Mystory Part 2: Motifs

Biscuits and Jelly

Every summer I would make the solo flight to Texas to visit my grandparents. Somewhere in the middle of summer (after the wildflowers died and the heat was officially unbearable) I would wake up in the early morning to the aroma of made-from-scratch-biscuits and the sound of a shotgun echoing through the country air. That combination only meant one thing: it was grape season. My grandparents lived on a large piece of country property in College Station, Texas. Along the fence line of the driveway was a series of mature grape vines that grew perfect jelly grapes, berries so dark they bridged on being black, they were juicy, abundant, and ready for picking.

Once I had finally rolled out of bed mid-morning, I would quickly scarf down Gran's amazing biscuits, get dressed, and head out to join Granddaddy at the grapevines (he was always up at 5:00am shooting the crows that liked the grapes as much as we did). Grad and I would venture out and after rounding the first bend of the driveway, see Granddaddy's beloved gray Toyota pick-up truck backed up into the heart of the vines. I would crawl up on the tailgate and armed with a bucket I would pick every grape I could reach (being a pretty short kid for my age for many of those years, that sometimes wasn't very much). Texas summers always had a point during the day where the heat reached a point of no return, and that was the signal to head in for lunch.

Usually within a couple days we (and by 'we' I mean Granddaddy starting at dawn and then reinforcements of Gran and me sometime mid-morning) had stripped the vines pretty clean. The morning following the final grape-picking expedition was the start to the grape's second life. It was time to make jelly.

Day one was spent weeding out any green or overripe grapes from the batch. We would cover the stove in large pots and would bring several pounds of grapes to a boil. The room would fill with the aroma of the grapes and I would stand and stir the pots listening to the grapes pop under the pressure of the heat and watching the solid round purple shapes slowly turn to a chunky liquid. After the grapes had boiled for their specified amount of time (I don't remember a lot of specifics mostly because as a little kid, specifics don't particularly matter) Gran and I would lay old white dish towels across large glass mixing bowls directly under a line of hooks Gran had across the kitchen under her top cabinets. Then we would quickly carry the steaming pots of grapes across the cool brick floor in a series of small hurried steps and dump the contents into the old subtle dish clothes. After returning the pots to the stove top, Gran would pull up the corners of the towel and knot it multiple times to ensure the knots would hold the weight of the grapes. The towels were then strung under the counter to sit overnight and drip. To my childhood level of patience, all I wanted to do was squeeze the bags to get the juice out sooner, but Gran always told me to leave it alone because squeezing the bags caused the jelly to have impurities. So I waited, and moved on to the second best activity of the day, eating Blue Bell ice cream.

Day two was when the real fun began. By that time the grapes had virtually stopped dripping and Gran would slowly take them down and dump out the grape seeds and pulp (as good as they smelled the day before straight off the stove, they smelled terrible now). As Gran measured out the specified amount of juice I was given the task of measuring sugar. Measurements being completed, the juice returned to the large pots joined by some fruit pectin to again come to a boil. The yummy aroma filled the room once more and in went the sugar. I then would stir the mixture until it felt like my arm was about to fall off. By that point Gran had prepared all the jars and we would scrape the impurities off the top of the mixture in the pot, fill each jar, screw on the lid, and flip it on its lid atop towels on the opposite side of the room. After five minutes, Gran and I would flip all the jars right-side up and let them sit and seal. Most of the process is a little bit of a blur, but the thing I remember most is waiting for the jars to pop. Just like jars in the grocery store, the jars we used had the center pop seal on them (if you're unsure what that is, just find a jar in your refrigerator and push down on the center of the lid and listen to it pop up and down) and after sitting on the counter awhile the top of the jar would pop up and seal. It was the last sign of success if all the jars sealed themselves.

Waiting for the jelly to completely cool, I would make labels to go on the front. They always had bunnies on them (Gran's favorite animal, it seemed fitting seeing as the house was full of them) and MGG's jelly (Maggie, Gran, and Granddaddy). Each one was labeled with the year, like a good vintage wine and drawn on fun colored sheets of copy-paper using a ball point pen, sharpie, and highlighters to make them look pretty.

Jelly making is work made fun. The final product was always sweet but changed slightly from year to year. Even now after the jelly and the house are gone, I can still taste the mouth-watering flavor of MGG jelly on Gran's perfectly amazing crumbly made-from-scratch-biscuits.

