Something ordinary made new.

The assignment after reading Virginia Woolf's The Death of the Moth was to take something ordinary and make it new and different, even extraordinary.

I used my name...

The Beast Within: or DeQunician writing

I sit. Cold and alone. My thoughts the only company in this struggle, the only character in the drama about to be performed in this one act play—destined to be repeated for eternity. I feel the demon rising up within the very bowels of my existence, urgent and forceful it comes unbidden. There is no escaping the cruel monster without the pain and agony that invariably accompanies its passage. My nails dig in at my sides—gripping, gripping, gripping for dear life as I wait for the end to come—the sweet release that will only come when the dark night of this struggle is lifted from my weary shoulders. Sweat begins pouring from my creased brow. Deep crevices, like canyons in the desert, line my face, sweat coursing through them like mighty rivers ripping their jagged path in the earth. My every muscle tenses and contorts from the strain.

Reaching out for any distraction I find the comforting words of some ancient sage or other. Perhaps a fellow warrior who once did battle in this same spot. I picture them devoid of armour, stripped bare before God and their own serpentine dragon that must be slain. Circling, circling, circling, they fought for their meager and sullen lives as I do now. Together, we are locked in this timeless struggle. Their words a comfort, a testament, an acknowledgment across the years that I am not now truly alone, nor have I ever been. They have ever been with me and ever shall be. A testament that none of us is truly alone while we still live and draw human breath. As long as warm blood continues to course through our veins, we will ever have with us our forefathers and ancestors, those that have passed before and those that will pass this way again.

A low rumble exploded from somewhere deep, injecting me with such a fear as has only been felt on the battlefields. I envision a cloud of dark black crows, a spectre of death circling waiting to rip the carrion from my bones should I fall in this venture. I imagine my bones, bleached white, pristine as a throne made suitable for a king, forever enshrined in this posture, hunched and decrepit as an old woman beneath the weight of a lifetime. I groan with the ghastly pain. It stabs deep within my soft, vulnerable belly and rips a scream from between my lips.

There is no stopping now. The beast draws near. The end comes swiftly.

A scream.

I slump, the perspiration falling from my now wet and sodden hair.

It is done.

“Where have you been,” comes the call from my beloved friend. My friend who left me to this struggle alone.

“I had to poop.”

iPad? really thats the best you could do?

Once again Steve Jobs had descended from the mountain top to bring the gifts of God to the masses. The last time someone brought a tablet down from the mountain like this, the world was forever changed. This time, the tablet and the golden calf are the same thing.

Apple unveiled the iPad today. It is the latest in a growing family tree of crap. Thats right I skipped the bad apple pun and went straight to crap. iShuffle's latest iteration, macbook air, now the iPad. First off the name sounds like a feminine product. It is at best, a large iPod, not iPhone because it can't make calls. Its features include Safari, Mail, Photos, Video, youTube (thank God I won't be without the constant stream of "cats doing things" videos), iPod, iTunes, App Store (notice there is always a built-in way to spend more), ibooks (the not quite kindle), Maps, Notes, Calendar, Contacts, Homescreen, and Spotlight search. If you notice, there isn't much to set it apart from the iPod/iPhone family.

Now lets look at their pricing structure.

The basic macbook starts at $999 and you get an almost cosmos launching bigger bang for your buck. At the very least 250GB and the ability to run most programs out there. Programs people, not apps.

Then there is the non-tablet tablet. How many years has Apple been the epitome of the graphic and design industry's goto computer? I have dreamt for years of an Apple tablet. Something I could draw on, run the Adobe suit and have the luxury of a touch screen. Something like Axiotron's modbook thats been around for years. The iPad, is not this product. It feels like a rather resounding FU to the aging and, I'm beginning to wonder, outdated computer customers of Apple.

Apple, I love you. I love my mac and have switched more than one person to it, freeing them from the chains of their old PC lives. But this is just not going to cut it.

The end of the experiment...

This is my moratorium for Wordpress. It was fun but I feel it is time for me to move on. If I were to tell you that its me and not you...well I'd be lying. Sure I had more control. If I had taken the time I could have designed my own layout and made it look amazing but I am busy doing that for clients. Sure I had control and could approve, deny, or spam comments but as only 1 out of 20 some wasn't spam, it just seemed like a waste to me.

So here I am blogspot. I hope you will accept me back. Wordpress was young and exciting and did things you wouldn't do but I missed you. Maybe no one will ever join us, maybe they won't read the words we share...but we will. And so I'm back.

If anyone would like to read the few posts that I shared with Wordpress they are below.

Unchanging

Published: January 23rd, 2010

So Mel and I went to a friends house tonight to play games. I have to say that Wii Music is among the most fun games EVER. Its funny that in today’s world of incredible graphics and complex games, something as simple as banging your hands like drums or moving a controller like a violin bow and pressing 2 buttons could be as fun as it is. It seems that no matter how far we go, our early inventions still find usefulness. We have a Wii and were supremely excited to get pac man on it. We have a lovely flat screen TV with high definition, I still like to watch my old 80’s cartoons, Transformers and Duck Tales etc. How many people today buy incredible top of the line computers with gigs and gigs of storage and awesome graphics cards, then use it as a jukebox/typewriter? Well I guess its also an encyclopedia, and a phone/postal service. Okay so the computer is pretty great but a lot of other things, well they haven’t really changed.

