Twine and Bklyn Trash King became my first foray into interactive and hypertext fiction.  Like Kathryn, I had heard of Patchwork Girl, but have not read it.  However, I did hear about it’s quirks and kinks since it is a CD-rom.  Needless to say, I had higher hopes with the stories on Twine since it is internet-based.

I initially set out to read Hunt for the Gay Planet, but just a few sentences told me it wasn’t my kind of story, so it was onto Bklyn Trash King.  At first, I thought something was wrong with my version, or this was just a VERY short story, when I kept hitting the “refresh page” link and got the same page of text over and over again.  Clearly, creator Ben Esposito knows it is easy to trigger the average computer user’s frustration, because I was willing to keep clicking this link until something happened.  And it did.  I was rewarded for my need to make the link work via incessant clicking and taken to the next page of the story.  I had to chuckle at Esposito’s cleverness at having the same page appear for both the narrator and the reader, thereby effectively putting the reader in the role of second person narrator.

What worked well was the continued use of tricks like this.  Esposito included links to outside sources/websites to further place us in his story and give it some validity.  One was a genuine news story about raccoons becoming pests in Brooklyn–the plot of Bklyn Trash King–which acted as a rather long footnote.  I actually took the time to make sure the article wasn’t just Esposito going the extra mile and making a mock news story.

Using the tried and true method of the choose-your-own-adventure tale, Esposito nearly lost me, but alas, it was another of his tricks.  For the first few “pages,” no matter which link I clicked, at the end I was rerouted back to the initial page where you were given options.  I then had no choice but to click the additional options.  Finally, I was taken back to a page where a third option that wasn’t there before has appeared.  Curiosity piqued.

At this juncture, the story truly becomes choose-your-own-adventure.  You are no longer taken back to the starting point with two choices, but are taken along a new path.  Of course, I had to know what happened in the other story I did not choose, so I started from the beginning again.  And here I was disappointed.  It was like a rom-com where you find out Gwyneth Paltrow’s fate is to be with this ONE guy, no matter which course her life takes.  I would have preferred an original ending for each course Bklyn Trash King took.

I’m sure creating these stories takes a lot of time and effort, but a little more attention could have been paid to minor details like spelling and grammar.  Those things immediately take me right out of a story.  Also, the deal between the narrator–you–and the Raccoon King to kiss the butts of three raccoons, plus his, just for a retweet seemed quite juvenile.

Overall, I liked the way the story worked and am curious to read more of the stories on Twine.  I think it will definitely give me some ideas on how I want to pursue my own Twine story next week.

So, the title of this post is more for story clarification than actual advice, because I actually don’t know why the Twine story I read bears the title December 11, 2012, beyond perhaps the publication date(?). [SPOILER ALERT] The traumatic event in the story takes place in mid-summer, though the usage of a date as a story title (especially with the subtitle ‘Teddy’) did indicate an in memoriam work. When first approaching this story I glancingly assumed the importance of the date was historical – perhaps something to do with Pearl Harbor (yes, I know, that was December 6th… or 7th…). If I had known it was a story about cats, I definitely wouldn’t have read it, since neither I nor my family has ever owned a cat, and I don’t really care for them that much (the scratching, the snubbing, the hissing). However, in spite of this, I am glad that I was mildly tricked into reading this story, because it was abruptly emotional in a way that made me relate instantly to the author’s affection for his/her cat. Even with the clear foreshadowing, the very snapped-off way the death of Teddy is delivered to readers renders a clear picture of the disbelief one feels when they realize that they have truly seen someone/something alive for the last time, in a moment unrecognized for its significance. For me, that emotional impact was delivered after the news of Teddy’s death, in the lines:

By the time you fly home, Teddy has been euthanized and cremated. His remains are in a box in a drawer…you keep saying you’re going to bury him. You haven’t yet.

