My very own version of one of the greatest websites My Parents Were Awesome ..., click on the image to view up closer, because yes, they are that awesome.

Your mom ain't got shit on my mom.

true love.

teddy bear shrine update

'We' got the domain name, but are struggling with our idea of what this site means, and how people could be effected by it. We want to document this phenomenon, however...of course we don't want to upset anyone by doing so. So...we have resolved to think it over some more.

I showed someone the picture of the Teddy Bear Shrine, and they asked me if it was put there in memory of someone who left the company. Actually, that cubicle is the exact place where someone sat who in fact...was...laid off back in August. Which made me think, that isn't the worst idea ever.

Also, I will admit to a couple of things. Last week I had learned something. When I was about 11 I beleive and my sister was 17, she was reading a book called "Go Ask Alice". It was lying around, so I picked it up and started reading some and immediately wanted to know more. This was the surely the book that corrupted my sisters youth. I borrowed it from the library and secretly read it. Well, this week I was riding along in the car and...a great song by Jefferson Airplane came on the radio. One of the lyrics were "...Go ask Alice...". Somehow or another, I missed the reference over these last 19 years. I guess it must be because I wasn't allowed to watch movies, so I didn't know to much about Alice in Wonderland, and missed out on the book altogether?? Then...when I got to thinking about that, and was concerned about why I didn't know that, I remembered how...only last year did I realize that Afghans (as in blankets) were not exclusively made in Afghanistan. All this time, since I was little I have held onto my assessment that Afghanistan is where all knitted blankets come from and that is the whole purpose of the entire country.

Well. I saw this. Continued walking. And looked again.

Really? A teddy bear shrine at work?

In my neighborhood, teddy bear shrines mean that a child was killed in this location. I went from thinking about that, to "gross, who the f is keeping their teddy bears here" and then back to my desk. I have since (2 days later) learned, that a coworker is collecting them to distribute to kids over the Holidays, which maybe you would have immediately concluded. I'm sure there are some socio-cultural reasons which deteremine what your (vs. my) response to seeing this, I'd love to do some research on that...

Anyway, back in August, I went to see Bruce and ran into some friends who live in my neighborhood, and we starting talking about all the teddy bear shrines around...and we decided I should probably create a website for people to go to post pictures of the shrines, and maybe even a place for someone to tell the story of the shrine. As creepy as it sounds, I did think about it for a couple of weeks, and have it all stored in my head, I even found the shrine which I want to use as the home page, it's down on Delaware Ave, near Spring Garden St., I think right near the Cave, I will try to get a picture to post. Now that this has appeared at my place of work, I started thinking about it again. What do you think?

It's been a while.

Someone recently asked me why I haven't kept this blog up. I was at first horrified she read it, but at the same time, I was reminded of how much I enjoyed working on these projects (thanks Tina).

I contacted Shannon a year after she got her red box, and asked her what her message was. Seriously, this is what her message said. I wonder who wrote it. I have 3 ideas...at first I thought for sure it was Woody, then I wondered if it was Bob's mom, but now...after all this time, I am wondering if maybe it was Alexis?

Anyway, I was very surprised, as the person who wrote it had no idea who would get it, or that Shannon and I later made a plan that she would wait a whole year to get her special message and share it with me (since I didn't get a new red box). I am trying to 'keep' Bob. Awesome.

Survey of New Media Project

This was Lashon & my final project for Survey of New Media. As per the instructions, we made a concept map, showing the connections between different ideas discussed in the class. We used Microsoft Visio to make it. In retrospect, I really learned a lot, I wasn't familiar with most of these ideas.

Here are some of the sources for our map:

McLuhan, Marshall
http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/mcluhan.html
“The Gutenberg Galaxy”, 1962

Haraway, Donna
Interview:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/5.02/ffharaway.html
The Cyborg Manifesto:
http://www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/Haraway/CyborgManifesto.html

Manovich, Lev
Remix and Remixiblility:
http://newmediafix.net/daily/?p=204

Paik, Nam June-“Cybernated Art”
http://isc.temple.edu/sdrury/survey2006/Paik.pdf
http://www.experimentaltvcenter.org/history/tools/ttext.php3?id=20&page=1
“ Art and Satellite” by Nam June Paik (1984)Fluxus

Rhizome
“From A Thousand Plateaus” by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari

Emergence
“Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities and Software”, by Steven Johnson.

Labrynth-Borges
“The Garden of Forking Paths”, by Jorge Luis Borges
http://isc.temple.edu/sdrury/survey2006/Garden.pdf

Benjamin, Walter
The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction:
http://bid.berkeley.edu/bidclass/readings/benjamin.html

Cage, John
http://www.lcdf.org/indeterminacy/s.cgi
http://www.lcdf.org/indeterminacy/about.html

Fluxus
http://www.ubu.com/sound/flux_tellus.html

Reub, Teri-“Drift”
http://www.terirueb.net/flash/TeriRueb.html

Access Project
http://www.accessproject.net/
Wodiczko, Krzysztof
http://newsgrist.typepad.com/photos/watch_what_we_say/krzysztof_wodiczko.jpg
http://architecture.mit.edu/people/profiles/prwodicz.html
http://www.art-for-a-change.com/Krzysztof/krzy.htm

“Tarnation”
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0390538/