Form

At the moment form is killing me. We talked about this at a meeting the other day, one of our members asking about it–who should have known better.

Anyway, it’s something you carve away from a larger hunk, in many cases, rather than building up from something wet and clayey between your shoes. Stanzas and paragraphs, for example. They’re vulnerable to arbitrariness. In the case of stanzas, we have white space to wedge between them for the sake of sound, emphasis, rhythm, and image.

A first and last line is important. But a stanza has a first and last line, too. How to wrestle and strip them down to their focus, which the center of a circle, which has to mean something.

Money and Health

My friend, Bryan Carroll, writing or The Daily Campus, UCONN’s news paper has covered a few stories that deal with education and health, his latest on the subject of John Dempsey Hospital, which has been bleeding in its own way for several years. Carroll writes

An ad-hoc committee with appointed facility of the engineering, nursing and business schools on the respected campuses could provide innovative solutions to streamline the business structure at John Dempsey. The collective partnership of the university community would foster public support (and subsequently legislative support) for the final plan.

I wonder how Dempsey could be streamlined in so fa as care and business balance out. Do any hospitals actually see an even balance sheet, no matter how well they’re run?

Likewise, any university, private pr public? These institutions are interesting, especially in the face of the opportunity and service they provide.

A Night of Comedy and Satire

Tunxis Community College Presents
A Night of Comedy, Satire, and Theater

“The Book of Leviticus Show,” “Kitty the Waitress,” “Funeral Parlor”* by Christopher Durang. Directed by George Sebastian-Coleman

“The Hail Mary Pass” by Patrice Hamilton. Directed by Patrice Hamilton

Here are the audition dates:

Wed. 5:30-8:30pm February 18
Rooms 6-127 & 6-128

Sat. 10am-12 pm February 21
Rooms 210 & 215

Call Backs
Sat. 12:30-3:00 pm 2/21/09
Rooms 210 & 215

Email tunxiscollege at gmail.com for Audition Info Sheet and remember to bring a copy of your picture to audition!

Pick up copies of the plays at the Tunxis Library

Dress Rehearsal: April 30, 2009

Performance Dates: Friday Night, May 1, 2009 and Saturday Night, May 2, 2009

Politics and the Air

I watched a lot of news on Friday, following votes and commentary on the “stimulus,” tweeting reactions Over the past couple of weeks the waves have been filled with statements against, with two primary arguments: too much spending and not enough jobs and tax cuts. And in the shakier regions: socialism and big government. But mood and reality are not congruent here, whatever the CEO of Caterpillar claims.

Today, the papers herald the passing, forgetting the last two weeks. We had dire predictions: such a bill will “nail” big government into place, forgetting the last year of billions flowing out, and will turn us all into socialists. How the idea of yesterday has changed. Not a “jobs bill.” Good grief.

Not much went about about the “context” of the bill and the situations of others in the world, such as the UK. Our situation is pretty dire. But the meaning context of government involvement in decisions is, today, beyond authoritarianism. As Krugman writes:

Why do we need international cooperation? Because we have a globalized financial system in which a crisis that began with a bubble in Florida condos and California McMansions has caused monetary catastrophe in Iceland. We’re all in this together, and need a shared solution.

“The honorable gentleman cannot guarantee that this bill will work,” claimed a detractor yesterday. Right.

Proof and Possibility Series

From Jesse Abbot:

The giant of modern physics Niels Bohr purportedly once quipped that if one isn’t confused by quantum mechanics—sometimes called QM for short—one doesn’t really understand it.

One of the world’s leading philosophers of science, Dr. Barry Loewer, is coming to Tunxis on Thursday, February 19th at 7 p.m. to give kind of a narrative history of this vital area of science and paint the fascinating cast of characters who have acted as adventurers and pioneers in QM. Loewer chairs the philosophy department at Rutgers University, and is known internationally for the original directions he has taken what is called the “Many-Worlds Interpretation” of QM (first created by physicist Hugh Everett III).

Come on the 19th and enjoy the lecture as well as dinner and dessert. We’ll be honored if you can make it.

This is Part 2 for 2008-2009 of our regular Proof & Possibility lecture series in philosophy and the history of ideas.

