Friday, July 25, 2008
Friday, July 4, 2008
Could we be much dumber, now?
I have long been an advocate of technology, especially in the classroom. But after reading a recent article on NPR.Org I wondered just what the author wondered? "Is Google Making Us Stoopid?(sic)
Some of the claims the author makes in his article are:
1) The Internet has damaged our attention span, we are more likely to scan for information rather than read the entire article
2) Very rarely, do we even finish reading an entire blog entry(keep reading people)
3) Lastly, the Internet is affecting our ability to read longer novels...
In the past summers, I have read around eight to ten novels. I have found it harder to read novels, and I have elected to read short stories and articles from literary magazines. I have definitely noticed how my attention span and patience have started to decrease. I think I really enjoyed the Graphic Novel Shortcomings not only for the storyline but also for its succinctness.
This is quite disturbing to me, because I think reading bring us to a different level of knowledge than scanning. As for the world of research, I think it will be more difficult for students to research subject matter in its entirety.
I won't stop googling, scanning, and quick searching for information. But, I have noticed how this is affecting my attention span. Maybe even my ability to finish grading term papers, but that's another subject. You can read the article by clicking below: (wink)
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/google
Some of the claims the author makes in his article are:
1) The Internet has damaged our attention span, we are more likely to scan for information rather than read the entire article
2) Very rarely, do we even finish reading an entire blog entry(keep reading people)
3) Lastly, the Internet is affecting our ability to read longer novels...
In the past summers, I have read around eight to ten novels. I have found it harder to read novels, and I have elected to read short stories and articles from literary magazines. I have definitely noticed how my attention span and patience have started to decrease. I think I really enjoyed the Graphic Novel Shortcomings not only for the storyline but also for its succinctness.
This is quite disturbing to me, because I think reading bring us to a different level of knowledge than scanning. As for the world of research, I think it will be more difficult for students to research subject matter in its entirety.
I won't stop googling, scanning, and quick searching for information. But, I have noticed how this is affecting my attention span. Maybe even my ability to finish grading term papers, but that's another subject. You can read the article by clicking below: (wink)
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/google
Friday, June 20, 2008
Going graphic...
Ok, I'll admit it. I'm a sucker for my nephew. Those big round eyes, and just a mere suggestion from him can make an otherwise sensible person like me do strange things. One of those strange things was buying and reading a graphic novel. After scanning the bookcase at Barnes & Nobles, I picked up Adrian Tomine's Shortcomings.
I enjoyed this novel for a variety or reasons: believable characters, contemporary language, and a plot that is not only entertaining, but honest.
The book centers around the sardonic Ben Tanaka, whose curiosity of white women leaves his girlfriend Miko Hayashi feeling jaded. After Miko takes a film internship in New York, Ben is left to explore his curiousity through brief encounters with two anglo twenty-somethings. Shortcoming's explores a variety of different issues including interracial relationships, Asian identity, and the role the pervasive media plays in the way we view others and ourselves.
As a newcomer, I found the illustrations an helpful accompaniment to the dialogue. This short novel is gritty, funny, and true to life. It's been a while since I read a book pictures, but I definitely don't think it will be my last..
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Carried Away
For the first time, I could identify with those wacky Star Wars fanatics; I even thought about how past generations must have felt the frenzy of Margaret Mitchell's GWTW. I am speaking of the Sex and City Movie. Nearly, a week later I still have remnants of the excitement of the movie running around in my body, like a kid who has twirled themselves around with their eyes closed.
More than just a media artifact, it was the first time women--had a movie of their own. More than a romantic comedy this movie revealed vulnerablility and boldness that is not often shown on the movie screens. It was more than the Carrie's quest for finding true love, it was about her knowing that that path is not always easy. And if she didn't make it --the human spirit is resilient.
I cried at several parts of the film. I felt the fury of woman scorned when Carrie was humiliated. I identified with Charlotte's instinct to protect her friend from pain. I understood Miranda's shock after Steve revealed his infidelity. Those parts illustrated real sadness, which every person can identify.
Oh but I laughed, too. At the crazy outfits, Carrie's puns, and Samantha's voyeuristic nature. It warmed my heart. Every part of this movie was meaningful. And it was a nice ending to characters who take up space in the brain, long after the credits roll.
The plot aside, this film brought women of all ages and races together. It was so cool to see women dressed as Carries, Samantha's in their sexiest outfits, and sweet Charlotte's in full skirt dresses. And in this economy, where everything is so bleak, this was a bright spot of hope, and a great way to start summer.
More than just a media artifact, it was the first time women--had a movie of their own. More than a romantic comedy this movie revealed vulnerablility and boldness that is not often shown on the movie screens. It was more than the Carrie's quest for finding true love, it was about her knowing that that path is not always easy. And if she didn't make it --the human spirit is resilient.