After revisiting the section on Family discourse I set out trying to conquer my assignment. I have stated before that I have the memory span of a goldfish, all of three seconds. As I was trying to remember things from my childhood, there wasn't a lot to draw from so I took Ulmer's 'office' advice and made a trip to my parent's house to look through old pictures in hopes of conjuring something up. The trip was rather futile because I soon realized there weren't any family pictures. There is no photography after I was a toddler, so all the images of the years I actually remember were never taken to document my childhood. There seems to be a huge void from the toddler years until I started taking my own pictures with/of my friends in middle school. After reading through the various assignments in section II, I settled on completing the assignment on page 86 by just telling the story because I couldn't document anything with my family pictures and it just doesn't feel right to document this using stock photography or my lame attempt at sketching. For my final site however, this story starts to really accentuate the motifs that constantly occur in my life. Cooking and baking in particular along with antique ideas and processes (jelly making, making food from scratch combined with motifs that show up in my career discourse)

For those of you that had class with me last semester, this story is all too familiar. I made a video about making apple butter...and what better way to eat apple butter then on fresh biscuits? This is where that idea originated, in my grandmother's kitchen as a child. I know Ulmer had mentioned using a Punctus memory from childhood, but I don't really have any. Everything I can remember is happy, and I have no qualms about that.

Since I did not have a chance to address the class about part I of the Mystory, let me fill in a few gaps here. I am posting all the components to my widesite on my blog so they have a digital presence. I want my site to be very consistent visually, so I am waiting until the final emblem emerges before I start trying to make a site that I eventually end up scrapping.

so here's second life

I have spent FOREVER trying to find clothes and dress myself. By now I'm just really frustrated and this is where I stopped. Why is it so difficult to find free clothes that aren't slutty? And why does it take forever to get clothes to semi-fit?!? (can you sense my frustration....)

Here is the old me:

Here is the new/slightly improved...me:

Mystory: Career Discourse

foucault: the beginning

Jan was right when he said Foucault was a difficult read. I spent the better part of this week huddled up in my office deciphering the pages. The only way I was really able to blog this week was to go through chapter by chapter and takes notes as I read along. Below is what I preened from the chapters. It is a little dirty, hard to understand, and lacking in the interpretation department, but it was all I could do to finish the prescribed reading with my brain still intact.

ch 1:

• Foucault's thought that each statement that draws about history is really boiled down to the spirit that lays underneath...a punctus-like realization that causes the reader to draw connections from earlier work, although two different people may make two different references. Although the punctus association is always drawn from the past and is always unstated in the actual written work. 'a voice as silent as breath' never mind that he wants to destroy this way of thinking.
• there are two ways of thinking according to Foucault: emotional and logical/physical. Logical is described in the before paragraph, physical is taking the document itself and only using the information listed...not inferring anything or making connections to any outside document but simply taking the document for what it states. Shallow and flat. It is simply scientific, like a research question that is just to be looked at quantitatively versus qualitatively.

ch. 2

• Two problems develop: "the first...concerns the indiscriminate use that I have made of the terms statement, event, and discourse; the second concerns the relations that may legitimately be described between the statements that have been left in their provisional, visible grouping." (p 31)

• Foucault makes 4 hypotheses to solve his problems, and each (for the record of frustration) he states, and then just as quickly disproves.

1. two statements relate if they refer to the same object (his example is madness which he quickly disproves by stating that madness doesn't always refer to the same topic throughout time)
   
2. Statements are written in the same style (example being of medicinal writing during the same time period using similar "vocabulary, same play of metaphor" (p 33) which is then disqualified because of the ever-growing list of qualifications of why something is written the way it is and again on the changes that occur throughout time).
   
3. Statements are aligned based on a "system of permanent and coherent concepts" aka: grammar. As quickly as this is explained it falls apart due to the changing face of grammar, you guessed it, through time.
   
4. This hypothesis is similar to number three, except the permanent concept is a "persistence of themes" (p35) (The example being economics). The fail is also similar to all the above mentioned ideas.

• Did Foucault actually accomplish anything in this chapter except to end exactly where he began, with nothing? At least he is showing that he is trying new ideas even if he discovers by the end that they all suck. That's right people, I just said Foucault and suck in the same paragraph (I guess you could say I'm seeing if you're with me....and if you are, just leave a comment and I'll bring you a cookie).

