My Ten Tweets and Analysis

I hate Twitter. There isn't much else to be said about this website for me. I don't care if it's going to be the next Facebook, I don't care how convenient it is or how the technology is going to revolutionize online media, I. DON'T. CARE. That is me ranting, and I apologize (Scott) for being so blunt but I just had to get it out there. Twitter is annoying and stupid and whatever benefits people might get from it the idiocy it generates far outweighs them. That being said, using Twitter to "tweet" (urgh) about my final project didn't really help me very much. I expected my class to respond, to be right there tweeting away about their own mishaps and maybe giving some advice or whatever, but I was tweeting into a void. It was quite lonely, I have to say. I didn't need to throw out the issues I was having, or the progress I was making, because I already knew what was going on with my final, and no one else needed to. If they did, it certainly didn't seem that way. I understand the importance of writing down your creative process, but I don't think Twitter worked for me in this case.

Here are my ten TWEETS:

Will be posting my final this afternoon or tonight. Success! That's one less thing to stress about at least #wftw less than 10 seconds ago from web
Delete
e-mailed Scott to ask about youtube. That's an okay for me, which is good news. Too bad I'm at the library and my footage is at home! #wftw 2 minutes ago from web
Delete
so my video is only 15 seconds long..is that bad? there are three that i want to upload but they would have to be watched separately:/ #wftw 12 minutes ago from web
Delete
is it okay if we upload our video to youtube and then embed it into our masslive post? anyone? #wftw about 14 hours ago from web
Delete
my video has uploaded as a quicktime file. gonna be honest and say i have no idea where to go from here. uh oh. #wftw about 15 hours ago from web
Delete
the article's complete, now I just need to upload the video. I think I'll incorporate some photos too, just to be safe #wftw about 18 hours ago from web
Delete
just finished my interview for project number 2. i have a handy mp3 recorder so i feel like a real reporter! #wftw about 20 hours ago from web
Delete
also, no idea how i'm going to edit this! way more complicated than i thought #wftw about 23 hours ago from web
Delete
kind of sucks that the english society meeting i recorded was a bunch of horsing around. gotta work with it #wftw about 23 hours ago from web
Delete
i have my video for the project, but do we need pictures for it as well? #wftw

The Calm Before the Storm

I can't believe this is the last week of classes. I can't believe this is the last week I'll be stressing out about blogging!!! I'm honestly going to miss it; this class has, though I resisted almost every step of the way, taught me a lot about the online world of media and how blogging (a word I never wanted to use as a verb, ever) is a big part of it. I enjoy rambling about english and poetry and events that I go to and hear about around Amherst, and knowing that anyone out there on the web could stumble across my musings. It's fun.

I think, aside from my second project for Writing for the Web that I already have outlined, I'm going to post to Masslive about upcoming literary events in the Spring, and how it's fun and easy to attend them and make the most out of the literary scene here in Western Massachusetts. I think I can flesh that out a lot and make it into a decent article.

Aside from that, I'm just really trying to get through this second project. For some reason, it's more challenging to me than the others that we've been assigned. Maybe I'm just putting up mental blocks because of the whole video thing we have to incorporate. This is definitely the most high-tech thing I've ever done for school. We'll see how it turns out!

Masslive Masslive Masslive!!!

AHHHH!!!!! I never know what to write about for my Masslive posts. Ever. It's like, I have Thursdays where I go to meetings for English Society and then a reading, and that's it. This Thursday was Thanksgiving! I couldn't bear to step foot inside my high school after all that, so I didn't get the scoop on whether or not there even is a literary journal there anymore. I guess that's fine, since it didn't relate to my beat being in and around Amherst...

I'm thinking for this week's posts I'll put together an article that talks about why literary journals are important for the undergraduate community here at UMass. There are three that I know of: Ellipsis, which is a freshman literary journal run by students in Butterfield; Shortcuts, which is a journal composed of undergraduate short fiction; and of course, Jabberwocky, which is mostly poetry but some short fiction too.

I think I'll do another referential article as well, because those are kind of fun and I like researching my beat on the web.

