As I've mentioned, fieldwork has been a wee bit sluggish (again with the abstraction of responsibility, by using the passive voice, for which my father (and HL?) would kill me, but I do it so well). I've been planning my LA departure for a while, but have contemplated the possibility lazily. Suddenly a slew of things are lining up, some of which I've actively set up (but more or less assumed would not come to pass) and some of which have been marvellously coincidental (right time right place, fingers crossed). I was debating the decision process with my dad, and he pointed out that if it doesn't work out, or I start it and then find it isn't working for my project, then I can always back out. I thought that was sound, and I rarely regret things I've done. I'm pretty good at re-figuring or re-purposing them to have some value. (Actually, I'm not sure I really regret things I haven't done...maybe a few things.)
I applied for a summer institute in San Francisco, at the time seeing it as a brief pre-cursor foray into living there. It's 2 weeks long and will give me (hopefully) a fair amount of academic guidance and support. Those are things I've felt quite lacking over the many, endless years of school. On top of which, I received a scholarship, which makes it slightly less foolhardy. And then, the room, which I hope to be offered, suddenly came open earlier...and now San Francisco may be the next phase of fieldwork. Itemizing the logic and justifications, some of which are more credible and substantive than others, would be tiresome. But there is a good possibility that my (full) time in LA is drawing to a close. And...though it's been hard and frustrating, in ways that might seem silly because it is the U.S. after all, I don't regret it at all.
---
Fieldwork tonight was pretty good. I always feel enthused and rejuvenated after this monthly meeting of moms. But the truth is, as I've learned many months over, the momentum seems to crash. I find that hard, building up and preparing for fieldwork, only to find a lot of dead ends. I'm curious to see if my work in SF will be more successful. It'll be informative if I'm able to make more substantive and continuous connections with parents there. If I can, it may confirm my suspicions about the structure of LA. Though if I fail there, too, I guess I'll just feel like it's me. Not a terribly good outcome.
Some of my best conversations happen in this setting. I find interviews can be so contrived, and in an ideal fieldwork setting, there would be daily ebb and flow of life that I would observe. I haven't managed to develop this really, though, with anyone. Is it because I'm a bit loathe to be anywhere with any regularity? I've gotten spoiled by the student lifestyle and the self-determination it allows. (As I've mentioned before, I tend to resist on principle rather than for a real good reason.) The minority women's health work has just evaporated. It's partly my fault, for not pushing harder, but it was a situation where no matter what efforts I made, they were met with resistance. I developed my fieldwork better, I think, in Morocco, when I was situated in a community -- and perhaps this was my mistake, refusing to distinguish a particular group of parents. I tried, by linking it to the schools, but the failure to make progress in that sphere took a long time to sort out and move past. And now I'm fully past the 6-month mark. I am worried about uprooting myself, but I do intend to return to LA monthly, and maybe I can keep the connections I've made (that are sporadic, anyway) while developing ones up north.
5.06.2008
Not for the faint of heart
I found this in my listservs -- a woman photographically tracks her cervix daily. It's a bit intense. But it is a fascinating use of the interwebs. It's almost like a reclaiming of what internet pornography has started. It seems like it takes the intimacy of the human body and translates it into extreme visibility...or something. Not articulating this well, but it's so amazing and out there, that I had to share it. I'm not sure whether I should call this blog an NSFW (not safe for work) or not...is it lewd to look at photos of a cervix on company computers?
As you can see, I'm revisiting my email/internet research phase with vigor. I get so many emails about variations of things that I'm studying that it can be overwhelming. I'm really backlogged on the digest-forms of my listservs, and I tend to find it daunting to wade back through them. I try to write fieldnotes about the postings I find interesting, but it still can feel like a glut of information.
As you can see, I'm revisiting my email/internet research phase with vigor. I get so many emails about variations of things that I'm studying that it can be overwhelming. I'm really backlogged on the digest-forms of my listservs, and I tend to find it daunting to wade back through them. I try to write fieldnotes about the postings I find interesting, but it still can feel like a glut of information.
