The answer: I dunno. I had one person ask me yesterday, isn’t a blog supposed to be “about” something? Maybe. Is it? I was talking to a new student yesterday as well who wants to start up her own political blog. But it seems as if, with the ones that I read they’re about all sorts of things….a wierd mish-mash of personal journal (whatcha been up to?) internet surfing, and with the academic ones I read - research and scholarly interests. So what is mine about? I had originally intended it to be a place that I noted thoughts about stuff that I was reading….hence the title with “Bookworm.” But I quickly realized (as in, within hours) that such a theme simply wouldn’t work. What I found myself wanting to blog about was whatever stuff was running through my head. Sometimes what I read, yes, but often not. Then I realized, if blogging is writing and with other kinds of writing I don’t know what I want to say until I say it, how can I possibly know what I want to blog about? What I concluded then was that this blog, at least at this point, will be a wierd mish-mash of anything and everything. What it may become I don’t know. So there’s my disclaimer: my blog isn’t ABOUT anything so I have no idea what may show up here. Hope that any readers lurking out there are OK with that, too. (And thanks to the person who raised the question!) 
Archive Page 2
What’s my Blog About?
When my aunt, uncle, and cousin Joy and her kids were visiting after Christmas we went to visit our grandparents (both of whom are over 90). Joy’s daughter Ashley, who is 5 years old, took this candid photo of myself, Joy, Grandma, and the back of Joy’s son James. What amazes me is the photos that Ashley can take! She doesn’t take random shots that cut off heads or other random body parts but she always composes her shots (”Aunt Mandy get closer to Mommy”). More than that the phots she takes are often among the best photos of people and her candid shots - like this one - are wonderful. That look on Joy’s face is a totally characteristic expression (it conjures up the laugh that goes along with it) and even Grandma looks engaged (most of the time she isn’t.) If she lived closer I think I’d make Ash my official event photographer.
By the by, in case you’re wondering, the picture in the background is me at about 3. Grandma has always adored it because she thinks I’m praying. It was only recently that I finally told her that actually that was my pouty-face. She was non-plussed; a benefit of being 90 and having dementia, I suppose.
Human Tetris
I recently saw a snippet of a program on the the Discovery Channel about the History of Videogames and a portion of it was dedicated to discussing the phenomenon of Tetris. One of the things that the program touched upon was the way that Tetris simply messes with your mind (my words, of course, not theirs). One of the participants interviewed talked about dreaming in Tetris and about seeing all the objects around him in regards to their spatial configurations. How could he get X object to fit around Y object? While I have to admit I have never gone so far as to want to play Tetris with my living room furniture, I’ve dreamed in Tetris. I always thought it was because I am simply WAY to intense with videogames of all kinds to the extent that I have mostly ceased to play them. But turns out it may not just be me….seems like Tetris really does do strange and unexpected things to the way that one’s brain conceives the world. But why Tetris? After all, when I played Mario Brothers all the time at about the age of twelve it wasn’t as if I was searching out coins or power-ups in my sleep…
So anyway, here is this artist who is making videos that mimic Tetris but uses people. Strikes me as a little disturbing but then again, it may be a pretty savvy commentary on how we behave in set patterns I’m thinking about how how my students will come into the classroom and always sit in the same spot in the relation to the way the room is laid out. Either way I always find it so interesting when these pivotal pieces of pop culture get remade.
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