I know this has all been personal response so far, so I’m going to take a look at some of the technical aspects of the medium that I think worked to achieve this emotional effect on the reader (aka me). My first thought (and notation) while reading “December 11, 2012: Teddy” was that I liked the use of hypertext as a meta component to the story. I use parentheses and insertion dashes constantly in my informal writing, especially emails, and have to resist their overuse in blog posts (notice how I used a sly comma bracket for “especially emails” to avoid parentheses? oh, dang it). This incorporation of a meta component served to draw the reader closer to the emotional side of the story in moments (the incorporation of Teddy’s picture at the moment it would have the most emotional impact), while in others, paradoxically, the running commentary almost dulled the senses, as the monotony of normalcy is prone to do.

The stacking of the meta story at the bottom was… controversial for me. I jotted down “has linear component, but feels messy – why can’t there just be an inset pop-up that appears and disappears when you click the link?” as well as “really like that is doesn’t redirect,” like the tangential incorporations of the The Choose Your Own Adventure genre. CYOA never appealed to me as a child. I was always convinced that there was a ‘right’ narrative to the book, and so I read anxiously, marking my decisions with fingers tucked into different figurative crossroads, ready to backtrack at a moment’s notice. A little over-controlling, maybe, but my ‘right narrative’ theory seemed pretty valid when I ‘died’ in the course of reading… oh, wait, no I didn’t – let’s skip back to page 37 and choose “Follow man down the gangplank.”

In retrospect, though, the stacking of the “December 11, 2012″‘s details reflects the memories of the author, the compilation of moments that comprise the relationship between pet and pet owner, so I think maybe this stacking worked for this story. I was surprised by how short the story proper was – three short paragraphs that fit onto a single screen – yet the meta commentary took up a space over 5x greater. I’m pretty sure this was an intended point by the author. In a technical sense, I found that I tended to skim right over the titles given to each meta section (a sort of meta for the meta?) – maybe a two-step removal from the story was too much for my preferred reading concentration. Perhaps titling the sections with the word/phrase linking to that section would help the title disappear, yet retain its orientating function (as I perceived it).

Overall, I liked how this story was a hybrid of a fictive narrative and a blog post, in the sense that I was drawn into it emotionally and yet the entire story is, ostensibly, a public tribute to the author’s deceased cat. The same information could be shared by a FB status, “Teddy just died. I’ll miss that cat a lot,” but without the emotional impact felt when unraveling the story via Twine. That being said, I don’t think my Twine story for next week is likely to focus on the death of my hamster, Nibbles, however I might try my hand at incorporating the meta component that enriched this story so much – there are a lot of different directions one can take this.

The sum of my experience with hypertext prior to this class starts and ends with Shelley Jackson’s Patchwork Girl. The format of this work involves numerous nodes of text that you can click through at your own pace. Some of these nodes tend to follow a linear narrative, while others seem to bear little connection to the following and preceding nodes. It is nearly impossible (unless you have a lot of time on your hands) to read through each and every node on your first run-through. Nodes of text may repeat themselves, but this is almost never an indication that you are completely finished reading. It merely means that you must find a new starting point. All of the nodes were ultimately connected, telling fragments of the Patchwork Girl’s story. All led to the same “conclusion” (if you could call it that), though the means of getting there varies greatly for each new reader.

