Busy busy busy

Another day, another journey, investigating and establishing one's identity...
You know how it is.

Yesterday's journey was an interesting one on the train.
Maybe it is only in the second class Master Cutler carriage that one gets a proposal of marriage from a perfect stranger.
As I am not really into polygamy, I felt I should refuse.
The guy already had two wives and six children.
(But maybe he was just trying to impress me with numbers. It is a common gambit.)
Perhaps if I had read this book I would have seen things differently. After all, as we multi modal, post structuralist, post modernists, post academic, post haste blog posting bloggers know, relationships are just a social construct.
Certainly as research into female baboons clearly shows, the more wives there are in a household, the more help you can get with picking out fleas.

Mmm hmm.

......well anyway .... that was a bit of a digression,
The conference I went to was a rather flashier affair than I am used to.




I came home really tired and not a little unhelpful to my family. This is where maybe I could agree that polygamy is a feminist act.

And maybe `I should think more about whether I want to be a soup maker or write papers.

Either way, boys and girls, tomorrow I will be exploring more about identity, journeys and maybe a little 'Je ne sais pourquoi'.
I am not kidding you mate, this is the space to be.

Being faced

Yeah. That is weird that I decided, as an experiment to plonk my face in my blog.
My blog profile (top right of the page) began life with a distant long shot of me, unidentifiable. Then I replaced it with a small, composed, non expressive mug shot, looking daftly studious; studiously studious in fact.
Then yesterday I purposefully took a photo of myself, hugely faced, and blogged it. I took it off twice, then braved it. (Still not smiling though.)
And Guy has remarked on this.
When Trois tetes wrote about identity and being faced (etc), he took us here to help us think.
Why did I, yesterday, identify myself so clearly in my blog? People advise us not to.
I feel my blog is a strongly gendered space, with shotz of girlish stuff, talk of clothes and artefcats and also plenty of chat in the comments area. Maybe you don't think this is gendered? David Huffaker has talked a bit about gender and blogging. This is the BBC's summary.
Deanna Weber has a very interesting experience of gender confusion to relate here showing, I think, how we try to make judgements about meat space identities when we are on line.
See Judith Donath and Dana Boyd's 'Public displays of connection' here. Very interesting but not as good as 'Mediated faces' on the same link.
Have posted early today so you have most of Sunday to read the articles.
Have a good one ... am down to London so hope to bring back a scoop.

Images from my Saturday ....

in its own little world. at the end of my garden...



Me, in my pink hat, in the dining room .....


Me, exploring what 'quality' really means when applied to students,

I would not blog this .... but ...

I know that Kate ......

(....in my office....)

wants me to say something about the tragedy of Jen and Brad's break up.

Or to mention that she saw someone wearing Brad and Jen earrings - one half of the non - couple on each year. Separated by a bone.

But I could not find any pix to go with this tale of the earrings so will not blog the story.

Nor will I blog the fact that Kate bought me a divine red bag from Canada. That would be frivolous.



It is the small bag in front. I have to call it a 'purrrrse' though, as it is from America.

So that you can see some of the space I sometimes inhabit, I have let you glimpse my goodie filled office:



These are some of my books (that's Tintin standing by).

This is some of my wall with cards sent from people I love:



My window sill has a range of popular culture artefacts on show:



The great thing about being an academic is that you can allow yourself to indulge in things ... and then analyse them.

I like the seeming contradiction of popular culture razzamatazz mixed with academic texts. For me they are a divine combination as I like to inhabit that world of consumerism and see what it offers rather than endure in silence, the blanket criticism that many like to throw its way.. And if you want to join my band, why not go here for more inspiration? This could be just the beginning of your entry into New Literacy Studies.

Why do I show you these things on my blog? I think it is because I want to use this New Literacy to look at my life in a different way, to see what happens when it goes on display in this window box of cyberspace.

Let's think about it. Till tomorrow.

Hmmm.

women in space part two - a celebration

Today's post brings you snapshotz of women doing their thing, in their everyday places.
See what you think.
This shot has a nice bit of juxtaposition:



Do you think that this woman put up that photo on the wall? Or the stickers on the fridge? I think she is cooking for others and that she did not put the pix up.

