February 21, 2009

On To Success: Three Tips for SHU Graphic Design Students

I had the honor of being invited to participate in Seton Hill University's "This Way Up... and On to Success" alumni networking event this past week. The event allowed students of varying areas of study to sit down with some alumni and network. I met with a great group of graphic design and art students.

Now, in case you weren't able to actually make the event--say you really needed to watch the Penguins game, or were just too entranced with Guitar Hero to drag yourself to the Greensburg Room--I thought it would be cool to offer up three of the tips I gave the students who were at my table:

1. Make the most of your senior art show in Harlan Gallery. My biggest piece of advice to everyone was to treat your senior show as more than just a requirement for graduation. This may be the only time (hopefully not) that your stuff will hang in a formal gallery, and you should do your very best to present it well. Beyond that, if you have an idea of where you would eventually like to work, be it at a small design house or a larger marketing firm in the area, it certainly doesn't hurt to invite people from the industry to your show. If you can get local art directors, designers, or creative professionals at your show, and you make a great impression on them with your work and your personal skills, you have essentially stuck your foot in some very valuable doors. Getting a possible employer to check out your art show has the possibility of being more important than just a normal job interview. Additionally, don't be afraid to tailor your show to a specific theme, or even make additional design pieces just for your show (I know, that's asking a lot... but it'll be worth it).

2. Create a strong portfolio now, while you have the time. It's very easy to think of your portfolio and resume as just something you need to do to pass the core curriculum and graduate. The thing is, when you actually do graduate, you're going to need the best portfolio possible to get a job. Do as much of it as you can while you're in school, while you have the free time and resources to really make it representative of your skills. When you're out of school, suddenly you'll find that updating your portfolio is a chore, it's tedious, and it's filled with uncertainty. As designers, it's important to always have an up-to-date portfolio, but it's certainly easier to freshen up something that has a very strong foundation. Going along with this idea, show your portfolio to as many folks as possible--especially people in the design field. Get advice about the order of the work, and weed out any weak projects (especially stuff that screams "assignment.")

3. Don't be afraid of web design. When I was a design student at SHU, Flash animation was only taught as a small portion of two of my classes. From what I was told at the dinner, SHU offers a full Flash course now. Take it if you have the option to. My senior year, I created an independent study to further my knowledge in Flash, and I'm really glad that I did (right now about 25% of the work I do is in Flash). With the rising cost of paper, printing, and mailing, companies are finding that direct mail and other forms of print advertising aren't necessarily cost effective. That stuff will always be around, but more and more folks are moving towards the web. Online advertising can be cheaper, more targeted, and can produce measurable, tangible results. As such, it's a great boon to be a designer with even a slight knowledge of web design. Don't pigeon-hole your skills in print. I love print design more than any other kind, but I'm not afraid to learn Flash and web design. If you are able to offer a potential employer a well-rounded skill set, they are more apt to hire you (and in turn, make more money from their clients because of the services you can provide).

We talked at great length about a slew of other topics at the event, but I found these three to be the most important. This was a great event for students, and there were plenty of alums there to offer up incredibly helpful advice. If you didn't make it this year, make sure you do next time. It just might help you land a job.

Posted by MikeRubino at 12:45 PM | Comments (2)

May 13, 2007

On Graduation

The past two days have whizzed by in a flurry of caps, gowns, tassels, hoods, and camera flashes. I'm not quite sure if I've comprehended the fact that I won't be going back to school next August. Or maybe I have and my unending optimism has reassured me that, somehow, everything is going to be the same as it ever was. Either way, the past two days succeeding in putting my entire Seton Hill career into focus. It reminded me of what I, and my classmates, have accomplished during our four years here, and it has also reminded me why I shall miss Seton Hill so much.

Any negativity seemed to vanish Friday (not that there was much to begin with) as I connected with various faculty and friends at the division parties. I'm not sure if they have division parties at every school, but if they do I can't imagine them being as accessible as the ones at SHU. It was nice being able to walk into any party and know that I will see friendly faces.

