keyla501's blog

In we discussed some of the reasons Szulborski gives as to why Alternate Reality Games (ARG's) are not real games. One of the reasons was because there was no imaginary playing space, no "magic circle". The "magic circle" is a concept we've obviously discussed earlier this semester, which is pretty much a nickname given to the defined playing space of a game. According to Szulborski, ARG's do not have these circles. However, I would argue that in fact they do only the playing space has expanded much wider and not so defined. Someone could argue that the gaming space is so vague that it really doesn't exist at all but I think that there are limits.  read more »

In his blog, Greg brought up some really good points about the advertisements in Cathy's Book. One of these points was marking the difference between advertisements found in other story-telling mediums like television or movies compared to books. And his point was that with a visual medium the audience could be, for example, watching the main character drink a soda... and that soda just so happens to be a Pepsi...with the label perfectly facing the screen. However, this plug doesn't resonate so badly with audience members because it does not take time or attention off of the main plot or mood in the scene. The difference with advertisement in a written narrative is how obvious it is when the author takes time to write, "And then he set down his empty Diet Pepsi can". I find it quite sad that authors cannot use the same marketing strategies as movie producers but unfortunately that's one of the differences found in using different story-telling mediums. I do agree with Greg that it does take away from the story because it makes the author's attempt to make a plug very evident.  read more »

Someone suggested in class that it would be difficult for people to enjoy hypertext media because it takes the control out of the reader's hands in the sense that we don't know what's coming and don't always get what we want. However, in the case of "Twelve Blue" I feel like the problem isn't lack of control but that actually the control has been given over to us by the author and that is what makes us uncomfortable.

When we read narratives we expect some one else to do all the work for us: plan the story line, and write it out so we can follow it. With interactive fiction, like choose your own adventure stories, we say we like the fact that we are in control of the paths the story is taking. Yet, the story has been planned out already and while the conclusions may vary, there are only a limited amount of possible endings that have already been drawn out for us.  read more »

There are several types of readers nowadays: those that like to read for the sheer experience of it, those that like to read in order to gain more knowledge or perspective, etc. However, the fact of the matter is that nowadays most readers are reluctant ones. I'm sure that many of the students in our own school don't particularly enjoy reading but only do it because they are required to. For those individuals it's obvious that hypertext fictions like "Twelve Blue" are not an ideal leisure activity.

But in class someone even admitted to being frustrated with "Twelve Blue" despite their passion for reading. I think the explanation to that is not found in the text but in our society. Generally speaking, I feel like the majority of our society, or to in a more narrow sense our student body, are very polarized thinkers. As students we like to get to the point, give us the answer and cut out anything that's irrelevant. This polarized attitude is what probably made it difficult for hypertext fiction to take off. Because although there are those people who like the idea of leaving thoughts and problems floating in the air without a solution, those people are few.  read more »

As I mentioned in a previous blog, in my Victorian Literature class we have recently been studying some of the works of Lewis Carroll including Alice in Wonderland and also some of his poetry. Janet Murray talks about immersion as generally being an experience where the individual is somewhat lost within the text/game/movie/etc. In one of Carroll's poems "Jabberwocky" there occurs a particularly interesting form of immersion.
In my opinion it is a very brief, strange trip into another world...a completely bizzare surreal world only Carroll could create.  read more »

In Beyond Comparison Mitchell talks about the relation between the visual and verbal aspect of the reading experience and proposes the term "imagetext" as an explanation for the unity of these two factors. There is one genre in particular, where I believe that this theory hold true and that is in children's literature.

I'm also taking this Victorian Literature class along with Jennilee and this week we've just finished our focus on Victorian children's literature, which is why we spent time on Alice's Adventures In Wonderland. Our professor did indeed emphasize the importance of acquiring a copy of Alice's Adventure In Wonderland that included the original drawings by John Tenniel. So closely did Lewis Carrol and John Tenniel work on this novel that at one point of the process a particular chapter/ episode of Alice in Wonderland was cut out because Tenniel could not figure out the correct way of illustrating the experience. I just thought that was really interesting.  read more »

After watching the documentary I got stuck on a comment made by one typographer at in the beginning that was explaining why he loved the type face Helvetica so much. His argument was similar to those used by the majority of the pro-Helvetica typographers in the film, that Helvetica is a neutral, blank slate that allows the message of a writing to be in the spotlight rather than the type face. For this reason he argued, Helvetica is a great font, because it is emotionless and does not draw attention to itself. But this same typographer also mentioned the variations of the Helvetica font and said something along the lines of, "you can use Helvetica light if you want to be fancy or you can use Helvetica bold if you want to be intense". The context of this statement escapes me at the moment but the point is that this typographer acknowledged the effect that a font style can have on a piece of writing. So my question is, is it possible for a typeface to be completely neutral and voiceless?  read more »

When I read a book, an article, look at a flyer, or a billboard mostly I focus on the message and few times do I notice the details of the presentation. After reading the excerpt from Robert Bringhurst's The Grand Design, I realized that whether I notice it or not there is a lot more going in through my eyes and influencing my thoughts than just words on a page.

I would argue that typographers are one of the unsung heroes in literature today. When I read a magazine I do not particularly notice the style of text or layout on each of the pages and yet someone carefully chose the textual styles to accentuate a seperation and still complement eachother. So much detail goes into the bigger picture. Even on this very web page, different letterings are used for the title, the tabs, the links on the side, etc. The thought that a person puts into choosing fonts and such really make a difference. (Good job Zach!)  read more »

Like "lalalou", I also noticed that Krazy Kat and Ignatz acknowledge their cartoon world reality very often, more often than in other comic strips I can think of. I appreciate when the cartoonist allows those kinds of interactions to happen because I think it really brings the cartoon characters out of their world and into ours. For a moment the characters recognize the secondary nature of their own world and acknowldge the superiority of their creator and their dependency on him.  read more »

I have to be honest. When I chose Forms of Narrative before the semester began and read its descriptions I kept it only as a back up English credit. In other words, I was planning on dropping it as soon as I had checked out my other English classes. I was simply intimidated by the thought of having to deal with things like video games. Unfortunately, my video-game playing days came to an end soon after Super Nintendo. I mean who can keep up with all this technology?! So, when I read in the course description that this class was going to involve some forms of technology, despite the disclaimer about not needing prior knowledge, I already decided it wasn't for me.  read more »