Possible Outlets for Research

The following are a couple venues/outlets for research that I feel fit pretty well with my topic:

-  Digital Humanities Quarterly: I was drawn to this scholarly journal because it is simply just trying to gather information about the digital humanities from as many people/resources as possible so that ideas can build off of each other and create more connections between similar topics. Exploring this site took me back to one of my very first posts that has been culminating in different ways through my posts like Greatness, and Teach Yourself.

-  I was also drawn to Digital America because they focus on things similar to DHQ in that they are like explorers in the digital world that is shaping how we look at life in America and how it is changing. This is similar to that same first post and the idea kind of grew.

-  I also found Sounding Out to be a really interesting outlet, but I don't really have a topic that goes along with what they are looking for. However, I thought that it would work pretty well for Derrick, considering his interviewing and narrative. So maybe that's worth looking in to.

Take Two! Help me know what is different about my crazy college experience?

One of the direct benefits to my extracurricular lifestyle was an internship this summer.

Today I wrote a blog post about my plans to interview some people in the field of creative nonfiction. To create a space to publish these interviews, I updated my personal blog, Writing Derrick, with a page highlighting some of the interviews I have already conducted.

After doing this, I looked at the list of interviews and was a little surprised at the number and variety, which led me to decide to reframe my project. Instead of creating another outlet for new work, I am going to reflect on the past three years of my personal projects, The Pixar Podcast and The Porch, and the professional and educational destinations they have led me to. Doing so will help me think about what the end-goals for these projects are, and it will hopefully help others who may want to follow a similar path. If I can help someone do something similar, I will be happy.

My plan now is to write a narrative piece that outlines what I have done and how I have done it. As a student (I will be finished with my undergraduate degree this year), I have not always achieved the standard metrics of academic success, but I have enjoyed surprising educational benefits by carving out a space in the ways that I have.

I was telling someone about how The Porch came to be, using language like "circumstances allowed it," and "I was in the right place at the right time," and he startled me by telling me, "What? No -- you weren't just in a place and time, you did something and The Porch exists now." I'm careful not to just praise myself, and I certainly am aware that the work that I have done can be much improved upon -- which I am looking forward to doing -- but I also can admit that I am already at a stage where I have accomplished something.

The question is: what have I accomplished? Because I am so close to my own story, I do not usually see it as particularly unique, and even with my successes, I have often felt the weight and guilt of my academic failures.

So at the risk of sounding incredibly self-important, what seems most unique about the types of projects I have involved myself with? Don't worry, the final piece will include plenty of my failures. But in order to make something useful out of them, I need to see more clearly than I do now also what has made me successful. In other words, tell me what I have succeeded at and I will gladly tell you how I got there.

At this point, the most tangible framework for this narrative is that I have made myself into a case study for Alternative Education. One approach may be to think through the goals of a liberal arts education, and examine how my podcasting and show-producing efforts have given me that experience through a back door.

I will be asking the same questions once I have a draft up of my story, but meanwhile, any direction you can throw my way would be very helpful as I put down my experiences in words.

My project: interview some geniuses

Photo by Sarah Karlinsey, taken at The Porch in 2013.

UPDATE 11/21/13: I have changed the focus of my project, and outlined that change here.

One way that I have gained experience and success as a podcaster is to interview people related to the field. Over the years, I have met some really interesting people this way.

Now that I am interested in making a career for myself in a creative field, I hope to let these interviews help me connect with others, and while the ones I have done have primarily been as a consumer and fan, I hope that new ones may help me connect with people more closely related to my particular field.

I have compiled most of the interviews that I have published, and this is where I will add new ones through the end of 2013, with authors and creative people who have been successful at the type of thing I want to do. I hope that this compilation will be a useful contribution to others who may be like me.

What do you think about my plans?

Here is my compilation: writingderrick.com/interviews.

Altruistic Scholarship for Sam

Is it cheating that I am helping someone on my team? I hope not. So, Sam, here is some research for you. I know you have been looking into the Provo music scene which I also find fascinating. Plus, it's pretty cool to live in an area with so many incredible artists that are excited to showcase their talents.

Like this weekend they had the Cowboys & Indies show at Velour (article about it here). I remember you telling me you were going to the second night of it to see The Brocks (these are the only ones out of this group that I've heard of, and I really like them, but I'm partial because the keyboardist is a good friend of mine...), Westward the Tide, Toy Bombs, and Midas Whale). I actually ended up going the first night with some friends when Lake Island, L'anarchiste, Oceanear, and Bat Manors (they were my favorite) were playing.

