Link roundups

Let’s start by turning some subtext into text: I am trying out gradually moving away from Twitter in favor of this blog. Lots of reasons why. Twitter’s got issues, to say the least, but I also like writing longer posts. I like the quiet of working on something for a while, of typing into a rectangle that fills my screen instead of a one guiding me towards writing three sentences, maybe, at most.

I’m also going to try bundling up links into single posts, since a lot of smart people to do that, too.

  • Emily Short blogs about her experience taking a masterclass in set design with Punchdrunk, the Sleep No More people. Her notes and reflections are thorough enough that although I’m sure they’re no replacement for the class, I found myself thinking quite a few thoughts in response.
  • Eve is an abandoned programming platform, but I found so much I agreed with in its goals and orientation. I am tired of editor color themes that turn comments dim and code bright and citrusy, as if comments are meant to be jotted in haste and henceforth ignored.
  • I’ve been to the FedEx office mentioned in this history of Nazism in Baltimore (may you one day rise from your grave, City Paper).

A question still unanswered

The question that has underlain my work is, quite simply, “Why Hypertext?”

…

If we are going to throw literature classes, citations, and even reviews into mass confusion (no more turning to page 21), we’d better have a good reason why. If we are going to ask readers to take an active role in searching for text, making connections, understanding links, and finding structure, we’d better make the trip pay off. If we could get what we were looking for in a simple, straight-forward text, we’d be crazy to spend about ten times the effort to plan, write, link, and program a hypertext.

Deena Larson, 1999. Ran across it while doing some random research tonight. Nearly twenty years later, it’s still an open question.

Catching up on RSS after a stomach bug

I’ve been grappling with a stomach bug the past few days, which was as good a reason as any to unplug from everything I could for a little. Two things I thought were notable as I caught up on my RSS feeds:

Donald Glover Can’t Save You. I lost track of his career after Community–and this article hints that there is a bigger story to tell about that particular series–so this profile was enlightening. I’ll cop to not even having Atlanta on my radar, but this piece convinced me I needed to watch.

I Went To The Olympics and All I Got Was This Tentative Sense of Hope. I have always loved the Olympics–the weirder the sport, the more I want to see it–but the toll they take on the hosting cities and all the corruption pervading the IOC has made that love problematic, to say the least. I liked this article mostly for the small peek it offered into what it’s like to go to an Olympics as a local. As a TV watcher, it was a little — worrying isn’t the right word for it? — that the ads were so repetitive; to me, a sign that Big Corps don’t think Americans watch them, so nobody except big-ticket sponsors are buying. But what do I know about the television industry?

p.s. Just taking a few days away from the news really reinforces the absurd quality that headlines have taken on in the past 402 days. Try it if you haven’t.