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?