Textual Media

When I first started to read through Afternoon, a story, I went through and read what was said.  It all started out as what seemed to be a fairly "normal" story that had a linear progression to it.  In the beginning of reading this, however, there were a few instances of when all of a sudden the characters, settings, and subjects being talked about would seem to change.  I didn’t think much of it at first, but after I noticed this change the second time, I hit the "return to previous writing space" button and tried to make sense of what the connection was.  Usually I couldn’t make a connection and just went forward with the reading.  After spending more time with the story,  I felt that the pace was staring to pick up and I wasn’t as confused at the content I was reading about as I was in the beginning.  Then, once I started to be able to follow a story-line (it seems there are a few here), there would be a page that I had read before.  When I read it the first time, it didn’t make sense in the context of what I was reading.  When I read it the second time, however, it did seem to flow and make sense.  An example of this is when I first read about the two men in their office and the waitress comes to them with coffee.  One of the men made a crude comment to her and she walked on out.  It seemed like this page was just thrown in there in the beginning of the story to possibly throw the reader — or maybe keep his/her attention due to the comment.  The second time this page came up, it seemed to have more of a propper fit with the rest of the story.  There seemed to be more supportive pages surrounding it, rather than just having a random page pop up.

Maybe it was due to the fact that I would hit the Y or N button when a question was asked.  I noticed that typically, neither button took you to a different location, even when answering a question.  I hit the "return to previous writing space" button more than once to make sure I wasn’t missing anything by not hitting the Y or N button.  It turned out that no matter what I hit — enter, left-click, Y or N — it would take me to the same page.  I had the thought of the CYOA books while going through this, but as it turned out for me anyway, it didn’t seem to have as many branches as a CYOA novel.  For the most part, I felt it had a linear progression.  In a few ways, it did break from the normal novel-writing convention. 

"Into the Sunset"   western edge desert motionless dissolute "Amanda" sky mystery truth naked ants thighs prude "Catalog  of Dreams"

What is so intriguing about this particular version of text is the presence of a familiar descriptive tone of voice- describing and setting the stage for each fragmented scene, (lexia), just as it would appear in a paragraph of a novel. Images are merely placed between the lines of ink and typed pages of blank screen; the style, the medium that this author utilizes, is not far from the tools that creators alike have found necessary to use for the intended message to be conveyed. In simpler terms, this piece is not far from the earlier pieces of literature, writing that our brains are so accustomed to interpreting- our eyes so attentive and molded to scan.

Aside from the textual media through which the author performs his message, (more like directs his audience through) the medium of writing as a linear composition is somewhat present. It is, as discussed in class, reminiscent to stories spoken through print. It carries the same element of sentence structure, of paragraphs, and descriptive themes that transport the reader to the desired location. However, the very precedent that determines whether a certain text is considered a book is twisted- twisted and shaped by a flash of screens, fragments of hypertext- lexia.

This lexia enables the separation of each of the scenes; essentially, it breaks up the paths in which the author intends for his audience to follow. Is it intentional that you can only form a particularly set road of travel? No. This form is still, as you know, closely related to- if not merely founded upon- the ancient form of linear construction.

As you journey through Higerascope, you encounter flashing screen with text. Immediately, this poses as an ultimate indicator that the author has set a definite pace for his readers, participants, and daring adventurers. It is apparent that, even in the midst of traveling through the dialogue- presented by the creator as general means of storytelling- the flashing lexia tell otherwise.

One lexia, in particular, titled “Into the Sunset”, paints a picture of a traveler on the road- perhaps on the road of discovery, of wandering through a desert land, in search of some place that had been awaiting his arrival. The words included in this lexia reflect the title, including the terms drive, objects unfold, arroyo, dry wash, mesquite, red rock. “A dissolute early moon slouches over some mountains. Motionless at 90 mph, Marshall drives with quiet dread into an American sunset which, as he has long suspected, was always there waiting for him.” Clearly, the language of Higerascope maintains a novel-like, descriptive nature. Available links for this particular site includes the western edge, desert, motionless, dissolute. One might assume that the links are determined by the nature and terms used in the lexia. However, this is not completely the case.