Tinderbox and StretchText Part 2

It’s been a long haul but thanks to Jim Revillini the final step in the jQuery stretchtext code for Tinderbox is complete.  Here’s the code:

$(document).ready(function() {
$(‘.stretchTarget’).hide();
$(‘a.stretcher’).toggle(
function() {
//Here we find the talk-to element
var trg = getStretchTarget(this.rel);
trg.fadeIn(1500);
},
function() {
var trg = getStretchTarget(this.rel);
trg.fadeOut(1500);
}
);
});

function getStretchTarget (trg_class) {
//console.log(trg_class, $(‘.’ + trg_class)); for firebug
return $(‘.’ + trg_class);
}

The trg variable and getStretchTarget call solve the problem of identifying multiple links in a Tinderbox note.  In the first iteration, I was limited to one link and one target–okay but not thorough.

Here’s the new example, with some nested divs to show a “drilling effect” in one section of my poem “That Night I Saw . . .”

The preparation for implementation is interesting, but for those writers using Tinderbox I think the requirements are quite simple: the jQuery framework, a stylesheet linked to the Tinderbox template, the javascript code in the template so that exported notes can take advantage, and then–most importantly–a sense of “why” to implement the stretchtext aesthetic into prose, poetry or whatever other document.  This, of course, is the fun part.  This project has been about opening the canvass, as the code can be tied to any container element, any media type, and whatever design exists on the backend in a template.  It can be simple, it can be complex.

Here’s what the note looks like in Tinderbox:

stretchpoem

The markup in this example demonstrates how complicated two stretchtext elements can be, not in terms of additional symbols, but in terms of how the effect advances any one reading of the poem, as any link may be ignored.  In the finalized poem, links to other stanzas and sections might exist within a hidden element, thus advancing a plural coherence.

That’s the idea at least.  For, markup notwithstanding, this opens the Tinderbox note canvass to further exploration for written forms, the codework happening behind the scenes during export and during reading, leaving the writer to worry about the nature of their work.  That Night I Saw on My Homeward Way as a poem will simply be one example of that exploration.

Stretchtext and Tinderbox

I’ve been bumming over things lately, springing from Yahoo’s javascript library (with Jim’s help), Actionscript 3.0, and a few other technologies to diddle with effects that appear to make sense in my poem “What I Saw on my Homeward Way.”

Moreover, completing the poem has been difficult as the “effects” I’m after are conceptually integrated into the poem’s structural narrative, meaning that how the text behaves on screen is tied to potential meaning. Additionally, I’m curious about how linking methods change the way a poet makes images.

I need Actionscript as a means of creating hypermedia interface, but this doesn’t mean I can make Actionscript do “whatever” I want it to. AS3 will allow for event manipulation of links but not for what I want at the moment. I use Tinderbox as my primary writing tool and so the work that I expect to pump out of Tinderbox should be effectuated in that medium.

Luckily, this weekend, I began digging around with jQuery. And things suddenly made sense. I’ve wanted to write link tools directly into a Tinderbox note that would translate onto the web via Tinderbox HTML templates. It’s a simple business. Write a document in Tinderbox, flush it through an existing HTML template, taking whatever information I want to display on the web, and then publish it. Just like that.

I have lots of experience with stylesheets and their logic. Once mastered, they’re powerful for thinking about interactions and relationships. In Tinderbox, therefore, if I could add a selector from a stylesheet directly into a note, this is a good thing, especially if the writer knows what they want the code to do with the target object. But what to do with the selector once it’s out of Tinderbox and on the web? Well, that’s where scripts come into the picture–at least for me. For many, this will be nothing knew, but for me it provides new creative paths for using Tinderbox.

