Author: jaclyn_kennard

I chose to begin this sequence at the lexia entitled “White Afternoon”. Here, the narrator talks about the scene of the ‘accident’, which is a key event in “afternoon”. In fact, it seems that the whole storyline of “afternoon” revolves around this accident, which may be why the author chose to entitle this lexia with “afternoon” as part of it. All of the words here link to the lexia entitled “4 what I see”, except for the words “Him” and “boy”, which link to the lexia entitled “speak memory”.

"Speak Memory" is a dialogue between two people which does not seem to make much sense, although it does appear that these people could be talking about the nature of hypertexts. The title of this lexia could possibly fit the text here, because both of these characters are speaking to eachother. All of the links on this page lead to the lexia entitled “Winter”.

“4 What I See” is another lexia which explains what the author sees at the scene at (presumably) the same accident as in “White Afternoon”. Here, the narrator (which is probably the same one from “White Afternoon”) describes in detail the skidmarks that have resulted from the accident, and how he/she finds things that seem odd about the aftermath of the accident. The title of this lexia seems to fit with the content of this story, as the author is describing what he/she sees around them. All of the links here link to the lexia entitled “5”.

"5" is another description of the accident scene. The title seems to suggest that it comes in sequence to “4 What I See”, and it certainly seems that way once you read the context of the lexia. This is probably the same narrator as from “White Afternoon” and “4 What I See”. Here, there are many links within this lexia. Everything links to the lexia entitled “staghorn and starthistle”, except for the word “Cigarette”, which links up to “yes”, “Footprints”, which links up to “2/”, “Sequin”, which links up to “o”, and “Woman’s”, which links up to “tit”.

Afternoon, a story was very similar to a lot of the other hypertexts we’ve looked at so far. It reminded me a lot of Hegirascope. Like Hegirascope, Afternoon is a story guided by links within the text that is more like pieces of a puzzle that need to be put together. These links within pages of the ‘text’ will also divert you to other pages.

Although Afternoon and Hegirascope  are similar in many ways, there are many ways they also differ. Hegirascope only relies on the reader’s choosing of links and the systematic changing of pages to guide the reader. It also does not allow any ‘backtracking’ of the story (this is not intended by the author, although you can ‘cheat’ this system by pressing your backbutton on your browser to view a previous page or by going back to previous links). However, Afternoon has a backbutton that can allow you to backtrack if you want to go back to a previous page. You also have a "Yes" and "No" button so that you can answer the questions that are asked of you in the story (a click on "Yes" or "No" will guide you to a different page). It also keeps a record of what links you have chosen and the history of pages that you have visited. You can also type in a response in the blank field at the bottom, and your response will send you to a different page. In this way, is like Afternoon maps your course for you as you explore it.  

In Afternoon, you also have the option to ‘bookmark’ pages if you want. The reader can also read this story at his or her own pace – there is no systematic turning of pages as in Hegirascope. The reader MUST make a decision (click a link, click yes, click no, hit the backbutton) in order for the story to continue. In this way, Afternoon is very similar to the Choose Your Own Adventure books we read. Like the Choose Your Own Adventure books, if the reader does not make a decision as to what they want to do, the story cannot continue. Hegirascope, however, will continue whether the reader has made a decision or not.

With the reader being able to make all of these decisions, I think that Afternoon engages the reader much more than with Hegirascope  or with the Choose Your Own Adventure books.

http://iat.ubalt.edu/moulthrop/hypertexts/hgs/HGS0B1.html – First Page

http://iat.ubalt.edu/moulthrop/hypertexts/hgs/HGS0B2.html – Second Page

http://iat.ubalt.edu/moulthrop/hypertexts/hgs/HGS0B3.html – Third Page

In the first 3 ‘pages’ of the storyline in "Hegirascope", there are patterns within the statements and links on each page.

The statements on the top seems to have a connection with eachother, perhaps giving a different description for what Hegirascope is. For example, the statement on the second page says: “Structure without Order”. The third page says: “A World Inside a World.”

The statements on the bottom all relate to different comments about ‘lines’. For example, on the first page, it is “Dancing on a Wire”, the second, it is “To Live Beyond the Line”, and the third, it is “A Time Outside the Lines”.

The large, bolded comments in the middle of the page seem to give hints about what you are doing and what Hegirascope is about. On the first page, it asks the reader, “What if the word will not be still?” With this question, the page switches to the next, almost as if it is answering the question for you. The next page tells the reader, “Where you are going, there are no maps”. They are right, there are no maps, Hegirascope is like a maze that you are trapped inside. On the third page, it says “As in a dream….” Hegirascope is like a dream, it’s chaotic, unmapped, and unplanned.