For the lexia titled “Amanda”, the links connected are not explicitly related to its body. Yet, the context of this story relates itself to its previously linked lexia, “Into the Sunset”- this linked by the term “desert”. Although this lexia consists of verbal links that are not explicitly linked to the text, these links are implicitly connected to the story. Essentially, doing so provides background information on the context of each lexia, and even strengthens any given information for a more cohesive understanding of the desired form of journey, (preferably an active journey) that the creator would have his audience take. Other links of the lexia, “Amanda”, include the desert, the sky, the mystery, the truth. Each term may not be explicitly found in the body of text on this particular lexia, but their relevance to the content of the story line exemplify there insertion. The sky, in itself, could represent the endless possibilities for this particular lexia’s ending. Boundless and infinite, the sky holds little background information as it pertains to the story, but does it pertain to the third lexia? Yes, this will be addressed later. The link, “the truth”, presents the idea that discovering the detail of the case—finding ‘the truth’— is an important part of the story. As of now, it remains a “mystery”.      

“Catalog of Dreams #14”, is the third lexia examined. It is about lust, a form of carnal desires, wanting so badly, for sake of those that carry its sensual charm, to disguise itself as love. Summer love, lying in the grass-losing yourself in the endless flow of the sky– (which, even as this term appeared to hold no significance in the secondly discussed lexia) appears in the third lexia. This third lexia incorporates the links naked, ants, thighs, and prude. Like the first disclosed lexia, #14’s provided links are terms explicitly found in its body of text.

Successfully, the creator of Higersacope opens the doors to an astoundingly different yet similar form of storytelling, in relation to its printing predecessor. Each discussed lexia is formatted in such a complexly different manner, unique to printed forms of storytelling. Simultaneously, it includes the very essence of a good story- the descriptive words, personal journey of, and/or the personal experiences of the premiered character.

The term hijerascope, stems from the root words hijera, meaning departure from, and scope, referring to the act of investigation. Higerascope, and the framework of each lexia, essentially represents the investigation of the departure of text from the past mediums of conveying a message- these past mediums solely restricting themselves to the printing form. Through these stories, he displays their effectiveness in showing and telling a story, the stimulating quality of treading the line that separates these two forms (print and hypermedia), and perhaps, how this balance act affects the reader’s interpretation.

While going through the Hegirascope, the reader will come across many different pages and many pages that seemingly have no relation to each other.  However, if one reads for long enough, they will encounter fragments from many different stories and begin to slowly piece together each story.  It would take forever to figure out the entire Hegirascope, so when I found a couple of pages that directly related to each other and directly linked to each other, I figured I would start there.  The first page that I decided to begin with, titled Amanda, (http://iat.ubalt.edu/moulthrop/hypertexts/hgs/HGS078.html) seems to be a letter or an e-mail written by a woman named Amanda to her husband or boyfriend.  She is telling him about her experience in Oklahoma City, just after the Oklahoma City Bombing.  Specifically, she is talking about her initial observations about the emergency response, and how many rolls of film she shot and where she shot them from. 

From there, I clicked on the link titled "Stop Worrying" (http://iat.ubalt.edu/moulthrop/hypertexts/hgs/HGS135.html).  It caught my attention because of the fact that it was essentially the last thing that Amanda said in her letter.  Clicking that link brought me to a page titled "Amandus", which was seemingly a response to the letter or e-mail that Amanda had written.  It seems to be a general update on life from the other character in the letters, detailing the daily happenings.  As I was reading this letter, the page automatically updated to what appeared to be another letter from Amanda in response to the Amandus letter (http://iat.ubalt.edu/moulthrop/hypertexts/hgs/HGS136.html). There is some highly personal discussion going on between the two individuals, and it’s interesting to see the back-and-forth conversation between the two in letter form.

An interesting point in these letters is that the links provided on the side of the page are all words directly from the letter.  However, they often times don’t link to something directly related to the word which is linked.  Most of the time you can’t make a direct path between segments of the same story simply by clicking on links.  Typically you just happen across another piece of the story minutes later, and you must reconnect what you had already read.  To help you link stories together, pieces of the same story on different pages use the same background color and the same font color.  This tends to cause a "haven’t I seen this page before?" reaction, but you quickly realize you haven’t once you start reading.