Somewhat following up on the earlier post -- Surveillance Society
I found this cartoon on the newsletter's site:
I find it interesting when public discourse engages with terms that I think of as existing predominantly in academic circles. I know that theoretical terms do not just appear from nowhere nor would I say that the public is too unsophisticated to make use of theoretically derived terms. It's just fascinating to me to watch the dissemination and evolution of concepts across very disparate social groups.
I find it interesting when public discourse engages with terms that I think of as existing predominantly in academic circles. I know that theoretical terms do not just appear from nowhere nor would I say that the public is too unsophisticated to make use of theoretically derived terms. It's just fascinating to me to watch the dissemination and evolution of concepts across very disparate social groups.
Badly-handled analysis of capitalism and health
My work in the U.S. forces the question of the role of capitalism and privatization in all spheres of life. I mentioned, many posts ago, the simplistic assumption (by some) that capitalism's "value" to drive health advances neglected all sorts of important aspects of health and may even be detrimental, if one's goal is to actually improve health outcomes for all.
I've been noticing that one of the gazillion listservs I'm on keeps sending business or company recommendations. The first one I noticed (and I'm not sure if it was the first time they've sent such a thing, or if it was the first time I'd remarked upon it) was a promotion for buying land in Ecuador. It was the strangest thing to me, about being able to live a certain kind of life in Latin America, among a community of like-minded people. It contained all sorts of admonishments about not getting scammed, some of which were amazingly simplistic about who "these people" were, but it also had an eerie colonialization feel. (I admit, I'm woefully under-read on colonialization theory (strange especially since I worked in Morocco, a place that to my uneducated eyes, seems to have all sorts of post-colonial connundrums), but I grasp the basics, I think!) The romanticization of both under-developed land and a place with few regulatory restrictions about health (this was the central gist of the email update) seemed extremely ill-thought out. (To be fair, the newsletter author pointed out that one has to be prepared to be self-sufficient as one wouldn't have access to the health care system Americans are used to. But it still sounded incredibly naive.) Subsequently, this newsletter has also sent out "coupons" for products and will make recommendations for some food or vitamin product.
What stands out for me, however, is that there's no self-reflexivity about condemning the majority of products (sunscreen is bad for you! vitamins contain contaminants! who to trust for pharmaceuticals!). And I guess what I'm trying to parse out is why some categories of things do not elicit the same scrutiny as others. I've written about this in other contexts -- why do government regulations of vaccines elicit anti-government reactions from some of my informants, but other forms of regulation do not?
In other words, the forms of libertarianism that come out of these reactions do not seem to be internally consistent. Of course, few of us are ever consistent, even when we think we've developed our belief systems carefully. But I think the contexts in which people react so strongly are revealing about other social and political convictions. And what I think I want to do is to uncover what these anxieties are about, to propose that there is a connection between the types of government suspicion and conspiracy theories I hear circulating among my participants that have deeper resonance and meaning for America today.
God, so bloody grandiose.
I've been noticing that one of the gazillion listservs I'm on keeps sending business or company recommendations. The first one I noticed (and I'm not sure if it was the first time they've sent such a thing, or if it was the first time I'd remarked upon it) was a promotion for buying land in Ecuador. It was the strangest thing to me, about being able to live a certain kind of life in Latin America, among a community of like-minded people. It contained all sorts of admonishments about not getting scammed, some of which were amazingly simplistic about who "these people" were, but it also had an eerie colonialization feel. (I admit, I'm woefully under-read on colonialization theory (strange especially since I worked in Morocco, a place that to my uneducated eyes, seems to have all sorts of post-colonial connundrums), but I grasp the basics, I think!) The romanticization of both under-developed land and a place with few regulatory restrictions about health (this was the central gist of the email update) seemed extremely ill-thought out. (To be fair, the newsletter author pointed out that one has to be prepared to be self-sufficient as one wouldn't have access to the health care system Americans are used to. But it still sounded incredibly naive.) Subsequently, this newsletter has also sent out "coupons" for products and will make recommendations for some food or vitamin product.
