Let Us Never Forget...

In Search of... NPR's Morning Edition

With my unfocused attention glued to WUWM at 5:50 AM (good thing Lola and I took an abbreviated walk) in search of a continued fix of the Obama Iowa victory, I had the serendipidous fortune to catch the beginning of a story on the unsolved case of D.B. Cooper. My hearing cut through the narrative and found the brief Leonard Nimoy excerpt from the In Search of... D.B. Cooper episode (Season 4, Episode 11, 6 December 1979).

Click and listen.

Or check out the FBI case page.

Convergences are euphoric.

Visual Narratives

A fellow student sent me her syllabus for a spring course that seems to be designed to fit my creative and academic (are those separate? opposing?) interests. Unfortunately, its in the middle of the day, which means one can't work a non-academic job and attend class.

In celebration of wishful thinking, here's the list:

Course Description

This graduate seminar is designed to facilitate a deeper understanding of relationships between image and text within contemporary narrative forms including hypertext, multimedia and 20^th Century experimental literary and art movements such as DADA, Oulipo and Fluxus, and to see how these movements anticipate and configure creative web content. We will focus upon narrative structure in “post-realist” literature.

Texts (books to acquire, all paperback) (All texts in order of appearance)

•Dada and Surrealism: A Very Short Introduction, David Hopkins

•If On a Winter’s Night a Traveler, Italo Calvino

•Species of Spaces and Other Pieces, George Perec

•This Is Not a Pipe, Michel Foucault

•Networked Art, Craig Saper

•Writing Machines, Katherine Hayles

Texts (on D2L)

•Locus Solus (excerpt), Raymond Roussel (chapter 3)

•The DADA Reader: A critical Anthology, Dawn Ales-editor (various)

•Women In DADA, Naomi Sawelson-Gorse-editor (chapter on Baroness Elsa Von Freytag-Loringhoven)

•Oulipo Compendium , Harry Mathews & Alastair Brotchie (various)

•Oulipo – A Primer of Potential Literature, Warren Motte Jr. (various)

•Exercises in Style, Raymond Queneau, (excerpt)

•Ways of Seeing, John Berger (Chapter 1)

•Maps of the Imagination: The Writer As Cartographer (excerpt: A Rigorous Geometry)

•Art In the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, Walter Benjamin

•Wanderlust (Chapter 12: Paris, Or Botanizing On the Asphalt), Rebecca Solnit

•Fluxus Experience, Hannah Higgins (excerpt)

•Ficciones, Jorge Luis Borges (various)

•Mr Wilson’s Cabinet of Wonder, Lawrence Weschler (chapter 1)

•Database Aesthetic, Victoria Vesna-editor (various)

•The Vintage Book of Amnesia, Jonathan Lethem-editor (Murakami story, Worth story)

•House of Leaves, Mark Danielewski (excerpt)

•The Shaping of Hypertextual Narrative, Sergio Cicconi (on web)

•Incidence, Daniil Kharms (excerpt)

•The Medium is the Massage, McLuhan & Fiore

•Digital McLuhan: A Guide to the Information Millenium (chapters 12 & 14)

Films

•The Shock of the New, Robert Hughes (VHS video) (Golda Meir media, Episode 2)

•Experimental Avant Garde Series (various) (English Department Film Library) (various)

•The Five Obstructions, Jorgen Leth & Lars Von Trier (DVD)

•Powers of Ten, Charles and Ray Eames (VHS video)

•How To Draw a Bunny, John Walter & Andrew Moore (DVD)

•Memento, Christopher Nolan

In Search of... Rinder & Lewis

Lamenting the disappearance of In Search of... from my television rotation, I found this sweet blog dedicated to found vinyl treasures, specifically a mention of the Rinder & Lewis soundtrack to In Search of...

And it is sweet hot music to my ears.

Now, back to scouring my memory for lost episodes...

The Most Profoundest Moment in Cinematical History

In celebration of the (almost) end of the semester and in praise of creative distraction and the pursuit of individual inspiration (and entertainment and satisfaction), I give to you, by means of hospital WiFi, Orson Welles:








The profundity is after the narrator, by the way.

Where has all the time gone?

We are finally getting a chance to upload the many, many pictures we've taken of our Lola, that beautiful little hellion of a Weim puppy. She's been getting so big! We found out from our second vet, Healing Oasis, (we highly recommend them - first vet wanted to over-vaccinate -- thanks for the warning Sally and Kevin!) that we were, well, making her a bit fat by letting her graze 3-4 (maybe five cups) a day whenever she felt like eating. I believe the exact term was not obese, but getting overweight. And daddy was worried Lola wasn't eating enough...

Regardless, she's growing whenever we look away for a few minutes, it seems. Her paws double overnight, every night. Her legs creep longer when she's curled up. And those ears!

Lola has been so much fun, even when she's biting mom and dad. (She's starting to learn not to, thanks to our new found firmness.) The twice daily walks (5:30, AM & PM) do a bit to burn down her energy, and daddy will run her sometimes on the leash.

It's Doggy Daycare that she loves, though. We've found a great place that just opened a Kenosha campus, Proper Paws University; they've got a great rep in Racine. She plays from 9-noon and 2-5 with the small dog/puppy group. The first day, I called at 10:30 to check on our baby - and she got high remarks from everyone. Her report card read that she gets a long and plays well with the other dogs and that she made lots of new friends. She fell asleep immediately upon mom putting her in the car crate. And, she slept almost all evening and night long. We love PPU. And hope to get her two days a week with friends.


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Lake Andrea


We've also explored the great Lake Andrea County Park in Pleasant Prairie (about five minutes ride from home). They've got a Minnesota "lake" (or pond, as most of us Wisconsinites call them), a few miles of paved paths, and a really fine nature trail system. Lola loves to glide through the leaves on the trail, her nose buried in the ground. Lots of tail-wagging at Lake Andrea.


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Dunes


Last Sunday, we went to the Dunes. Frank T. Tenuta's mom (and Erica's coworker) recommended it as a really fun place. Well, Weimaraners sure know how to have fun! The pictures at the end of the slide show are from the dunes. Lots of indigenous prairie plants and animals, paths, hills and a great shoreline rise on Lake Michigan. We'll be going back there soon.

The other pictures are from home, backyard, and front. I know there's a lot, but we have a lot to be proud of: Lola learned to go up the stairs 2 1/2 weeks ago (we now have two baby gates), down the stairs last week (once, anyway), and she's worked up the nerve (finally) to jump down from the couch (18 inches). She's getting bigger, smarter, and more confident, which is sometimes not so good, but generally amusing to watch.

Finally, congrats to our breeders, Waterwolves, who have a litter from Lola's dad Zeus and a blue Dam on the way!

1st Pictures at Home

Slideshow of pictures from Friday and Saturday (10/26-10/27):