I cried at several parts of the film. I felt the fury of woman scorned when Carrie was humiliated. I identified with Charlotte's instinct to protect her friend from pain. I understood Miranda's shock after Steve revealed his infidelity. Those parts illustrated real sadness, which every person can identify.
Oh but I laughed, too. At the crazy outfits, Carrie's puns, and Samantha's voyeuristic nature. It warmed my heart. Every part of this movie was meaningful. And it was a nice ending to characters who take up space in the brain, long after the credits roll.
The plot aside, this film brought women of all ages and races together. It was so cool to see women dressed as Carries, Samantha's in their sexiest outfits, and sweet Charlotte's in full skirt dresses. And in this economy, where everything is so bleak, this was a bright spot of hope, and a great way to start summer.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Even back then...
Even in the bygone eras of media, its possible link to violence was quite ubiquitous. Some of us are familiar with War of the Worlds, the radio dramatization of aliens seeking revenge on earthlings. This fictional dramatization left many listeners frightened and many fled their homes in fear. Even though the audience was told beforehand that this was a fictional program. After this many believed that media was a powerful force that could change behavior and make media consumers more violent. But, I was a bit surprised that comic books were once under attack for violent and sexual content. I found this article that details the uproar that comics caused during the Red Scare:
CNN) -- World War II was over, but as the 1940s gave way to the 1950s, a new evil lurked in the land.
The cover of David Hajdu's "Ten-Cent Plague," shown here, was drawn by Charles Burns.
It attracted a youthful audience -- boys, mostly -- who fell victim to its colorful images, dripping in red, and gave money to its purveyors.
Authorities took notice. The United States had a new menace, they said, one whose name started with "c" and whose first syllable rhymed with "bomb."
Comic books.
"The country was fixated on this," said David Hajdu, author of the recently released "The Ten-Cent Plague" (Farrar, Straus & Giroux), a history of the era.
These weren't just any comic books, the ones filled with the derring-do of superheroes. These had names such as "Tales from the Crypt," "Shock SuspenStories" and "Justice Traps the Guilty," and they told stories of crime and horror. Their cover images included alluring women (often in low-cut outfits), decaying corpses and spooky, murky swamps.
Hajdu, who wrote "Positively Fourth Street" about the early-'60s folk music scene, observes that when we think of postwar pop-cultural rebellion, what comes to mind is rock 'n' roll and Marlon Brando. But comic books, he notes, came first. Hundreds of millions sold every month, at 10 cents a throw.
Don't Miss
Well, WERE comics that violent?
'The King' of comic book artists
iReport.com: Are you a comic books fan?
"Everybody read comic books. They were the most popular form of entertainment in America," he said.
The fact that such entertainment was primarily aimed at children and teens raised the ire of authorities, including social scientists, newspaper columnists and political leaders. These works, they believed, were causing crime and degeneracy. They had to be stopped.
Towns hosted bonfires to rid themselves of comics; congressional hearings about the issue helped burnish the image of Tennessee's Estes Kefauver, who had led hearings against organized crime.
Comic books had been attracting concern since they were introduced in the 1930s -- and superheroes weren't immune. Figures such as children's author Sterling North and a Catholic bishop, John Francis Noll, protested the medium as glorifying crime and corrupting youngsters. The fervor dulled during World War II but came back with a vengeance afterwards as news focused on an alleged increase in juvenile delinquency.
The anti-comics movement really caught fire with the work of psychiatrist Frederic Wertham, who wrote a book, "Seduction of the Innocent," linking comics with delinquency. Sidebar: Were comics that violent?
In recent decades, Wertham has become a figure of mockery for his theories (he called the relationship between Batman and Robin "like a wish-dream of two homosexuals living together"), but Hajdu says he wasn't a cardboard villain. He was committed to working with minorities -- he ran a free clinic in Harlem -- and he genuinely cared about young people.
"He was misguided and used utterly fallacious methods, but what he was getting at was understandable," Hajdu said, though adding that "he did much more harm than good."
Among Wertham's adversaries was William M. Gaines, son of comics pioneer Max Gaines and the owner of EC Comics. Thanks to a staff of innovative writers and artists -- including Al Feldstein, Harvey Kurtzman, Wally Wood, Will Elder and Jack Davis -- and a deep investment in the crime and horror genres, Gaines revived a moribund EC, making it one of the business's most successful companies. Its titles, including "Crypt" and "SuspenStories," were both graphic and groundbreaking. See some of the covers that turned heads »
"EC Comics out-bloodied them all but also used social commentary and had a lighter quality of gruesome art," said Bill Svitavsky, a history professor at Florida's Rollins College who teaches a course on American graphic publishing with his colleague Julian Chambliss.