This approach is very successful.  While reading what seems to be a random assortment of fragments of stories wouldn’t seem to be all that interesting, attention is retained by the fact that you begin to anticipate finding the continuation of a story buried somewhere in all the links.  Also, you can’t help but wonder "what’s next?" and either wait for the page to automatically update, or click on a link.  It’s strange to think that the author of the Hegirascope would want to make the tempo of browsing the sight so fast, since the pages automatically update every thirty seconds or so.  It almost causes a sense or urgency in the reader, giving the feeling of "I have to read fast or I won’t finish this page".  Again, this makes the reader want to keep on reading, and it really makes the Hegirascope a successful piece of digital text.  It really is a "text machine".

http://iat.ubalt.edu/moulthrop/hypertexts/hgs/HGS011.html First Link

http://iat.ubalt.edu/moulthrop/hypertexts/hgs/HGS025.html Second Link

http://iat.ubalt.edu/moulthrop/hypertexts/hgs/HGS045.html Third Link

The first link in the series that I have chosen deals with different meanings and uses of the word "one".  Actually, it only deals with the meaning in the sense of "one" being a number, and the sense of "one" being the word used for a singular person. 

One does not eat oysters with a spoon
One carries nothing to extremes
One thought fills immensity
One of anything is never enough
One is the name of truth
One for me and one for you
One signals faithfully across the void
One is the number of my true love’s heads 

This sort of poem has four links surrounding it "The One", "The Two", "The Singular", and "The Only".  For this assignment I decided I would choose the link that contained the word that first appeared in the content of the page.  For this page I chose the link "The One" because "one" is the first word that appears.  From this page I was directed to a page that "Catalog of Dreams #401".  Obviously the title has the number "one" in it, our first relevency to the last page.  This link is about a single red rock that has saved the world.  This simple red rock is containted in a cartoon landscape created by George Herriman, a famous pioneer cartoonist, as I found out.  In this landscape there are cacti, mesas, and clouds, but they all have no color.  Only this simple red rock has color; copper, rust, gold, and many others that make up this red rock.  The reason that this rock has saved the world is because a man named Hearst, who i later concluded would have to be William Randolph Hearst, has become intrigued by this rock.  Heast was a man who created a communications empire, an empire that was becoming so large that it threatened to be a monopoly over the entire nation, and eventually the world.  The problem is that he because he was so enthralled with the color of this rock, that Herriman had created, Hearst spent much of his money on trying to develop a new color theory.  What "color theory" means i am not exactly sure of, but it stunted the growth of his communications empire because he spent so much money in doing so, therefore the rock saved the world. 

Now, how does this related to the last page?  Well, the first connection we see is that the number "1" appears in the title.  One could also be referring to George Herriman as the "one" who saved teh world by creating the red rock.  One could also be connecting to Hearst, as the "one" who is threatening the world by creating a vast communications monopoly.  I think it refers to that "one" red rock amidst all the other whites and blanks that has created the reason for Hearst to become enthralled and has saved the world.  However you look at it, there are a number, no pun intended, of connections with the first page to the second. 

The links that outline the second page are as follows "farbenlehre", "red", "rock", and "black and white".  Sticking with my first word choice link preference, I chose the link "red" because the first word in the text of the second page is "red".  Upon clicking this link we notice immediately that our text is in the color RED, our first relevance to our last page.  The title of this new page is "Hark! Teh Mystery Looms".  This page tells the story of a woman Hattie Malloy, enchantress of the outland sea.  A failed Disney movie of some sorts.  And what color does this enchantress have? RED.  so there is our second link to the second page.  As we read on we see a connection to the first page in the line "Your chances of connecting to this dream are about one in the Sahara Desert".  This refers to the fact that this story has been locked in the vaults of Disney, and you will never be able to see it, it really sounds like a line that could be in the first page poem.  This is however the only link to the first page that I was able to find.   Other links more hidden that connect two to three are as follows…  The talk of Disney, which as we all know is a cartoon empire, perhaps George Herriman, a cartoonist, once worked for Disney and pioneered the beginning of that company.  Another link that can be made is that Disney went on to become one of the most influential empires to exist in this country, perhaps an empire that Hearst would have been jealous of in his life. 

Hegirascope goes on to prove that anything can be connected in this hypertext environment.  Whether it be linked by a number, profession, name, color, anything can connect two pages in hypertext.  Some links are more obvious than others, but still they are connected in the exact same way.  As in our lives, each decision that we make can be connected to other decisions.  Of course our days our connected to each other because we cannot escape our bodies or minds, but it is the decisions that connect those days that make it so unique.  Every person in the world can be connected in some way, it might not be as small as five degrees, but eventually we are all connected, just like hypertext.

The first three pages that were linked together which I selected are the following:
http://iat.ubalt.edu/moulthrop/hypertexts/hgs/HGS0B4.html,
http://iat.ubalt.edu/moulthrop/hypertexts/hgs/HGS097.html,
http://iat.ubalt.edu/moulthrop/hypertexts/hgs/HGS113.html.

