiding the sound more effective. In fact, for this sound file, I had to search far and wide to find it. I also don’t find my irritation with these sounds that irrational.

Let me assure you I am a mostly normal, only partially neurotic, completely well-mannered guy. You won’t have to worry about me repairing your clocks or cutting apart your wind chimes (but I advise a better safe than sorry approach to your favorite things).

By the way…I also don’t eat in front of mirrors…that’s not part of The Daily Create though.

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TDC 5/29/12

Tuesday, May 29th, 2012

Annoying Noice–record a sound that sets your teeth on edge.

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Letter home from camp

Tuesday, May 29th, 2012

29 May 2012

Dear Mummy and Daddy,

Camp is so strange! There are no towel-warming racks in the bathrooms, and there are open pits with fires burning real wood. We actually see our food being cooked, and are expected to hold raw meat over the flames. I really don’t think this is how Cook does it. I was given something called a “marshmallow”, and it caught fire and everyone laughed at me.

We are expected to exercise each morning with a Personal Trainer, except that we all have to use the same one. This makes it hard for me to stay motivated, especially since it’s obvious the Trainer spends more time sitting at his computer and eating potato chips than working out. His tummy shows under his Geek L8r tee shirt, and it’s pretty gross. Don’t these guys understand mobile? He needs a treadmill like Daddy’s, with the computer built right in.

I brought my water skis and my micronized insect repellent in my Louis Vuittons, but haven’t had a chance to use either. They told me there were bugs, but it seems like they are connected to a “UMW blog system” or something – I haven’t been bitten by anything yet.

This week I stayed inside the big cabin you rented for me (thanks, mummy!) since my iPad screen is too glossy to use in the sun. I made some animated gifs of dancing, since you know I love dancing, and I longed for the camp we used to go to in the Catskills when I was little, the one where that gorgeous guy taught us the Monkey and the Mashed Potato. I chatted with a guy in the class named Scott Lo (it’s so cool – he has a full last name but doesn’t use it), and we might plan a dance in the Rec Room (they call it Second Life) in a few weeks. He asked if I could pick the music, but really, these people really seem to appreciate 80s culture in a way I never could (honestly, The Warriors? gag me with a spoon!), so I think I’ll just dance.

I went to a lecture – can you believe it? The presenter was Michael Wesch, and I’ve seen some of his early films, so I thought it would be fun. He said some really interesting things, like that professors use a thousand points of light just to do PowerPoint. I remembered that awful prof I had last semester who used those slides all full of words. Luckily, my friends and I were able to use our phones to create a project to help children in Haiti during class or it would have been a complete bore. Considering our family’s name is on the building, don’t you think we could do something about that?

Oh, and please send more of my La Roche-Posay sunscreen. They seem to want us to go outside here.

Love,

Your Baby

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Week 1: Letter from Camp Magic MacGuffin

Tuesday, May 29th, 2012

A little behind moving my stuff into camp this week and will play a little catchup with my Family Legend – it’s coming.

I did manage to get the Camp Magic Macguffin PA system hooked up and plugged into my stereo last week and managed to pop in a cassette to make a recording.