Author: Derek Mueller

Name-Calling at BCHS

/ Derek Mueller

Do you miss high school?
Nah, I don’t really miss high school so much.  And when, just for a
split little minute, I do, the monthly Aggie Express Newsletter sets me right
again.  For example, the February edition, hotly distilled to PDF, suggests
that once again–much like in bygone days–the school system is infested with
name-calling, other excitables.  Whenever you’re ready, Judith Butler.   The feature,

"Verbal Abuse–Slurs and Name-calling," basically reduces to "tend to your
foul-mouthed kids!"  So in case you don’t have time or inclination to read
it, that pretty much sums it up: endlessly curbing intolerant slurs in small
town middle Michigan.  In an effort to be more solution oriented, I was
speculating about a connection to the school’s song (scales are in common with
Notre Dame, fwiw).  Notice the ratio of fight to all other words, except
and, which pops up twice-6:1.  Pattern, see?

Fight, fight for BCHS,
Keep up the spirit, we’ll always try,
Then our team will fight and win
and march on to victory.  Fight! Fight! Fight!

Volatility

/ Derek Mueller

Confess to being plumb wore out right now.  Lots of things seem
to be are going awry, which is an expected feeling around the fourth
week of a demanding semester.  And yes, one self-monitor cautions me to
buck up, chill out, keep it steady, and another self-monitor–Disrupter–takes a
more rancorous tenor, blares like a high-and-whiny siren.  And another….

Instead of pining over a lackluster day and a stack of work among other
stressors, I suppose I ought to wrap this back into broader issues (from
classes, of course) about network literacy and identity.  I think my only
point for now is that finding a rhythm is just one tender, deceptive sliver of
living the interconnection; rhythm-finding is obscured by ease, yes?  When
the process/system (of blogging, since, what the heck, that’s under the
micro-scope) is least visible, it is susceptible to
disruption. Writing is easy, not easy. What I’m trying to work through is the
extent to which the bumps are explicit or the extent to which the strain of
doctoral study makes its way into a space frequented by colleagues whom I see
every day at work.  And so I suppose this gives an opening to theorizing
the network as wrought with dynamics I still don’t understand, new and
unpredictable avenues for being placed into
various
statements.  The schizo-network
(made possible by meeting twice or doubly), as a consequence of competing,
overlapping and near-simultaneous representations, is
vulnerable and, perhaps no matter how widely distributed, somewhat degraded. 
Yeah, that’s what I wanted to say.  It knows woe; it
interpolates absence, it senses strain, recovers quietly.

The unbinding can become so overpowering that it colonizes subjectivities
and tears them apart; with no guarantee of either a stable past or a connected
future, it is impossible to believe in the unity of a single, stable
subject–the subject of our previous discussions of literacy. (Wysocki and
Johnson-Eilola 365)

Adobe Agitation

/ Derek Mueller / 9 Comments

Without extensive qualification, this is a working-through-hang-ups kind of entry. 
Warning: check.

Increasingly, I find myself annoyed by PDFs.  One or two PDFs, I can
handle.  When they come in lesser installments, I’m fine. But more than
that, and I bristle, fume.  In a graduate seminar, for example, I
understand that we might read widely from an assortment of sources.  I
think of PDFs as supplements, add-on, and because they’re harder to scale to the
screen’s dimensions, unlike fluid web texts with which I can enlarge the font, I
struggle to read them on the screen.  I can read scalable web texts on the
screen; even when the font is wonky, it’s easy enough to enlarge it or otherwise
alter it for readability.  Plus, I’ve been using Scrapbook for annotations,
highlighting, and tabbed browsing in Firefox keeps all of it manageable. 

PDFs, depending on how they’re laid out, can be nearly impossible to read on
the screen.  And so I print them out.  And I don’t mind printing them
out, especially when they come in the range of 1-3 per week, let’s say. 
But let’s just say they come in a wave of more than that–say 10 or 15,
hypothetically, of course.  If that were to happen, now I become a
book-making friggin print-house manager.  I have to print, collate,
arrange, run to the store for more printer cartridges, etcetera.  It bumps
the needle on my "busy work" dial into "Pain in the Ass" range.  Warning
lights start to blink.