What stands out for me, however, is that there's no self-reflexivity about condemning the majority of products (sunscreen is bad for you! vitamins contain contaminants! who to trust for pharmaceuticals!). And I guess what I'm trying to parse out is why some categories of things do not elicit the same scrutiny as others. I've written about this in other contexts -- why do government regulations of vaccines elicit anti-government reactions from some of my informants, but other forms of regulation do not?
In other words, the forms of libertarianism that come out of these reactions do not seem to be internally consistent. Of course, few of us are ever consistent, even when we think we've developed our belief systems carefully. But I think the contexts in which people react so strongly are revealing about other social and political convictions. And what I think I want to do is to uncover what these anxieties are about, to propose that there is a connection between the types of government suspicion and conspiracy theories I hear circulating among my participants that have deeper resonance and meaning for America today.
God, so bloody grandiose.
5.02.2008
Netflix has a wry sense of humor
I signed into my netflix account, with which I have a love-hate relationship (The Wire! love, but the subscription perpetuity, hate!). Today it proposed to me: "Because you enjoyed Au revoir les enfants and Downfall, we think you'll enjoy The Nazis: a warning from history". I realize these are automatically generated and that the phrasing is standardized, but somehow "enjoy" seems to be the wrong word choice for "The Nazis: a warning from history". Is it just me, or is that proposal insanely funny?
5.01.2008
Doppelganger!
It's a little weird that my cousin and I have the same exact initials. He was visiting LA last week and had his tote bag with him that is embroidered with his/our initials. Apparently it was a gift from a former girlfriend. Clearly my parents weren't thinking when they gave me the same three-lettered acronym as my cousin. But for the most part, I don't think people will confuse us. There is, however, a public health researcher, with whom I will indirectly be working very shortly, with the exact same name as me. This is deeply unsettling. She also works on STDs, though she is a certified MD, MPH, which I am not. But still....she does, however, go by an unfortunate (in my very experienced opinion) nickname. She must be at least 5-10 years older than me, but it's weird that we are working in more or less the same field and have the same name. I've yet to inquire about her initials, as it would be freaky if we had the same initials, as well. Perhaps it's just as well that I do not know.
-----
Fieldwork is slow right now. It's partly my fault, as I'm not contacting or calling or writing to anyone. I can't get over the hump of lethargy. Also, because I feel so behind on data organizing, it's hard to motivate to collect more stuff that I will be behind on reviewing. Maybe next week I'll get the work bug? Where is that little pocket academic guru for which I have longed for so long?
-----
Fieldwork is slow right now. It's partly my fault, as I'm not contacting or calling or writing to anyone. I can't get over the hump of lethargy. Also, because I feel so behind on data organizing, it's hard to motivate to collect more stuff that I will be behind on reviewing. Maybe next week I'll get the work bug? Where is that little pocket academic guru for which I have longed for so long?
4.30.2008
Somewhere there's fieldwork
I've been a bit of a slacker...though that implies a decision to slack. I'm not sure how much of a decision it's been. I've done a bit on the public health side of things, but really, I feel, at the 6 month mark, a bit of exhaustion and uncertainty. The project is shifting, and I've started to lose focus in the actual work and where my fieldwork is situated, even as the ideas that I think are compelling seem to be more clear. I actually am starting to develop a bit of a theory about things. That sounds so grandiose. It's just that for so long, I've been cobbling other people's theories onto my own work. Sort of stuffing my ideas into a framework that someone else has developed. Hoping that all these citations and references will convince someone that I know what I'm talking about.
It's a weird shift, to go from the earnest graduate student to the more laconic theorizing slacker. I think that might be a brilliant evolution, to be able to capitalize on the lifestyle academia affords. But, ironically, it doesn't really "afford" much of anything, hence prompting my anxiety about collecting research. Conducting research. Doing...something. Not just lolling about thinking about what I am not doing.