Project #2 Outline

For my second project for Writing for the Web, I plan to do a follow-up piece on the article I wrote on English Society and the UMass undergraduate literary journal "Jabberwocky." The article is going to focus on the selection and publication process of the journal. Although it is early in the year for an annual publication, I'm going to ask Soo Bee Murray and some of the other returning members to outline the events that are being planned to fundraise and what it will take to actually put the journal together. At this Thursday's meeting, I am going to bring my camera which also records video to take photos. I am going to use the video to interview some of the members and ask what the selection process is like for them as individuals and how they think English Society works as a whole.

It should be fun, I'm going to talk to Soo Bee about it after class on Wednesday. Maybe it will motivate ES to really get moving!

Photography...Effective? I Think So.

The two galleries I liked best from tonight's class assignment were:

- The Gallery on the Anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall

- The Gallery on the worldwide Days of the Dead

I liked the Fall of the Berlin Wall gallery for a number of reasons. Particularly, I appreciated how there were pictures from November 9, 1989, as well as photographs of the remains of the wall and the surrounding areas of Berlin from present-day. The fade effect was striking as well; there were quite a few photos from 1989 that prompted you to click, which then faded into photos of what that same area looks like today. It really made a statement and reiterated the significance of the 20-year anniversary of such a momentous historical event. I also appreciated how there weren’t only before and after photos of the Berlin Wall itself, but snapshots from 1989 of the actual people who helped take the wall down, and the shots of the crowd. It really added a human element to something read about in textbooks that I think makes this decades-old event shockingly real to those of us who were not alive when it occurred, and thus more relatable. The photos make tangible and relevant what the written word cannot. The paragraph describing what the photos are of and why they are important become secondary when juxtaposed against the reality of the situation that the gallery depicts.

The Days of the Dead gallery was fascinating not only because of the subject matter, especially so soon after Halloween, but because it showed such a wide array of cultures celebrating one of the more mysterious and intriguing times of the year. It illustrated beautifully the fact that people all over the world are connected through this tradition of celebrating and acknowledging death, and it did so in a wide variety of ways. From the eerie to the delightful, the gallery took us around the world and made a reality out of an abstract acknowledgement of worldwide cultural similarities. Yet again, the visual element of this feature article is what made it interesting. Photos like these, as I said before, add an intensely personal facet to what otherwise would have been words on a page. The photos draw the reader in; professionally and beautifully executed, the gallery shows instead of tells, and holds the reader there until the end.

Homesick

I grew up on an island. 30 miles out to sea for the first 18 years of my life, I rarely saw the need to leave unless it was to go shopping for school clothes, or to visit family for brief periods of time. When I left to attend UMass, I hadn't yet grasped the notion that life is different outside of the Never-Never Land that Nantucket has always been to me. The year-round locals call leaving going to "America," as if we aren't a real part of the country at all. If you ever spend a year there, you'll know what they mean.

Home, for me, is the smell of brine. It is gray shingles and steely ocean waves. It is cobblestones and roads that lead only to the coast. No further.

I love school now, but my freshman year was brutal. For the first time in years, I felt the kind of panic a child feels when they know they are lost in a department store. Like I would never find my home again. Gradually, I realized that there was more to the world than 98 square miles of sand, and that it was livable, and exciting. It was freeing to be able to get into a car and drive and drive and drive and not hit a wall of water. I broke a barrier that year. I cut the umbilical cord that had connected me to Nantucket for so long the day I got on the ferry to leave, to start my life away from home. It was liberating and terrifying and there are many people I know who have never been able to do that. There are a few older people on the island who have never left, not once, and never will.

I realize how strange that is. I also know that it is the same for small towns all across America. I suppose I've always felt differently about my hometown, not only because it is mine, but because of it's identity as the furthest eastern point of the country. Alone out there, surrounded by the ocean, a busy little community completely detached from the mainland. Almost independent of it.

There is something romantic and eerie about it, and I know that I will never feel about any other place the way I do about that island. Living away from home, aside from the four insane summer months, I've been able to shake that mindset. I feel a bittersweet pang of nostalgia though, everytime I leave, when I remember my childhood years, and how I felt so physically and emotionally attached to a part of the earth. How it was alive to me, and how I loved it, as if it were family.

Sorry for the Minor Hiatus

The past two weeks have sadly been devoid of too many literary happenings around campus. I did recently attend a performance in the Concert Hall by Bill T. Jones and the Zane Dance company which incorporated a lot of text into the production. I'll be reviewing that shortly, hopefully to be posted onto Masslive.