Personal Statement part 2

Published: December 1st, 2009

I’m finding it hard to write the second half. The personal statement bit was easy. I know who I am, it took me about 27 years to find out. I know I want to teach. Now the part about what specifically I want to accomplish and what I’ll bring to the English department as a graduate student, thats a little more difficult to explain. Perhaps the best way to go about this is work backwards…

I want to teach new media, the convergence of Art and Text in technology. As online applications become more pervasive, what will happen to the written word? Many people fear the extinction of news papers and books. I don’t think that’s the direction we are heading. If anything, the explosion of online news in the form of blogs, webizines, or online news papers will make the same information more accessible and allow better writing and better coverage of the world’s events. As digital books become more popular because of the Kindle and Sony E-reader, it could become easier for new writers to publish works. That being said, people are less likely to slog through pages of text on their ever shrinking digital devices. This makes the artistic layout and design of the text so much more important. In a time when anyone with internet access can host a blog, publish a book, or create a website, the need to write well and understand the trends of how to present that text becomes more important.

New media is also a possible answer to some of our problems faced by decreasing school funding. In the days of “No Child Left Behind,” schools have to provide supplies like paper and pencils, teachers cannot assign summer reading, even to advanced placement classes, because the school would have to provide books for every student. We need to create inexpensive alternatives to traditional educational resources. The internet may be the answer. Imagine a website that uses Flash animation to teach children to read, or teaching art without the cost of paints or brushes. By creating online educational resources that are well-written and well-designed we can revolutionize our educational system. As a docent at the Huntington Museum of Art, I have been involved in tours that are given via video conferencing to schools in rural areas. The limitless possibilities this technology can bring to the classroom has inspired me. I want to devote my own education and experience to creating new methods of bringing knowledge to others.

As I am writing this I can hear the question the English department is going to ask, “What does this have to do with us?”

Honestly, the answer may simply be, “nothing…”

Maybe what I want is a master’s degree in Education.

Personal Statement...as it stands now.

Posted: November 26th, 2009

To whom it may concern:

As I leaned over the edge of the rocks, my gloved hand gripping the rope, I looked into her eyes. I could see the terror as water gathered into tears. Her feet were slipping. “Look at me,” I said willing the calm tone into my voice. “Just keep your eyes on me, you’re not going anywhere. Just keep your hand on the rope and keep it tight behind you. Now walk up the rock. One foot in front of the other.” My eyes never left hers. Carefully, tentatively her foot began to creep up the face of the rock. “Just keep moving your feet up the rock until you are sitting in the harness. I’m right here and I promise you won’t fall.” Finally, she was once again sitting in the harness and began to let a few inches of rope slide through her hands. It was a long process of sliding her hand back to let out more rope and walking down the face of the rocks but at last she reached the ground below.

It was there on the rocks, leaning out into nothingness and looking into those wide terrified eyes, that I knew who I was. I’m a teacher. Growing up in my parents’ Christian home I had always heard of our “calling.” That profession that God almighty has ordained for each of us. I don’t claim to know what’s on God’s mind or if God, in fact, has a mind. All I know is that I fell in love with teaching.

After my graduation from Marshall in 2004 I sat back, breathed a sigh of relief and quoted Elliot, “Well that’s over and I’m glad its done.” I joined the military, a big mistake, and volunteered to train new recruits preparing them for boot-camp, not a mistake. I found that I was much better at training these young soldiers at maneuvers, first-aid, the pomp ,circumstance and BS of the army than I was at following others into it. When teaching, I came alive. I was always looking for new things to incorporate, new ways to keep their attention. When they got bored with the same drills outside, I taught them military history and showed how those same tactics have been used for centuries. I would use clips from movies to illustrate my points and they got it. I love that feeling when you’re teaching something and you see the light go on, they GET it.

A year ago I began volunteering as a docent at the Huntington museum. I found myself leading more high-school and college aged groups than anything else and the excitement of teaching once again overwhelmed me. This time the drug was even more powerful as I was teaching something I actually cared about. It was here that I realized why I love Art and Literature.

I was looking at a series of colorfield paintings, by colorfield paintings I mean roughly cut pieces of wood and styrofoam painted solid colors. At first look I admit I wasn’t impressed. Often, even if the subject or style doesn’t interest me, I can at least appreciate the craftsmanship of the work. These just seemed bad. They were the quintessential, my five year old could do that, paintings. But as the curator told us about the artist and her background of scrounging through alleys and abandoned warehouses for art materials the work made more sense to me. I still didn’t like it, which is fine, but now I could appreciate it.

I began thinking of my own background, my time spent studying Literature and parsing meaning from the words of authors long since dead. My girlfriend and I have discussed the validation of searching for the elusive “authors intent” as opposed to enjoying the story for what it is. I agree that author’s intent is like a white whale, hard to find and in the end fairly useless. But the practice of examining a text, holding it up to the history that surrounds it or playing Freud and psychoanalyzing the characters to extract some idea that can be applied to our own lives is a valuable tool. I have found that there are two kinds of art, whether visual, literary or anything else. There is art that you can experience and pull something from it immediately, then there are works that only take on meaning when you hold them up to something else. Teaching others to think in these broader ideas and how to apply art and literature to their own lives has become my overwhelming passion.