It's interesting to see the ways that some of these bands are working on getting their names out. I have recently noticed a lot of Provo/Salt Lake area bands following me on twitter in an attempt to get some attention. I never follow back though and I am assuming most people are like me and don't, so maybe this isn't incredibly effective. But, at the same time, when my friend told me L'anarchiste was playing, my response was "Hey they just started following me on Twitter. I didn't know who they were, but now I do I guess!" So, it at least gets people to start recognizing their name, right?

Facebook is of course a huge way that bands are trying to spread the word about their music and my friends in the band Red Yeti worked with a local film maker/friend of theirs to create what they are calling a "microtrilogy." They had a premier party for it with close friends and then blasted Facebook with it to get the word out about who they are, their music, and their film maker friend. They are actually pretty cool videos if you want to check them out.

I've also noticed that a lot of the local bands are using Instagram to promote themselves. My friends in Robert & the Carrolls have been obsessively posting about their new EP. It maybe feels a little tedious after a few posts, but I can't blame them for trying to get the word out about their music. I've also noticed the same thing with Twitter where a band will follow me on Insta probably hoping that I will follow them back, and really with the exact same result as Twitter of me not following back. But, same thing where it at least starts to get some name recognition. 

So as a throw in at the end, here are some articles that I found about Provo music. You may have already seen some of them...

http://www.provobuzz.com/best-bands-in-provo/

http://universe.byu.edu/2012/01/12/321-final-story-provo-music-scene/

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865583964/Surprise-Provo-is-home-to-a-thriving-music-scene.html?pg=all

http://provomusic.blogspot.com/2011/04/every-band-in-provo.html

I'm really interested in how Provo has created such a vibrant and interesting music scene in the last while and can't wait to see what you come up with when researching this. Hope this was at least slightly helpful. Let me know if you find any bands worth giving a listen!

Fandom and Captain Ahab

After reading a great post by Lizy Cole on fan culture I thought it reminded me of Captain Ahab and how he is beholden to popular opinion, to the "fandom" of his own ship and there high opinion of him. This was clearest for me when Ahab first confronts the crew about going after Moby dick, working them into an emotional frenzy--appealing to there fanaticism you might say. Indeed, Captain Ahab was very much aware of the "power of the fans" that Lizzy so eloquently laid forth.

She had some great things to say about fan culture. It really is a culture. And social network feedback has come to gain massive amounts of power. On youtube you can usually look through a number of comments to see what the consensus on a video is. And sometimes I find myself swayed by what everyone else thinks. Which is exactly what Lizzy said...the opinions of the other fans are what new fans immediately look for. 

That is why some companies create false reviews, etc., they are trying to sway people. I think that is a dangerous concept and highly unethical. 

But back to my main focus...the fandom can have huge sway on the actual thing they are fans of. Indeed, Captain Ahab knew he had to win the crew over, that he couldn't expect to catch the whale entirely on his own. So he pitched the idea to them in a certain way, formulated and intentionally structured so as to bring about the outcome of gaining there support to catch the Whale. 

Bands also have to keep their fans in mind when pitching themselves. The object is to sale the song. So they need to figure out how to pitch themselves to fans in order to (1) get fans and (2)then get those fans to actually purchase the song.

On the youtube front, the band AWOLNATION had a video for a popular song of theirs---"Sail"--

that had less views than a fan made video (that was actually a parody of the song) 

 I can imagine this would be highly frustrating for the band, to have there song accepted more as a comical product than the serious product they wanted it to be (comical songs never sell as well as serious songs, just look at how much money the rapper Froggy Fresh is making compared to a band like Arcade Fire, both having similar view counts on their videos on youtube, but the serious product is--BELIEVE ME-- making a lot more money). 

AWOLNATION ended up making a mashup of all the fan parody videos. Fan's have a lot of power over the thing they are fans of. 

Reformatting Melville

Like Kayla in her post about Ahab's Poetry I was drawn to the idea of creating poetry out of Moby Dick based on Digitally Mediating Literary Texts. However,  I approached it a little differently than Kayla did because I was also partly inspired by my friend, who is an art teacher. She told me about "block-out" poetry, and you can see her example here in which she used Tolstoy's Anna Karenina. This artistic media, altered books, allows the artist to create an environment that surrounds the theme of their poem/text.

I mixed these two methods of finding poetry in prose, and in the section I used from Moby Dick, (in the very first chapter, "Loomings") I jumped around throughout a few consecutive paragraphs to find the phrases that I felt had the most meaning for the intended message. It's far from perfect, but here is what I came up with:

Water

Were Niagara but a cataract of sand,

would you travel your thousand miles to see it?

Why upon your first voyage as a passenger, did you feel such a mystical vibration,

when first told that you and your ship were now out of sight of land?