English Society has been taking a break as well...the past three Thursdays meetings have been cancelled. It's not only inconvenient for my beat, but it's also disappointing because I really enjoy my time spent there. It's always fascinating for me to read my peers' work and hear what my fellow Jabberwocky staff have to say about it. This Thursday a whole lot of literary stuff will be going on. English Society will finally start meeting again, and there will be an author speaking at 8:00 PM in Memorial Hall.

As a part of the Visiting Writer's Series, Gillian Conoley will come to campus to discuss her upcoming novel and read from her past work. Novels will be on sale from Amherst Books at the end of the reading, so if I like what I hear maybe I'll pick one up and be able to write a legitimate review for Masslive.

Sorry about the lack of posts on UVoices lately, Scott. Things will be picking up shortly though!

The Death of Poetry?

This week's class assignment was to post a 400-600 referential article on Masslive that had to do with our beat. I chose an article from Newsweek about the supposed decline of poetry readership and popularity, and what it means for the verse-inclined community at large.

I'm actually really glad I stumbled across this article for the assignment, because it's something that's been in the back of my mind for awhile. Most of the writing I find myself doing for pleasure consists of poetry...and though it isn't very noteworthy I think it's something I'll continue to do for the rest of my life. If I could think of something I love that I want to make a career out of, it would be writing poetry and short-fiction. You can imagine that isn't the most lucrative of passions but I suppose that has never mattered very much to me. Living here in Amherst is kind of like living in a literary-oriented bubble. It seems like every corner you turn, there is something going on having to do with literature and verse. The very air we breathe in this part of New England seems saturated in poetry. I've never experienced that anywhere else, not even in my hometown of Nantucket, where the natural beauty is as breathtaking to me as the hills of Tuscany were during my visit there, four years ago. I think that's because the people here are so unique. Everyone is literate, everyone is searching for knowledge, it seems everyone has their own individual take on the world. That is what poetry conveys. I don't know, I'm kind of just rambling but the Newsweek article really got to me. Check it out on Masslive once it's posted. Hopefully I'll be able to gather my thoughts a little better there.

Cheers.

Another Class Assignment

Link Number 1: The Referential Post

Link Number 2: The Article it's Referring to


I think this referential post works well for two reasons. The blog I found this article on, treehugger.com, is all about raising awareness about environmental issues and publishing recent research and discoveries relevant to the "green movement." People go to this website as a concentrated source on environmental campaigns, etc. The dying coral reefs have been so highly debated and steeped in controversy, you could find a million articles on the issue but not very many with much substance. Treehugger manages to blog about a seriously important aspect of the coral reef problem that was originally published by BBC; a respected and credible source. So, firstly, they provide for a specific audience, and secondly, they take what they write about from legitimate resources.

And Now, A Quick Class Assignment

Three different posts from the same blog:

1) Exclusive: I Helped Richard Heene Plan a Balloon Hoax

2)Seven Halloween Costumes to Avoid

3)Twitter CEO's Mockery: We 'Were Laughing at Those Media Guys'

What's different about them? What's the same? Well...to start off, each of these blog posts are dealing with current events. Granted, they are popular current events, big in the media for their entertainment value and not exactly their vital importance to the world-at-large. Political humor (i.e. Sarah Palin Halloween costumes), Blogger tech and what's big in that world (the Twitter craze), and the latest crazy news headline (Balloon Boy)...everyone knows about these things. Everyone reads about them and has their own opinion about them.

What's different about each blog post is their individual amount of gravity. Each of them incorporate some sort of humor, just because of the topics. But the post about Twitter is the most matter-of-fact, while the post on Halloween costumes definitely meets the criteria for silliest. The Balloon Boy post sits somewhere in the middle, mostly because the topic is so ridiculous, outrageous even, that it's kind of hard to believe...you might even want to think that it's a joke. But it's not. It's 100% true and it's splashed all over the internet media outlets.

This blog reaches out to a large audience, but it's definitely the younger generations that are going to read all of this and understand it. Techies, gossips, and CNN-a-holics alike will find what they want to read on this blog, and won't be disappointed.

Entertainment + Relevance + Information = A Readable Blog

Brainstorming

So, to round out my beat, my professor's asked us to come up with five story ideas relating to what we've chosen to follow.

