Archive for the 'link' Category
The Exquisite Corpse Adventure
The Library of Congress has recently revamped their literacy outreach website in anticipation of the 9th annual edition of the National Book Festival. The new read.gov site contains tons of classic texts you can read/browse with an all new fancy page-turning technology. Also on the site is the LOC’s own creation, “The Exquisite Corpse Adventure” (long title: “The Exquisite Corpse Adventure: A Very Unusual and Completely Amazing Story Pieced Together Out of So Many Parts That It Is Not Possible To Describe Them All Here So Go Ahead and Just Start Reading.”)
Exquisite Corpse Adventure
In name, this collaborative writing project harkens back to the original Surrealist exquisite corpse game, which was in turn based on an old Victorian parlour game called Consequences. Our more modern Mad Libs owe a huge debt to these games, as these games provide methods by which a collection of words (or images) are collectively assembled in some sequential manner. The LOC’s Exquisite Corpse Adventure will have 26 chapters contributed by famed authors of children’s books.
I think this is a supremely cool idea to get kids interested in reading, writing, and the power of collaboration with friends and peers, whether it be in a serious artistic endeavor, or just to prove that your creativity can be augmented tremendously just by rappin’ with your pals. Some of my more treasured memories center around collaborative writing activities: working on a newspaper column with my pal Billy, the word games our creative writing club used to play in High School, penning a dirty Mad Lib with friends, relieving bathroom boredom with roommates in college (in word/picture form), collaborating on a zine, working on a goofy short story with a friend by swapping back and forth each sentence, etc. I can only hope that innovative literacy projects like this one will help inspire new generations of young people to new forms of creativity.
It’s kind of amazing to trace the ways in which people have tried to use technology in order to (hopefully) get laid.
When I was in high school in the early 1990s, we filled out some dopey questionnaires that were supposed to gauge our personality, interests, and temperament. I believe this was done on a Scantron sheet, like the kind you were used to filling out for achievement and I.Q. tests. These were fed into some computer where they were analyzed. A couple weeks later, we were given “Data Match Sheets” with the names of people the computer had matched us with, along with compatibility scores. I honestly can’t remember who ended up being on my form, nor whose form I ended up on. But I do remember being racked with anxiety over the stupid thing, figuring I would get matched with the biggest dullards my tiny school would have to offer, and that somehow, this was saying something bad about me.
I can’t find my Data Match Sheet, but I allude to it in some notes I’ve found here and there. Although this was just some silly high school stunt, it reminds me of a primitive match.com type service. They both insinuate that they will be able to find a perfect match for you because they’ve got their mitts on some sort of benevolent, HAL-esque love machine/computer. Nevermind the fact that those questionnaires can’t really gauge the context of your answers, or measure the ways in which you might ultimately be hard-wired for attraction.
I was reminded of that when I saw the following video today, which was shared with me by my friend Jesse S. It’s a montage of video profiles made by men in the 1980s for a service called “Video Mate.” These men have hilarious mustaches, muscle shirts, mullets, Cosby sweaters, and yes, there’s even a viking costume in there. It is a total charm offensive. Hilarious one-liners and snazzy pick-up lines abound. Some of the men are pretty creepy, and yet some of them seem like genuinely sweet guys who are just clueless when it comes to how to get members of the opposite sex to pay attention to them. It’s a fun little time capsule from a time in which video reigned supreme. It all seems so hopelessly cheesy to us now, but we have to remember that this was actually a viable option for singles back in the day. That and going on The Love Connection.
…can be found right here.
On EBay, someone is selling a couple shopping lists written by William S. Burroughs. I have no idea how this person came to own these items, or why they were saved, but I’m glad they’re around. Shopping lists are truly ephemeral items; I don’t know a single person who crafts them with any intention of hanging on to them. But are they any less important than some of the other things that people are more likely to save? They’re a transactional record of sorts; documenting the material items that you have an immediate need for. I can learn much more about a person from their shopping lists than from their electric bills or whatever. Sometimes it’s the records that we never intend on keeping that are more revelatory of our true selves than the ones we consciously archive.
Apparently, Burroughs loved cats, tea, and waffles, and was perhaps a bit of a germaphobe.
Link via Boing Boing.
The Timothy Leary Estate is seeking private donations to help pay for the digitization of the Timothy Leary Papers. Contained in his archives are personal papers and memorabilia such as report cards and other schoolwork, photographs, correspondence with luminaries such as Allan Ginsberg, Aldous Huxley, Jack Kerouac, Abbie Hoffman, Robert Anton Wilson, and research materials from his time at Harvard University. Additionally, there are thousands of documents detailing the entire psychedelic movement. Apparently the archives will go to the Library of Congress or another suitable repository upon completion of this project.
Donate here if you have some cash to spare.
Link via Boing Boing.
Sci-fi Pulp Covers by Ron Turner
Today Monster Brains highlights a really cool Flickr photoset of some exquisite painted covers for old sci-fi pulps done by Ron Turner. Check ‘em oooout…
Wowbrary: I Approve
Web application Wowbrary sends you emails (or RSS feeds) when new books, DVDs, or CDs arrive at your local library—so you can grab them before anyone else. It’s a great idea….I’m all for anything that gets people into my workplace.
Link via ajmcguire.
F My Life
After a day spent dealing with lovely sewage issues at my house, this web site just really spoke to me.
Rich People are jerks? O RLY
Some UC-Berkeley scientists just conducted a study and have found that rich people are self-absorbed jack-offs. As if we needed a pseudo-scientific study to tell us this!
English translations of Eastern bloc LOLcats. Hopefully, someone will do Engrish LOLs next!
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