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Dr. Horrible's Lil' Problem- with Spoilers

So I finally got around to watching Dr. Horrible and overall I was quite impressed. We already knew that Joss could do an entertaining musical (hands up if even despite being a Buffy fan you half expected a trainwreck before actually seeing the musical episode), but it was delightful to see him expanding his chops even further into the genre. The songs were great, the cast was perfect, and Whedon’s favorite theme of blurring the boundaries between heroes and villains was, of course, front and center. It’s also a bit of a pop culture anomaly in that it’s exactly as long as it needs to be. Free from the restraints of television windows and commercial breaks, Whedon uses the online distribution route to craft a story that moves at a pace defined solely by the story itself.

But alas, this isn’t about the exciting possibilities of circumventing the Hollywood production machine, it’s about continuing patterns in Whedon’s bag of tricks. Now I’m as much a Whedon fanboy as any other, but not the kind that believes he can’t be criticized (and believe me, those kind do exist). And for all his feminist-tendencies, Joss just can’t seem to stop killing women. To be fair, he kills a lot of characters and, yes, sometimes they are male. However, Joss is increasingly crossing over into Women in Refrigerators territory.

For those not in the know, WIR is a reference from the comic book medium where female characters are historically given pretty short thrift. Specifically, WIR is a term coined by Gail Simone in direct reference to an issue of the Green Lantern when our hero comes home to find his girlfriend murdered and stuffed in a fridge. Again, people die in comics all the time. But WIR has come to mean a specific circumstance of death, where a female character is murdered solely to further the character development of the male (a related phenomenon is "Dead Man Defrosting," where male characters are often depowered but allowed to return to their former glory while female characters are usually doomed to their fates). It happens a lot (there’s a running list), and it’s the disproportionate usage of this trope between males and females that makes it really disturbing trend.

And this is basically what happens in Dr. Horrible just as it’s happened in many Whedon projects before. Perhaps it’s more jarring in Dr. Horrible since we don’t get to know Penny for very long. And I can predict the criticism. Like– well, of course the death of a lover is going to affect character growth for a hero. Or– Whedon killed Tara to further Willow’s character too. Or even the whole this is much adieu about nothing argument. No matter how you see it, this isn’t a simple matter of black and white. It’s not even a simple matter of just Whedon’s body of work. It’s a matter of a cultural pattern and it’s the pattern that gives any individual instance its weight.

Yes, Folks, That Was a Long Break

And what can I say? It was summer . . . which usually means more free time, but this summer didn't quite shake down that way. First and foremost there was the constant looming spectre of prelims beating down on my anxieties. And after a week of hell (alright, they weren't that bad), I'm happy to report that prelims are successfully in my past and I'm moving onto the prospectus writing phase of this crazy Ph.d. journey. I'm sure there will be more details here as that process gears up.

Ever Get the Feeling You've Been Cheated? Edupunk and Subculture. Part One

So as far as I can tell, this whole Edupunk thing started with this blog post here from Jim Groom. And although I’m partly wary of entering a discussion over what is more of a meme than a movement at this point, there has been some interesting discussion over the past week about what exactly this term could mean. It’s hard to give a still-forming term an exact definition, but:

Edupunk is (or might be)

– a DIY movement that "favors technical accessibility over grand design" (Caufield)

– "instructional use of blogs, wikis, various mashups, and podcasting among many other uses of emerging technologies" (Wikipedia)

– the "rejection of efforts by government and corporate interests in using emerging technologies to exercise control over education" (Wikipedia)

– the tendency of influential educational companies like Blackboard to co-opt and repackage Web 2.0 apps and offering them as their own

– "student-centered, resourceful, teacher or community-created rather than corporate-sourced, and underwritten by a progressive political stance" (Stephen Downes)

There’s some good here. The use of social media in classrooms and the emphasis on production are certainly actions I can get behind. But something about this Edupunk idea seems off to me. Here’s my attempt to work it out.

First off I’ve got to tackle the title itself. Not only because words matter, but because if you wanted to demonstrate words’ tendency to be historically, culturally, and socially situated with a resulting multiplicity of interpretations . . . well, you could do a lot worse than choosing the word "punk." Suffice to say that someone’s reading of that word always ends up saying a hell of a lot more about them than it does any firm defining of what punk is or was. The word choice is sure to inflame passions and opinions precisely because its such a slippery signifier (and if you chart the conversations so far, this is exactly what has happened). If Groom thought this out, I’m sure that’s the main reason he choose to go there. The word choice almost ensures conversation and debate and for that I could never fault it. But there’s no doubt the word brings baggage and divisiveness. If the choice is intended to do more than spark emotion, I have to wonder what benefits the label brings.

Without seeking to define too many specific qualities, I feel safe saying that punk was a subcultural movement born out of a specific historical and social context. Like any movement it’s a mistake to think that punks built anything totally new from scratch. In other words, they took the materiality and philosophies of so-called "straight" culture and reappropriated them into new meanings (for example: punk reconfigured such symbols as metal combs, motor scooters, the Union Jack, the safety pin, etc.). On the semiotic level of remixing culture into new meanings and possibilities, I quite like the notion of a "punk" style to education. I just doubt that this is the main sense in which the word is being used (and punks were far from the first group to do this, so again, why them?).

As Dick Hebdige suggested in his seminal "Subculture: The Meaning of Style," the straight culture always responds back– sending the subculture through a cycle of trivialization, naturalization, and ultimate domestication. Those "original" punks that lament the rise of the "Hot Topic" punk fail to realize that all subcultures go through this cycle. If the subculture had any real legs, it’s already sowed seeds and morphed into something else by the time the so-called "masses" and future generations come along and try to catch up. Perhaps most importantly, I would agree with Hebdige that this process is not something to lament; if for no other reason, it simply is going to happen. Corporations may be showing increasing interest in Web 2.0 technology– and they may often approach them in ways that longtime or early adopters view as off or bastardized– but their doing so is ultimately part of a social cycle that is necessary for the original ideas to grow or progress.

The subculture always comes with an air of elitism, a certain distrust of popularity, and a very modern fear of the masses (or shall I say, of the construction of something called the masses). And this is not critique, for I think subcultures are important and these qualities act as a certain social glue that produces identity and belonging amongst the subculture’s members. But these are also part of the reason subcultures like punk are always doomed to eventually scatter. Even if the values and beliefs of punk had been adopted by large numbers of people (this assumes that even the original members could agree on what those values and beliefs were) in a manner that the original members did not view as co-opting or impure, the punk movement still would have fallen apart. The subculture occupies a very strange place. It is full of people claiming to have a better way, a better method, a better philosophy– but only a select few are capable of interpreting or embodying it properly. The subcultural movement is a special kind of movement that advocates social change without actually wanting it to happen on any grand scale.

