Textual Media

"Traversing Through the Winding Road," by Ann Luu, had a few links that were linked to pages with what I felt to have meaning behind them.  It also seemed like a few of the links were linked to pages or images that had to do with the word itself, or had at least the word in it.  An example is the word "suffocate" which she used to in her text to describe the intense heat the character was experiencing.  The link was to an article about children suffocating due to plastic bags.  Another of example of how she did this was with the word "daisy."  I liked this example because it linked straight to a page with meanings of every flower you can think of.  This didn’t add to the story at all, but it did divert my attention away for a few seconds.  With this being said, I think that it took away from the coherency, and the meaning.  However, it is quite clever and a good example of thinking outside the box.  Overall, I’d say that all the link-destinations were representative to the words they were linking from.

Philip Miller’s incipit entitled, "Across the Dark Expanse," used links that had the word in the linked-destination.  For example, the word "captain" was linked to the official web site for Captain Morgan’s rum.  The word "icebreakers" was linked to Hershey.com.  Hershey is apparently the maker of Icebreakers Liquid Ice breath fresheners.  Other links were a little more involved such as the word "Knights."  It was linked to the Maryland Renaissance Festival.  Knights can be found at a renaissance festival.  Overall, I didn’t feel like it took away or contributed to the story.  It was still coherent to me as well.  It is pretty much the same thing I did for my own incipit.

    The story, "Where There is No Story at All" by Jackie was adept use of imagery which made just enough sense and brought that edge I had hoped to find.  She chose interesting flash productions which were stimulating with out distracting from the inevitable narrative.  I had hoped to find some of these kind of visually appealing interactions but lost a couple URLs I wanted to use.  I enjoyed the clock where th hand keeps erasing and rewriting the minutes as they pass in constant cycle. Yes, and the 5 minute sideburns were very funny and to me it was like at this moment when the author was abandoning you in suspense she was laughing at you HA HA! No ending for you! 

    Some like Lindsey’s The Drawn Pavement of October Nights  were somewhat straight forward illustrations of the word used.  There was an image of Army recruitment for the word Army and a camaro for camaro. It was imagery toward the visualization of the narrative.  However the first, ketchup was linked to a site which had a funny political message.  The bottle has a picture of Geoge Wahington and is called "W" that seems to represent george (duba-u as people call him) Bush and it was for fallen soldiers.  It seemed to be in line with some of the words she chose to link, such as army. It was an interesting direction as she was writing about discrete assignments for some organization. 

  Once it was discussed, I begain thinking about why we did not choose many texts (aside the ones required to link to).  I suppose my particular reasoning is that it would be drawing away from the original text but I guess it is more Calvino’esque to do so.  I think Lindsey’s Linked at the end to another which I had not considered during the assignment as Calvino always does so.  I tink it would be interesting to encorporate mor sounds with the linkage. I would have linked "The wind cried mary" by Jimi Hendrix to Jason’s.  However, I like the visual as well so I suppose the only way to integrate the two would be through creating the pages yourself as opposed to outside links that are out of our control.  Anyway I enjoyed this project but especially exploring the other creations and various takes on the assignment.

       
 

For this assignment i first read Ann Luu’s story.  I would first like to say that the suspense that was present in this story was very strong, she kept the reader very in the dark until the end of the story.  As far as the choices for links went they were fairly simple and strait forward.  I dont think they added to the story, but they didnt really take away from it either.  I suppose that she could have linked the words as they were expressed in the story to more relative links.  For example she could have linked "tickets" to a link about boat tickets, since that is the kind of ticket in the story.  The second story I read was by Bryan Pierson.  This story was also very enjoyable to read, and its cut off point left the reader unsatisified with not really knowing what happened, or if he really did it.  The links that are present within Bryan’s text are not really relative to the story at all, but this does not necessarily take away from the story, it actually lightens it up a bit and contrasts what you might expect.  For example when i clicked the word sliced within his text i was expecting to see some bloody body, intead i saw a cartoon image of sliced bread, it was a interesting surprise. 

Swimming through a Sea of Defiance contained links that were related or that were illustrations of the word.  I believe these contributed to the story.  The three most effective links was the photo of a sound wave, the photo of a man being yelled at and the photo of the bus crashing into the building both directly tied into the story and added emphasis.  The other links made no impact on me.  Although they represented the words, the connection was too far apart to make an impression on the story.

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In Where There is No Story at All, the links are very random which mimick the structure and pace of the story.  So in that way the links work for the piece.  The best link in this piece is to the clock unlike any clock I have ever seen which really echoes the emphasis of time and urgency in the piece.  The other links were representations or advertisements which could be symbolic of the destractions the actual writer had in the piece.

In "From the Deep Dark Cells of Isolation", Bryan seemed to focus on linking to things that you wouldn’t first think of when reading the linked sentence.  For example, with the line "wait a minute here", he linked the word "minute" to the Minute Made website.  This strategy didn’t necessarily take away from the meaning or coherency of the incipit, but instead gave it some new meaning.  With most of the links, you had to stop and think for a second "why is he linking to this page?", but somehow still manages not to distract the reader enough to stop reading the incipit.  So overall, I think he did a good job making links that weren’t in fact direct links to what he was talking about and managed to make the reader think.