BKLYN Trash King was quite different from Jackson’s Patchwork Girl. The story played out like a choose-your-own-adventure game, though the choices were limited, and you were ultimately driven to virtually the same conclusion. At the start of this story, you are placed into the position of an individual engaged in attempting to fund a kickstarter project, which varies each time from ::: SmartJelly: A Wifi-Enabled LED Inside A Mason Jar ::: to ::: SteamCraft: The World’s First Steampunk M.M.O.R.P.G. ::: to ::: A DIY Tissue Box Ukulele Kit :::. However, the Wi-Fi cuts out, presumably because raccoons have been chewing through wires. Thus begins the adventure of finding the raccoon king in order to restore internet to your residence so you can continue to monitor your kickstarter project. While, as I said, there is a choose-your-own-adventure vibe, many of your choices are unimportant such as (“Look out the window” versus “Read the newspaper”). The only choice that really seems to matter is whether or not you will choose to strip down, tie raw meat to your body, and let raccoons eat the meat. You also have to choose whether or not to literally kiss the butts of said raccoons in order to get the BKLYN Trash King raccoon (who has an astonishing amount of followers on Twitter) to retweet your kickstarter project that seems doomed to fail. On my first play-through, I said “Hell no” to the repulsive demands of the raccoons, after which my character returned home to find the apartment wrecked. Following this, you quickly discover that the kickstarter project failed. I was confused, left wondering what was the point of it all. Wanting to see all of the options played out, I went through the story again and chose to do all of the repulsive tasks requested by the raccoons, which even having my character in the game do them was unsettling. Once I did this, I was asked whether or not I wanted to hang out with the raccoons (which led to my character drinking a lot of PBR and forgetting all about the kickstarter) or go home (which brought me to the same screens I received when I decided not to do any of the repulsive tasks set before me by the raccoons). In terms of the narrative, I was definitely confused as to the purpose of the story. As I said, the choices placed before me were relatively limited, and I found that I wasn’t rewarded for choosing one way or another. I suppose the internet is turned back on–though this seems to be the case in two of the three scenarios (refusing the tasks and performing the tasks but going home) since your character watches the project fail and the third indicates that nothing matters except PBR. The linearity imposed by the limited choices and conclusions offered by the author made me think that there must be a lesson to be learned from this story, but I was definitely unsure as to what the overarching point behind the story was.

One of the things that I found particularly interesting about this piece of interactive fiction and that helped me to interpret this work was the inclusion of external links (extra points for the inclusion of an external link to a video of an adorable slow loris eating a rice ball). At one point, you are led to a newspaper article about a real raccoon problem in Brooklyn. People seemed to be at their wits end trying to cage these witty creatures and relocate them elsewhere. So, the interactive fiction has a real-life story at its foundation, making the trip to see the raccoon king come across as a fictional solution (however ridiculous) to the problem facing the citizens of Brooklyn. Later, (if you click on the appropriate links) you are led to a TED talk by Seth Godin discussing “tribes” and the need for the average individual to invoke our shared cultural values and take charge in leading others toward change for the betterment of our communities. This shed a bit more light on this strange tale, because, while the methods utilized by your character are odd to say the least, at its heart this interactive tale relates a story about an individual trying to make a change in the community (by turning the internet back on), though as I said, I am unsure how much your actions, in terms of deciding whether or not to perform the tasks set before you by the raccoons, influence the return of the internet. However, your character does at least show some initiative in each scenario by going to see the raccoon king. Perhaps this is why the kickstarter project is doomed to fail in each scenario–because that’s not what really matters. As odd as it may be, perhaps by taking a water taxi to raccoon island, your character really did make a difference.

I was not impressed by howling dogs at first.  The mental hospital feel of the first rooms was oppressive and yet not engaging, more off-putting than anything else.  The sort of monotony of the initial world lends itself better to a novel, I feel.  Even in the most dull of novels, one is spatially aware that there is an end to the tale and that one is moving closer to it.  In howling dogs, however, this awareness is not permitted and that I found to be one of the greatest flaws with the story and quite distracting.

I am not, by nature, an impatient reader, yet there were several times at the start of howling dogs that I had all but determined to close the window and choose a new twine creation.  Nothing seemed to be happening, each return to the little room forced the same routine–eat, drink, bathe, clean-up, occasionally glance at the picture, and return the the activity room.

Further, the initial jaunts in the activity room were not captivating enough to truly hold my attention.  I hated the feeling of not actually getting anywhere or learning anything.  For all I knew, the game could go on for days like this with hundreds of possible visions possible.  Other than slight changes, there was little to suggest that you weren’t simply back at the start each time one returned to “reality.”  Even these slight changes could have been produced with a code that randomly selected from a few different results on each reload of the starting rooms.