I printed out 300 pages of PDFs last evening.  The docs were copied one
codex page to one PDF page, so gobs of white space make margin around a 5×7
peninsula of text.  Room for notations, I guess.  But I can only print
the PDFs single-sided, rather than double-sided, as I might do with a
photocopier.  Late Wednesday night, when I drove over to Kinko’s thinking
they’d have a way of helping me switch 15 PDF files from my USB drive to a
photocopier, through which I could churn them out back-front for under a dime a
page, it was another zinger to learn "Um, no, we can’t do that.  Print them
from the computers for 25 cents per page, but only if you’ve fewer than three
files."  I didn’t even try to talk about it, just thanked him and walked on
out.

These intermediary forms leave a lot to be desired, and yet I get the feeling
that lots of folks see PDFs as the wondrous saving grace of print in a digitized
world.  PDF it, that’s easy. Easier even than pre-determined course packs. In fact, the department photocopier is set up
to PDF with amazing efficiency, even emailing it to you when the conversion of copy is complete. As I think through this, I guess I see it as a convenience to
teachers and an inconvenience to students.  It’s a kind of relocation of
the photocopier burden or paper chase from one to the other.  And I’ll be
using three PDFed chapters/essays with 205 students this spring.  It’s as much a matter of threshold, especially when variforms of text are criss-crossing
in all these different spaces, the result of confusion among incommensurable
mediations.  This morning when I opened yet another PDF–reading for a
Monday meeting–and found it, like to oh so many others to be a 1:1 scan, one
page per, and copied with huge smears of black toner-noise filling half of the
lower margin, I had an attack of PDF agitation.  Since both print and
digital texts are with us–all around us–and both necessary and pertinent, I’ll
continue to work on my hang-ups about PDFs, roll my neck until it pops, take a
deep breath, and carry on reading.

Forming with Small Hands

/ Derek Mueller / 2 Comments

I’ve been meaning to weave three disparate threads together, triple helix
style; they converged–blink!–for an instant while I was reading the other day, and it seemed like more than another drill. 
Who’s running this time?  Ann Berthoff, Steve Berlin Johnson, and one more
(Coach: I don’t care who goes, dammit.  Fill in the lines.) 
First, I’ve got to tell you a bit about the weave:

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Retromediation and Novelty

/ Derek Mueller / 9 Comments

Cross-posted to
Network(ed) Rhetorics.

Frankly, as I read "Remediation, Genre, and Motivation: Key Concepts for
Teaching with Weblogs," by Brooks, Nichols and Priebe, all of NDSU,
I wondered about the consequences of framing
weblogs as remediations of older forms–the journal, the notebook and the
filter.  What results from a setup of weblogs that calibrates their
potential in terms of paper-based corollaries?  It’s difficult to know
exactly how this was framed beyond the evidence we find in
the article
(the framework, the research narrative, the questionnaire, the data-sets, the
conclusion) and in the related links (the

weblogs themselves,
a
syllabus,

a reading list,

adjacent

assignments) so I’m reluctant to respond to the essay with firmly resolved
skepticism, especially considering that it reflects some of the earliest uses of
blogs to teach writing. Yet through this limited lens, I have doubts about
why we need to liken blogs to paper
counterparts.  What’s gained?  Is it a way to legitimate composition
pedagogy adventurously (inventively, imaginatively!) straying from
long-recognized forms, forms often occupying the lion’s share of weight in the
event-oriented syllabus or program-wide curricular design?  Is it a way to
call up, for students, a sense of the familiar?  Although it is, perhaps to
a lesser degree than resonates in this article, necessary at times to present
students with a grounding in the familiar, when Brooks et. al. tell us, "we
wanted to balance the novelty of the activity with a grounding in familiar
literate practices," my initial thought is that a high stakes
flattening/deadening/adequation is inevitably brought about.  And this, I
think, must bear on motivation, if only subtly, tacitly.

What do I suggest instead?  Well, it
depends on the broader aims of the course. For collective course blogs, I’m less
and less inclined to model exemplary entries for the whole class, and rather
than talking about what blogs enable by connecting them to the written forms
they (more or less) resemble, I
prefer to introduce blogs to students in terms of their impact on how we
think (sure, paper variations impact
thought, too), develop and write with/about ideas and so on (more to this, but
I’ll let it rest here).