The first page that drew my interest happened to be the shortest. The main section states in big, bold letters, “Good news about the end of the world.” This phrase is surrounded by two other phrases on top and bottom. On top, an ominous message says, “It’s always later than you think.”
On bottom, it reads “Feeding your fears since 1945.” I immediately concluded that this page was referring to the beginning of the Cold War (1945) and the age of nuclear weapons. The first line refers to two meanings. The first being that the end of the world and the onset of darkness are much closer at hand then most of us realize. The second I thought referred to government warnings or reassurances that were used to mislead the public and preventing mass hysteria. The “…since 1945,” section was satirical because it played off on the commercialized American society with this popular corporate slogan.

The second page was titled “Drivers.” The story begins with two people, a couple perhaps, waking up late. There is a foreshadowing of trouble in the first stanza which relates back to the theme of the first page. At the beginning there didn’t seem to be much of a connection, but by the third stanza, war and death are mentioned as one of the characters, Bent, is unable to get up and attend the program. I assume the “program” refers to a government sponsored therapy for veterans.
War is an obvious connection of the two “lexia.” Other commonalities include fear and anxiety.

The third page was titled “Epigraph.” The definition of epigraph is: a motto or quotation, as at the beginning of a literary composition, setting forth a theme. At first glance there were some obvious differences in the formatting of the page compared to the other two that I examined. The first noticeable difference is that unlike the other pages which have four different links leading to four separate literary pieces, “Epigraph,” has four links which all lead to the same page. I found this odd. The second one was that this was the only piece with an author listed at the bottom: Taylor and Saarinen. This work addresses the intellectual discussion about the end of history and time. One of the key phrases, “The issue is neither philosophical nor literary but technological,” is interesting because I related the technological aspect back to the nuclear reference on the first page and use of advanced weaponry, possibly chemical, that could’ve affected Bent on the second page. The other theme of this piece, was the inevitably of time taking its effect on the world and the impossibility of putting down “brakes.” Hence, this is why all of the links on this page are titled “Faster.”

All three linked pages are connected together by common themes and social issues. Every piece makes an allusion to war. From war, and our self-destruction comes the realization that whether through nuclear warheads, biological weapons, or being just naïve or arrogant, we are doomed. The end is near and the world of men will come to a close.

In relation to the Hegirascope, these pages share the element of unity. On first reading, some of the connections and ideas might seem a stretch, but when broken down by sentence and phrase the similarities are blatant. In this exercise, I think it was key to discuss three links instead of just two, this really helped in illustrating the connections that exist throughout the matrix that is the Hegirascope.

Encountering this text was perplexing at times, at times intriguing, and peculiar to navigate.  At first it seemed as though none of the stories connected in any way, they would jump around based either on what was chosen or inevitably automatically.  Perhaps not very “inevitably” as sometimes I had to go back and finish what I had read, although it seemed to go back to the same place it was directed to originally.  Through the cyclical reading I noticed that there were connections amongst the intents of the overlapping stories.  Similar words were manipulated throughout the stories and interspersed quotes. 

It was most curious to run into the hidden link pages like when you click on, “darkness” (pg HGSXX2) on most screens you run into a completely black page with hidden quotes.  At first one may believe some technical error has occurred but if explored, many paths may be followed. The reader can choose “Hark!”, “Pissed off yet?”, “True meaning”, “Five finger exercise”, “Doppelganger”, “of looking at”, “A dead parrot”, “Same old same old”, “Don’t Click Here”, “Fourteen ways” or “Windfall Lever”.  These links are not visible except through the little hand that appears when you’ve found a link.  However, this particular screen does not appear to transform on its own. 

I chose windfall lever which brought me to “Chapter One: I am dead” (pg. HGS076) this is a rather morbid examination of dreaming death, though more as a beginning than and end.  It entices an idea of journey in finality and a cyclical or everlasting realm similar to this text.  “We commit his person to the sky in hope of no resurrection beyond our bodiless hegira…”  There is an escape through death and the use of hegira as in the title “Hegirascope”.  Subsequently, the word flight is used in many of the other escape sequences.  A similar storyline was linked through the side word, Wake and it took me to the scene called “How it played in the Boardroom” (pg. HGS211).  The first line was a similar flight “They couldn’t understand him so they shot him into space.”  An inherent connection, as the two are written in the same color, orange, on a black background and have a seemingly similar tone but no actual transition  from one idea to the next, aside from the word “wake.”