When the trash disposal finally broke I had all but given up hope of being able to actually “finish” the game.  I’m not entirely sure why finishing was suddenly of such importance for me, but in this story it very much was.  I wanted something to happen–perhaps find a means of escape from the rooms that didn’t involve being drugged? I admit, I spent far too long hoping I could jump or wriggle my way down the trash chute, if just for a change of scenery.  In the end, the trash disposal breaking was enough to suggest there was an end in sight.

And so, while I was terribly bored at first, I’m glad I stuck it out, for it was an interesting story.  I feel the start could have been far better.  Some indication sooner that one wasn’t in a continual loop of visions would have been appreciated, and yet, having finished it, I do appreciate that the monotony was done with a purpose and set a tone.  I was truly impressed with the blurred lettering on some of the pages–particularly the ones that blurred as you moved your mouse. There was something both illusive and compelling in that effect that seemed to me to capture the essence of the text.

Further, the later visions were fascinating–particular the one concerning the empress, the ambassador, and dreams.  Once the visions became as fully fleshed out as those–the turning point for me being when the murder occurs–I felt myself being drawn forward by curiosity and my early frustrations forgotten.  However, as a lesson to take away from this experience, I would suggest that one either keep the momentum going from the start or give the reader something more compelling than trees and sunlight and sleep to tantalize and encourage them.  I would like to experiment in creating a twine tale like howling dogs which does not so much offer choices as it does encourage you to select the word one is most drawn to in a text.  While one seemed to inhabit the main character’s mind, it still felt more like a text than a game–you simply followed the words that most compelled you to their conclusion.

P.S. Was anyone else who read this particular tale caught off guard by the realization (for me, during the murder) that the main character is a woman?

My spring break was uneventful, as I ended up spending most of my time in a place where I spend the majority of my time when school is in session: the English Undergraduate  Office.

I’ve worked as an undergraduate advisor for English majors since the beginning of my first year at UMD, so the space is familiar to me, and the many other advisors whose offices are housed there. These offices are bit nicer than your typical graduate student offices; they come complete with windows, bookshelves, a desktop like any good office should, but most importantly, they are personal, not shared. This allows for every advisor the chance to characterize their space in a way TAs can only dream of.

For example:

Chateau de Nigel

Or for a different perspective, my colleague Michelle’s (English PhD candidate) office is decidedly better lit and more colorful:

However, as GAs in an office, we are prohibited from doing too much personalizing, especially if that involves paint, glue, hammers, and furniture. The only representation of much physical change that has occurred to this office is a lone hook for hanging pictures. Oh, and Charity’s owl streamer. Thus, much of the way that the spaces change are impermanent. Posters, marker boards, tchotchkes, and books. Lots of books:

Michelle’s bookcase

It is of course natural that books would be plentiful in the offices of English graduate students, but some of the books I have amassed have a sort of lineage to them. When one of my former coworkers decided to leave the advising office and leave graduate school, the books she had stored in her office were moved to mine, bequeathed to me since she figured I could use a set of Henry James novels and early American texts (she was an Americanist).

The strange thing about these books is that I have never actually used them. They have never left the office, and while I suppose I am happy to have them, they have a fine layer dust from never being touched. They are more remnants than books at this point. More of a remnant however, is a copy of Coetzee’s Diary of a Bad Year that was in the office when I moved in. This book belonged to another coworker who graduated from the MFA program last year, and who inhabited the office before I did in July. Apparently, this particularly book was either forgotten or left for me, but rested on the bookshelf of my office for a year before it was mine, and so it remains there.

As objects, these books represent something about who placed them there. For the set I inherited, they were books important at one time for a dissertation project or for teaching, and for the Coetzee, it might have been assigned for a class, or inspiration for the thesis. I primarily have inferences based on the person who owned them and why I got them, but at least for this period in their existence, the books have been relegated to their lot on the shelf of an office as immovable fixtures as desk it sometimes seems (yes, I suppose I could read them for once).

