Author: rabeleda

I’ve been struggling to figure out whether or not to classify Jonathan Harris’ Whale Hunt as textual media or a narrative. I find the pictures interesting–except for the bloody parts–and intriguing though they have no textual writing on them at all. Though no words are really “written” to tell a story, I think each picture captures some form a story. The expressions on the people’s faces, their body movements, and their struggles are all captured and we are left to create our own story for the image. And though each image has its own story, all of the images combined make a nice slide show of the photographers journey with the hunting of the whales. It’s as if we, as the “readers,” are right there along side the entire team since the images are so clear and vivid. I guess it doesn’t really need words to tell a story and shows, rather than tells.

The concept behind Harris’ work is pretty unique and creative. With the camera snapping pictures every 5 minutes, we get a sense of action, almost like a movie. The slide show continues and documents the entire trip, hardly leaving anything out. The pictures of the food at the restaurant in the beginning and the chopped up whale meat at the end create a great beginning and end for the piece.

My back is pretty much covered with ink. Days before my birthday about 3 years I ago, I decided to get a tattoo. I didn’t want just any random tattoo with no sense of meaning so I decided to get the one I had been wanting to get since I was in middle school.

On my back is a cross. It extends from the top of my neck straight down my spine and the edges touch the tops of my shoulder blade. It’s not just any cross. Draped on it is a banner that says “Protect me Father for my back is blind.” It took me forever to decide what I wanted it to say, but after a pretty crazy summer, those words just sort of dawned on me as I reminisced about my past.
They say tattoos are addictive – and I can’t say they’re wrong. Months later, I decided to get 2 more. One on each bicep with the initials of my best friend who had passed away and the initials of my nephew whom my sister had a miscarriage with. I plan to get more, but not sure what or when.

When I first bought this book, I wasn’t quite sure how it would relate with our class. I briefly flipped through the pages and wondered why we would even study comics in class. Even my sisters laughed when they saw the book, joking about how I just wasted money on a comic book, but I brushed them off and stored the book away until we needed it.

I remember having comic books as a child (mostly Marvel comic books), but never really got too much into it (because they had cartoons on tv), other than the fascination with the drawings (I loved drawing). Scott McCloud’s book, Understanding Comics, on the other hand is surprisingly quite an interesting read. Rather than using the typical book structure form to present his side/take on comics and the media, he uses the comic structure to produce a very creative book. You almost forget that you’re reading a book because the way it’s presented, which I enjoyed because it made it less boring and entertaining. He includes some witty remarks and humor in the book to make it more fun to read, which eventually keeps you turning the page.

His explanation of assumption in chapter 3 forced me to think ‘outside of the box’ and made me think of things I never thought about. His explanation of how we as society are quick to assume, even though we aren’t completely sure and not guaranteed anything, is a great examplanation of his term ‘closure’. He says all of our perception is an “act of faith,” which I agree with, but I guess never really thought about. Afterall, I guess I do assume things are there, even if I don’t see it with my own eyes. I guess our minds can automatically generate closure through what we percieve and assume on a daily basis, even if it’s an incomplete observation.

Understanding Comics forces the reader to think outside of his or her comfort zone and look at things differently. It’s creative and humorous way of presenting ideas of language, closure, and the basic understanding of comics has kept me as a reader interested and laughing along the way.

So before I started reading Michael Joyce’s hypertext, afternoon, a story, I did some research to try and figure out what the story was about. I read that it’s supposedly about a man, Peter, who thinks he’s witnessed the death of his ex-wife and his son. “Intriguing” was the first thought that came through my mind. I popped the CD in and went on the hypertext journey. At first, I wasn’t sure who was speaking, as certain pages would refer to Peter in the third person, while other pages kept using “I”. I’m still not clear on who exactly is speaking. When the story says “I” does it want us to connect and relate to the story?

The page I ended up on, although still unsure what I clicked to get there, has one sentence, “I want to say I have seen my son die this morning.” After clicking on all the words, I found out that the word “die” brought me to a description of what he (Peter?) saw. As he described the accident’s scene, where his ex-wife and son would travel on if she were taking him to school, I couldn’t help but get pulled more into the story. I visualized the scene, with the body on the lawn and the “smaller body beyond”. I finally started to follow the story and wanted to find out more. I clicked Y hoping it would give me more information about the plot, or at least onto a page that will keep the story going; but I was disappointed to be directed to a page about him not being able to dream and the discovery of Wert being allergic to walnut pollen.

As I clicked around, I just got more and more frustrated because the pages didn’t make sense, nor did they even connect with the previous pages. The pages of the story seem to have two different stories going on at the same time. I’m not sure whether or not that was Joyce’s intention, but for me it just makes it hard to follow. It makes even more complicated that the story doesn’t really have a closure. With the randomness of the hypertext, it forces us, the reader, to interpret the story whichever way we want, or whatever way would make the most sense to us. Maybe that was Joyce’s true intentions?

I guess I wasn’t the only one that wasn’t quite sure what Interactive Fiction was. It seems like a pretty cool idea, creating a transfusion of a choose your own adventure story, user interactivity, and game. I can’t say it’s completely random simply because the user has somewhat full control of what is going on or what will happen next. Similar to a CYOA book, you control the outcome, but the story still has a predetermined path – interactive fiction just disguises it with the ability for the reader to write out what he or she wants to happen. Even by giving the reader a prompt to type out what he or she whats to happen next, the prompt does not recognize all the commands, and only recognizes the commands installed by the author, making it pretty much predetermined.

I spent most of my time trying to figure out the main point/idea of Shade. Not sure if I was doing it completely wrong but it started to get frustrating when I couldn’t figure out what to do or what command to type. It seemed like every command I typed in the prompt was “a verb not recognized” or it answers me with the prompt, “you can’t see any such thing.” I went on for about 30 minutes, typing anything, everything, I could think of to try and get this ‘game’ going. But I finally broke down and cheated and searched the web. I googled it and at first read all of the wonderful things people had to say about it – how great this concept was and how innovative and ‘easy to follow’. Maybe it’s just me? Maybe I’m alone on how confusing Shade is…?

So I looked around and actually found some commands/ a tutorial (http://webhome.idirect.com/~dswxyz/sol/shade.html) of some sort. I didn’t follow it completely, but just went by the commands it gave so I could at least get the prompts going. But even with this tutorial, I have still yet to find the proper words/commands to finish the story – or the game. I managed to make him drink water from the bathroom sink, but somehow cannot locate his plane tickets!

I enjoyed this piece much better than the “Hegirascope” because it gave the reader a chance to dive into the writer’s mind and understand her thoughts. With the Hegirascope, the pages were all random with little connection between each page. The motive and main point of the Hegirascope still seems unclear, at least to me, other than the effects of randomness in relation to the emotions of the reader.

The reader has the ability to take control of both “My Boyfriend..” as well as the “Hegirascope” but “My Boyfriend..” has a central theme and focuses on a woman’s thoughts,  emotions, and her general feelings regarding the return of her love one and their first encounter together. Unlike the inability to connect each click of the mouse to the previous one with the Hegirascope, this textual media tells a story – I think about her cheating on her boyfriend with their neighbor, whom he now wants to kill. I could be wrong though. With each click of a box or picture, new information is discovered regarding the woman’s infidelity and her fear of what her boyfriend might do. This not only allows the reader to keep up with the story, like a book or a soap opera, but prevents the reader from getting confused and losing interest because he or she cannot connect each page.

One thing I don’t understand is why the margins can be moved by the reader. Is this something the write intended to do to allow the reader to have more control of the page?