Top 10 Things I’ve Learned from “I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here!”
So, there is an addition to the reality television family on NBC, that I am ashamed to say, I really like. Well, I don’t know if “like” like it, or if I’m just incredibly amused. Honestly, I’m leaning toward, liking
6.22.09 My Top Ten RIGHT NOW
Top Ten New York Free Activities that make me love the city more than I already do 1. Sitting by the river (just off the West Side Highway and Jane Street) I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again, this
It’s the weekend!
Right now at this moment I am sitting at my desk typing with my sub-par peripheral vision glued to the window. Weather status check as of 11:44am EST: There are clouds, but there is also some blue, and that blue
New York Interactive Murder Map
As if news wasn’t fear-mongering enough, The New York Times brings us an interactive Murder Map for New York City. Have fun finding out exactly when the last murder happened in your neighborhood! Thanks to this little program, I was
Why Iran has Changed
IRAN: A Nation Of Bloggers from ayrakus on Vimeo. Check out this great little video about why this revolt is different from all recent demonstations in Iran.
Textual Scavenger Hunting and Other Pastimes of the Digital Age Part I :: Shipwrecked! Texts that time forgot (X Marks the Top Ten Treasures Spot, Ahoy!)
What will become of The Book? No no, not that book, but the thing that is Book: the physical, papery, rippy shreddy foldy thing of pulped plant and ink that is read without a computer involved…remember?
As part of a larger effort to be addressed in a series of posts here regarding the possibly questionable, certainly complex future of text ex libris in the age of new media, I begin by proposing the following: that the trajectory towards online and digital textuality and scholarship plays as essential a role (ironically) in saving the book as it does in heralding its extinction. For the mode of producing and publishing texts, as well as disseminating and sharing information about texts is molting – shedding its constricting, stuffy garb to emerge phoenix like from the open source sunrise… which, as it turns out, can be not only a generator but also a resuscitator of textual objects, on paper or not.
Bestsellers come and go, though of course, some (and even some that fared less successfully at the time) endure…you’re familiar I’m sure with what we call “classics”? However, there is an incredibly complex game of cultural canasta that determines exactly which works will (or won’t) make the cut. Politics, economy, interpersonal relationships, cultural trends and turns, legal systems, religion, technology, and a whole cast of other familiar characters are the players at this literary casino. It has far far less to do, unfortunately, with the relevance or staying power of the works themselves.
Like a salmon swimming upstream (hmm, weighted down by a net full of books… bad metaphor) I seek to change the tide for these titles: texts, and their authors that lost the coin toss. That awkward, unwieldy behemoth we know as the internet – even as it brings the word to more screens and less pages every day – also offers exposure to books, in their traditional form… as well as opening up new avenues for freeing their production and publication from former constraints.
Welcome Lynne to PopTen!
Nothing makes me happier than introducing a new PopTen writer, especially one as wildly talented as Lynne Desilva-Johnson. Lynne’s one of those many-hat-wearers: an English professor at City College who’s working on her PhD in Cultural Anthropology, and a journalist
Iranian Government Attacked by Internet Forces
The Ayatollah Khamenei and President Ahmadinejad have met the full force of a people empowered by the internet, and they are being seriously shaken. What is happening right now in Iran is fueled by the freedom of speech and organization
South Africa Stand up!! BLK JKS
Hey, if you dig this (which you should) you can catch BLK JKS live and FREE in Brooklyn at the Hunterfly Road Houses, July 5th at 4pm. That’s Weeksville. Also known as “right beside Bed-Stuy.” And they are from South
Let Freedom Ring
Something beautiful and terrible and inspiring and frightening and strange is happening in Iran right now. I’m scared it might be too much to hope for, but it seems like things in this world just dramatically changed, and maybe for