"EC had statements about racism and conformity to small-town values," Chambliss said. Many of EC's staffers, he observes, were World War II veterans who'd seen their share of violence, and their art -- if graphic -- gave their stories the ring of truth. (Author Grant Geissman put together a collection of EC's work, "Foul Play!" (HarperDesign), in 2005.)
However, the keepers of the boundaries pushed back, Svitavsky says. In those Red Scare times, "Adults were fearful [of works that questioned the establishment.] ... Comic books were believed to be an underestimated, unpatriotic tool to get at kids."
The children, Hajdu says, illustrated the tension of the times. Some had tried to hide their collections; others had energetically taken part in comic-book burnings. He interviewed many of them, now grown-ups in their 60s or 70s. "It was harrowing to listen to them," he said.
The issues came to a head at the subcommittee hearings on juvenile delinquency, which began in late 1953. Among the witnesses were Gaines and Wertham, who "looked as if he had come straight from doing scientific work," Hajdu writes. The comics' fate was sealed when Gaines, in televised testimony, attempted to defend a "Crime SuspenStories" cover, depicting the hand of a killer clutching a woman's severed head, as "good taste." Audiences were shocked; opinion leaders raged.
A comics publishers' association put together the Comics Code Authority, which banned the words "horror" and "terror" from comic books. Sales plunged, dozens of artists lost their jobs, and comic books didn't make a comeback for years.
"Everybody was cautious in the '60s," noted Ron Goulart, author of "Good Girl Art," a history of female images in comic books. He credits the horror-crime scare with "probably help[ing] resurrect superheroes," particularly the new breed created by Marvel Comics in the '60s.
The horror and crime books were also reflective of a changing world. Film historians have observed that the heyday of film noir was in the late '40s, and it wasn't long before Brando, James Dean, Elvis Presley and many others were busting boundaries in other genres.
Gaines was a part of that, Hajdu observes. There was one comic, a humor book, he had protected. He made it a magazine to save it from the Comics Code Authority and refused to accept advertising.
In time, the magazine became one of the most influential publications of the 20th century, inspiring generations to question authority and mocking the pieties of politics, religion and popular culture.
It was called Mad.
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CNN) -- World War II was over, but as the 1940s gave way to the 1950s, a new evil lurked in the land.
The cover of David Hajdu's "Ten-Cent Plague," shown here, was drawn by Charles Burns.
It attracted a youthful audience -- boys, mostly -- who fell victim to its colorful images, dripping in red, and gave money to its purveyors.
Authorities took notice. The United States had a new menace, they said, one whose name started with "c" and whose first syllable rhymed with "bomb."
Comic books.
"The country was fixated on this," said David Hajdu, author of the recently released "The Ten-Cent Plague" (Farrar, Straus & Giroux), a history of the era.
These weren't just any comic books, the ones filled with the derring-do of superheroes. These had names such as "Tales from the Crypt," "Shock SuspenStories" and "Justice Traps the Guilty," and they told stories of crime and horror. Their cover images included alluring women (often in low-cut outfits), decaying corpses and spooky, murky swamps.
Hajdu, who wrote "Positively Fourth Street" about the early-'60s folk music scene, observes that when we think of postwar pop-cultural rebellion, what comes to mind is rock 'n' roll and Marlon Brando. But comic books, he notes, came first. Hundreds of millions sold every month, at 10 cents a throw.
Don't Miss
Well, WERE comics that violent?
'The King' of comic book artists
iReport.com: Are you a comic books fan?
"Everybody read comic books. They were the most popular form of entertainment in America," he said.
The fact that such entertainment was primarily aimed at children and teens raised the ire of authorities, including social scientists, newspaper columnists and political leaders. These works, they believed, were causing crime and degeneracy. They had to be stopped.
Towns hosted bonfires to rid themselves of comics; congressional hearings about the issue helped burnish the image of Tennessee's Estes Kefauver, who had led hearings against organized crime.
Comic books had been attracting concern since they were introduced in the 1930s -- and superheroes weren't immune. Figures such as children's author Sterling North and a Catholic bishop, John Francis Noll, protested the medium as glorifying crime and corrupting youngsters. The fervor dulled during World War II but came back with a vengeance afterwards as news focused on an alleged increase in juvenile delinquency.
The anti-comics movement really caught fire with the work of psychiatrist Frederic Wertham, who wrote a book, "Seduction of the Innocent," linking comics with delinquency. Sidebar: Were comics that violent?