All this for me to suggest that "Edupunk" is a curiously backwards looking term for a supposed movement that supposedly seeks to look forward. As many of the Edupunk critiques have already pointed out: there really isn’t anything new in its philosophy or pedagogy so far. Again, not a problem– nothing can make a claim to complete newness. But since there is nothing new here, I think it’s safe to suggest that the labeling is perhaps the only relevant feature (and therefore I don’t think I’m simply linguistically knit-picking). The term chooses to not only align itself with the idea of subculture, but with the most idealistic notion of subculture– an ideal that posits an us against them mentality at odds with the dialectic relationship between the perceived opposing forces. Is this a mindset we want to bring to education?

Lost Finale a Wee Bit Anticlimactic

Lost capped off an amazing season last night with a two hour episode. Lost season finales have earned a reputation for game-changing events and providing answers to the show’s infinite questions (even if those answers always beget more questions). Although last night’s episode was certainly exciting and overall incredibly rewarding; at the same time, something felt anticlimactic. Here’s some thoughts.

Yes, thar be spoilers. Proceed at your own spoilerage.

First the good. Keamy and Sayid’s brawl was visceral and brutal– really, who else could have gone up against that psychopath and lasted so long? Desmond and Penny’s reunion was not only genuinely heartwarming, but also a true surprise (really thought the show would hold that one back for a little longer). Ben continued to be the most fascinating character on television, and as someone on the TWOP boards said, he should get an emmy for his single word response to having killed all the people on the freighter . . . "so?" Poor Sawyer got a little short changed this season, but his sacrificial leap from the helicopter was another great reminder of how far this character has come.

So why the anticlimactic feeling? One of Lost’s greatest strengths is its willingness to explore narrative in complexly fascinating ways. It’s complete understatement to simply say the first three seasons utilized flashbacks. Such a statement doesn’t account for the way these flashbacks (when at their best) would weave with the current narrative and simultaneously weave connections between the Oceanic passengers pre-crash. Sometimes flashbacks would not be– tricking the audience with brilliant misdirection (the opening of season two with Desmond in the hatch being a prime example of this). The episode showing the first few island days from the Tailies’ perspective was entirely flashback.. Even the much fan-hated characters of Paulo and Nikki provided an opportunity to flash back to island events from the perspectives of characters never seen on screen before. By the end of season three when the show first leapt into the future, it was clear that Lost was going to take television narrative practices to new levels of depth.

As enjoyable as the flash forwards have been to the master narrative, last night’s finale was the first sign of a small crack in the plan. So we knew the island was going to be moved (flash forwards proved that neither Ben or Widmore currently know where it is). So obviously the Oceanic Six (all revealed in FF by mid-season) had to be off the island. With all of them on the helicopter this seemed secure, except the presence of Sawyer who didn’t jibe with what we know in the future. Sawyer’s jump? Hardly surprising. Now, the first rule of good stagewriting is– if you show a gun on the wall in act one, that gun better go off in the final act. So obviously the freighter was going to blow up. Jin is dead in the future, so obviously he was going down with the ship. Michael too– for either redemption or punishment purposes: you decide. One could argue the only unknown was Desmond’s fate. But considering how important a Penny/Desmond reunion is to the show, this simply wasn’t going to happen.

The show’s timelines had to close in on themselves and I’m excited to see where the show will go next season. But due to this season’s flash forwarding device, much of this finale seemed to lack the crucial element of mind blowing surprise that has become so crucial to the Lost formula. I’ll admit that seeing the "how" of what we know will happen is still engaging; and for the most part, it’s been a narrative risk that widely paid off. But even a more surprising ending might have spared this feeling in me. But really, who else could have been in the coffin? By the end of the first hour it was clear that the coffin reveal would be the big-cliffhanger so it had to be someone incredibly significant. Considering the placements of the other characters it could only have been Ben or Locke. Although death is hardly dead on this show, Ben just wouldn’t make sense. And considering Jack was the main person effected by this death, who else but his thematic opposite? The man of lost reason visiting the man of (apparently) dead faith.

So, still an excellent episode. And still a show willing to take narrative risks. By the time Lost ends and has left a brilliant, cohesive six-season journey, this finale will likely look much better. But on the basis of a moment in a season’s time right before an eight month break, I wanted a bit more to savor.

Guitar Hero Songs Bringing New Appreciations

I’ve been playing a whole lot of Guitar Hero 3 on my Wii. The whole experience is really a lot more fun than jumping around your living room with a plastic guitar should ever be. Here’s what I’m not going to do in this post. I’m not going to address any of the arguments about how GH has ruined the playing of actual guitars, or how people would be better served using that time to learn a "real" instrument. I think the whole argument is silly and others have addressed both sides quite aptly. Instead, I’m struck by how many times a GH player ends up listening to the same songs over and over in their attempts to master them. And due either to the high-level of interactivity or a genius selection process by the developers (likely a combo of both) most of the songs really don’t get old or tired to the ears. And as someone who loves music, the re-experiencing some classic songs has been really interesting.

So without further adieu, here is my list of songs that GH3 has reminded me of and brought new appreciation to.

Sunshine of Your Love/Cream
Did anything else sound like this in 1968? Crunchy and infectious guitar/bass lines based on a D blues scales and simple but off-beat drums that drive the whole thing. Throw in a signature solo from Clapton and you’ve got perfection. I’d forgotten how simply awesome this song is.

Anarchy in the UK/The Sex Pistols
I still remember hearing this song for the first time. I was probably fifteen-years old and a friend of mine put it at the end of an otherwise new-wavey mix-tape. I’d simply never heard anything like it before. And although I’ve always appreciated the song for its cultural and historical significance, it has never actually been a staple in my "listen to" mix. Maybe that was a mistake. Highly enjoyable, full of piss and vinegar, and distinctly brilliant in the way only people pretending like they just don’t care could produce. Interestingly, the band recorded a new version for the game because the original masters could not be found. I need to go listen to the original again to see how much my new found appreciation is based on this 2008 version.

The Cult of Personality/ Living Colour
I remember this 1989 song from MTV and don’t recall ever being a fan. Now I simply love the snaking guitar work and wonder why these guys never got bigger than they did.

Slow Ride/Foghat
Some songs, for what ever reason, become parodies of themselves (think drunken frat boys yelling out "Free Bird" at any random concert or the riff to "Stairway to Heaven" being banned in guitar shops). I’ve always felt this way about Slow Ride. But how many songs so perfectly embody their message? As Dave Peverett sings "slow ride, take it easy," long extended notes stretch through your ears and lull you into the groove. Then the "slow downs" crash slightly dissonantly– breaking the trance and reminding you how good it was to be there.