Look at this for female companionship:



I like this one. The women are working but not as hard as this.

And this is lonely and sad:



And here is another woman in her work space.

I reckon I'd have a great day here.

So here were women in workspaces with very few comments from me for a change.

Women and Space (Part One)

I don't mean this or this.
Although we do admire how they can float about in the air. There's a nice story here. (With a worrying bit about climbing into her 'upper torso'.)
No I don't want to talk about that kind of space at all; I want to think about gendered uses of space; the way women and girls might use space differently to men and boys ...
Well, didn't you notice the gender of all the Parkour enthsiasts?

Pat Mahoney, in the 1980s doocumented how girls spent a lot of time standing round the edges of playgrounds while boys play football. And Pat is not on her own in noticing.
Or sit on radiators or talk in the toilets whilst boys use up all the space.
(Unlike Dr Francis Wardle here, I am not at all convinced that this is biologically determined at all, btw.)
I have thought about taking photos around one of my project schools, but the ethical thing is just too much these days ...
But trust me, boys take up so much space with the way they walk, carry their bags, and manage to sit in three places all at once in the classroom. And Becky Francis seems to agree.
And at least one other person has noticed this peripheral positioning to occur in other spheres too.
Some women want to take up less space by getting thinner and thinner. And they are disgusted by people who take up more room.
Whilst a very few feel,that it is a feminist thought to try to be bigger.



Did you click on the title of this post btw?

If not, please scroll up and do so now. (But it has nothing to do with the subject of this post.)

Tomorrow I want to talk a bit more bout women and space in a very serious way.

sorry to go on

I know you thought I had stopped harping on about 'spaces' BUT.

You already know all about the tsunami which occurred on 26th December 2004.

But did you know the whole disaster area has now been reinterpreted as a tourist attraction by people coming in coaches from North Thailand???

Oh yes.

I saw on French tv (France Deux) last night, how people are taking photos of the ruined areas, of photographs of missing people, and posing for group shots outside the morgue.
Mmmm hmm.

Nowt so queer as folk. As they say.
Read more about this mawkish pastime.
Bizare stuff. Look also at this and also an article about a planned Tsunami Trail.


The souvenir industry is on the go too.

Getting Barbie ringtones

I am planning on downloading "I am a Barbie girl ...' tra la la on to my mobile phone.
In the meantime, to celebrate successful purchase of Barbie fridge magnets from e bay, I am doing a full Barbie post.
This place is a bit weird but has lots of dead links. Quite symbolic.
I have had thisbefore and it is a favourite of mine.
A funny person called Molly, buys Barbies, does them up, and leaves them around the place. She shows you photos of some.
Cindy Jackson is a Barbie lookalike and you too could buy that body; her web site tells you how.
I honestly cannot believe the jealousy of some people .. this site talks about Barbie forever being the bride and never the wife. So? That's good, isn't it?
That's all.

What kind of text are you?

I think that some people have been a tad disrespectful about my 'text in the city' posting. (Scroll down to comment by CityB.)
Frankly, I think references to intertextual sex are a wee bit cynical.

Regardless, I want to talk about self as text.

I am NOT talking about this sort of thing either. Or this.
And definitely not this.

I am partly talking about shopping.


I got this pic here.

Yesterday I spent a couple of hours looking for just the right outfit to wear to a conference... bit shallow I know but .... well, you know. ( I know my confidence should derive from what I say but hey ...) And Anya alerted me to this quiz some time back, so I know peeps in my area of the blogosphere TOTALLY undertand.

I wore my red suede boots (gorgeous) on this shopping extravaganza to get stuff to match. Managed to find totally funky garb, in greys and black, assymmetric cut on everything. God, I would look perfect: understated colours with dramatic red jewellery and my bright red boots.

I was looking for this kind of look I guess.



(I am aware I am not black, but that's not my fault. I am talking about funkiness here, not ethnicity. Try to keep up please. )

Went to the supermarket next.
Dropped this bottle of detergent on red suede boots.




Boots Ruined.

What a disaster, and then this ....
The till operator decided I was dimwitted.
For some reason she decided I was deranged when I flustered about my ruined boots. Spoke to me as if I nedeed care in the community...

