In 2007, I started a blog category
called “bookshelf furniture.” I wrote ten entries through 2008,
and then my blog's focus turned to other topics.
Last week, I found a wondrous Tumblr blog titled Bookshelf Porn, and I've been inspired to feature them again. (The above image is from BP via Book. Book. Book.)
In spite of its title, there's nothing indecent about the site, though it does feature an obscene
amount of bookshelves and related insights, quotations and links to
articles. It's a primarily visual and incredibly thorough catalog. Check out its extensive archives.
New question, as we move steadily from print to digital: What could virtual bookshelves for
e-books look like? (If a blog paying homage to them existed, it'd probably be pretty short.)
Mashups are, according to a Wikipedia entry which needs some editing and discussion around its content, almost a decade old. (Music sampling has existed for decades.) The genre continues to evolve, with stand-outs going viral and their creators/DJs gaining worldwide recognition.
"Carpenter's Wonderwall" is one such example: a song/video blend created by DJ Mark Vidler of Go Home Productions. It starts with Oasis's "Wonderwall" and is joined by The Carpenters' "We've Only Just Begun," bridging hits from different musical eras. It's brilliant on so many levels — enjoy.
As I follow astronauts like Mike Massimino on Twitter as they tweet from space, it's easy to learn bits of what life is like beyond Earth's atmosphere.
Before Internet access and the development of Web 2.0 and social media, there were few widely available, multimedia records of the astronaut experience. Below is a compelling video clip from the documentary For All Mankind, directed by Al Reinert with a musical score by Brian Eno and originally released in 1989. (Its re-release on DVD is now available.) In a 2009 article, Reinert explained his focus behind the movie:
What I wanted to do was make a film that communicated what it felt
like to go to the moon. Really put you in the shoes of the astronauts.
That's still the kind of movie that I would want to watch.
...And if you're in Earth's southern hemisphere, how is your winter?
...And if you're on another planet, well............... please answer in the comments how you're reading this blog!
This remarkable summery photo, "Wish You Were Here: 1905," found at Shorpy. Click on the image to see more detail — it's not your typical early 20th-century shot.
For the last couple of years, I have been following the original Polaroid film's (and camera's) demise. In 2008, its parent company announced that it would stop making the film, though it would license the technology to others who still wished to make it.
The Polaroid's immediacy was its magic, and when digital photography became affordable and popular, it seemed to decisively prompt its extinction, moving some to hold memorial exhibitions and funerals. While I never used a Polaroid on a regular basis, I have albums
peppered with these special photos from over the years. I felt sad that this technology so symbolic of my childhood was about to
disappear.
Others began to mourn a potential Polaroid loss, too. A dedicated group called The
Impossible Project, which closely monitored the classic Polaroid
denouement, set up a web site and rallied artists, photographers, creatives and Polaroid fans worldwide to figure out a way to preserve this photographic form. The attention it created may have influenced Polaroid's initial decision on its namesake camera's fate.
This past January, at the CES (Consumer Electronic Show) in Las Vegas, Nevada, the Polaroid company announced its next-generation camera, a 21st-century child of classic Polaroid — the Pic 1000. This new camera uses the same Polaroid film as did the first-model camera, the SX-70 (released in 1972), and its successors.
The classic Polaroid camera's lifespan has been extended. In honor of this, I'm featuring an 11-minute film by Charles and Ray Eames that explains how the camera works. Like the images the Polaroid produces, this ad/video is a snapshot of another time and place; there's something sweetly nostalgic about it, yet it also explains the photographic process taking place within the camera in clear, fascinating detail. (At about 4:20, the Eames perspective and illustrated narrative shows distinctly.)
Read more about inventor Edwin Land, who discovered how to polarize light and is one of Polaroid's co-founders, here.
Even if it keeps you up all night,
wash down the walls and scrub the floor
of your study before composing a syllable.
Clean the place as if the Pope were on his way.
Spotlessness is the niece of inspiration.
The more you clean, the more brilliant
your writing will be, so do not hesitate to take
to the open fields to scour the undersides
of rocks or swab in the dark forest
upper branches, nests full of eggs.
When you find your way back home
and stow the sponges and brushes under the sink,
you will behold in the light of dawn
the immaculate altar of your desk,
a clean surface in the middle of a clean world.
From a small vase, sparkling blue, lift
a yellow pencil, the sharpest of the bouquet,
and cover pages with tiny sentences
like long rows of devoted ants
that followed you in from the woods.
While I haven't blogged in awhile, I have been busy writing and reading (some online, most brick-and-mortar). One example: I'm closely following news about Twitter and mobile phones because I think they have incredibly potential for communication and creativity.
To keep track of this information for myself and to share with anyone else who is interested, I have started a Twitter articles page. It features links to noteworthy Twitter articles. From the page's intro:
Twitter, the free microblogging service started in 2006,
has been used to influence elections in the United States and Iran,
break news about natural disasters and political happenings, and gather
donations to assist Haitians after the devastating January 2010
earthquake.