The scene in the boardroom progresses to the widow’s son sleeping and the ascension of us all.  However, if I had chosen the word “zero” on the previous page, “Chapter One: I am dead” it would have taken me back to the same black screen with hidden links and the choice of a new direction.  Finally, “Boot Me Up and Call Me Rider” (pg. HGS212) emerges from our ascension in the “Boardroom” and the man is a dark type with apparently no dream beyond his own.  Inevitably, this sequence ends with “wake up rider and dream.” There is a cynical optimistic obscurity to this progression; there is no feeling of close personal accounting or connection in this second person narration. The theme is illusory in nature falling in with the dream sequences throughout the relating stories. 

 Similar to that of a “choose your own adventure” book, there are some areas which have scenes that seem to last two or three pages due to color, tone, and often theme.  This is exemplified in the previous arrangement, through the resemblance in tonal quality.  However in this text, the reader has several choices throughout the excursion.  The word links on the side, extracted from the writing in the center of the page, seem to hold a connection to the word at hand and often the word later in the story will lead to a continuation but not always.  The continual transient structure and continual collision of sequences creates an ever changing patchwork of imagery.

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.

(Start page) http://iat.ubalt.edu/moulthrop/hypertexts/hgsHGS0B1.html

(First click)  http://iat.ubalt.edu/moulthrop/hypertexts/hgs/HGS048.html

(Next Page) http://iat.ubalt.edu/moulthrop/hypertexts/hgs/HGSXX1.html

(2nd Click)   http://iat.ubalt.edu/moulthrop/hypertexts/hgs/HGS066.html

(Last click)  http://iat.ubalt.edu/moulthrop/hypertexts/hgs/HGS106.html

          I explored three lexias that were not linked sequentially to each other.  after the automatic introduction, I clicked to the right of the initializing page.  the page’s text structure was as follows:  middle; top = "Hi There! Maybe Later", middle center = "What if the world will not be still", and middle; bottom = "Dance on a Wire".  The text to the left of the center: left; top = "Think fast", left; bottom = "Read faster" and the text to the right of the center: right; top = "Now this" and text on the right; bottom = "Turning and turning" were different font than that in center.  the middle; center text was bold and giving the appearence of a headliner.  It was on this page HGS0B1 that I made my first click, "Now…this".  I followed the same pattern during my exploration, clicking the upper-right text.

          I cliked the right; top text "Now…this" the new page displayed the heading Calalog of Dreams #1004 it had the sequence number HGS048.  On this page, the text urged the reader to click within the text, but the links were not live and when you clicked the outer links you did not get the promised story.  The story said clicking the first link described you as 200 feet tall looking over a sleepy suburia.  The second link describes a scene with Benjamin Franklin in a Parisian fancy house.  The third link set the scene with Gloria Steinem and Barbara Mikulski washing the Senate Chambers with a fire house.  And, the forth and last link placed you in a forest with leaves made of air thin glass. On the right of the text, I clicked "Control".

          After I clicked "Control", I got a black page with only the text that said -click-.  You had to llok for the clickable text.  After finding the word "Violene" written in red with sequence  HGSXX1, I clicked the word.  Clicking it took me to a page titled "The Way it Happens".  This page’s senquence number is HGS066 and on this page the material reflected the Calvino style, where you the reader and the actor are one.  The story line here indicated that there was a driver who last controll of the car and the car takes over and begins to improvise for the driver, or so you think.  On this page, I clicked "Horizon" to the right of the center text.  

          The text selection was titled "Rear View" and was a continuation of the previous story "The Way it Happens".  The car was still improvising control over itself as it came out of a "soft" roll-over in a ditch.  This link HGS106 has a message that was we always see the future in the rear-view mirror. 

         I observed the links number structure and believe that eace group of links have mathematical numbering systems to generate their sequence.  The links that I selected were all even numbers, the computer generated numbers were increments of one 12, 13 up; in order, the beginning page had a "B" follow by "1" and odd number, and and the black page had Roman Numbers.  The text was framed by the type of fonts that set the links apart on the page but presented the page as on theme.  the only other connection was the non-bordered pages that gave the perception of infinity, with the guttered spaces between the words that allowed the reader to connect the text randomly from subtopics while focusing on the material to get its meaning as in UNderstanding Comics.  The page text was connected with a consistent layout and some words were connected to the stroy’s theme such as the word "Control" that linked to the out-of-control car.  There maybe other connection that I just did not see.