Inside DFW copy of Don DeLillo’s Players

I remember my first encounter with David Foster Wallace’s work.  My sophomore-year roommate in college with an infinitely cool personal library had labeled Infinite Jest the “most important book you will try and fail to finish reading”.  In her likeness, I embarked on my first attempt the following summer, hoisting the massive tome onto my lap in between errands at my summer job.  I didn’t make it through that time or subsequent others, and sold my copy after my tenth apartment move.  But I read his shorter work and have many copies in my own library now. 
 
His death felt not only like the end of a brilliant mind’s expression in this world, but the end of the optimism I felt years ago when I first cracked that 1,000 page behemoth.
 
The Harry Ransom Center’s acquisition of Wallace’s archives feels like a harkening back to that optimism; specifically, the small taste that has been posted on the center’s website.  This is a great example of the multiple meanings and uses contained within digital representations of physical objects.  One look at Wallace’s notes scrawled across the first pages of DeLillo’s Players brings us a little bit closer to the man’s process and thoughts on literature.  The feeling is akin to ones I feel going through someone’s bookcase, flipping through the pages of the books they love or ignore, seeing what fleeting thoughts remain documented.
 
It also shows some of the struggles that libraries and archives have in selecting what to make of these archives and how they can live online.  I’m not sure how much of the collection the Ransom Center plans to put online.  Considering the sheer breadth of the collection, digitization will take a huge effort.  But I think that it would pay off, at the very least in strict imaging of the pages in pdf form.  Taken a step further, I can only imagine the possibilities of assigning metadata to Wallace’s notes as another means of identifying the literature itself (DeLillo through Wallace, as it were).  There could even be tags and links embedded in the images, taking the user to source material referenced in Wallace’s notes. 
 
Regardless, the images alone nearly brought me to tears.  They capture the simple joy that I felt wading through Wallace’s published words, showing another world of thought formerly hidden from public view.  Further classification would be a lovely tribute to Wallace’s own post-modern view of the world, creating new lens through which we view literature.

Oh, it hurts to see the beautiful site that Dominican has already set up for the fall eChicago.  I was so disappointed in the web presence of the spring version headed by Illinois.  Not only did I not know about the conference until almost the week of (and that was thanks to word-of-mouth from a friend working the event), but it was nigh impossible to find the site to check the final schedule and speakers until the day of!  I mentioned this to co-chair Professor Williams at the event dinner, and she let me know that a formal promotion committee would be set up for the 2011 conference.

The FCC is trying to look out for our best interests with the creation of the National Broadband Plan.  But we all need to become more familiar with the mechanics behind broadband and how these choices will affect our access to information.  This also sheds considerable light on the monopoly that the big cable companies have on the market.  We all tolerate the terrible phone waits, unreliable tech visits, and spotty service areas.  Are we also willing to allow them to tell us what we can see at better speeds and quality according to their business allegiances?

Much like having a plumber put in pipe and saying he should now regulate the water that flows through it, cable companies feel entitled to the content flowing through the cable lines that they have installed across the country.  It is up to the consumers and citizens to decide whether we feel that internet access is as much a right as clean water or a privilege available to those who can afford it.

The world is comprised early adopters and technophobes.  I have always existed in a space somewhere in the middle.  I held off on getting an iPod until 2007 and had the same Dell desktop from high school until I was a few years out of college.
My M.O. tends to be to stand back to wait for all the glitches to come out of the woodwork so I can buy the cheaper, more reliable generations that follow.

That being said, I’ve recently been feeling the pull to get a smartphone.  Mostly, I feel for the field that I’m interested in (digital and electronic resources), it’s just necessary to be aware of the mobile apps out there.  Also, I can’t imagine using Twitter or other microblogging sites without a mobile app.  Since I want to increase my online presence, this seems like a wise investment.  I know I’m in the minority for thinking this choice through to such an extent, but considering my lifelong “wait and see” attitude towards technology, it’s a big step.

Since my current carrier is Verizon, I’m looking at the Droid.  John has an iPhone, which I admittedly use constantly.  I’ve been more than happy taking advantage of his Bus Tracker app or GPS map on more than one occasion.  There’s even an iPhone commercial now aimed at all those moochers who haven’t taken the leap themselves.  Well, perhaps I’m about to make that leap.