Wes seemed to employ a bit of a different strategy with most of his links by linking to images that directly related to what he was talking about.  An example from his incipit would be linking the word "Philadelphia" to an image of the Philadelphia skyline.  This approach seems to make the incipit a bit more coherent since it gives the reader a direct visual representation of what is going on in the story.  Similarly, it also gives the story a bit more meaning, since it can give the reader more of an idea of what the author had in mind when he was writing, leaving less guessing to do about visuals.

Most of the links are helpful in which it provides visuals to the words that we mentioned in the story.  There are links to a face on the side of the mountain, a singer yelling into another face, and the image of dough which all relate to the words use in the story.  The link to another story in the word Malbork are especially helpful and creative because the two stories seems to complement each other well.  However I do not get the the link made for "escape plan" and "alliance", maybe this two links try to convey the idea that the narrator has joined some political band that incite anger from most of the people in the town.  Overall, I think the links provide further explanation and meaning to the incipit instead of detracts from it. 

***Through visual aid or web sites that seem to have no relevance at all, I simply wanted to capture the significance of particular words or phrases of the story. The power of these words linked to a certain website, or images that may appear on screen lend to the development of a specific thought or emotion. In essence, I knew the right set of ten words that would not only capture the reader’s attention, but also capture the intriguing elements of the story. I also wanted to be funny, if just a little light hearted in the process. Readers will notice that I placed particular sites that are not exactly what one would expect in the process of reading the story.
*** Immediately, when you click on the word ketchup, you are taken to a site that pictures the image of a ketchup bottom. (I simply wanted the reader to have the image of a ketchup bottle in their mind…. Signifying that you are in, the reader is in, the character is in a diner). Secondly, the term diner takes the reader to the image of a 50s style diner. Again, I simply wanted to convey the scenery, set the stage for where I am telling the story. The term dealer is linked to the site for art dealers. This was simply ironic; funny, in a way, due to the illegal involvement of dealing that the character has been thrown into, and the obvious simple nature of dealing pieces of art work for galleries. Lastly- the lovely Camero link. I just wanted readers to have the image of the car the female character was in during the story. That’s all. Imagery was important to me- but a tone of sarcasm, perhaps an element of, “what in the world?” was also something that I wanted to bring in. Every aspect of the story works out well, I feel- I hope.   

      At the onset of my linking there were a few that I already had in my head for particular words.  I had ideas of what kinds of links I wanted to include.  Honestly, I meant to give it a darker comic edge but the final product ended up being a bit goofy.  A few of the words I knew I could find something interesting on, I typed in the actual word and a couple others I had the synchronizing idea in mind and typed in the word that it reminded me of. 

     I had alread chosen the bio-bay site which related to the word "glowing" in the text, or actually it just jumped to mind as perfect connection.  I love these images and it seemed to add something strange with a visual of the similie in the story.  Initially I was going to put an image of a cave, I had from Puerto Rico, behind the story but since I had just reformatted my computer I was currently denied the option.  So, the other obvious connection was either "chasm" or "dark seedy cave" and a link to a cave.  Since I had already used Vieques island off Puerto Rico I chose instead to type in the word stalagtites and found this appealing image. 

     I think the slightly less obvious connection was escape and a neat picture of barbed wire at Alcatraz.  I wanted to make it playful and interactive so I did add a couple of games, the first of which duck hunt may have been distracting so early on in the narrative.  The last word seems obvious I typed in sour, searched around for something kitchy and visually apealling, "Sour punch", and found a game within the site which seemed logical to link to as a impression of Sour. 
 

In starting to create the links I start by rereading my own incipit and try to brainstorm what type of image or idea I want to convey through the incipit.  With the list of words from out of the brainstorming I google to find the image or the word that convey the idea I am attempting to find.  Afterward, I realized that I am still short of ten links.  Therefore, I go back into the story and pick out random words from out of my story and google them and see what come up.  Some where helpful, some are more random that leads to completely different paths.  In summary some of the links are intentional, some are more untentional.

For the link to the word "daisy" is an intentional link.  I purposely picked that link because the summertime in the past for the narrator is seen as innocent and carefree, therefore, I link the word daisy to a website that will provide the meaning of the to the flower.  Daisy is a flower that usually symbolize innonce and loyal.  This link acts to enhance and reaffirm the idea of innocence in that paragraph.

Another of the link that I purposefully choose to put in the incipit toward the very end that linked to another classmates story.  The links can be a seem to be a continuation of the event of where my incipit has left off.  It can works to provide more background to the incipit.  The story addresses the issue of money and falsely accuse of a crime.  The girl in my incipit seem to have stolen something, it might be money, and somehow it might provide a better hint to why the girl is late and being pursued.

The link on the time "time" is more unintentional.  I was just serving the net and ran into the peanut gallery.  I found the website hilarious and want to incorporate it somehow into the story.  It so happen that at the section of the incipit it is a point of anxiousness and anticipation, however by clicking on the link, it is a complete juxtaposition to what the mood was in the story.  In a sense it provide a comical light to the incipit.  This link out of all the other beside the "baseball ticket" link detracts from the story.  It create more of a farce then enhance the story.

Finally, another of my link are to the painting by Munch, the scream.  This painting depicts pain and anguish, and that is the mood that I want to get across.  If the woman escape from the pursuers, she will causes the pursuers great pain and anguish whatever she took from them.