My friend SJ came to spend the night last weekend, and I launched into the early stirrings of this theory -- some of which I began to articulate (inarticulately) in the Slate comment, posted below (from days and days ago, it seems). Maybe I'm just a big conspiracy theorist at heart, but I'm pretty convinced that the work that I'm doing is a bit of an echo, or a snippet of something larger. I like theories and research that are expansive, that cross boundaries and challenge disciplinarity. This has not won me many supporters -- academics can be a bit touchy about interdisciplinarity (not all academics...duh).
I had lunch with one of the public health people I'm working with, and she commented that I stand out on the west coast because of my pedigrees and higher education. She asked me about how I got to be so ambitious. It was an odd question, because I don't think of myself as ambitious. I think of myself as a perpetual student precisely because I lack ambition. It's a distraction, all this education. But somehow I then launched into a bit of a monologue about my trajectory, and how I think public health is very nervous about being truly interdisciplinary. She concurred, saying that her medical director boss had said that not specializing in a field is a bad thing. I pointed out that public health, perhaps more than some fields, can be quite territorial and that unlike medicine, it is intrinsically an interdisciplinary field. (Anyone who studies non-western medicines will realize that successful medicine must be interdisciplinary -- or at the very least more holistic than the increasingly specialized western medical field usually is.) I think public health struggles with the shadow of medicine and the natural sciences. Or really, what I ought to say, it seems that a lot of the social sciences demand a level of defensiveness to assert their authority. It's nerve-wracking to realize how broad the effects of your object of study might go. It gets messy, when you start looking at structural determinants of health, for example. Where does it end? Who's ultimately responsible? Etc...
I need to get back on the fieldwork wagon, but it can be incredibly draining chasing after subjects and pursuing people. It's hard to do for 6 months and to know that it will continue for a while. I've lost touch with the minority women's health group, though I emailed last week to see if they wanted me to come in. I was, again, put off, told: maybe Friday afternoon or next week. I interpret that comment as ambivalence about my returning. And maybe it's not, but it's hard to put oneself out there over and over again. I'm not good at deflecting various forms of rejection. I find it tiring to continue on as though all the subtext weren't there. And it seems to me that is how one has to go about doing fieldwork, shaking off the disappointments and soldiering on. Hmmmm...remarkably like grad school in its own way. I admit, shame-facedly, that I have not read Beckett, but I often find "I can't go on. I'll go on," to be perfect for so many occasions.
It's a weird shift, to go from the earnest graduate student to the more laconic theorizing slacker. I think that might be a brilliant evolution, to be able to capitalize on the lifestyle academia affords. But, ironically, it doesn't really "afford" much of anything, hence prompting my anxiety about collecting research. Conducting research. Doing...something. Not just lolling about thinking about what I am not doing.
My friend SJ came to spend the night last weekend, and I launched into the early stirrings of this theory -- some of which I began to articulate (inarticulately) in the Slate comment, posted below (from days and days ago, it seems). Maybe I'm just a big conspiracy theorist at heart, but I'm pretty convinced that the work that I'm doing is a bit of an echo, or a snippet of something larger. I like theories and research that are expansive, that cross boundaries and challenge disciplinarity. This has not won me many supporters -- academics can be a bit touchy about interdisciplinarity (not all academics...duh).
I had lunch with one of the public health people I'm working with, and she commented that I stand out on the west coast because of my pedigrees and higher education. She asked me about how I got to be so ambitious. It was an odd question, because I don't think of myself as ambitious. I think of myself as a perpetual student precisely because I lack ambition. It's a distraction, all this education. But somehow I then launched into a bit of a monologue about my trajectory, and how I think public health is very nervous about being truly interdisciplinary. She concurred, saying that her medical director boss had said that not specializing in a field is a bad thing. I pointed out that public health, perhaps more than some fields, can be quite territorial and that unlike medicine, it is intrinsically an interdisciplinary field. (Anyone who studies non-western medicines will realize that successful medicine must be interdisciplinary -- or at the very least more holistic than the increasingly specialized western medical field usually is.) I think public health struggles with the shadow of medicine and the natural sciences. Or really, what I ought to say, it seems that a lot of the social sciences demand a level of defensiveness to assert their authority. It's nerve-wracking to realize how broad the effects of your object of study might go. It gets messy, when you start looking at structural determinants of health, for example. Where does it end? Who's ultimately responsible? Etc...