Talk Dirty to Me/Posion
That’s right, I said it. It’s in print and now on the web for all to see. Listen, I would never argue for Poison as a classic band and this song will certainly never make a list of greatest tracks ever. But there was a time my friends when this brand of hair metal rock ruled the world, and it didn’t rule the world for no reason. Unapologetically juvenile, almost lazy in the simplicity of its catchy main riff, and perfectly cheesy in its band callout ("CC pick up that guitar and talk to me!). Who needs subtext or metaphor when you can subtle for three minutes of sexual earnestness that (ironically?, contradictingly?, appropriately?) is really about as dirty as holding hands at the point in the 1950s?

Play Track 4 Again

Lately I’ve been listening to some new bands on a scale I likely haven’t done for awhile. Discovering new bands is always an exciting experience, and there is still little that compares to the rush of hearing a great album for the first time (even in this age of the Itunes single). Yet, as I’ve been listening the past few weeks, I’ve found myself pondering the role of music in my life at various time periods. And as much as I still love music, my practices and involvement have changed drastically since my teen years and I lack any explanation for why.

Around age fifteen I started to live and breathe music. Having a nine year older sister with suburb taste for music off the mainstream’s beaten path certainly helped. I recall raiding her room almost every day to pluck new gems. Bands with funny names like: Echo and the Bunnyman, The Jesus and Mary Chain, The Mission U.K., Nitzer Ebb, and a slew of others. I didn’t just listen to these albums, I immersed myself in them. I knew the names of all the band members. I knew the name of every song on an album and the track order. I scoured liner notes and sought out the bands’ histories. I knew all of a band’s other albums and actively sought to have entire catalogues (often having to place special overseas orders for incredibly pricey Eps or CD singles). As I tried to catch up on the past, there were wonderful shows like MTV’s "120 Minutes." Sundays at midnight (the only time MTV would dare play this kind of music) were a time of glorious research into up and coming bands. Two of my favorite bands to this day (Helium and The Geraldine Fibbers) were both discovered in the wee hours of the morning when artists like Mariah Carey would never be playing.

Of course, new wave became old and so-called "alternative" music had a popularity boom and subsequent bust that eventually begged the question "alternative to what?" At this point, I likely fell into a trap that all good lil’ post-alternative, indie hipsters must go through (oh the sarcasm is rich on that last line). If you’re at all like me (or ever have been), you know it well: "nobody’s making good music anymore. All the new stuff is crap."

This is obviously not true now, and likely has never been. No matter what the mainstream industry is pumping out, there’s always going to be lesser known artists doing there thing somewhere on the margins. Not to mention that almost completely useless category of "mainstream" in the first place and the silly practice of ignoring any music that might fit that category simply because it might fit that category (something I’ve been guilty of in the past). So if "good" new music has always been out there somewhere . . . what happened? Over the past decade I’ve certainly discovered less new bands than ever before in my music listening life. I’ve played old favorites over and over to the point of losing CDs from wear and tear. Even though web technology makes browsing for new gems easier than ever before (no more waiting till midnight on Sundays!) I rarely find myself doing it. And even when I have discovered new bands, the more obsessive elements of my past practices have certainly waned. I never experience the desperate need to have a band’s entire catalogue anymore. My desire for knowledge about the band themselves is usually limited to wanting to know what city they’re from. If I buy a CD, I’m much more likely to know I totally dig "Track 4" over the exact title of the song. And that’s even if I buy the full album. The ability to download single tracks has made my oddly OK with only having whatever tracks from a band I can happen to get (a notion that would have made me shudder in horror a mere ten years ago).

The reasons? I’m sure they’re varied and maybe not even that important to figure out. It could be a matter of: having more varied interests now, having less disposable income, having less time, or maybe they really don’t make ‘em like they use to (oh lord, maybe I am getting old). What’s more important than why is probably the feeling of something lost when I ponder these changes. It’s a sweet and warm nostalgic sense of loss, which only tells me that all these practices were always about so much more than merely music.

The Problematic Wording of Teacher Evaluation Forms

Getting the results of student evaluations is always a fun end of semester ritual. I’m always quite pleased with them, and they overall let me know that I’m being effective in the ways I strive hard to be. I’m always especially tickled by the extended written comments that get typed out for you at the end of the report. I find these comments much more insightful than a bubbled in response to some questions that are often oddly worded or insufficiently answered by a strongly-agree to strongly-disagree scale.

Which leads me to my main grumble of the morning. I realize that these evaluation forms need some sort of standardized method. Student response would indeed be poor if all students were voluntarily asked to write extended evaluations of the course (which is why I have them write a letter to me at the end of the semester). However, especially in a subject approached so differently by every instructor, the questions on these evaluations are often unreflective of the way I teach my course. For example, I took a big hit on the statement: "My instructor taught me to read critically." Now from my point of view, almost every single day of the class involved how to read critically. But I think students see that statement and read the word "read" as applying only to traditional word-based texts. So the fact that we critically "read" photographs, websites, physical space, music, and other multimodal texts does not register to the students when faced with this statement’s wording. Clearly these evaluative forms are heavily biased towards traditional texts. Since I reckon most instructors are still primarily focused on such texts this does technically make sense. Doesn’t make it less frustrating.

I also end up taking a hit on statements that have to do with integrating revision into the course assignments. Now this one I’m tempted to take a bit more seriously. However, I still haven’t found a way to incorporate traditional notions of revision into multimodal assignments. For example, I often have my students make a photobook profiling a club on the Purdue campus. If the photos don’t turn out well it’s hardly realistic for me to expect them to go get new ones. The club might not be available to meet. Sure there are post-process editing that can be done to the photos, but this doesn’t always address the problems. Plus, many students make these photobooks in a cut-and-paste scrapbook style. It’s not really feasible for them to rip the photos off the page and move them somewhere else. There’s really no other option but to start from scratch, and I’m usually focused on the next assignment by then.

To counter this problem, I incorporate a number of checkpoints along the way in any project. Take the photobook. I check photos as they’re being taken. I ask for sketches of page layouts. I ask for reflective writings about where they are in their composing process. I’d like to consider this an integrated form of revision that happens all throughout the production. But again– the evaluation question merely asks if revision was incorporated and I’m not sure my students see it that way.

In the end, I’m not sure how much weight these evaluations hold with the powers that be. They affect me more on the personal level as I ponder how to continually be a better teacher. There’s some irony here too. My class focuses a lot on how language is tricky, unreliable, and fraught with interpretive problems. I think my students "get" this. And then? My evaluations take a hit based on these very issues. I guess this proves my point.