Me me me

/ Derek Mueller / 14 Comments

In the footsteps of

M. and

K.:
What time did you get up this morning? 6:40 a.m.
Diamonds or pearls? Pass.
What was the last film you saw at the cinema? A Series of Unfortunate Events
What is your favorite TV show? Family Guy
What did you have for breakfast? Two coffees, toast and eggs (would’ve done
PB&J on toast, but we’re low on J).
What is your middle name? Norton (after maternal gram’s maiden name)
Favorite cuisine? Berbere sauce on injera. Where’s my mail order of berbere
powder? I placed it nearly two weeks ago!
What foods do you dislike? Eggplant
What is your favorite flavor? Vanilla.
What is your favorite CD at the moment? Velvet Underground and Nico.
What kind of car do you drive? Mostly hoofing it these days. Honda Element
when it’s available.
Favorite sandwich? French–aguacate, jamon, turkey, tomato, mayo, mustard on
wheat. Hmm. Or ruebens. Ruebens are tasty. And bratwurst–if you’d call it
"sandwich."
What characteristic do you despise? Bossiness and arrogance are tied.
Favorite item of clothing? Grey sweatshirt.
If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go?
Ottawa?
What color is your bathroom? Caramel? Something tannish.
Favorite brand of clothing? If it fits, I’m thrilled.
Where would you retire to? Huatulco or Xalapa.
Favorite time of the day? Now.
What was your most memorable birthday? I can’t remember.
Where were you born? Michigan. What, are you trying to find out my password?
Favorite sport to watch? Basketball.
What laundry detergent do you buy? Um, is that for washing clothes?
When is your birthday? Fifth of May, ’74.
Are you a morning person or a night person? Switches around, depending on
obligations.
What is your shoe size? 14
Do you have any pets? None. And it’s very disheartening. Next question.
Any new and exciting news you’d like to share with your family & friends?
Miss you much, and sorry I haven’t called lately.
What did you want to be when you were little? A tomato farmer.
What are you doing today? Reading, tracing themes, contemplating a shower.
If there was one thing you could do right now, $ is no object, what would you
do? Open a restaurant and declare myself head chef.
If you only had a few days left on earth, what would you do? Panic. What the
hell happened?

Only Slightly Less Burdened

/ Derek Mueller / 3 Comments

In case you were wondering, I’ve been fending off a
stalwart northeastern head cold.  That explains (no it doesn’t, yes it
does–okay, only partially) recent entries at EWM.  I’ve also been
buttoning down the canvas for a wild week ahead; the reading load has spiked (an
entire January Sunday getting to know Emig’s Web of Meaning), and, in
another course, I’m first into the fray as presenter of chapter one from White’s
Tropics of Discourse on Thursday morning.  Knees high, leading the
parade.  And so I’ve been prepping obsessively, combing over stuff I think
I mostly get. 

And since I felt apprehension throughout last semester
about bringing academic work into this blogspace, I’m turning over a new leaf
and issuing an exclusive early release of the summary that goes with that
presentation of White’s first chapter here, before it’s circulated anywhere
else.  And then I’m going to eat; after that: give two-thirds of the house
members free haircuts (that’d be me and Ph.).  I’d love feedback on the
summary, if you’re up for it.

Oh, and one other thing, dear blogosphere, I need a CCCC
room-share in SF.  The west coast swank-elite wants dang near 200 clams each
night, and for that, I can probably stay awake for three days.  But
seriously, low needs room-share, 50:50. NCTE used to offer a web-board for
practical matches such as the one I’m seeking; where is that now?  The only alternative is to re-draw the strapped personal budget for conference travel. Ideas? Folks known to be in the same bind?

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Oh And I Guess That I Just Don’t Know

/ Derek Mueller

lou reed
You’re Lou Reed.
God, you are cool, can I touch you so the magic will rub off?
You are perceptive, witty, and badass. You wear cool shades, even at night, and probably wear black more than most people. You don’t give a f’ck what other people think, but you are also very sensitive in the way that you pick up on things that others don’t. Sometimes you come off as an asshole, but that’s what makes you cool. You are a poet, and you embody New York City. You will still be hip when you are old, and artists love you.

Which rad old school 70’s glam icon are you? (with pics)
brought to you by Quizilla

A crucial part of today’s work is beginning to think like an exam-taker
because I have at least one final testing event this semester (others are
seminar projects, essays, distributed products and so on). What better place to
brush up on answering tough, reflective questions than Quizilla?  Yah, I’d
say this is a generous match (esp. on cool quotient, wearing black, poetic rating, a-hole-ness, depending on who judges), but I answered the questions honestly.  Can’t tell what the other outcomes might have been (maybe everybody’s L. Reed), but I’ll take this one. 
Fitting that I’ve had a Black Angel’s Death earworm violining my head all day long. 

To the cozy brown snow of the east
Gone to choose, choose again