I need to get back on the fieldwork wagon, but it can be incredibly draining chasing after subjects and pursuing people. It's hard to do for 6 months and to know that it will continue for a while. I've lost touch with the minority women's health group, though I emailed last week to see if they wanted me to come in. I was, again, put off, told: maybe Friday afternoon or next week. I interpret that comment as ambivalence about my returning. And maybe it's not, but it's hard to put oneself out there over and over again. I'm not good at deflecting various forms of rejection. I find it tiring to continue on as though all the subtext weren't there. And it seems to me that is how one has to go about doing fieldwork, shaking off the disappointments and soldiering on. Hmmmm...remarkably like grad school in its own way. I admit, shame-facedly, that I have not read Beckett, but I often find "I can't go on. I'll go on," to be perfect for so many occasions.
4.24.2008
More on vaccines and autism -- now with presidential candidates!
Slate has an article about McCain's pandering to the public by suggesting that vaccines and autism may be related. The editor continues to point out that Obama has also encouraged the association, and that Clinton has certainly not helped to dispel the myth. I couldn't resist responding. Here's my post:
Ok....maybe not the most provoking comment, but I do think this is central to the problem of the constant resurgence of vaccine fears, and the autism fear, in particular. I am more and more convinced that the vaccine suspicion comes from a displaced sort of distrust and anxiety that is hard for people to articulate. Children and the "future" of our nation are tropes that get invoked all the time, throughout history, as a sort of infallible position. How can you argue that parents shouldn't be concerned about their offspring? If you couch a more generalized anxiety about the state of the world in the context of the "future" (think the nuclear ads of the 70s (I think, I wasn't born or watching t.v. then) with kids picking flowers), it's pretty hard to counter resistance. I may need to come back and edit this -- early morning incoherence, I fear.Although I agree with Bazelon that vaccines are probably not the direct or sole cause of the rise in autism (increasing diagnoses, among other things, may in fact be contributing to the rise in numbers), I do think she misrepresents the CDC's information. Leach and Fairhead, in their book Vaccine Anxieties, phrase it best when they say that the scientists/government are arguing that the absence of evidence is the same as an evidence of absence. These are not the same thing, as Leach and Fairhead wisely point out.
I am sympathetic to the difficulty that scientists and doctors have in persuading the public that vaccines are not harmful, but I also think we need to look more closely at why parents are not convinced by the amazingly lukewarm assertion by the CDC, "there's no convincing scientific evidence of harm caused by the low doses of thimerosal in vaccines." The vaccine frenzy is related to plenty of convincing evidence that the government does not want to be accountable for harm caused to patients when pharmaceutical companies behave irresponsibly. Instead, as with the case of Ortho-Evra and the debate around "pre-emption" (which would make the FDA's approval of pharmaceuticals sufficient for excluding pharmaceutical companies from any lawsuits causing harm), it appears that corporate interests are driving government regulation of medicine more and more.
4.23.2008
So, remind me that the media aren't perpetuating misogynist images of Clinton?
As Feministe put it so well, "oh for the love of God" -- or as I prefer, "give me a fucking break". There's this cover of the New Republic. One of the commentators wisely links to the Obama cover, from January, which strangely makes Obama look kind of like GWB, unfortunately. [One of the posters enlarged the image and commented on it on her own website. Sending a letter to the New Republic, regardless of whether you read/subscribe is not a bad idea.]
The comments below the Feministe posting are insightful. As one poster mentioned, if Obama were to take a stand on this crap, it would really up my respect for him. I stopped paying attention to the primary a while ago, though I have noticed Clinton has behaved unpleasantly, repeatedly. My main quibble with Obama is his lack of substance and the frightening obsessive behavior of his supporters. I realize in order for either candidate to continue to pursue his/her candidacy, he/she must maintain that his/her presidency will be superior, but as has been stated elsewhere, more eloquently, the end result of this race threatens to be total self-destruction of the Democratic party. Though some of my friends have threatened to vote for McCain if Clinton wins, I find that an equally disturbing zero-sum approach.