This place is interesting to me not just because it is my office, but because it is heavily trafficked. During registration time, every English major is required to pass through this office and speak with an advisor. Thus, the way our offices are organized and arranged is affected by this. For example, my tradition for undergraduates is filling in a marker board comic every semester with a little English major humor. The kids love it, I assure you. The expected traffic, however, means that these offices occupy what seems to be a liminal space between a private place and a public one. It should be inviting, but also is locked when I’m away, only accessible via appointment, and a quiet space on weekends for serious academic work. But the anticipation of what undergraduates will think certainly plays a role in setting the mood for the space (and validates the importance of well-stocked, if not ignored bookshelf).

For my QR code, finding a place to put it was easy, but to make it a bit more public than the one sitting above my desk I decided to place it conspicuously on my door: If it should be seen and provoke curiosity, then the door of my office is a perfect place. That is after all the reason everyone tapes posters to their doors, is it not? And with a portion of approximately 700 undergraduates coming through this door, I can ensure its visibility.

This is Books for America.

Did you know this bookstore? Do you live in Washington, DC or in the “area” and do you love books? Come in. You should know this place.

I spent hours and hours here at this little used books store, any day of the week, any season (I came here even during snowstorms). I always think that I will find that book that was waiting for me… and I leave the store with three, four or seven books each time.

To me, this is one of the most interesting spots I know in DC. It is where I feel really happy in this foreign city. I arrived in town around four years ago. Now, I’m leaving. Coming back to SouthAmerica. I am one more of the visitors in this city of people in transit, students, politicians, diplomats. People I have never met but that I constantly see in the street –I always wonder who are the Washingtonians, what they do, how they live.

For many people, Washington is a dull city, a town with gigantic monuments, public buildings, embassies. But despite the monumentality of its buildings and its symbolic weight for Americans, its true attractions are small: Washington is a city of details (for who is interested in a city rather than a mall).

When I arrived I found a very short city and sky everywhere. I felt that Washington was not a welcoming city, with its avenues like horizons. I felt that it was a city still to be constructed, with its sad frontiers melting with the suburbs and the country. What I realized time after that it was that Washington is not a city to be constructed, but a city to be unfolded. You get to know it little by little. One friend of mine that had lived here told my husband and me when we arrived: “What I miss the most from Washington is ‘Books for America’”. So there we went to see. And it was a wonderful surprise to find an old books store with such a good energy, with a first classselection of books, and so cheap! It had so many titles, so interesting… As Borges said, “I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.” We felt impressed by this little bookstore.

To tell you more about the place, Books for America is not just a used book store but a non profit organization that aims to improve libraries in schools, shelters and prisons, support reading and education programs and provide children with first take-home books. It was created in October 2005 to “have a positive effect on literacy and educational in the Washington area”, as they state in their webpage, where they also say: “Beyond literacy, we seek to place books in the hands of anyone who wants to read and learn.  Books can be tools that help individuals rise up out of unfortunate circumstances” and “since our entire mission is to get books into people’s hands, you get fantastic books at ridiculously low prices!”

Josh is now a librarian at University of Maryland!

They ask for books, CDs, DVDs and other items, many of them they sell it at the bookstore and others they give them to needy institutions. They select the books people donate: all of the books on sale are books in very good/excellent conditions; most of them are almost new. The money they make with the sell of books they use it to expand their supportive educational programs. All the staff is volunteer. I am so happy to have met Josh and Kate, very interesting and always good-humored people. I learned about America through this non-profit organization: how a community can organize itself to help others.

I also created an American literature section in my bookcase, but also I bought books about design, architecture and new media. And also, I learned about Washingtonians themselves. Studying the bookstore catalogue is possible to read Washingtonians through what they read. I found a highly educated and diverse community, interested in art, philosophy, history, and politics, (of course!) but also, and especially, in literature. It is noticeable as well the fast this community changes, with people coming and going back home, packing and unpacking libraries, donating their books and buying others. (I myself donated many Portuguese and Spanish language books!)

Now I am leaving DC. I have already packed my library (once again) and my entire house is now in a container heading South America carrying boxes and boxes full of the books I bought here (In total we bought around 400 books) and I will read for the next years far away from this beautiful city.