There is also a pattern within a lot of the links. A lot of the links in these pages lead you to a story from the so-called “Catalog of Dreams,” a collection of related stories that are often linked to within Hegirascope. One common pattern between all three of these pages is that each first link in the upper-left hand corner of each page links to one of the stories in the “Catalog of Dreams”. The titles to each link give clues to what each ‘dream’ is about. “Think fast”, which is the first link on the first page, links to a ‘dream’ about speed and urgency. “Lines of light”, which is the first link in the second story, links to a ‘dream’ about the perception of the sky and light.  Finally, “In your dreams”, which is the first link on the third page, literally links to a dream – it links to the same ‘dream’ as the link from the second page.

There are also some other random links to the Catalog of Dreams. Both the second and third pages have another link to the “Catalog of Dreams”. “Now… this”, the third link on the first page, also links to a story in the Catalog of Dreams. So does “Dream on”, the fourth link on the third page. There might be a pattern that every other page has an additional link to the Catalog of Dreams.

On the second page, there seems to also be some interconnectiveness among 2 of the links. “Read faster” links to a story about “Zick”. “Turning and Turning” links to another similar story about “Zick”.

There is also some other interconnectedness with the links on the second and third page. 2 of these links both connect to a collection of stories titled, “Ideas of Order in Park Slope”. The link entitled, “Hello, Chaos”, the second link on the second page, links to one of these stories, and so does the link, “Poet, Lover, Fool”, which is the second link on the third page.

Playing around with the links and writing everything out helps uncover these patterns in Hegirascope’s text.

I found The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy game to be almost as frustrating as the other games that we’ve played (Galatea, Zork, Adventure, etc), but it differed from the others in a few ways which making the game more enjoyable to play.

First of all, unlike the other games, there are graphics that accompany the game, which helps you to figure out what is going on and what is in front of you. In the other games, you have to blindly guess, or map out everything so that you can figure out where you are and where you need to go. Not only that, but you can also see what objects you are carrying with you, so that way you don’t forget what you have. There is also a little compass that you can click to decide what direction you want to go in, so that you don’t have to type each command (walk north, walk east, etc) out every time.

Secondly, if you die (which I did, many times) it gives you "hints" as what to do the next time around, so if you replay the game, you know what to do – and what not to do – the next time around.

What is still frustrating is that you have to type in commands, and if you don’t use the right words or phrases which the computer recognizes, you won’t get anywhere. Half of the frustration of these types of games is the fact that you have to figure out how to word your commands in a "language" that the computer understands. The other half is actually figuring out how to win the game.

This game (Hitchhiker’s Guide) makes it easier to figure out which commands to use, because if you ‘click’ on an object, it will tell you what it is called (robe, thing, phone) so that you won’t use another word that it won’t recognize (bathrobe, present, telephone). That helps eliminate a lot of confusion about which words to use.

However, the fact that you still have to type in commands to move your character around detracts from the fun of this game. Like the other games we’ve played, I played this game a few times, and after having the computer reject my commands so many times, I gave up out of sheer frustration.

It was interesting to see how people linked to other peoples’ stories and how they chose their links. I liked how Ann Luu linked her line “summertime is not what it used to be anymore”, namely, the word ‘summertime’, with Wes Shephard’s story “Neighborhood Lawns in the Middle of September”, which has a lot of focus on the departure of summertime. Some people found similarities between their stories and their classmates’ stories which they linked to. For example, Randall Ford’s “Swimming Through a Sea of Defiance”, was linked to my story, “When There Is No Story At All”. In both of our stories, the characters had fallen asleep and were wondering if they were dreaming, so Randall linked the words “fallen asleep” with my story.

There were also lots of links that demonstrated funny plays on words, like in Bryan Pierson’s “From the Deep Dark Cells of Isolation” where the “The photographs of a man sliced up in his basement” links to a picture of slices of bread. Another example of this is the word ‘bird’ which takes you to a link to Duck Hunt in Jennifer Parker’s “Cowering in the Darkest Chasms”.

Some people linked to certain pictures to help illustrate their stories or to draw attention to a specific object in their stories, like the illustration of the bridge’s entrance in Bertha Bey’s A Look Beyond the Bridge.

There were also links that made you re-think different elements of the story, for example, the use of the Virgin Mary in Jason Obenscain’s “Rock! Said Mary”. In this case, it makes you re-think who “Mary” really is.

I found this section (or sections, however you want to look at it) of Calvino’s novel to be the most interesting so far. By now the reader already should have an idea that this is a group of novels contained within one larger novel, but Calvino also starts including stories within stories within a single chapter. He also starts shifting the point of view around by letting you see from Ludmilla’s point of view, then the man’s point of view, in the same chapter. It’s a little disorienting at first, but it makes you wonder, who does Calvino want us to be as the reader of this novel? Calvino forces us to examine this novel from many different ways – as an outsider, examing the events that unfold; as a ‘reader’ in relation to the ‘writer’; and finally, as a character in the novel itself. It’s a little mind-boggling, but it’s pretty interesting nonetheless.