"It's all right love, we'll get someone to get you a new bottle of Dreft. Now, just take it steady and do your packing. It's OK I won't rush you.'

Then later,
'Do you know your card number love? Just type it in there for me then pet.'
Then we had,

' Have you got a loyalty card?'
I explained I had not read my application form given me last time.

'Oh, OK my love, "I'll explain ...'

She thought I could not read. Told me to take the form to the Helpdesk.

I let her talk my dimwittedness into place.
It was very strange how I could not assert myself at all over her misplaced kindness.

This HAS all got a point. This sort of thing is very rare. People are usually excellent at reading others and responding in the right frame.
How do we learn this?

I try to influence the way people read me - in the way I appear to people in meat space materially, physically. I have no idea whether they read what I want them to most of the time. But is is rare it goes totally wrong.

(My attitude reflects a societal preoccupation with image and self presentation of course and some would have it that this is shallow. I think such presentation of self behaviour, and the body for display, is is a primal preoccupation - but I won't harp on any further here ...)
You can read for yourself here what Goffman's take on self presentation is. A lot of useful stuff hre for someone who might write about blogging.


On a lighter note ... go to this site and choose which one you would like to be.
I am off out now to get new boots.

I am so excited

because I have bid on this. I have been doing up my office this week and this will be a great addition to my girlish boudoir. (Photos next week.)
I would have liked to get this too, especially as I am interested in blogging bags, but thought I could not have too much at once.
And likewise, this was very tempting too. (And as if I did not already have enough to do, it would make a Grrreat project to do discourse analysis on ebay ads, and a multi modal analysis of the site. This Hello Kitty ad is v. cute.)

Sorry to be such a material girl, but quite frankly, I was getting a bit pretentious lately - and this IS a material world.
.... Well,at least I blogged ....

Gosh isn't it terrible ...

You have been working all day and get so hungry you have to park your car on the pavement to get a snack

Blogging is the new black

They really are going up all over the web like a new virus. See here and here.
The number of people using English on the web is amazing, the statistics here give a break down of regional speakers and numbers.

Blogs may be a world wide phenomenon, but does everyone really understand what each other says? Will we start speaking more conservatively or will we share and blend idioms? I suspect the latter if tv influence is anything to go by).If I talked about going on a 'five fingered disco' would you know I meant I was going nicking? Or I was a tea leaf? Or tief? Or thief? (Thought not) But maybe after a while you would realise and start using those words too. Would that be a good thing?

Some people are very worried about the changing language thing. One university wants to ban the word 'blog.
Well anyway enough of this, if you want more, go to David Crystal of course.


We need pictures...

Guy wants to blog bags, City bitch wants to be a bitch. The two get married , and hey wow!!






(This is London yesterday ...)

Blogging on

I found this blog quite a story of real life drama. The blogger (Cerise?) seems to be using it to cope with the fact that her partner is in Iraq. The details are very poignant. I definitely hope Bryan can come home in February.

I think the person is the pseudo blogger's sister. Satirical Veracity has a great list of bad blogs. God, please don't put mine on. I like the one that says 'If Satan had a blog ...' Very mean!

My sister told me about this.
This is a blog dedicated to the freedom of information act; it has stuff on bloggers as you may imagine.

My sister works for a company which runs the website for a very famous newsagency ... they recently had a complaint that some people blog news before it gets on their site.

Hooray for Bloggers.

BUT she then investigated the story they were talking about and it was on their site after all.
So hooray for them.

Text and the City

Yesterday we had 'Place as Text' and today I have examples which I think begin to show the difference between text being in places and places as text.
Although, I am wondering now about this. I need to define what I mean by place. I have such a broad definition in yesterday's thing that maybe all places would therefore be text. But that may be OK too. Today I am exploring how text resides in places, but which do not transform that place so that things have different relationships to each other than before ..

But anyway, this post has a great title doesn't it? When I have sorted out my ideas a bit ore, I think I could use it in an article or is it already used by someone else?

I have already shown examples of exciting texts from cities I have been to, such as the ads for Playstation 2 in Nice (not a promo I have seen in the UK yet - I wonder why?)
These ads were really interesting to me, I loved to read them and saw them in a few places round the city. They reoccurred, like repeat patterns, and for me became a theme of my stay in Nice. It was like a joke I kept coming back to, but it was something to look at and all ovr the city. It became a game to look out for the ads. They did not seem to constitute a place though.