Washington has a lot of hidden places. You have to be especially alert in DC to really get to know this city. Walk all its streets; step in every restaurant, every café, every bookstore (it is not overwhelming… they are not a lot!) You have to walk the city, find an interesting book in Politics and Prose or come to Books for America when in Dupont Circle. But also go out in the hottest days in summer, go to Dolcezza for an ice cream (they are Argentinians!) walk on the fallen leaves during October in the narrow streets that lead you to the Philips Collection, see snowing through the window of a café in Upper Georgetown. They are not big places; none of them are monumental. They are just special. This week, go to the Tidal Basin to see the cherry blossom, but look for some small charm in DC, some small place for happiness, as this bookstore is for me.

This is my QR Code.

Over spring break, I visited a friend in Boston and we spent a day in Concord, MA, visiting the homes of our favorite 19th century writers. Though apparently tourist season doesn’t begin until mid-April and none of the homes were open to visitors yet, it was still surreal to walk around Concord and imagine the lives that had been led there. I obviously considered sticking QR codes all over the place, but ultimately decided I didn’t feel right leaving my mark–maybe something about preserving my idyllic view of the past? Despite the fact that I traversed Walden Pond with iPhone in hand and Instagrammed up a storm (which is to say, I very much remained in the 21st century) it just seemed like these spots didn’t deserve the blemish of my sticker and accompanying blog post. But I digress, and will share my photos anyway:

At Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Concord home

The Old Manse

Ralph Waldo Emerson’s grave marker (accompanied by his wife and daughter)

Stones marking the site of Thoreau’s cabin in the woods

and a gratuitous scenery shot, since Walden Pond was pretty unbelievable–

At any rate, it was a lovely trip back in time. I also came across this advertisement while walking around downtown Boston–

A perfect example of a QR code used in advertising! A new apartment complex was clearly being built and scanning the QR code takes you to the building’s site. The slogan there, slightly obscured by a pole (I haven’t quite mastered the surreptitious picture-taking-while-walking move yet) says, “If you scan it, it will build.” I can’t decide if it’s clever or not.

But on to the actual assignment!

I live in The Chateau Apartments at New Hampshire and the beltway, and the spot I chose to mark is the entryway sign, which welcomes me home every day. It is always a welcome sight, especially because the sign is usually adorned with colorful balloons (though not today when I took my picture, of course) and I weirdly think it’s super endearing.

Obviously moving out to Maryland from St. Louis for my first year of graduate school was a big transition, and I had to find a place to live in 36 hours. The concept of “home” means a lot to me, so I’m thankful to have found a place (with such a glamorous name!) to hang my hat. This picture I took coincidentally matches the “Street View” of The Chateau Google Maps provides (linked above) and clearly marks the apartment complex.

I took this picture while driving, hence the crookedness.

When I got home from spring break yesterday afternoon, I had major car debacles and delayed flights to deal with, so driving up the hill to The Chateau sign was particularly comforting. It’s no Old Manse, but it’s still all mine!

To again reference my extreme Instagram usage, I’ll also note that I almost always add my location to my photos and thus, “The Chateau Apartments” are clearly marked and represented in the digital archive of my life. Instagram recently came out with a “Photo Map” feature which visually shows you where you most often take photos. The further you zoom in, the more specific the locations get. So, for instance, I’ve taken 194 photos in Silver Spring, and 148 of those were at–you guessed it–The Chateau Apartments. It’s interesting to consider geographically (and quite quantitatively) where we spend our time, and which spaces in our lives we prioritize over others.

I’ve made my QR code and allowing that I can find a functioning printer in Tawes, will adhere it to the sign tonight, pictures forthcoming. I wonder if anyone will actually walk close enough to the sign to ever notice it? (The sign is the in the middle of the traffic circle entryway).

Update: I’ve affixed my QR code with copious amounts of tape to the back of my Chateau sign (for the sake of subtlety). Here’s hoping someone notices!