listening to repeating

Just a quick announcement as the deadline nears: With Dene Grigar (Washington State University), I am co-proposing a MLA 2011 special session, entitled “Sound Reproduction and the Literary.”

This panel will explore the role of digital/analog audio when composing literature and criticism by emphasizing storage, fidelity, and sound design; audiovisual synchronicity; and audio recording histories and literature.

Please submit a 300-word abstract with a CV by March 15, 2010 to both jentery@uw.edu and dgrigar@vancouver.wsu.edu. Please reference the session name in the subject of your email.

Queries welcome. All panel participants must be members of the MLA before April 1, 2010.

This year, the annual MLA convention will take place in Los Angeles, between January 6th and 9th.

It’s been a good weekend.  Today, a red-tailed hawk kept watch over my house as I  drafted the press kit for the new Mostly Dimes recording.  The bird perched for about an hour, remaining steady with a pigeon in its talons—regal, yet beautifully paranoid (and apparently quite hungry).  I tried to get his/her attention by playing some recordings of red-tails from the computer speakers on my windowsill.  No luck.  That hawk could not be faked.  Such an audiophile immediately recognizes a reproduced sound.  Either that, or the red tail’s an analog type.

Here are two photographs.  I love the vinyl siding in the background.

In the Ecotone

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Just another quick announcement for the next installment in the “What does digital scholarship do?” HASTAC Scholars series at the University of Washington:

On Monday, March 8th at 3:30 p.m, Meghan Trainor (DXARTS) will be facilitating our next meeting, on “Digital Fabrication and the Database: 3D Printing Metadata Models in Digital Research,” which is open to the public at the Simpson Center for the Humanities.  Below is a description of what to expect, and here is the flier (in PNG).  Looking forward!

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About a month ago, I meandered up to Mt. Baker with some friends for the weekend.  And yep yep: we did some snowboarding.  One of the days up top was remarkable—fantastic conditions and overwhelmingly beautiful, to boot.  Perhaps the best day I’ve had riding in the PNW.

I’ve wanted to post these photos for some time, but such is life.  Enjoy!

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I just want to send a quick thank you to Bryden McGrath and Catherine O’Donnell for chatting with me about things related to technology, teaching, literature, and the AAC&U.

Bryden’s written a piece for the UW’s Daily, and Catherine’s done the same for the Graduate School.

I like that both of the conversations focused primarily on the material histories of technologies, rather than becoming preoccupied with cutting edge digital tools and gadgets.  These experiences make me want to drag my typewriters, rotary phones, cassette tapes, and record players into the classroom.