Will Iron Man Movie Fans Accept the Iron Man Comic Character?

I’m not convinced that Hollywoodblockbusters featuring comic book characters have any effect on the sales of said comic book titles. The Spider-Man movies did top dollar, but how many of those people went and bought a Spider-Man comic? Maybe a few. But how many stuck with the title; or in other words, how many new comic fans do these popular movies produce? Now I’m not saying this needs to happen. And I’m certainly not one of those fanboys who lament every change to the source material to get it movie-ready (I recognize the difference in medium and audience). I suppose it’s more frustrating than everything. The superhero comic is a wonderful and fascinating entertainment genre that has played a large role in my life, so it’s frustrating to see the form only get accolades in movie form while the source material struggles to survive.

So now we have Iron Man (which I have not seen but do look forward to). Iron Man is not one of the more popular Marvel heroes in the minds of non-comic fans. Actually I’d be surprised if many non-comic fans had ever heard of him (or realize that the movie character comes with a comic book history). However, the character is an interesting case and it’s a very strange time for him to have a movie coming out– especially if movie fans end up making the jump to comics. See, Iron Man is actually very much at the center of the Marvel comic line right now. Marvel comics have a shared continuity– meaning they all exist in the same world and the events of individual titles have ramifications and cross-over effects in all the other ones. I don’t even personally read Iron Man’s core title, but he’s all over the events of the comics I do read. And the most interesting thing about his movie coming out right now? Well . . . at the moment, Iron Man is a bit of a dick.

That may be a bit unfair. Let’s say he’s complicated right now (and let’s be honest, as an alcoholic womanizer the character has always been a bit of a dick). He was instrumental in the Superhero Registration act during Marvel’s Civil War and did a whole lot of questionable things along the way (you know, like recruiting supervillians to hunt down heroes who wouldn’t reveal their identities and go work for the government). His new armor capabilities can also technically tap into all the world’s information databases and world satellites . . . yeah, make no mistake, Iron Man is Big Brother. Then there’s that whole people partially blaming him for the death of Captain America thing– not a good way to make friends.

Not knowing yet exactly how he’s portrayed in the movie, how will movie fans heading to the comic shop react to this complex Machiavellian character? Interestingly, Marvel is launching a new Iron Man series this month, with a new number one. I suspect his more questionable sides will be downplayed in this series, and this series is the one Marvel suspects potential new fans will pick up. This might be a smart business move but ultimately bad for comics. If the medium wants more fans and more respect it needs to make a lot of changes. One of them is allowing non-comic fans to see the complexity of characters and storylines that are woven on a monthly basis. Pandering to them with simplified portrayals will only further the idea of comics as kiddified-simplicity. I guess we shall wait and see.

Academics Do Not Take the Summer Off. If Only.

Well the blog has been dead for awhile which means one of two things: I was abducted by other-worldly visitors or the school semester got incredibly crazy. I’ll leave it to the reader to decide which one it was– perhaps it was a combination of both. Honestly, this semester was a brutal experience that seemed to fly by way too fast. However, I am now done with my core PhD classes and stand on the precipice of prelims. The good news is summer break has arrived and the good ol’ Intertrash should rise like a phoenix from the digital ashes (I’m feeling awfully dramatic this morning). So just like I did before last semester, here’s a summer plan.

1. Studying for those prelims. This basically involves rereading five courses’ worth of information in three months. Somehow this doesn’t sound like the most exciting prospect . . . funny.

2. I’ll be working on two future composition textbooks as a research assistant. Not only does this involve a bit of summer cash, it is actually pretty fun work. Mainly I surf the internet for cool stuff; you know, something I would be doing anyway.

3. Saro imparare l’italiano. For my language challenged readers, that means I will be learning Italian. Yes, PhDs still come with language requirements. Thankfully, Purdue only requires one language, and I did study Italian for two years in the past. Perhaps some of that previous study will come forward.

4. I need to finish a piece for a book anthology that I’ve been accepted into. The piece is on filming machinima in Second Life and evokes all kinds of postmodernism and complexity theory to argue for embracing machinima as emergent play and process. Yep, good stuff.

5. I’m going to be the Introductory Comp Technology Mentor come the Fall semester, so I have all kinds of modules and workshops to create.

6. I’m looking to redesign my entire website and get it looking all snazzy and user-friendly before the Fall.

7. I’m piloting a new 106 syllabus approach in the Fall that we’ve decided to call "Composing With Popular Culture." Although I’ll be able to use a lot of my old materials there is a need to create a lot of new stuff. I am super excited about this though, it really shouldn’t feel too much like work.

8. Finally, I really do need to find a job. Money is always tight in the summer and this one is no exception. Something part-time. Who knows, we’ll see how this one pans out.

So there it is. Who said academics take the summer off? And did I mention blogging? Stay tuned.

Spamming Your Facebook Friends

Sometimes you just want to know what world city you should live in. Or maybe what 90's song best encompasses your being. Sometimes it’s of fundamental importance to know what Everybody Loves Raymond character you are, you know? And thanks to Facebook apps, these lingering questions and more are now answerable by answering a few multiple choice questions. I’m not sure how I ever lived before without knowing what Roman philosopher I’m most like (Cicero, for those keeping track at home), but life has certainly made more sense lately.

Despite the somewhat snarky tone, I am an unabashed fan of these silly lil’ quizzes. And if you happen to run in the same Facebook network as I, the chances are you’ve also dabbled a time or two. Why the love? I don’t know– you want the academic answer? You wanna hear something about how postmodern identity is so fluid that our fragmented selves allow representation in . . . hell, never mind, not even gonna try. As I said in the opening paragraph, sometimes you just wanna know what alcohol you would be.

But lately it seems that the Facebook powers that be are increasingly locking these precious answers unless you choose to spam your friends with a request to also add the app. And I’m not talking one or two of your closest pals; most of the time, upwards of eight to twelve friends must be sent an invite before you can get an answer. Are your friends this understanding? Do they understand why you simply must know what cast member of The Hills you should date? Why any amount of spam may be necessary to know that Heidi Montag is your soulmate?

It’s not just the idea of being turned into a spam generator. It’s the feeling of forced social networking. Is Facebook not big enough? Are their not enough FB junkies out there to perpetuate the site without this forced connecting? Often there are one or two friends who I know for sure will be interested in hearing about an app I added. More often then not, I add apps just by browsing other people’s profiles and finding something interesting. Is this model not effective enough?