The comments below the Feministe posting are insightful. As one poster mentioned, if Obama were to take a stand on this crap, it would really up my respect for him. I stopped paying attention to the primary a while ago, though I have noticed Clinton has behaved unpleasantly, repeatedly. My main quibble with Obama is his lack of substance and the frightening obsessive behavior of his supporters. I realize in order for either candidate to continue to pursue his/her candidacy, he/she must maintain that his/her presidency will be superior, but as has been stated elsewhere, more eloquently, the end result of this race threatens to be total self-destruction of the Democratic party. Though some of my friends have threatened to vote for McCain if Clinton wins, I find that an equally disturbing zero-sum approach.
Engaging with technology
At the minority women's health organization, where I am working sporadically, they have 3 webpages. One of my tasks is to work on their newest page, by providing interesting content, including, awkwardly, "affirmations". The issue of my writing affirmations for minority women will be explored at some other time.
I've been mulling over their acquisition of 3 webpages. They have a myspace.com page [which is a social networking site that has over the years expanded to provide musicians with band webpages, and also seems to be a quick way for organizations to create a public presence on one of the very popular (the most? at least at one time) social networking sites], a ".com" website, with their organization's acronym, and newly, a ".org" website, also with their acronym as the main address. One afternoon, I listened as the main office worker spoke on the phone with a woman interested in learning more about the organization's work. Lacey**, the office worker, rattled off the websites for the organization, but she misspoke and mentioned the ".com" web address twice. It made me aware of the oddness of this ".org" and ".com" domain ownership. I think I get the distinction they are making in their minds -- as the ".org" seems to be more of a general informational website, with random postings of things they find interesting. The ".com" website offers more information about their programs and includes a calendar of events.
But it is clear, that Mary**, the organization's head, intends the ".org" to become comparable to the ".com," or even supplant it in its up-to-datedness -- leaving me a bit baffled about the purchasing of web-real estate. At the same time, their interaction with the internet as a major information source and as a dissemination method suggest to me that the internet is critical to them. The web-real estate grab seems to be about expansion and staking a presence. I'm just trying to figure out what virtual-presence acquisition means.
** -- names are pseudonyms.
----
I have not visited SecondLife (SL) yet, a virtual community that has captured media attention over the last few years since its inception. (I have had an intense debate with my friend J and her husband about the site more than a year ago -- J's husband had spent some time on the site, and he was an advocate, while both J and I were uneasy with the implications of the virtual world. I really ought to go visit the site, it just seems that it's rife with time-sucking.) A former classmate of mine has apparently just produced/directed (am unclear about his role) a documentary about SL. There is even an autistic woman who claims that SL is an important outlet for her to communicate her autistic world to others.
I found this article about using SL as a teaching tool vaguely interesting. I have memories of "chat room" classrooms. I found them deeply annoying and unproductive. But perhaps, like many things, it's just not the medium for me. I find the "simultaneous" conversations overwhelming. I don't instant message (IM), really, either. Email seems to fulfill adequately that gap in my life. I know that there is a intangible, yet distinctive [is that a contradiction?], difference between IM-ing and emailing, but I have no problem with emailing back immediately if someone has emailed me, and I'm in front of the computer. It seems like a more efficient way to go.
Back in February, P visited me and we went to see a film about the Prater -- a carnival in the center of Vienna. Near the end of the film (it's quite long, though very visually and narratatively (is that a word?) compelling), Elfriede Jelinek, a novelist, describes the sensations of the carnival. LA Weekly references Jelinek's monologue as detailing the "strange power riding on machines designed only for their pleasure," which sounds very much like the internet and its pleasures. It made me think about how the quest for amusement in mechanical objects (and inhuman/non-human phenomena) may have been supplanted, in some ways, by the internet. This is an under-developed thought, as I really would need to see the film again to better articulate it. But it is interesting to think about how once these pleasures occurred in a public, communal forum such as the carnival, shared immediately and sought after with others, and now they occur in the ether, in abstracted digital medium.