I was honored by how many people complimented me on my work for the Setonian. I had always known that folks liked my cartoons, mainly because people would approach me in the dining hall to tell me so, but the amount of feedback I received over the past two days has been unbelievable. I had staff members from Financial Aid coming up to me after mass, telling me about how they loved the "tuition czar" idea, professors that I had never met before told me that they would miss my columns, and I was even mentioned in Monsignor Rubino's homily at the baccalaureate mass. I was truly honored by everyone's kind words.

The graduation ceremony on Saturday was wonderful. Rick Sebeck gave a great commencement speech dispensing some valuable advice to the class of '07--like "always order the special" at a restaurant. He kept saying how nervous he was, but really if he hadn't said it you wouldn't have known.

I can't help but feel like I had the best seat in the house that day. Because all of the graduates were arranged by their degrees (with Bachelors of Arts first), the Fine Arts kids were second in line; therefore, I was able to see all of my beloved friends at Seton Hill sitting in various rows in front of me. By some stroke of luck, I could see the majority of my closes friends, and it just seemed too perfect. I wasn't going to woot or yell when they were called on stage, but I certainly clapped as hard as I could.

The reception after graduation seemed very much like the ending of the film "Big Fish." After going through the receiving line, I emerged on Sullivan Lawn to find that people I have known throughout the past four years were there, waiting for me. I saw staff members and faculty, family, friends, and even alumnae that I hadn't seen in years. I always feel that I need to say something profoundly sentimental at these sorts of moments. Phrases that are supposed to somehow encapsulate the entire time that I have known someone... but I just can't do it. Instead I just joke around, laugh, perhaps give a hug, and say "See you around!" or "Have a good one!" I don't like saying anything that might infer that I'll never see someone again.

Now, I look forward to the summer... to finding a job, getting settled in, and having a little fun. I'm still going to be blogging here--I would really be disappointed in myself if I gave that up. I wish the rest of my graduating class the best of luck in whatever it is that they have planned for themselves. And I hope that my friends who are still attending SHU have a graduation as nice as the one I had.

Posted by MikeRubino at 11:37 AM | Comments (0)

May 3, 2007

I Apologize, But...

I knew this day would come: my last issue of the Setonian. My last chance to make a statement in the campus newspaper; my last chance to inspire change or challenge folks to think; my last chance to make someone angry. It seems like just last week when I was slipping my first comic under the doors of the third floor Maura Publications Office. But now it’s time for me to put on that cap and gown and schlep my way down the aisle.

Before I do, I feel as if I should apologize, specifically to the fine people of First Admin. The employees of the Student Accounts, Financial Aid, Registrar, and Admissions offices have been under a barrage of editorial attacks for the three years that I’ve been writing this column—even longer if you count my cartoons. Sure I’ve chided other areas of campus life, like the Cove, Residence Life, and the Athletic Department, but none have taken a beating like the folks on the first floor of the Administration Building.

I’m not apologizing to these hard-working and friendly staffers because they control my final transcripts—although it would be great if they would let me graduate. I’m apologizing to them because they are merely messengers getting ripped apart because of policies put in place at this school which clearly make no sense. The folks that work in these offices are just trying to help us out as best they can. It’s not their fault that Financial Aid and Student Accounts have totally separate records. It wasn’t their decision to screw up work-study hours because of the minimum wage increase. Yet these folks get the brunt of the complaints. These lucky people get to hear parents screaming at them on the phone from nine to five every day.

I have consistently written about one major issue going on within this university (and no, I’m not talking about the dining hall coffee, although it hasn’t gotten any better in the past three years). Seton Hill University suffers from a stifling level of bureaucracy that, at times, seems to slow this place down to a grinding halt. I remember when they used to shut students’ meal plans off the second their account info didn’t line up. There were would long, Soviet-style breadlines down the hall of First Admin. Then there’s the lack of communication between offices right across from each other. Financial Aid gives me one quote for tuition, Student Accounts gives me another. And the sheer amount of signatures one needs to register for an independent study is simply preposterous. Things clearly need to change. There needs to be communication between offices, shared financial records, a tuition czar, and reduced red tape for adds, drops, and independent studies. Some better coffee wouldn’t hurt either.