So come on Facebook. Give me my quiz results without spamming by entire social network. Trust me, when they find out that I’m Jacques Derrida they will come running to discover the essence of their own inner French philosopher.

Buffy Gets the Girl

So it’s not exactly national news (comic books so rarely get that: Superman dying, Captain America assassinated, Spider-Man unmasking), but the intertubes are likely about to crack wide open at a little scene in Joss Whedon’s current Buffy the Vampire Slayer comic. ABC news (of all places) has already chimed in with the suggestion that the whole thing is merely a marketing ploy. Right. Joss Whedon, a man who appears to radiate love, respect, and integrity for his character creations, has approved a development that will send people in fits of rabid excitement towards the (let’s face it) niche market that is comic books. Yeah, that makes sense.

Oh, right, the hoopla? Buffy had sex with another woman. Another slayer named Satsu has fallen in love with our titular hero– and in classic Whedon style– we readers are spared the endless will-they or won’t-they drama over a span of a hundred issues. They did. And to quote Buffy, "Wow." Immediately following the romp (which no, is not depicted you pervs), we are treated to a classic slapstick montage where the other cast of characters one-by-one end up storming into the bedroom to warn Buffy about an impending attack on the Slayer stronghold. Good stuff.

So should this become hoopla? Well, people are going to react the way they’re going to react, and the net is the place for a myriad of reactions to come out (and it’s already happening). I already suggested that the "marketing ploy" idea is kinda ludicrous. Honestly, this is kind of a big deal. Although gay characters are increasingly joining the ranks of narrative fictions in all genres, main characters rarely (if ever) experiment with their sexuality. If that happens at all, the experimentation is reserved for side or occasional characters– not the emotional core of the series. At the same time, it’s not really that big a deal. In other words, the notion that some people’s first thoughts are "marketing ploy" upon hearing that a beloved series is having their main character explore their sexuality truly speaks volumes about how far our country still needs to go in not treating homosexuality as completely other, odd, or deviant. I know, big news, huh?

That’s another reaction I’m seeing so far– the label game. Some fans are quibbling: does this mean Buffy has gone lesbian? Can we call her gay now? Is she bi-sexual? Bi-curious? I’ll let others parse this one out; I’m not too into the label game and would rather wait and see how this story unfolds.

If not a "marketing ploy" there are a few voices on the net so far that are aghast. Their basic argument is that Buffy has never shown any sexual interest in women; therefore, this development rings false and is going to wreck the character. Color me most confused on this one. Previous interest in women? Perhaps not. But the girl has slept with two undead vampires which certainly demonstrates an open-mindedness to the notion that love and attraction should not be restricted to simplistic categories and labels. Then let’s see . . . her best friend is a lesbian, so Buffy has already had plenty of experience watching how two women can have a loving and meaningful relationship. And shall we recall that Buffy was, well, a little freaked out when she first learned that Willow had gone to the girl side. Not because she’s homophobic, but because she’s a wonderfully complex and fleshed-out character that’s allowed to experience a full range of very human reactions to the often messy and surprising emotional minefield of life.

In the series right now, Buffy is lonely, Buffy feels isolated, and Buffy is still reeling from empowering hundreds of women with the shared power of slayerness. She’s also a character who has always loved deeply and looked for love in her life. So another female has professed this love, and Buffy has responded. Will it end up being a mistake? Will there be regrets? Who knows. I’ll keep reading for those developments. But the Buffy series has always been at its core about the strength of women, the connection of friends, and the impossibility of making it in this world alone. This development could not make more sense in my humble opinion. As with all great texts, I reckon that how the text reads the individual is going to continue to be more interesting than how they read the text.

The Wii Controller and Complexity

Over at Storygeek, Mark Bell (who I dined with once and will likely see again as CCCCs approaches) recently blogged about the complexity of video game controllers. He graphed the number of "interacting elements" on a variety of console controllers from the Atari 2600 up to the PS3 and the Wii. It’s probably no big surprise that the complexity of controllers has steadily increased across the new generations of systems. The PS3 has a whopping eighteen interactive elements! And then we get to the Wii– already widely heralded for being a more accessible system for casual gamers with its simpler (and familiar remote-like) control scheme.

Although I agree with Bell that the Wii remote has remarkably less interacting elements, I’m not willing to go further and suggest that it is therefore less complex. What I think we have with the Wii controller is a very different kind of complexity that is fascinating in its own right. If you follow the Wii press, it’s the simpler games that are getting the most play and attention. In-line with Nintendo’s reaching out to new gamers, the commercials are full of Wii Tennis, Golf, Bowling, and the mini-games that highlight how the controller can mimic real bodily movements on the screen. If we look at the Wii controller as swing, move around, then swing again; then yes, I suppose it’s not all that complex (yet still a boat load of fun). However, Nintendo has always excelled at its in-house game franchises, and this is where the Wii really shines. I had the chance to play Metroid Prime 3 over Christmas Break and was amazed at the complexity. I’ve played a slew of FPSs in my life, and playing Metroid felt like starting from scratch. In a gross simplification, the Wii remote is your eyes. You look and aim by moving the remote across the screen. Meanwhile, you have the nunchuck knob in your other hand controlling forward, backward, and strafing movements. It’s impossible to describe how hard this is at first, and even more impossible to describe how you’ll never want to go back to any other FPS control scheme once you master it.

Today I started playing Super Mario Galaxy. After only an hour I can honestly say this is the most pure fun and joy I’ve had playing a video game in a long time. Once again, the seemingly simple Wii remote is being worked to wonderful capacity. As you move with the nunchuck, you’re jumping and shooting with the remote. The remote is also simultaneously being waved across the screen (almost constantly) to pick up a number of star fragments. On other controllers, yes there are a number of interactive elements. But my left hand was always in charge of movement and maybe pushing a trigger. In Galaxy my left hand is jumping, shooting, and shaking in a constant dance. From a game play perspective, there’s a world of mental difference between needing to shoot, jump, and hit tiny little points on the screen with a tiny little cursor. I think this is where the true complexity of the Wii remote lies. Although limited in interactive elements and buttons, those limited options are being simultaneously applied to a vast array of different mental tasks (and often at blitzkrieg speeds). How Nintendo plans to continue to push this complexity should be very interesting.

End of Year Blog Wrap Up

As 2007 wraps up, I thought I’d look back over the blog posts of the last year and see if I could offer any updates or extended reflections. Here’s what I got.