In recent decades, Wertham has become a figure of mockery for his theories (he called the relationship between Batman and Robin "like a wish-dream of two homosexuals living together"), but Hajdu says he wasn't a cardboard villain. He was committed to working with minorities -- he ran a free clinic in Harlem -- and he genuinely cared about young people.
"He was misguided and used utterly fallacious methods, but what he was getting at was understandable," Hajdu said, though adding that "he did much more harm than good."
Among Wertham's adversaries was William M. Gaines, son of comics pioneer Max Gaines and the owner of EC Comics. Thanks to a staff of innovative writers and artists -- including Al Feldstein, Harvey Kurtzman, Wally Wood, Will Elder and Jack Davis -- and a deep investment in the crime and horror genres, Gaines revived a moribund EC, making it one of the business's most successful companies. Its titles, including "Crypt" and "SuspenStories," were both graphic and groundbreaking. See some of the covers that turned heads »
"EC Comics out-bloodied them all but also used social commentary and had a lighter quality of gruesome art," said Bill Svitavsky, a history professor at Florida's Rollins College who teaches a course on American graphic publishing with his colleague Julian Chambliss.
"EC had statements about racism and conformity to small-town values," Chambliss said. Many of EC's staffers, he observes, were World War II veterans who'd seen their share of violence, and their art -- if graphic -- gave their stories the ring of truth. (Author Grant Geissman put together a collection of EC's work, "Foul Play!" (HarperDesign), in 2005.)
However, the keepers of the boundaries pushed back, Svitavsky says. In those Red Scare times, "Adults were fearful [of works that questioned the establishment.] ... Comic books were believed to be an underestimated, unpatriotic tool to get at kids."
The children, Hajdu says, illustrated the tension of the times. Some had tried to hide their collections; others had energetically taken part in comic-book burnings. He interviewed many of them, now grown-ups in their 60s or 70s. "It was harrowing to listen to them," he said.
The issues came to a head at the subcommittee hearings on juvenile delinquency, which began in late 1953. Among the witnesses were Gaines and Wertham, who "looked as if he had come straight from doing scientific work," Hajdu writes. The comics' fate was sealed when Gaines, in televised testimony, attempted to defend a "Crime SuspenStories" cover, depicting the hand of a killer clutching a woman's severed head, as "good taste." Audiences were shocked; opinion leaders raged.
A comics publishers' association put together the Comics Code Authority, which banned the words "horror" and "terror" from comic books. Sales plunged, dozens of artists lost their jobs, and comic books didn't make a comeback for years.
"Everybody was cautious in the '60s," noted Ron Goulart, author of "Good Girl Art," a history of female images in comic books. He credits the horror-crime scare with "probably help[ing] resurrect superheroes," particularly the new breed created by Marvel Comics in the '60s.
The horror and crime books were also reflective of a changing world. Film historians have observed that the heyday of film noir was in the late '40s, and it wasn't long before Brando, James Dean, Elvis Presley and many others were busting boundaries in other genres.
Gaines was a part of that, Hajdu observes. There was one comic, a humor book, he had protected. He made it a magazine to save it from the Comics Code Authority and refused to accept advertising.
In time, the magazine became one of the most influential publications of the 20th century, inspiring generations to question authority and mocking the pieties of politics, religion and popular culture.
It was called Mad.
E-mail to a friend
Share this on:
Mixx Digg Facebook del.icio.us reddit StumbleUpon Myspace
Mixx it Share
Welcome to Media Remarks
As promised, I have started this blog to communicate with students, colleagues, and media connoisseurs. I've already been kicking back for a few days, and now it's time to start those pesky summer goals I give myself once the semester comes to an end. They are:
1. Read 500 books.
2. Learn a new language.
3. Study for the GRE.
4.Practice yoga daily.
5. Have fun.
6. Go on a road trip.
7.Scrapbook
8. Visit the High Museum, Fernbank, and the Atlanta History Museum.
9. Go to the beach.
10.Start a blog to communicate with students.
About #10, it is my goal to blog about twice a week. As many of you know I'm addicted to reality television, love to write, and enjoy all facets of the media. I would like to hear from you regarding the subject matter for this blog. Please respond and share your summer goals.
1. Read 500 books.
2. Learn a new language.
3. Study for the GRE.
4.Practice yoga daily.
5. Have fun.
6. Go on a road trip.
7.Scrapbook
8. Visit the High Museum, Fernbank, and the Atlanta History Museum.
9. Go to the beach.
10.Start a blog to communicate with students.
About #10, it is my goal to blog about twice a week. As many of you know I'm addicted to reality television, love to write, and enjoy all facets of the media. I would like to hear from you regarding the subject matter for this blog. Please respond and share your summer goals.
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