" I never attended a creative writing class in my life. I have a horror of them; most writers groups moonlight as support groups for the kind of people who think that writing is therapeutic."
Our Creative Writing classes are a happy anomaly. We look at writing in a completely different way than a class at any run-of-the mill highschool. It's beause of the way we approach our writing.
I understand exactly the kind of person that Smith is trying to express. In the digital ase, these are the people who's poetry usually ends up being a story of their life set to rhyme. For the younger crowd, it's usually something to the affect of:
"My life is dark,
my heart in flames,
is this just
another game?
Does he love me?
Is it for show?
Tell me, will I
ever know?
Bloodstained razor,
broken heart,
I've lost my love,
now I depart."
Inset dramtic sigh, and/or weeping. These days, we call this Emo poetry. A lovely new label that's spread like wildfire and is tossed around in any conversation, Emo is the general term for someone who is melodramtic, pessimistic, and depressed. It's usually used in vain, as a joke. Now imagine a group of these stereotypical kids in a room together, learning about writing. I can imagine their critique... "This poem shows that you're really sad. I'm sorry. Have a tissue. *pause* Oh, no, don't change anything about it. It's great the way it is, of course, because it just shows how sad you are. *hands over another tissue for weeping kid.*"
Because this is what happens when poetry becomes therapy. Then it's all about the feeling and not about the work. That's what Smith is trying to say, I think. That the kind of people who think writing is therapeutic see writing in a completely different way. They don't see it like those of us sitting in our well-decorated cubicles. We see it as an art form, to be mastered, improved, perfected. It's about quality of the pieces -- and to the others, it's about quantity of the emotions. They can get their feelings out on lined paper in little couplets, formed into quatrains, with drawings of blood drops, or maybe little hearts if they found a new girlfriend.
Moral of this story: Writing doesn't equal therapy and here at ASFA we're pretty darn lucky.
Moral of the emo poem: My life is a black abyss. No one loves me. *tear*
Feed by M.T. Anderson is a chilling portrayal of the future. Set in a time where there are layers of suburbs and great bubbles around every home, it introduces us to the ultimate gadget, the Feed. The Feed is basically a computer implanted into the brain. It can wirelessly chat with other Feeds, order products off the internet, show television programs, play music, and is constantly streaming advertisements, like this:
"Images of Coke falling in rivulets down chiseled mountainsides...a hand extended toward the lemonade like God's at Creation; boys in Gap tees shot from a rocket... Nike grav-gear plunging into Montana... friends clutching at birds made of alloys; law partners jumping fences; snow; altitude; tears; hugs; night."
The narrator, Titus, describes how the Feed has a customer profile for everyone, and can guide people in purchases, even telling them when they like a new product before they even have a chance to form an opinion. Big corporations have unimaginable power with the Feed, churning out more consumers with ease.
The Feed has also rendered the population blind to the world around them. Meat is now grown in huge fields of muscle tissue pumped with nutrients through tubes. Huge hoards of of cockroaches live on top of the bubbles around suburbs. The ocean is toxic sludge. There are huge air factories. People go on interplanetary vacations, but they're super lame.
Titus is ignorant to all of this until he meets a girl named Violet. She's unlike anyone he's ever met. She lives in a home without a bubble. She lives with only her father, and they are very poor. She got a feed at an older age than most everyone else. She wants to rebel against the customer profiles, mess up the corporate world.
But things begin to go wrong. After a hacker messes with their feeds while they are on vacation at the moon, Violet's out-of-date Feed starts malfunctioning. She loses feeling in her limbs for hours at a time. But when she begs the help of the corporations who power the Feed, they turn her down, for she isn't a valuable enough customer.
Although it's a young adult novel, Feed makes serious, mature comments on technology,our attitude towards the environment, and human connection. It delves into what the Digtial Age may make of us.
And here's the blogs/sites that brought them to you, or ones you should definitely take a look at:
We'd all love to be like Hobbes. He's our ideal. Carefree and blissful, the simplest things can make him happy. Hobbes is intellectual, but doesn't lose his childish charm. He's all about nature and isn't the least bit interested in computers or cell phones. Although he and his counterpart Calvin can be found in front of the television often, they always seem to have more fun when they have adventures in the outdoors.
Garfield, however, is our kindred spirit. He's shamelessly lazy, loves to eat, and is obsessed with television and convenience. Garfield is a unapolagetic cynic and is often quite moody. He hates Mondays and loves sleeping. The closest he ever gets to nature is occasionally catching a few birds from his yard.
When it comes to technology, Garfield is in love. He's the type who'd buy an iPhone and a high-definition TV set, plus buy everything online. He loves and embraces every new advancement.
Hobbes however, doesn't even think about technology. He wants to jump in a puddle, climb a tree, curl up in front of a fireplace. He's simple minded and easily entertained.
Hobbes is a representation of all those things we miss: childhood, nature, innocence. Garfield however, shines a humorous mirror on current life. And although I'd love to be a Hobbes, I think most of us are guilty of being Garfields. Which one are you?
<3
This was just too good to pass up. What you're seeing is an art piece which recreates the monolith from 2001 with a gigantic sculpted rendition of the movie's VHS (remember those?)The artist, David Herbert, unfortunately didn't have any kind of comment or explanation to accompany this on his website.
This piece screams 'technology'! It appears and changes the world! The use of a very outdated technology gives it a deeper affect, making us tilt our heads and really think. I'd go more into it, but honestly, I'm no art critic and feel out of my element making any comments.
I just thought that this was an amazing image for this class. I think it could be our icon. It's got Digital Age written all over it.
Hungry yet? According to Time Magazine, you probably should be. In a photo essay about what makes us eat more, sight is listed as one of the biggest triggers. Just seeing a certain food you like can set off your hunger. And this can be pretty handy for advertisers, or even the companies with food on the grocery store shelves. You weren't really hungry before, but when you saw that hot dog... you've just gotta eat.
What has become of our eating habits in the digital age? Although trends like diet foods and organics have become popular, the old archetypal junk foods just won't die. Our classic drug of caffeine is gaining even more popularity, childhood obesity is skyrocketing, and we're all in a sugar-coated downward spiral. So here are some fun, sometimes frightening facts and statistics about our Digital Age Diet:
And these are just a handful of the facts I found. They all led to more consumption, higher rate of obesity, more money on fancy weight-loss programs... a vicious cycle. More of an emphasis has been put on health, but when will we start following it? Will obesity rates ever start declining, or will our waist sizes increase even more in the years to come?
Coming soon: hopefully some more cool statistics (the internet kept giving me error messages, delaying my research), and some relations with food + technology.
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