This graffitti was in Toulouse, a photo taken last March.


Strangely I nearly passed by without noticing. It brightened up the wall and had some 3D effects. It decorated the place, just as this did in Toronto:


And this piece of irony,


serves as a political comment,but does not make a place. It is to read and then to pass on. It requires no immediate action in that place.

When I went to Rome, I visited a stately home, turned into an art gallery.The building had been built for some Roman dignitary whose emblem was left all over the building - sometimes gilded, sometimes in stone. Sometimes in huge ornate paintings evereywhere. It was this bee:

It was like a contemporary tag, reminding every visitor of the family presence. It was a way of bringing attention to oneself like graffitti artists today leave tags. Like this, a huge one, I took this photo today in Sheffield and there is a mark at the side which says something about a black crew ...:



It is intended to be noticed, but does not transform; it is there to be accounted for, to adorn. It does not constitute a place somehow.

This image of John Peel appeared all over the city of Sheffield the day after it was announced he died. But most are now painted out. I took this remaining one today:




The repetition around the city was quite insistent, but again not intending to transform the place from one thing to another.

This kind of thing I am not sure about, it is a Carravaggio paintting, much visited in Rome.

It was first painted to be loked at and considered I suppose, challenging previous iconographies of Christ. It is definitely text with a narrative; in a very important place. But I am not sure if the text IS a place. The examples on my post yesterday had an influence on behaviour. The texts I used yesterday influenced interactions, actions, and I said they constituted place... not sure about this one.

This one is also very interesting:


It is the notice placed at the intersection which WAS Check point Charlie before reunification in Deutschland. It is now left as a kind of museum piece, almost like architecture, photographed by tourists. Behind it is an advert selling home and office space. It screams capitalism and somehow works with the Check point Charlie warning. The two hoardings seem related in meaning because of their juxtaposition. Certainly the notice constituted a place before, it signified differet cultural and political behaviours were in operation according to where youn were in relation to the notice. But now as a historic artefact is it still a place, but a different place?


The writing here, we are really accustomed to understanding; ths sort of text helps to define such places as shops and definitely are on the borderline of place as text, and text being in a place. They help to make something be a particular place:


These two pieces of text, I am also not sure of.




Do they constitute place? They are exhibits in a gallery. in Nice.. actually I think they are text as place. They are not just a piece of writing. They transform; the room is always an art gallery though ...

Well anyway, I am interested in this sort of thing at the moment and am writing for Kate's new book about space and the Internet.
No wonder I am going mad.

Place as text

OK, this is just part one in a series of two. (Number two comes tomorrow, predictably enough.)

This is not really very profound but I think it is an interesting thing to look out for.

I think there are

grammars of place

, some of which are highly set in cultures and others which emerge over time.

An example of a highly rigid grammar of place is the way we set out our tables for eating with knives and forks, glasses etc positioned, there is right and wrong, evolved over time. It is based on etiquette and a notion of aesthetics.
The way the place is set up influences behaviour of those who interact with the place, those who 'enter the scene'. (There is always a sense of Drama and of 'scene by scene' at a dinner party.)


There is also the kind of grammar of place which is to do with arranging stuff in sets; such as we always see in shop displays,




or even spontaneously, the way people park ther cars or bikes in syntactical arrangements.

Somehow I find myself reading such displays from left to right and across then down the rows. Things are organised in groups, like lexical sets.



When things are not neat and in rows we are quite surprised. This chaotic pile of broken dolls looks like carnage; it is quite a challenge to our sense of order and it reads in a particular way I think.




Sometimes , places beocome texts because of the writing we put in the place and this writing starts to actually consitute the place, even controlling behaviour - an obvious example being marks on the road, traffic signs etc.

(This crossing sign is additionally interesting as the 'Ampelmann' is from East Germany and is a collectors' item!)

Sometimes the writing is just IN the place and does not quite turn the place into a text I don't think. But in the example below, a section of the Berlin wall is used to display pieces of information about Nazi Germany and the Cold war. It is both 'text in place' and 'place as text'.