[Though perhaps it is I who lacks imagination, maybe the carnival ride is never about shared experience, but a form of exhibitionism? Not a shared titillation but a public display or flaunting at a time when such public acts were especially outrageous? Have carnivals lost their cache because we no longer find the public forum for screaming and being frightened while enjoying it a necessary outlet?]
I've been mulling over their acquisition of 3 webpages. They have a myspace.com page [which is a social networking site that has over the years expanded to provide musicians with band webpages, and also seems to be a quick way for organizations to create a public presence on one of the very popular (the most? at least at one time) social networking sites], a ".com" website, with their organization's acronym, and newly, a ".org" website, also with their acronym as the main address. One afternoon, I listened as the main office worker spoke on the phone with a woman interested in learning more about the organization's work. Lacey**, the office worker, rattled off the websites for the organization, but she misspoke and mentioned the ".com" web address twice. It made me aware of the oddness of this ".org" and ".com" domain ownership. I think I get the distinction they are making in their minds -- as the ".org" seems to be more of a general informational website, with random postings of things they find interesting. The ".com" website offers more information about their programs and includes a calendar of events.
But it is clear, that Mary**, the organization's head, intends the ".org" to become comparable to the ".com," or even supplant it in its up-to-datedness -- leaving me a bit baffled about the purchasing of web-real estate. At the same time, their interaction with the internet as a major information source and as a dissemination method suggest to me that the internet is critical to them. The web-real estate grab seems to be about expansion and staking a presence. I'm just trying to figure out what virtual-presence acquisition means.
** -- names are pseudonyms.
----
I have not visited SecondLife (SL) yet, a virtual community that has captured media attention over the last few years since its inception. (I have had an intense debate with my friend J and her husband about the site more than a year ago -- J's husband had spent some time on the site, and he was an advocate, while both J and I were uneasy with the implications of the virtual world. I really ought to go visit the site, it just seems that it's rife with time-sucking.) A former classmate of mine has apparently just produced/directed (am unclear about his role) a documentary about SL. There is even an autistic woman who claims that SL is an important outlet for her to communicate her autistic world to others.
I found this article about using SL as a teaching tool vaguely interesting. I have memories of "chat room" classrooms. I found them deeply annoying and unproductive. But perhaps, like many things, it's just not the medium for me. I find the "simultaneous" conversations overwhelming. I don't instant message (IM), really, either. Email seems to fulfill adequately that gap in my life. I know that there is a intangible, yet distinctive [is that a contradiction?], difference between IM-ing and emailing, but I have no problem with emailing back immediately if someone has emailed me, and I'm in front of the computer. It seems like a more efficient way to go.
Back in February, P visited me and we went to see a film about the Prater -- a carnival in the center of Vienna. Near the end of the film (it's quite long, though very visually and narratatively (is that a word?) compelling), Elfriede Jelinek, a novelist, describes the sensations of the carnival. LA Weekly references Jelinek's monologue as detailing the "strange power riding on machines designed only for their pleasure," which sounds very much like the internet and its pleasures. It made me think about how the quest for amusement in mechanical objects (and inhuman/non-human phenomena) may have been supplanted, in some ways, by the internet. This is an under-developed thought, as I really would need to see the film again to better articulate it. But it is interesting to think about how once these pleasures occurred in a public, communal forum such as the carnival, shared immediately and sought after with others, and now they occur in the ether, in abstracted digital medium.
[Though perhaps it is I who lacks imagination, maybe the carnival ride is never about shared experience, but a form of exhibitionism? Not a shared titillation but a public display or flaunting at a time when such public acts were especially outrageous? Have carnivals lost their cache because we no longer find the public forum for screaming and being frightened while enjoying it a necessary outlet?]
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