The Death of Myspace
Back in April, I wrote a piece on Myspace Apologism– the phenomenon (especially amongst teens) of apologizing for having a Myspace account even though they check it like fifty-seven times a day. This last semester my English 106 class officially informed me that Myspace is sooooo dead. So they’re twenty teens in Indiana, hardly a representative sample, but I don’t doubt this. Almost everyone in the class had a Facebook page and a lot of them were quick to "friend" their kind English professor. I’m not sad to see Myspace trendiness start to fall. If for no other reason, it’s teaching a generation of teens some horrible practices in regards to visual rhetoric and web design. Yuck.

The X-13D Revealed
In May I blogged about Dorito’s new X-13D chips. The "mystery" flavor was packaged in a slick and chic black bag with only the most minimal of clues as to what said flavor might be. In a brilliant (and evil) marketing ploy, Doritos encouraged consumers to buy a bag of chips that they had no idea about and gave them a chance to suggest a title on their website (a website that represented the worst Flash-abuse possible). I think the winner also got a year’s supply of the nasty concoction (it tasted horrible). Well, the chips have disappeared from shelves and I couldn’t recall ever hearing or reading about the results. After a quick web search, I discovered that the X-13D has officially been branded the Cheeseburger Dorito. Just thought you’d like to know. My guess was Tomato Soup and Grilled Cheese; which frankly, sounds a lot more innovative and interesting.

Still Waiting for Lost
In late May I geekgasmed over the Lost finale, and here we are in late December and the new season of Lost is still over a month away. The scheduling move was originally part of a plan to air the whole mini-season uninterrupted. Now it’s looking like even the late start will be problematic due to the Hollywood writer’s strike. Although the wait and possible interruption are frustrating, it’s hard to mind when the product is so excellent. When the series ends, I firmly believe Lost as a whole will be a brilliant series that goes down in history (at a time when scripted drama is on life support and "reality" rules). Take your time ladies and gentleman.

Hermoine Lives Contrary to Reports
In July, a contestant in a live televised hot dog eating contest ran across the stage with a sign reading "On July 21st Hermione Dies." The stunt was believed to be a huge spoiler for the final Harry Potter novel– a practice that happens all the time on the net but rarely crosses over to network television. Hermione, of course, did not kick the bucket and the idea that she would was never all that believable. At the time I asked if hot dog dude’s ploy was just mean jackassery or some brilliant culture jamming? Now we can add: is it still culture jamming if your jam is based on misinformation? I reckon it depends on intent (and I’ve always felt I was probably giving the guy too much credit). If the intent was to illuminate the cracks in the old media system then I guess it doesn’t matter that Hermione didn’t die. The point could have been to simply get a message out in a medium that doesn’t really openly allow the public to do so. Or, as I previously concluded, the guy was just being a jackass.

Come Together, Right Now, Over the Wii
In September I speculated about the cross-over of video game simulations to "real" life skills, using Guitar Hero as my example. In that time, a lil game named Rock Band has appeared, in which players get to simulate an entire (surprise) rock band. The game comes with a miniature drum set, which as far as I can tell, requires pretty much "real" drumming to pull off successfully. Even more interesting, my friend Jaci reports that a group of her male friends have the game and have started acting in some interesting ways. Apparently, the boys talk about "their band," ask when the next "practice" session is, and constantly talk about their gaming experience the way people in "real" bands do. In hindsight, I don’t think the point is that video games can potentially simulate the skills of real life. Maybe it’s more interesting that games can bring people together into new social formations that are potentially even rarer and harder to experience than solo-based skills. I’ve been in a few bands throughout my life, and band comradery is probably something rarer to come by than learning how to play an instrument. If a game like Rock Band can accomplish that feeling of connection amongst a group of friends, it proves that we are still only beginning to discover what video games can accomplish.

Sneak Preview of Spring Semester 2008

So it’s the day after Christmas– time to put myself back in the work mindset, no? Well, not really. However, it’s clear to me that as my second year of grad school starts to wrap up I’m entering a world of work all the time and professional development on a whole new scale (and, sheesh, I thought I was already there). So before I return to the land of winter break and Wii injuries, let’s see how the Spring semester is going to shape up.

1. Modernism course
2. Classical Rhetoric course
3. Computers & Writing course
4. Teaching English 106 (I’m running basically the same syllabus as last semester which will help immensely in prep time)
5. Implementing a department wide survey of 106 instructors in regards to their integration of visual rhetoric and technology into their classrooms
6. Building a new syllabus approach curriculum for 106 to (hopefully) start in the Fall of 2008 (there’s a couple of other people on board with this project and, as of now, it’s going to be an approach vaguely dealing with pop culture and composing. I’ve already identified some surprising pedagological differences with my main partner in this endeavor . . . so this should get interesting)
7. Find direction and focus for StudentAvatar. So much potential so languishing right now. Something has to come of this.
8. Prep for CCCC and my Second Life panel on visual rhetoric and camera control.
9. Get out proposals for a few more conferences this year (right now I’m looking at the Watson conference and the Computers and Writing conference)
10. Continuing to gather articles and web-readings for the new text book project I’m on
11. Start studying Italian (damn language requirement is due by the end of the year if I want to defend my prospectus)
12. Sheesh, while I’m at it, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to start clarifying some kind of dissertation topic
13. See if I can find a more active role in shaping Words on the Go (cause you know, this list isn’t big enough as is)
14. Keep an eye to polishing and developing more visual rhetoric materials for the OWL
15. Get some of my students from last semester involved in the English 106 showcase this year
16. Did I mention: not go insane?

Yep, just another typical semester of grad school. Lord, I’m going back to the Wii.

Dorky Nostalgia Starring the NES and the Memory of Christmas Past

The Christmas eve of 1986 is really the only one that truly stands out in my memories. Raised pretty much a godless heathen, Christmas in the Pepper house was more a going through the motions– fancy dinner, overly-tinseled tree, and a couple presents– entirely devoid of religious connotations. And in 1986 I was eleven years old and can vividly recall the giddy sensation of tearing into a large paper covered box to reveal the original Nintendo Entertainment System in all its 8-bit glory. Oh, I’d already had an Atari and probably played the living hell out of it; but leaping from the Atari to the NES is like going from a black and white television to a color one. And my one goal in life was to play Super Mario Brothers until my fingers bled or I passed out (you know, whichever happened first). The ‘rents bought me SMB along with Kung-Fu (truly one of the first side scrolling fighter games– notable now for very little more than that) and I sat down for a Christmas eve of pure joy. I recall going to bed that night and not being able to get the tiny pixilated Mario out of my head. I think I literally burned those early Mario levels into my cerebellum.