The way we read a place or a text can change over time - such as the Roman Colosseum or Forum. Now we see the forum as an artefact, as a historical text. We read it for clues about previous lives but also it stands as Rome today; Rome as a place to read.

I have already shown (as has Guy) the way houses have become texts over the Christmas period, linking out to other signs to do with Christmas, and linking with other houses that do the same.

My thing on Parkour showed the cityscape being used in different ways, thus revealing the cultural constraints we unconsciously presume about the way we should use the environment - we have notions about the right and wrong way to travel round places. If we involve ourselves in free running, we begin to see Place as Playground, or as something with a range of affordances or potential, waiting to be discovered. Freerunners unsettle and redefine our notions of urban environments and we can begin to read it differently. We interact with it in new ways.



And finally, light heartedly, we can change the way we read a place by the way we behave in it. Here is my sister as a Charlie's Angel, running in front of a church doorway, transforming holy place to an intertextual reference.




Can we descibe all this as urban tapestry?

And is my blog a place?

Parkour? What’s that?

I watched a thing on tv about a year ago called

Jump London

and immediately became interested in watching skateboarders and started thinking of them as being more than just people who wore baggy trousers and got in my way.

I know Parkour is not the same as skateboarding but both activities tend to attract young people into activities where they can use and explore cityscapes differently.They can think about themselves in the environment in creative ways. After seeing the programme it made me think about cities in new ways as being places where people follow rules in the ways they use space and behaving very conventionally - usually without realising. Freerunning, or Parkour, (as well as skateboarding) challenge such conventions. Seeing a freerunner in action reminds you of dreams you have had, where you can effortlessly move across spaces and can challenge the natural laws of physics.

There was apparently a follow up programme on tv the other night,

Jump Britain,

which gained the sport further credibility, at least amongst these people as well as these. Here we see the Internet as a forum for exchange about other media and as a way of sharing information as soon as it is received. Perhaps here we see the re-occurrence of internet activity as it happened after the first UK Freerunning/parkour broadcast.
The BBC has this article about freerunning, about a chap called Deedi who is very good indeedy at the sport.

The Internet has played an important role apparently in getting more people involved, as did the tv programme

Jump London

. Young people all over the UK were so inspired by seeing a bunch of French youths risking their groins (ou cous)leaping across the metropolis that they tried their luck at surfing. Surfing the web of course, looking for the word Parkour, which they, as the story has it, could not spell. So instead this site has been the mine of information which drew lucky when they used the words freerunning as well as parlour on their homepage. That is something very interesting about how search engines can impact on cultural change; at how liteacy skills can create or inhibit opportunities.

And pages like this are now destined to do the same I suppose.

In the meantime, check out the pictures here and here

And listen you surfin’ guys and dolls out there, ‘Take care.’


This post is with thanks to Lizzi, ever wise and wonderful-;

Just saw this

This blog is great. Read the profile.
So many funky women out there.

Escape

Just in from Wired is news from microsoft aboyut their new portable games console, (Playstation Portable) with wireless function, music and media player in one.
Hmm, I want one.
And if that's too tame and you really are a Geek, how about the Star Trek simulation?

Head over heels

There is only one place to go today and that is to Head magazine.
Take your time over this one. Lots of urban decay for you. And an addition to the theme on feet.(Dirty ones).

Photos and blogs

It is great to see exhibitions like this on the Internet.
I think there are some excellent photographs and of course it is interesting to think about the perspective in terms of reassesing and/or challenging our constructions of childhood.
It is great to also be able to see great photographers sharing their work like this. (I recommend looking at Mississippi first - it is on at Liverpool Open Eye Gallery at the moment.)
This is my favourite picture, but I really think they are all very good as depictions of lives; each picture telling or hinting at its own story.

The internet allows us to see so much and it can open up the lives of anyone who may be housebound. The Internet is incredibly versatile - although not as good as really going out and being in new places.

I agree that books and tv are also great textual resources, but I love the interactivity and creativity the Internet allows.

The space of the Internet feels really different when we look at exhibitions on line, to when say, we look at something like a photoblog. See here and here (this allows comments and questions on the forum). This one seems more exhibition than blog here - boundaries blur, don't they, from one type of site to the next?