In a Tinderbox note called “Stone,” for instance, I could add a tag around the word “stone,” like this <st>stone</st>, the “stone” element acting as a listener. In addition we add div code plus a class to indicate which part of the text we want to manipulate.   This text could be a paragraph division, a middle stanza, or an ending paragraph:

<div class=”stretchTarget”>some text</div>

The node logic goes like this in the HTML template:

<div id=”text”>The <st>stone</st>listens. <div class=”stretchTarget”>hidden text</div></div>

jQuery provides ready methods for moving through DOM elements and Tinderbox templates will render the above tags in the resultant HTML page no matter the size of the document. What’s required next is to write those tags into the linked css page as selectors:

#text st {
some code
}

and

.stretchTarget {
some code
}

All we have to do now is write the appropriate javascript inside the head tag of the HTML template to adjust or manipulate content. After the page has been readied, jQuery attached, we write:

$(‘.stretchTarget’).hide();
the selector of the text we want to hide

$(‘#text st’).toggle();
the elements to read through to find the listener to which we can attach the target

Then we add two jQuery functions (they can be anon or named) inside toggle()

function() {

$(‘.stretchTarget’).fadeIn(); //or whatever other method is required, including animate() or show(), although next() would be inappropriate

and

$(‘.stretchTarget’).fadeOut();

And that’s basically it, thanks to the ready-baked jQuery methods. With jQuery and the css page attached, we can now easily blend stretch text functionality into Tinderbox directly by simply wrapping a listener with <st> and then wrapping target text inside a div and labeled appropriately with class=”stretchTarget”.

Thanks to Mark Bernstein for starter code and to James R for help with YUI.

Here’s a link to what the basic functionality looks like on a separate page: sonnet stretch.

The next quest will be to put together some methods for directly manipulating <a> items.

Taxes

Taxes are all the rage these days–again. What I’ve learned is that lots of people in positions of power avoid them in interesting ways. (Why lower a tax, therefore, if its value is empty. Logical flop, but fun nonetheless.) Who’d have thought that tax on driving would be worth over 100 Grand. I’m sure there’s a deeper story to Daschle’s tax issues , what he calls a “tax laps,” than has been made public, as would probably be the case with most in Congress.

Value is interesting question in whatever market. A service provided on the back of a tax is considered of less value by Republicans because more profit could be had by restructuring it in the market and it comes off as an “entitlement.” Public schools, for example, could be a neat business. But then a “market value” would be established, a windfall for some, an element of scarcity for others. Public learning as scarce commodity. Thrilling.

Shelby wants us to “attack the financial cancer” but has very few ideas beyond the 80’s cliche: cut taxes, the only idea Republicans have apparently. And Sununu’s in a state over some monster of a government policy too difficult to find in the dark. Do I disagree with Shelby and Sununu? Not really. But CT is heading toward a 4 Billion deficit in a few years and it’s not because of lower tax revenue. Causality? That’s a good one.

None of his is poetry or fiction. These are too honest.

Hyperdrama and More

Wow, it’s been a busy couple of weeks.

The beginning of the semester is always rough, getting info understood, munching down on committee work, and wrestling with the continual work of curriculum development. Charles Deemer will soon be teaching an online hyperdrama course for us (Spring 2010) and docs are being written for the new media program, casting up our best effort for program establishment and transfer.

In addition, I’ve added a few features to That Night I Saw, which will add cyclical twists to the internal navigation of the poem, especially when it comes to intermediate stopping points. But, realy, what’s important is the internal language, and what’s interesting is how links emerge naturally from the poem’s structure.

I’ve been back to reading Octavio OPaz. Reading his poetry always jiggles the concretion and relationship handle. I’ve been bothering too much with the technology, I’ve learned, playing with half-backed concepts rather than with the real work of mining, dredging, and bricklaying.

Collaboration

An interesting project collaboration between artists and scientists.

The last project of Capsula, called Curated Expeditions, was launched almost one year ago. The project is dedicated to observing and experiencing fascinating natural phenomena through the work of artists, scientists and other cultural agents. It also wants to revive leisurely traveling experiences, which have almost been cast aside by the frantic pace of modern day life. The first expedition was carried out last summer in Russia to explore and study the total solar eclipse and animal behaviour during this celestial phenomenon. This was realized through the proposals of German media artist Agnes Meyer-Brandis and Catalonian visual artist Mireia C. Saladrigues. On the other hand the expedition of Finnish photographer Tommi Taipale focused on the cultural and geographical distance between of Finland and Siberia during his journey to the eclipse by hitch-hiking. The project was done in collaboration with Novosibirsk Zoo in Siberia and with several other institutions, mentioned in the end of the interview.