Blogging
Blog-to-Book Tools: TnP? Preservation? Portability?
So is that all there is to say about it? Nope. There are three reasons I’m paying attention to this tool. I’m a blogger. I’m a humanities scholar. I care about the future of the book.
As a blogger, this is a great tool. The more tools we have at our disposal, the better. I can’t wait for people to start using Anthologize for all sorts of things it wasn’t intended for. I’ve already fielded questions about this “sort” of technology at the Louisville Conference on Lit this past February. I was giving a paper on Barthes, Blogging, and Authorship. The most interesting question: Am I going to turn [my] blog into a book eventually? (I don’t want to mis-represent the context of the question. He was asking because he wanted to turn his own blog into a book, not because he wanted to read mine as a book.) I told him that I thought that would be a nice tool, but I didn’t really see the use or necessity. But that was because I hadn’t really thought about it. But I have since. Why would I want to make a book out of my blog? Read the rest of this entry »
iPad Emerging (as Practice)
I’m in the process of moving into a new home office. For the past several years, I’ve had my office in the basement, but I just couldn’t stand the eternal darkness anymore. (I tell myself that it contributed to my procrastination. Ha!) But here, this morning, I made myself some toast and a cup of coffee, sat down in on the sunny couch in my office. Put a little classic Joan Jett on my headphones. And read the latest news on my… wait for it… iPad.
Let me rewind. Sunlight. Classic Joan Jett. Let me add. My new desk and shelves are minimal and made of blonde plywood (soon-to-be-varnished, though). My coffee cup is handmade stoneware I picked up from a visit to her studio out on the Ohio River. The spread on my toast, Carrot-Cake jam, was cooked and canned in my own kitchen last year. What’s the point? I like texture. I like handmade qualities. I have a soft spot for DIY culture. And the Joan Jett thing? (I could have mentioned old Sinead O’Connor or Tom Waits albums from earlier this week.) I have a weakness for nostalgia, too.
So how the hell does an iPad fit into this picture? This little polarizing laptop/ebook/smartphone/movieplayer/ipod hybrid object? You know, the one I railed against the day after Apple released it? The one with all the missing functionalities (camera, keyboard, Flash-compatibility, multitasking, open ports, etc.)? The one with the closed app store and limited, proprietary development strategies? The one made of smooth glass, stainless steel, and four small buttons? How does it fit? Read the rest of this entry »