So chapter one is spent disqualifying the established way of categorizing statements. By chapter two Foucault has moved on to establishing his own theories of how to categorize statements. He picks what he believes will be easy topics (medicine, economics, grammar) to discern and discovers after mass failure that this task may be harder than originally perceived and that the only thing he can conclude is that all the statements are tied together by their dis-similarities.

ch. 3

• p 40-41 Foucault lays out and (a), (b) and (c) describing "rules of formation" using psychopathology as a chapter wide example.

1. (a) describes the "surfaces of emergence," basically stating that something can be grouped based on characteristics that are rejected from the understanding of the grouping (an example being a food is a fruit/vegetable because it does not come from an animal) I guess you could deem this guilty by disassociation/exclusion.
   
2. (b) "authorities of delimitation" that question who is the governing body or authority over said grouping.
   
3. (c) grids: how is the field typically divided?

• imagine that, Foucault found this analysis "inadequate" (42) and again wonders, "why this, not that?" He begins to make several "remarks and consequences" (p 43):

1. an object cannot preexist itself. "It exists under the positive conitions of a complex group of relations." (p 45
2. It cannot be described based on some conceptual notion, strictly physical ones.
3. From what I can understand, Foucault wants to use only first person information (or as he states it "discursive relations") instead of sources that are writing about a topic they themselves have not experienced.
4. "Discursive relations are not, as we can see, internal to discourse" but nor are they external either.

As much as I struggled to understand chapter 2, I really could have just read the following on page 46, and it would have summed practically everything up:

Taking those group figures which, in an insistent but confused way, presented themselves as psychology, economics, grammar, medicine, we asked on what kind of unity they could be based: were they simply a reconstruction after the even, based on particular works, successive theories, notion and themes some of which had been abandoned, others maintained by tradition, and again others fated to fall into oblivion only to be revived at a later date? Were they simply a series of linked enterprises?

lame. Chapter 2 über simplified. (maybe I'm just bitter that I spend all that time wading through the chapter to see how much time I wasted..just saying)

ch. 4

• Returning to the example of medicine, Foucault lists more questions pertaining to the validity of the statements and arrives at yet another list of questions:

1. "Who is speaking?"
2. Where is said person speaking? Foucault goes on to describe that different physical locations determine the importance of what is being stated, ie: what implications are known about a hospital versus a research facility (which he refers to as a library)
3. Foucault questions the "perceptual positioning" of the speaker.

• All this leads to more questions, because these fail to single-handedly categorize the 19th century medical field.

ch. 5

• I highlighted stuff, but to be honest I'm not even sure what I highlighted means. (insert frustration here) so I'm just going to move on.

ch. 6

• more things to determine:

1. "Determine the possible points of diffraction of discourse." otherwise listed as another either/or senario. (p 65)
   
2. often the either/or that is included in the discourse is actually found outside the discourse itself. Enter the "economy of the discursive constellation." (p 66)
   
3. the ultimate determination of what is allowed (from the either/or) is determined by an outside authority.

ch. 7

The final chapter of section II is reflections of what he has found (again...I'm starting to feel like I'm reading a broken record) Can you tell that I'm slightly tired of this and that my brain is mush? Urgh. I'm off to go get something warm and calorie ridden. See y'all in class tonight.

internet invention: umpteen pages also known as chapters 1 & 2

Oh Ulmer, how I've missed thee.

Chapters one and two are the first stepping stones to establishing a Mystory. I think the best way for me to approach this weeks reading is to go through some of Ulmer's assignments and show where my images are taking me. (or really where my images lie, because I'm not really sure where they are currently taking me except into a land of further confusion....but alas I am keeping an open mind because I know this will all make sense eventually)

My journey through Imageland begins on page 19. Ulmer is discussing the life and inpiration of Einstein, and as Ulmer begins to spin the tale of Einstein's fascination with the compass, I began to think of what images/things came to mind as something that fascinated me as a child.

Image 1: House
I was an only child growing up (don't judge me, please), and I had many toys to keep my attention so my parents could have sanity. But of all the toys I owned, there is only one that vividly stands out in my mind, and that is the Barbie doll house I received from Santa when I was five. Like Einstein, I was captivated by it. I cannot remember what I had for breakfast yesterday or the name of my first grade teacher (or many of my undergraduate professors for that matter) but I remember that morning like it was yesterday. My parents (aka Santa) stayed up the entire night before putting together this house (if you notice in the top right hand of the box it states 'some assembly required') completely furnished. Now in those days all the Barbie paraphernalia was covered in stickers, and my Mom painstakingly applied all the stickers to their appropriate places. The refrigerator was stocked and the closet was filled of new clothes and shoes. You can see that even now I can fill pages with discriptions of how amazing this house was to me.