Number one:

Do a piece on the undergraduate literary journal "Jabberwocky." This journal is a big deal for fiction writers on campus, and a big part of the magazine includes poetry by undergrads like us. I've even submitted to them a few times. Not only will I be able to be behind-the-scenes for this dynamic literary post, hopefully I'll be able to be a part of it all semester and keep everyone updated on "Jabberwocky." Their first meeting of the semester is tomorrow at 6:30, and then afterwards we're all going to go to a reading.

Number two:

October 15th, Amherst Cinema is presenting a "poetry festival" through film. $5 a pop for students, so everyone should check it out. I'll be there, and hopefully some of the authors will as well. If I can score interviews, and even if I can't, it'll be a great story and I'm looking forward to covering it.

Number three:

UMass Amherst's writing program places among the top ten in the United States. There's a reason for this! I want to write a story on grads and undergrads in the writing department that have made a name for themselves with poetry, and I'd like to incorporate some of the reasons why UMass is such a haven for the literary-inclined. That includes interviewing professors of the poetry classes, students, and authors who have graduated or still attend.

Number four:

There is a Visiting Writers Series here at UMass Amherst. Not a lot of people know about it. The only reason I do is because I took a one-credit literary course my freshman year that required us to go to every single reading on and around campus. This semester, for my beat, I'd like to write stories on the individual poets who come to read their work here on campus. Onsite interviews with the author is something no one can really pass up. The first poetry reading is happening Thursday night at 7:00 (the same one the Jabberwocky group is heading to), at Memorial Hall, with Dara Wier.

Number five:

Emily Dickinson. We've all heard of her, the famously tragic poet, and we've all read some of her work. Lucky for me, the Emily Dickinson Museum is located directly in the center of Amherst, and their annual Emily Dickinson read-a-thon is happening Saturday, from from 7:00AM-10:00PM. I'd like to check it out, and write a story on why the poet is so important in this area of the country. I'll get interviews from the museum staff, and hopefully the hardcore fans of Dickinson's work who attend this annual Poetry marathon. Should be interesting, eh?

So there you have it, some rough ideas of what this blog is gonna be all about.

Sooo Ironic.

My professor asked us to write a short piece about a beat blog that we've heard of, been following, or just got into, and keep up with it for the duration of the semester. I chose "Stuff White People Like." I read a hilarious article on this website before they got a book deal, I think it was about a year ago, and I've checked up on the site regularly since. Maybe you've heard of it, maybe you haven't, in any case, here's my take on why this thing is so successful:

The blog “Stuff White People Like” has kind of taken the nation by storm in the past year. It uses backhanded sarcasm and wit so flawlessly executed even the irony-loving middle-class white people who read it might have some trouble interpreting every entry as just “a joke.”

The truth behind the stereotype is what keeps this blog going. They’ve even gotten a book deal! And with over 30 million hits, it’s not hard to see why. We love to read about ourselves. And face it; we love politically-incorrect humor, just so long as it’s implemented in a way that lets the satirically-perceptive…well…perceive the satire.

With numbered entries like “#120: Taking a Year Off,” for the perpetually free-spirited college student, and “#114: America,” after the 2008 Presidential Election, one can’t help but laugh at the ridiculous accuracy with which Christian Lander has pegged the hipster generation in this society.

What some may find offensive, Lander explains on the about section of the blog, is the gut-reaction so many people have to stereotyping, especially when it comes to race. He makes his argument by pointing out that the blog “is not filled with hateful or negative stereotypes and it’s not meant to incite anger or demean white people,” nor is it truly about race. It’s a good-natured, comedic way of revealing the ideals of an entire generation. What this blog is meant to do is help people laugh at themselves, and apparently we needed the lesson, because “Stuff White People Like” is nowhere near its peak.

Shrink-Wrap

Journalism in today’s modern world is a method of communication, between all people, everywhere. It is an outlet for knowledge, facts, events, art, trends, and politics. Online journalism is different in that it is instantaneous. It is a constant outpouring of the latest in everything all over the world, from all points of view.

Unlike newspapers, magazines, and television, online journalism grabs the latest headlines, spreads it over the internet, and is often the first place citizens of every country go to learn about what has happened and is happening, in that very moment. Online journalism is a fast-paced, in-the-moment method of communication which has truly revolutionized the way people gather information. It has shrunk the world into the click of a mouse.