Here is an artist.

What is the chief element he employs?

It is the image of the ungraspable phantom of life;

and this is the key to it all.

What is the one charm wanting?

Yes, as every one knows,

he will infallibly lead you to water.

There is magic in it.

Surely all this is not without meaning.

Meditation and water are wedded forever.


This ends up being a lot shorter than the type of poetry that Kayla did, but I feel like it also has a different purpose. Kayla created a new way to directly read the text, but I like that we can find underlying themes this way. After I looked at this chapter through the idea of a poem like this, I started to get more of the sense of wonder about the sea that Ishmael/Melville is trying to convey. What do you think? Does this make you feel different things about the original text? Does it even change anything at all for you?

Copyright at BYU

Creative Commons Photo "Copyright"

I recently attended a copyright conference put on by our very own Professor Burton. I thought the conference was very interesting. But the thing I found most interesting was when Professor Burton and one of the other panel members started arguing about a certain aspect of copyright. The other panel member was saying that copyright necessarily protects the owner in terms of letting them make money for their work. Professor Burton was pointing out how this seems good on the surface, but in actuality making your work so exclusive can severely limit the exposure to wider audiences, which will in the long run bring you even MORE profit (but in roundabout ways).

My first reaction was to agree with the panel member. I have tended to think the free access model only profits more mainstream endeavors and hurts the niche people. But the more I think about it the more I agree with Professor Burton. The people who have more niche products might need to become better at allowing access to there work. Perhaps more inventive systems need to be put into place that adequately help people look at a variety of things, not just the already popular things.

In the music world there is already enough piracy going on. It probably wouldn't hurt to create a system that encourages or at least makes a fan feel that if they enjoyed the music, they should pay. Kind of like tipping. There are some systems out there that have attempted this, but so far nothing has really caught fire. It can't be as straightforward as saying "pay what you want for the album, or pay nothing at all...it's up to you" because the majority of people will just take the free music. I'm not sure but I know the answer lies in psychology and aesthetics.

Do you know what to do?

Video Review: "Bound by Law?: Tales From the Public Domain"

My video review was mainly about learning how to use youtube. My video was actually done a couple of days ago, but I just realized it has been published privately... so here it is. I did a number of takes, but decided to go with this one because in the others I kept coming out completely deadpan. This one is a little over the top..but at least it has some life.

Video Review of Dan Gillmor's "We the Media"

To start off with, here is my video review...

I'm going to be honest I felt pretty awkward making this video, but I still think that it was a really interesting experience. I had never recorded a video of myself on my computer, so the first thing I had to was to figure out how to do this. (Really, the very first thing I had to was find lighting where I didn't look so pale that I was glowing. This was a lot harder than you would think.)
I took some notes and did a couple in my head rehearsals and then decided to just go for it and hit record. The video that I decided to upload is actually my very first take. I recorded several more, but each time I felt more rehearsed and less genuine. So, even though this wasn't necessarily the cleanest take, I think this is the one where I got my point across best and came across as the most personable. Two things that I think are pretty important in a video book review. 

Can you fair use? A survey

I recently read a helpful book about copyright law, Reclaiming Fair Use (and you can read and see my review of the book here.)

One of the central ideas in the book is that copyright law is simple enough to use and understand, something that I think the book did its darndest to explain but still fell somewhat short. It's not them -- fair use is a little bit squiggly to really grasp.

So I made an unscientific but still illuminating poll to find out if I was not alone in thinking copyright law is tricky. I only got a couple dozen responses, but their answers articulate some of the most common reasons why fair use is hard to grasp. To clarify the law, I strongly recommend, again, Reclaiming Fair Use by Patricia Aufderheide and Peter Jaszi.

Thanks to all those who helped in the survey.

Review of Reclaiming Fair Use

I finished an excellent book about the history and implementation of fair use, and wrote a video review:

I also wrote a review on Goodreads. The main difference between the two was I tried to create a personal ethos for the video, bringing in why I am personally invested in the issue, whereas I focused the written review on more specifics of the book.

Musical Book Review

When I was getting ready to do this video book review, I wanted to do something with a little bit more excitement than just sitting there and talking about the book. So, I decided to write a song. Please forgive the ultimate cheesiness, but we can all use a few cheesy songs in our life, right?

I wanted to write a song that took the themes from the book that I am planning on using for my research as I go through out the semester. Here are the lyrics:

Robert Gu was an old, forgetful man.
Couldn't do that much, but now he can
Thanks to futuristic technology
and miracles of medicine he's lookin' like a teen.
He's a whole new person and he must explore this brave new world.