The house represents imagination. I spent years of my life crawling around that pink wonder, rearranging the furniture, making up glamorous lives for the people that lived inside. My spark of imagination and creativity started there, and that provided the foundation for my career choice/wide site.

Image 2: Jane Quickly growing up, I move on to Career Discourse (21). The first point Ulmer states under the assignment is:

"The goal is inventio-the stage of gathering the materials with which to work. Think of this site as a documentation, a curated display of details related to a discovery, invention, and a figure responsible for it. There is no need to interpret or explain, but just to assemble a collection of details of whatever catches your attention. The figure or invention may be major or minor, so long as it is part of the career field that interests you." (22)

Jane was one of my undergraduate professors (one of the few that I will never be able to forget her name) and someone I would consider a mentor. She taught me design and a new way to see life in general. I owe most of my creative thought solely to her.

I know Ulmer states I don't have to give an explanation, but she is so important to me, I feel she at least needs an introduction. As far as other images that come to mind, they all trace their roots back to her, so to simplify matters (and bandwidth) I'll keep is sweet and simple.

Image 3: press
My last image seems to be an outlier on the bell-shaped curve that is Mystory. Ulmer restates the assignment and made me really think in a slightly new direction. He discusses that he is evaluating an important invention in his field, specifically writing. In my industry that invention is the printing press and Gutenberg's movable type. Without it, my industry would not exist.

It looks as though my images are leading to a creative end, all except that blasted press. Figures...the one thing that makes it all possible is the least creative. But it is the boat that carries the other Mystory stepping stones, and me trying not to judge too soon, I'm sure this will end up being a major player in the end.

On an end note, this semester is starting up to be a very personal one. It's as though my personal blog and professional education blog are melding into one. I'm excited, but on the other hand I feel that you're peeking into my soul and it's just a little uncomfortable. I know it's worth it, because with the pain comes amazing self discovery, right?

why are we blogging? (the end of 'blogging')

As Blogging came to an end this week (the book, not my career in blogging) I was almost a little sad....there may have been a tear as I know in the back of my mind it's all uphill from here. I feel much more educated now that I've read the book. Being completely transparent here, I didn't think I was going to learn a lot. How much is there to really learn about blogging? You just do it, right? yeah....I'm wrong, I got it...

I really like blogging for class. This sites allow me to post a variety of information like photos and videos that pertain to my train of thought. (which I'm sure helps you because my train of thought can be a scary messy place) In last week's reading, Rettberg discussed that "blogs are social" (p 21) but social implies that there is somebody actually interested in what I am writing. I have always felt that my blogs have been a one sided conversation and that the phrase "if a tree falls in a forest and nobody is there to hear..." always comes to mind. If I'm not writing something the people (and by people I mean the masses/general public) are even remotely interested in, then why am I doing it? I have had a similar concern about the blog I have been writing for class. Rettberg writes:

"...as publicists begin to engage directly with blogs and bloggers instead of reaching the public through the mainstream media they will have to 'accept some of the roles and responsibilities traditionally associated with good journalism. That means emphasizing qualities like fairness, balance, accuracy, and integrity in our own materials rather than slanted, hyperbolic advocacy that ultimately relies on the third part endorsement of a trusted media brand for its credibility' (Cook 2006, 52)" (p 130)

I know we are writing a more academic blog for class, but if we are trying to, in the long run, educated 'the masses' about electracy then who is our audience? As we are writing right now, it seems we are looking for that third party endorsement. Although we may not be looking for financial gain, are we looking for an academic endorsement to show our credibility? The top blogs, the ones that people read for enjoyment, are short, to the point, and not filled with a plethora of words that the majority of America would need a dictionary to define. I'm not saying we need to dumb down our posts, but honestly how many people would actually be interested in what we have to say outside the department?

Each time I log onto blogger.com, I see my blogs listed one right after each other and I feel a pang of regret. I am always logging on to add another little blip about RCID 813, and there sits the Print Nerd, all lonely and neglected. After reading this week I think I am going to leave the Nerd as it unfortunately lays for now, but I intend to join the masses of niche "journalists" "columnists" whatever you feel appropriately matches the job description and turn the Nerd site into a blog about nerdy printing stuff. Appropriate, right? I can find a way to turn everything into a conversation about de$ign, print, art, ect...and that would allow me to transition the site into something the masses would actually like to read. That also leaves the Chronicle of Peggy as a personal diary/electracy blog. The non-specific title also allows me to entertain a larger field of topics.

i'm sure you're very surprised by this.