In my life I’ve owned an Atari, an NES, a Commodore 64, a Turbografix 16, a Super Nintendo, a Sega Genesis, a Playstation, a Playstation 2, and an Xbox. Although each new system has brought an initial rush of excitement and subsequent hours of fun, nothing has ever compared to the thrill of getting that NES on Christmas eve. In fact, I really can’t remember the first day spent with any of those other systems. Maybe it was a combination of numerous factors: being eleven years old, experiencing a giant technological leap, having to wait for that "special" night, and being a sixth-grader whose life really could be simple enough that a video game system could be just about the most important and exciting thing in the world. None of those factors will ever come together again, and I’m not really saying that I wish they would. I still love video games, in an academic, intellectual, entertainment, and recreational sense; however, I guess it would be a bit odd if the release of a new system became a benchmark memory in the life of 32 year old man. Still, that was my happiest and strongest Christmas memory, and I suppose today is as good as any day to recall those things.

Part of the reason all this is on my mind is due to the slight pain in my shoulders and elbows as I type these words. The culprit? The Nintendo Wii that currently sits next to my television, borrowed from my friend Morgan while I housesit her cats. The Wii definitely has that wow factor– the feeling in an aging gamer that they’re experiencing something new and interacting with video games in ways never done before. It must be that lil bit of sentimental fool that dwells deep inside me, but I imagine some young kids getting a Wii either tonight or tomorrow morning and experiencing something like I did over twenty-one years ago. Kids having their oh so innocent dreams come true and surrendering to some sweet video gaming fun. I’m a bit jealous. Not cause they’re getting a Wii and I’m not (grumble grumble), but because even if I did, I can never again tap that pure space of memory making glee in quite the same way.

I leave you with this. Merry Christmas everybody.

Jamie Lynn Spears Exposes that Teens Have Sex . . . World Almost Comes to End in Shock

Just in case you’ve been living under a rock, Jamie-Lynn Spears (Britney’s sixteen-year old little sis) officially announced her pregnancy last week. The baby daddy is her longtime nineteen-year old boyfriend whom she met in church. Yep, in church. That’s really beautiful; go ahead and insert your own joke here.

I know there are certain factions of our society who don’t want to admit this, but (big shocker coming here, prepare yourself) teenagers have sex. Yes, and sometimes they do it even younger than Spears Jr. Perhaps even more shocking to some people, they are not always doing it without thought or emotion; in other words, teenagers are capable of having intense emotional relationships that can lead to (for lack of a better word) genuine expressions of sexual desire. I’m just saying this isn’t all that scandalous, except for the tinsey weensy little fact that Jamie’s sister happens to be the tabloid world’s favorite hot mess.

Well, that and the fact that she’s the star of a hugely popular show on the kids’ network Nickelodeon. A show that most assuredly is going to be cancelled now. And therein lies the most interesting aspect of this whole thing for me. You may recall the Vanessa Hudgens scandal from a few months ago. The seventeen-year old star of Disney’s hugely popular "High School Musical" apparently took some nekkie photos of herself to show her boyfriend; and of course, they surfaced on the net. Talk instantly turned to how the recently released HSM2 was sure to tank and how Hudgen’s would certainly have to be dropped from HSM3.

Call me an uber-liberal, but I don’t think having sex with your longtime boyfriend or taking nude photos of yourself for a boyfriend are all that disturbing or shocking affairs. Yes, we could quibble about Spears’ and friend’s method of protecting themselves (I’m not sure if this has been addressed yet), and we could even quibble about the common sense of someone as popular as Hudgens taking such pics when she works for Disney. But at the end of the day, I’m still surprised by the public damnations of both these girls. Especially on the web, both girls have been labeled "sluts," "whores," and every other sexually-based insult under the sun. Even some fans have said they’ve lost all respect for her and will never support her show or future products again.

It’s all so predictably sad really. We have a culture that is increasingly encouraging young girls to grow up faster, be sexy earlier, and offer their sexualized selves up for public display and consumption. However, if they prove to actually be having sex, or display sexuality in their private lives, then they are punished for the transgression. Mixed message? Uh . . . yeah. Here’s a thought. Instead of cancelling Zoey 101 (a program, I must admit, that just hasn’t crossed my viewing path), why not use this as an opportunity to fictionally explore some of the issues that Spears’ real life developments bring to the forefront? If Zoey and Spears really have millions of young female fans, what message does yanking the show give? That once a girl gets pregnant she is used up, no longer fit for public viewing, and must be tucked and hidden away? Why not have the character of Zoey get pregnant and subsequently explore the perils of teen pregnancy. Sure, it’s got the chance of being a bit schmaltzy and after-school specially. But done well, who knows?

I doubt this will happen. Instead, Jamie Lynn has bought herself a one-way ticket to constant tabloid coverage over the next year. So in our current celebrity culture I guess that means, uh, she’s made it after all?

Social Networking and Debates About Virtual Self/Selves

In a recent article from The New Atlantis, Christine Rosen writes extensively about social-networking sites and paints a fairly stark picture. With section titles such as "The New Taxonomy of Friendship" and "Status-Seekers," Rosen paints a picture of social interaction morphing into a giant Pokemon mentality of gotta-catch-em-all status battles where "friends" are publically paraded around (pitted against each other), then tucked away and occasionally petted (or superpoked) while we collect some more (Pokemon metaphor mine, but I think an effective one). Here are my two "favorite" quotes:

"In investing so much energy into improving how we present ourselves online, are we missing chances to genuinely improve ourselves?"

"[The popularity of social networking sites] shows a desire to avoid the vulnerability and uncertainty that true friendship entails. Real intimacy requires risk—the risk of disapproval, of heartache, of being thought a fool. Social networking websites may make relationships more reliable, but whether those relationships can be humanly satisfying remains to be seen."

First, I’m fascinated by the odd choice implied in the first quote. So we either "present" ourselves online or we "improve" ourselves (supposedly in the "real" world)? I fail to see how those are connected; I fail to see why it has to be an either/or choice. Even if we agree with the premises (which I don’t) why can’t someone work on accomplishing both? There’s also an implication that presenting ourselves online can not be a method of improving ourselves (note the further implication that social-networking should intrinsically involve self-improvement in the first place). But I do think the presentation of our online selves can be done in the name of self-improvement– it just might not be the self that Rosen seems to think "genuinely" matters. What seems at stake here is the continuing debate about identity itself– between people who see identity as fluid playful fracturedness and those who seek a cohesive structured enlightenment-style form. I’m obviously in the "playful" camp; and subsequently, see our online selves as valid and genuine expressions of who we are, who we think we are, or who we’d like to be. Be it our representations on Facebook or Myspace, our avatar in Second Life, or our words on a blog, I find it silly to think that such identity representation/presentation is not "genuine" or constructive to our meat space selves (equally fractured, btw). Why this hair-triggered reaction to think that constructing online (digital) versions of ourselves has to be counterproductive to our fleshy selves instead of viewed as an expansion, rearticulation, or playful (productive) fantasy?