But even though it saved his life, he doesn't like it.
He just wants to go back in time and be a poet.
But he's gotta learn to use his wearable
and he's learning that it might not be so terrible.
He's building up a whole new part of Robert Gu.
It's something new.

Conspiracies are everywhere you look,
but no one cares about that part of the book.
The plot and characters don't deserve your care,
but the themes will make you question all that you can bear.
We've just gotta dive right in and explore this brave new world.

Even though it saved his life, he doesn't like it.
He just wants to go back in time and be a poet.
But he's gotta learn to live with technology,
and that doesn't mean he's gotta write his eulogy.
He's building up a whole new part of Robert Gu.
It's something new.
And we've all gotta be a part of something new.

Here is my Goodreads review for you to reference if you have any questions about the song. It is basically the same but it just goes into a little bit more detail, and it's not as cheesy.

"We the Media" Goodreads Review

I finished up Dan Gillmor's "We the Media" and I was really interested in some of the things that he had to say and the way that he constructed the current state of journalism.

I gave this book four stars out of five. Here is what I wrote about it on Goodreads.

I don't think that Dan Gillmor was the first one to propose the idea that modern technology is evolving the ways that we produce and consume news, but he traced it and explained it in a way that was highly effective and very informative. As a student who is about to graduate and who is thinking of a career in media, it was fascinating to hear his take on the current status of journalism. This set the stage for how media was changing now, and what that means for the general population.

Gillmor feels very hopeful about the ways that journalism is changing, and and I feel the same way. I really liked in this introduction when he said, "The rise of citizen journalists will help us listen. The ability of anyone to make the news will give new voice to people who've felt voiceless--and whose words we need to hear. They are showing all of us--citizen, journalist, newsmaker--new ways of talking, of learning." He clearly shows his reader that these changes are not only important to the ones making the news, but to everyday citizens too who may not have even taken note of the great changes, improvements, and of course some set backs that have occurred in the past years. The biggest problem that I had with this book is that in many ways it is already outdated. Technology changes so fast that it is difficult for a book to be current on everything for more than a couple years. I would be very interested to see Gillmor's opinions on how social medias, especially Twitter, are effecting the current state of journalism.


I've been following Dan Gillmor on Twitter to see if he has brought up any ideas from his book, but updated for everything that has happened with technology since its publication, but haven't seen him circiling back to this idea in recent posts. I am sure that he has through and am really interested in doing some searching around to see what he and other people in the technology and journalism fields are saying about this now.

"Rainbow's End" Book Review

While I was writing this review, on Goodreads, I actually found it hard to keep things so concise. I kept wanting to lapse into the tradition book review formula, as Dr. Burton talked about in this blog post. But I found that by the end, I had expressed the most important points, and I felt like I could contribute something to that kind of community. So, while this is probably the shortest blog post ever, it stands as a sort of testament to how the new kind of book review is emerging!

Curation: the ups and downs of Goodreads

Image courtesy Goodreads.

I have been using Goodreads to curate the best nonfiction writing. It has been lovely and exciting (and fun!)  to dive into great writers and their work, and I have found Goodreads to be a mix of usefulness and some forgivable frustration as a curation tool.

The main problem I have found is that for the subject of nonfiction, it makes some more sense to curate writers rather than books -- and much of the best work has appeared in other forms of publication. Goodreads does allow permalinks to author pages, and that is helpful -- more interesting than a Wikipedia entry, and with a social component built in.

To go about finding pieces for my collection, I searched terms like "nonfiction" and "essays" into Goodreads and found other people's lists. That was a little daunting, but it gave me a lot of material.

The most powerful tool so far for finding works has been my social network. On Facebook, I got great recommendations from friends about their favorite writers when I asked for recommendations in a status. I even got some private messages too. I will now link their suggestions to my collection on my Goodreads shelf.

I will share the results of my curation efforts soon. Ultimately, I want to create a resource for nonfiction writers that will not only have curated suggested reading but actual interviews with writers about their craft.

Onward!

What use is fair use? (Do you know?)

Are you a copyright scholar? Do you need to be in order to understand and use Fair Use?
Creative Commons image by Jeffrey Beall.

One of the central questions brought up by the book Reclaiming Fair Use is whether Fair Use is simple and easy to understand. As I thought about my feelings on that question, I wanted to get a feel for what the people in my social circles, and those who may read this blog, thought about that.

So I created this very short survey. Only 5 questions long, it should not take more than a minute or two to complete, and I would really love it if you would participate! Here it is:

A Very Short Survey on Fair Use

Thanks! Looking forward to sharing my findings with you as I continue to consider copyright laws.