While critics
deride Twitter, I continually find merit in it. It is powerful in a
ground-level way, giving private citizens, companies, organizations and
thought leaders (potentially influential) voice on any subject
(significant and trivial) they desire. I look forward to seeing how it
evolves.
So, will Twitter
disappear, as other social networks have? In my opinion, no. It
has substantial market share, and while anyone can create their own
140-character microblogging network, terms like "tweet", "tweeting",
"followers", "Twitterville", etc. will most likely be synonymous for describing microblogging — referencing the only substantial,
well-populated microblogging community existing today.
I
read anything I can find about Twitter. Below is my list of noteworthy
Twitter articles, including news on new developments, trends and uses
of Twitter. It has been sifted to remove much of the fluff: while it's
a noteworthy trend that many celebrities have found a comfortable,
digital way to constantly communicate with tweet-reading fans, I
won't report on it — they are easy enough to find on their own, and are
often only "ego-casting" or "life-casting" (brief missives on what they
ate for breakfast, what they're wearing, who they're hanging out with,
etc.).
I'll add to this as I find more articles. Questions and comments are always welcome.
(If you want to follow me on Twitter, click here. I don't life-cast, instead focusing on providing useful tech- and creativity-inspired tweets.
I'll announce new articles added in quick posts on this blog.
Regarding life-casting, I found a gem: the Museum of Modern Celebrity Tweets, which shows celebrity life-casting in a humorous light. Above is an illustration of a recent tweet by musician Nick Jonas. Odessa Begay is its illustrator and, I suppose, head curator. Found via Holy Kaw! at Alltop
FYI: My mobile phone articles page is in the works.
Journalism students at Stanford University use NewsTrust to build their news literacy skills. Teachers: Howard Rheingold and Fabrice Florin. Photo: David Fox.
The new guides, featuring lesson plans and classroom activities, are formatted in two ways:
1. printed guides for classrooms without Internet access 2. Internet guides for classrooms with Internet access
There is also a list of additional resources to use for follow-up activities. Here are more details from the NewsTrust blog:
Printed Guides
News (No Internet - PDF) –
This guide will help you teach students how to identify journalistic
flaws in a news report. Download it here.
Opinion (No Internet - PDF)
– This guide will help you teach students how to identify
misinformation in an opinion piece. Download it here.
Internet Guides
News(Internet)
– This guide will help you teach students to identify journalistic
flaws in news reports. View it here.
Opinion(Internet)
– This guide will help you teach students to identify misinformation in
opinion pieces. View it here.
Additional Resources
More Stories–
This page lists more sample news reports and opinions which you may
substitute for the sample stories in the guides above, or use in
follow-up assignments. View it here.
More Activities
– This page offers opportunities for students to take what they've
learned by reviewing stories on NewsTrust and apply that knowledge in
other fields. View it here.
Educational Resources
– This page offers an extensive list of educational resources, with
more information and ideas about teaching news literacy and core
principles of journalism. View it here.
These teacher and student guides were written by Fabrice Florin and Kristin Gorski,
a NewsTrust editor and former English and history teacher – with the
help of Derek Hawkins, Kaizar Campwala, David Fox and other NewsTrust
team members.
I'm proud to have worked on these guides with this amazing team. If anyone has questions or feedback, please leave a comment! You can also contact NewsTrust at schools@newstrust.net.
Check out NewsTrust's other guides which focus on learning how to find the best quality news:
The topic of U.S. health care reform has been top of mind for many. If you live in America, you have a stake in it, whether you're insured or not.
That's why the information we get from the media is so important. If it is well researched, accurately sourced and fair, the news will help us make better informed decisions because it helps us figure out what is really going on. If it is biased, poorly sourced and lacking in solid facts or statistics, it could misguide those of us who read or view it.
This week, NewsTrust and the Huffington Post's Eyes & Ears team have joined forces in a health care news hunt. The communities have found some of the best, most accurate and enlightening news and opinion pieces currently on the Web. Together, they've created an impressive collection which anyone can read and contribute to.
The MoOM offers a semi-curated virtual tour of a vast variety of collections (it is updated quarterly). It is organized yet also proves the Web is both wide and wild; such a diverse list reminds that the WWW expands endlessly and infinitely, unbounded by nothing but imagination's limits—and people's proclivities to put all this online.
I could spend hours at Shorpy, a vintage photo blog linked from Plan 59. Whew, indeed.
UPDATE (4/23/09): From the Coudal Partners' email newsletter sent out today -- "Our Museum of Online Museums is currently under
renovations for the Spring Exhibitions. Look for a slew
of new showings and oddball collections in the next day
or two."
My name is Kristin Gorski. I’m a freelance writer and editor. I'm also currently pursuing doctoral studies in technology and literacies, writing in digital spaces, and what social media could mean to education (among other incredibly interesting topics). “Write now is good.” is my personal blog about writing, creativity and inspiration (with healthy doses of technology in relevant places). If you'd like to collaborate on a project, have writing/creativity info to share, or want to say, "Hi," contact me at kgwritenow (at) yahoo dot com.
To read more about me, click on the "ABOUT" link below.