Moving to the second quote, I’m bothered by Rosen’s willingness to offer a definition of friendship that is "true" and "real." Although, I’m not surprised by her willingness considering it makes perfect sense with her seemingly modernist notion of identity. Who are we to define what friendship should be, or what functions it should serve, for anyone else? Especially when (and I agree with Rosen on this) the concept of friendship is changing as we progress further and further into a digital age. Let’s remove the word "real" and ask if intimacy involves "risk," rather of heartache or disapproval? Yeah, I can get onboard with that. But does such a risk not occur on social-networking sites; is such risk not applicable to our virtual selves? Of course it does. As controversial as this example could prove, take the recent suicide of a fourteen-year old girl who was mocked and harassed on Myspace (later to find out that the source of the insults was an adult parent of one of the girl’s friends). Obviously, this is a horrible and tragic tale, and it also highlights some of the challenges our society faces in an online and networked world. However, the tale also highlights the very raw and real emotions and communication currently occurring on social-networking sites. In fact, I would argue that the less seriously we take the friendships and communication on social-networking sites, the more likely the possibility of seeing more tragic tales like this one.

Despite my quibbles, this article is still worth a read, and I also do agree with many of Rosen’s points. More importantly, I think we need more intelligent people offering diverse points of view on what these sites mean to the changing notions of friendship, interaction, and identity. Rosen ultimately offers a number of valid points; however, the dialogue needs to be tempered with the positive aspects of social-networking sites and what it means that so many millions of people have so quickly integrated them into their lives.

The Spider-Man Marriage is Under Threat and Yes, People Care

So your eighty-something aunt is dying and despite all your superpowers, the only way to save her life is to make a deal with the devil that will essentially erase your marriage to a hot redhead from the entire worlds’ memory. This ever happened to you?

Well, it’s happening to the Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man in his current titles. And the move is the coup de grace of J Michael Straczynski’s controversial run on the title (in which Spider-Man unmasked to the public, spouted mystical mumbo jumbo to Spider-Gods, and Gwen Stacy was retconned into the Green Goblin’s baby mama . . . don’t ask). Marvel editor-in-chief, Joe Quesada, has long expressed hatred for the Spider marriage, and we’re only one issue away from finding out if he’s going to get his wish and take care of that pesky Mary Jane Watson (cue Quesada twirling a thin swarmy moustache in classic villain style).

Per my usual approach, I’m not writing to take sides in the issue; although, it’s safe to say that the majority of fans are hugely unimpressed with this possible move. And not to recap all the reasons this is kinda . . . well, dumb . . . but it’s worth mentioning that the idea could maybe possibly technically work. But to rob Spidey of his marriage with a plot device as overused and uncreative as the "deal with the devil" (actually Mephisto, a satan-like demon who’s Marvel’s equivalent of the big bad) is probably the cheapest way to accomplish it. Hell, even Straczynski has publically admitted distaste for the story that he’s basically being forced to write!

I’m more interested in the current fan response across bulletin boards, blogs, and other pockets of the net. Let’s make this clear: the dissolution of the Spidey marriage is not set in stone. In fact, this could all be a huge fakeout (one that’s technically working on a financial level; Spidey titles are selling more than ever). Not that the story’s possible trickery is stopping the fans from engaging in their favorite past time: complaining, debating, and dropping threats of "I"m never going to read another Spider-Man comic again!" If you think I’m about to diss this behavior, you would be wrong. As I have written elsewhere, I read this often hyperbolic behavior as a sign of invested interest meeting the discourse possibilities of the web. To dismiss any of this behavior as "too much free time," or "caring too much about something not real," is to miss one of my central running theses: that entertainment is far from simplistic escape or something to ease the mind away from the "real" world. Entertainment and fandom is part and parcel of the "real" world, a place of invested interests where identities are partially formed, sociality is established, and a scattered postmodern world is made sense of. And part of that world is frustration, anger, anxiety, and yes, hyperbole. Why? Because it does matter, it really always has, but the web has finally fostered a place for these conversations to happen beyond the confines of your immediate circle o peeps. The fact that so much text and emotion is being spilled over a story that isn’t even over yet only proves this case to be more true.

Getting back to specifics, it’s fascinating to see the subject of marriage getting so passionately discussed in this manner. It often seems like marriage really only gets discussed in our current popular culture landscape when it’s a bunch of right-wingers trying to preserve its supposed "sanctity" by barring certain people’s rights to it. Marriage fights, breakups, scandals, and affairs get the most play in the news and in fiction. There’s room and need for that representation, and I’d never make the silly argument that the ruins of marriage portrayed in pop culture are the reason for the ruins of marriage in fleshy meat space. Still, it is refreshing to see people debating about the benefits of marriage, the importance of marriage to someone’s character, and how the sanctity of even a fictional one is compromised by hitting some cosmic reset button. And not just any people, but comic fans. Those often stereotyped as overweight, socially inept, fantasy obsessed, mom and dad basement dwelling comic fans. Hell, if we care, there must be something important going on here!

The Anxiety of High Grading

Turned in grades today and the semester is officially over. I already had a sense of how high this years grades for my First Year Comp class would be, but it really became official as I filled out the paper form (yes, paper form, go Purdue!). The amount of As and Bs were probably higher than I’ve ever given in my years of teaching. The odd thing is how this kind of made me nervous. Not for my grading practices– I think I’m a fair grader with an admitted preference for process over product. Plus, my students do so many multimedia projects, that it’s pretty easy to tell how much time and effort went into each one. No, I was nervous because the grades were so high and I could just picture that call to the office, "Mr. Pepper, have you ever heard of a little thing called grade inflation?"

Now, I don’t think this is actually going to happen, but the fact that the nervousness over giving a class relatively good grades even exists is odd. And it’s not entirely in my own head, for I ran into a few colleagues today who were in similar boats. As far as I know, there’s no official scheme to make sure classes have some predetermined and preferred grade spread. Nobody has ever congratulated me for giving few As, more Bs, and mostly Cs. So where does this anxiety come from? Don’t we, as educators, want our students to succeed and do well? Do we not have faith that our students can rise to the occasion and perform well (is composition just too big and nasty for that to ever happen?). Do we instructors feel it reflects some inner arrogance if we give a lot of good grades, like we’re patting ourselves on the backs if we dare to grade high?

Not even going to attempt the answers. On second thought, I probably shouldn’t even be writing about this. You know, they might be listening . . .