There’s been a lot of talk recently about privacy and the lack of information literacy education for “digital natives”.  Facebook has come under fire for a number of its practices, most recently for introducing the Open Graph API, which basically allows third parties to tap into Facebook user’s profile pages, integrating their information in the user’s stream, while taking out what information is not blocked by privacy settings.  This moves Facebook even closer to assuming its position as the Walmart of online life.  As default privacy settings for every user were set to allow these third parties access (after initial prompts to set up the “Like” option for all of your listed information), this raises a lot of questions regarding just how much of their privacy do digital natives want to protect–and how much is being leaked without their knowing for lack of education?

Who should be teaching these information literacy skills?  Google and Facebook, arguably the most influential technology businesses out there, have a financial stake in how much information you are willing to provide online.  Their interests are diametrically opposed to users learning what is being shared about them and making informed choices about what they want to make public.  Younger generations are obviously adept at communicating their personal interests and social lives online.  But why are we to assume that making smart choices will automatically come along with that?

Dennis Carter of eCampus News looks at the Instructors and Students: Technology Use, Engagement, and Learning Outcomes dated April 7, 2010 to see where college students are really at in terms of technology smarts.  Turns out, not so good.  Results of the study show that most students want more technology in the classroom…and more IT support to help them navigate it.  Quoting Marc Prensky, the man who coined the term “digital natives”, Carter writes “Some people act as if [college students] were born knowing how to use Microsoft Word. … But kids don’t grow up with Word, they grow up with texting … and nobody knows a system if they haven’t been taught how to use it.”

Common sense, but we’re all obviously missing a crucial step in implementing it.  Having seen the extremes that South Korea has experienced with its youth and internet addiction in Frontline’s Digital Nation, it doesn’t take much imagination to see where the U.S. could be headed if we don’t teaching our kids how to live smarter lives online.

Last week while riding the El home from work, I was reading and listening to my iPod, the dual shield I wear when on mass transit.  I have one of the early Nanos, strictly used for music, no video (in fact, does anyone use that tiny screen for something besides menus?), and I’m an avid adherent to the literary old school, i.e., paper.  I normally don’t bat an eye at the technology I see people whip out while riding the El.  Everyone is playing, reading, scanning, listening or watching something.  I feel fairly safe in assuming that I’m about one step above the guy staring out the window as his in-ride entertainment.

But this time I noticed a guy who was using some reader on his iPhone that simulated page turns instead of scrolling.  The screen looked pretty clear and the type more book-like than others.  And he was also listening to music at the same time.  Now, that’s one of the first things that everyone said when the iPhone came out-you can use it to do everything.  But I rarely see people using multiple functions at once.  Maybe I’m just not around when they do.  Anyway, watching him scroll through pages of a book while listening to music on the same device, then looking down at the paperback in my lap and the ear bud cord going into my bag, I thought about how much of improvement I feel it would be if I could combine the two.

I think I’m being honest with myself when I say it wouldn’t make that big of an impact, at least not after the first adjustment.  I’m leery of products that affect behavior, an idea that definitely feels outdated these days.  It also runs counter to my academic interests in using technology in information gathering.  When I was in college, I was tapped to participant in a focus group for a long term project trying out one of AT&T’s very smart phones.  I barely used it for anything but phone calls as the interface and connection speeds for the internet were bare bones to the point on non-existent.  I was a terrible focus group participant-I pretty much went against whatever everyone else said, rarely tried out the features they wanted, and pretty much just enjoyed the free phone until it got taken away (ah, youth).

Despite my poor performance, I was tapped to do an interview for Jansport at my house.  Four marketing people came to my ramshackle apartment in Evanston, asking me questions about all of my bags.  Pockets for cell phones had just become very popular, but I was staunchly against them.  I felt like most design elements that were tied to such a specific use were destined to fail.  The design never seemed intuitive enough to be usable.  I reckoned that the cell phone pockets would be gone within a few years. (And though I haven’t seen a new backpack in a while, I’m guessing that the pockets have at least had to be adjusted in size to accomodate the wider PDAs, or have been done away with altogether).