Today's blog starts with a story. When reading through Blogging this week I was struck by all the warnings Rettberg gives toward the information we show online, and how it can come back to haunt us. She lists a little known example (although not a digital example, but a valid one none the less) on page 51. At the top of the page she is discussing the beginning of GUI (graphic user interface) and it becoming readily available to the masses by Apple's introduction of Lisa in 1982. I'm not sure how many of you know this, but my Dad was a big-wig at Apple back in these days (he's the guy in the middle of the picture below) and tells the story of how the name came to be.

Steve Jobs named the computer after his daughter...which would have been really touching if the computer had been successful, but in reality it was exuberant to produce and never took off. (when Dad talks about it, he always rolls his eyes) How would you like to have what is considered one of Apple's biggest mistakes named after you? Thanks Dad, way to show your love. I guess the moral to my story is be careful with your choices, they will revisit you eventually.

I have preliminarily decided to write my conference paper on social media's effect on print. (((here's the big surprise...insert sarcasm here))) Jan asked me at the end of last semester if I was still a Super Print Nerd, and I think it's so ingrained in me that it is really all I think about. In the infancy of my research, I found Rettberg's inclusion of Plato very interesting. He was quoted as saying the written word "will destroy memory. People won't bother to memorize facts speeches or stories if they can easily access them in writing." and also that "a written text is basically unresponsive. If you ask a person what he means by what he just said, he will answer you. If you try to ask a text a question, however, it will 'preserve a solemn silence' (Plato 1999) and cannot defend itself." (pg 33) Plato was convinced that writing was the end of the true memorization. In reality, memorization is still done, but the context is a little different. The majority of strict memorization is for things like scripts, poems, songs, and Bible verses. People echoed Plato when television became popular that it was going to oust the radio, and now people are saying similar things about print. I know I am slightly biased because I have been in school for print for so long, but I truly believe print is here to stay, but not as it has traditionally been. The days of traditional newspapers are over, and I have been receiving daily e-mail blasts pertaining to the latest carnage for over a year. But where some traditions are dieing, new forms of print are starting to erupt and take off. When Rettberg stated "Instead of mass communication from a few producers to large, mostly passive audiences, blogs support a dense network of small audiences and many producers." (pg 57) the relatively new markets of SIP (Special Interest Publication) and VDP (Variable Data Printing) came to mind in print. SIP's are publications, mostly magazines, that have a small run rate and audience. Think Knitting Monthly. Variable Data, on the other hand, is the newest toy of the industry where each piece coming off the production line is unique to its intended recipient.

"[P]rint still holds strong as the culturally most respected medium." (pg 43) People are still reading, but the mass availability of the internet has caused expectations to change, and the industry must follow suit. People can find all kinds of individual web pages that pertain to their specific interests. Now they are also looking for print that can achieve similar results. There are more and more new title of magazines hitting the market each year, but instead of having a few large heavy hitters like Vogue or Business Weekly, readers are wanting things like Ceramics Monthly or Sandlappers Magazine. I (unlike many within my industry) feel that this is a good breath of fresh air to the industry. It's time to spread the wings of press capabilities and imagination to see what can come next and maybe for once harness the great almighty power of the internet to an advantage.

Ok. So I went on a little bit of a soap box, but welcome to what's constantly swimming around in my mind. It's a scary place, right? :)
I guess you can easily tell why Blogging held much more of my attention this week than Ulmer, but I do want to tag on a quick note about my reading this week. (I don't want anyone feeling left out) It was nice getting to delve back into the mind of Ulmer. Having just gotten off the Electronic Monument wave from last semester, much of the reading this week was a review, but a much needed one at that. I have to say, however, that I was really intrigued by the sample testimonials included in the end of the section. Reading them made me very interested to what my own MYstory will become. Many of the stories started the same, and I feel are how my project will end up as well with the classic "this project didn't begin anything like it ended" tale. Specifically, I was drawn the Kara's story on page 13. As I read through it I thought I was reading my own story. She writes about her obsession with repeating pattern (the image above illustrates the point...the pieces are a small portion of my senior art show), one that I share. Most of my work (and I discussed this last semester during the photography project) centers around repeating patterns. I almost had an "Oh, crap!" moment because my idea has already been done, but then I realized that as soon as I say that I'll end up doing a project totally unrelated (say...about a war memorial or something), so I'm happy to report that I'm back to being open minded and ready for the adventure.