This is something very different indeed which is photojournalism with no censorship other than the photographer's. And the reporting can be so fast.

I have been thinking about the space of the Internet and about how flexible it is.
And as you know, I love snapshotz.
There is more to say but no time ... I have stuff going on outside my blog, you know?

THIS SITE IS VERY SARCASTIC AND FUNNY

I found this site as its owner was registered as having looked at mine. Why did he/she look? I don't know. But the pseudoblog is hysterical and cheered me up on this very dismal windy day. (I cannot bear to go out and have cleaned my house!)
In an amazing coup of self revelation not only did Guy blog his house but he also wrote about it on blogtrax/ What's that all about, then eh? Very uncharacteristic. (Is it a test of our nerves, or of his?)
You could do worse than reading Home Truths to help you interpret people's attitudes to their homes.
I read it over Christmas (as did my good friend Kate) and enjoyed it.
Can a house count as a text I wonder? If so, maybe you can be house literate? Then maybe you can be house illiterate. (This may be where you get confused and go to the post office instead of your home.) Oh God, if only there were sarcasm marks .....
Time for my rest now I think.

You CANNOT be serious!!!

An article suggesting we need a 'sarcasm mark' - how could we not have thought of this before?
After Manolo, I know you have all been awaiting the T -shirt blog. (Am I serious?)
I mentioned this great site before, but I wonder if you have been back to visit and found the fantastic photo outside the elementary school. (Thanks to Kim Howls for this reference.) Did it need a sarcasm mark?

This post was a bit about language and a bit about blogs. (For the record)

Aha now you can go too

I found that the exhibition I mentioned yesterday is on the Internet here. (Why ever lve the house at all? You can even see a video of the artists at work.) If you look at Weiner's work, you will see my favourite. (The one I was stopped from photographing)
When words are used as art like this they are very powerful.
I think my photo of YO! is better than theirs ... (see Steinbach).
(sorry to boast).

Hmm ... now where was I?

It is nearly a week since I returned from the gorgeously warm Nice. Where there was a monster:



But we also saw some interesting pieces of Art in a very nice gallery where as it turned out you were not allowed to take photographs. But we did not know when I took these:





As you can see they show writing as art, as artefact. Literacy as display. It all looks cheeky somehow. The best piece of writing as art in the place .. I got told to stop taking photos. Dommage.

People look at you strangely when you take pictures of the sides of buses, but this one was interesting:



(The people seem ecstatic about Wall Street English.)

I know these photo's are quite big, but I fancied putting BIG photos on my blog.

This is good to know

In this report about the increase of blogs etc, it is explained that:

Blog creators were likely to be young, well-educated, net-savvy males with good incomes and college educations,

Seems like more ad speak than academic tongue to me.

In this related article where 'Bloggers reveal their motives', I found the two reports about a police officer's blog and that of an ambulance medic, very interesting - but am not sure how typical these bloggers are.
Although we have seen the (fired) flight attendant's blog and that of the diplomat in the press, I think most are not about working lives . Or are they?

Interesting how both bloggers have a very keen sense of audience.

Obviously

girls who play on PS2 will also want to go

here

to get some gear. Thanks to Jackie for the reference. (Sorry Jackie,had to do it, all lurkers get blogged in the end.)

Probably

As soon as you see this you will want a Stevenage.
If not, maybe you could choose from these.

Look in the magazine links on the page (scroll down to PRESS) and you will be able to see the extent of this meme.
If transport is your problem, the guys down here can sort you out.
It's all on the web babes. You only need to look.

Happy New Year

I got a new pair of spex for Xmas but they were not as good as these!

Being away from my blog has been a great sadness, but obviously I did not forget to bring back some gifts with which to paper my affinity space:




(99% of blondes who play on PS2 have an abnormally high IQ)



(89% of the men whose wives play on PS2 spend more time with their children)

The thrust (sorry) of the ads is that it is time for the men to move over and let the women play .... I am going to watch this campaign with interest as clearly it is going to take more than a few ads to re-gender the games and to reallocate those slithers of time/space needed to learn and play with PS2 ... As we know it takes a LOT of time, devotion and concentration to even begin an apprenticeship into PS2. Will women re-order their social groupings to make space for PS2 communities?

And will they play nicely??