Do I think that the iPod passes this test of use-specific design?  I’d say yes.  Critiques have  written a lot of Apple’s intuitive design, and as someone who feels strongly about the subject, I’d agree.  I find that when I use John’s iPhone (have not yet graduated from my clamshell), I can always do what I want without having to know how to do it.  Watch a few minutes of this toddler using the iPad and tell me that Apple doesn’t know at least a little more about how we humans think that every other tech company out there.

So when I think about how my life would be different if I had an iPhone or any other pda that would combine separate units of my life into one convenient device, I really consider whether I would feel the effect of the streamlining of those processing. The microseconds that we save in all this combining are definitely just getting lost in the noise. Most people aren’t collecting the time that they save at the end of the day and meditating or taking in nature. They are adding more things to look at or consume, raising expectations of how fast they should be able to get what they want when they want it. I think the grocery lines are going to get a lot crabbier, even if we have iPhones to distract us while we wait.

The new Banksy documentary, Exit Through the Gift Shop, self-described as the “World’s First Street Art Disaster Movie”, is hilarious, entertaining, surprising, and unique.  It sheds light on what formerly existed in shadows-night-time guerilla-style street art.  As someone who lives in a city, I can relate to walking down a familiar street and discovering a new piece of art work upon what was formerly a bare brick wall, a billboard, or a street sign.  The excitement one feels upon discovery is truly exciting, yet only a fraction of the adrenaline charged act felt by the artists creating it.

The film defies summarization.  It begins as a documentary about street art, an outgrowth of the graffiti movement, expanding the medium from simply spray paint images to stencils, sculpture and a kind of performance art.  Thierry Guetta, a French vintage shop owner, started compulsively filming street artists in the early 00′s, eventually making his way up the ladder to the most public/most enigmatic participant of the movement, Banksy.  After their meeting, the film takes an interesting turn, one that my fiance and I debated on the way home from the theater.  For those who are not familiar with Mr. Brainwash, I’ll leave out details.  But for those who are, I thought the development raised a lot of questions regarding representation, authenticity, and preserving the value of an original item.

For example, Banksy’s murdered phone booth from 2005, which was later sold for half a million pounds in a Sotheby’s auction.  John and I discussed the booth’s value, not just its quantified auction value, but the value in the experience surrounding it.  In the film, we see Banksy and his crew removing the original booth, dismantling and rewelding it in his studio, then installing it in the same alley from which it was taken.  A crowd quickly forms snapping camera phone pictures and whispering of whether or not it was a “true” Banksy.  Many of these booths have popped up elsewhere, but the original’s high selling point speaks to the idea of original value and how it can be diluted from multiple representations.  Is it possible for that original sense of discovery to be replicated in an art gallery, or does it go away once the item is removed from that specific time and place?

This made me think of Michael Buckland’s “What is a document?“, required reading in almost every introductory library science course.  In it, he explores the multiple possible meanings of a “document” through various theorists, analyzing what can actually be represented accurately and what we can consider fair game under the scope of information science.  He analyzes what is and is not considered a document via Suzanne Briet’s antelope.  According to her four rules (materiality, intentionality, was it processed?, phenomenological position?), an antelope is a document in a zoo, but not in the wild.  Street art turns this idea on its head by making the wild a contextual element as well.  The phone booth, before being “Banksyed”, was not a document; after, it is a piece of art, something that can be preserved and can be studied.  To that end, the booth does not need to be taken out of the “urban wild” in order to become a document.  It already has materiality, intentionality, it is processed, and it has a phenomenological position.  I would argue that it’s second shift into a gallery space and with quantifiable, monetary value placed upon it problematically changes its status as what Ranganathan called an “embodied micro thought”.  Or rather, what it embodies is no longer directly linked to the creator, but now includes the curators’, art collectors’, and public’s perceptions as well.  The micro thought is not one, but many, and something else entirely.

This last thought makes the ending of the film, and the entire “career” of Mr. Brainwash, all the more compelling.  The handling of street art as objects in the traditional sense altered it irrevocably.  Once taken out of the wild, the work’s original meaning changed and became something foreign from itself.  The question that remains for me is: How could we have documented this without altering its meaning?  I wonder if that was what Banksy attempted to do with this film, or is it just another example of how some thing’s can only exist within their original context, and removing them for reasons good or bad can make them into something else entirely.