After graduation, I will be looking back at Seton Hill with only the fondest of memories. I never would have dreamed that this institution would have provided me with such an outstanding education and a chance to grow personally (although I’m still 5’6). It reassured me that the Catholic education system is one of the best in the nation. I am so thankful that I chose Seton Hill, and even more grateful that it welcomed me with open arms.

I may have been hard on Seton while I was here, but I think she needed to hear it. Whether or not this school changes is up to the underclassmen, who will have to cope with many of the issues I’ve just mentioned. The phrase “Hazard Yet Forward” may seem overused at this school, but it has never been more apt.

Thank you for reading.

[This article was originally printed in the Setonian on May 3rd, 2007. Writing this article was a challenge for me. There were so many ideas I had in mind for my final column at Seton Hill, and yet an apology to the staff seemed most appropriate. This isn't my last blog entry--far from it--but just something that I felt belonged on the blog.]

Posted by MikeRubino at 1:59 PM | Comments (0)

April 14, 2007

Stages: Politics, Theater, Design.

This Friday, April 20th, is the opening of my senior solo art exhibit at Harlan Gallery at Seton Hill. Each art student has to hold a senior art show, and I was lucky enough to be granted my own solo exhibit in the back gallery.

The title of my show is "Stages: Politics, Theater, Design." and will feature a design work that I have done in the realm of theatrical promotion (ie "Dodge Intrepid' materials, Cellar Dweller show posters, and video production) alongside political campaign work. My hope is that people will examine the principles and techniques I use in both of these fields in order to draw the two together. This isn't a show attacking politics, or aiming for controversy, but rather one that will hopefully show people that the political campaigns have the same sorts of storylines, characters and performances as theater.

The main example of this within the show will be the exhibition of the work done in my Political Campaign Design independent study. I have created the two candidates, their characters and their stories, and set them against one another. At the show, there will not only be their logos and campaign stickers, but also direct mail pieces that present a clear look into each candidate. I will also be showing an attack commercial between the two candidates (because attack ads are always more fun).

I have alot of work to do this week in order to prepare for this show. Since the date I was assigned for my show comes sort of at the 2/3 mark of my independent studies, some of the materials have to be created just for the show. I'm excited to be showing this stuff off, and I can't wait to breathe that sigh of relief come Friday evening when it's all set up and ready to go.

The opening reception for "Stages" is Friday, April 20th from 7-9PM. The show itself will be running through Monday, April 23rd.

Posted by MikeRubino at 8:45 PM | Comments (0)

March 30, 2007

"A Sea of C's" or "What I learned in New York"

New York City is laid out in a grid system. While this can make navigation and driving an easy task, it can also be extremely disorienting. This is one of the many things I learned on my recent trip to New York. As I previously, and briefly, posted, I attended the Conference for Collegiate Composition and Communication Convention (also known as anywhere between 4-28 C's).

Like I said, I learned a lot while in New York, and not just about composition and rhetoric. I also learned all about navigating a sprawling city, traveling via train, and other helpful things to keep in mind next time you plan to visit the Big Apple.

Lesson One: If you're not in a rush, take a train.
Before this trip, I had never ridden on a train before. I have watched movies that take place on a train, played the train level in GoldenEye 64 hundreds of times, and even wrote radio shows about trains... but never before had I experienced the thrill of sitting still for 9 hours.

I won't repeat what I said in a previous entry about train travel, but I will say that it's worth trying; at least if you're not in a hurry. It was nice to be able to sit back and read over 100 pages of a novel in one sitting (I'm currently working through the fantastic "World War Z" by Max Brooks). I was also able to play my DS, work on some things on my computer, and mess around with some crossword puzzles. But, if you live closer to an airport, especially one that is flying Jet Blue, you can get a plane ticket to New York for about the same price. Sure there is the added stress of an airport, but you'll get there a heck of a lot faster.

Lesson Two: Jon Stuart is the only type of parody.. I guess
The first panel I sat in on was about the study of parody as a proper form of writing. There was some stuff thrown in there about the various forms of rhetorical pedagogy, but really, the whole thing was about parody. I was rather let down by the panel when I saw that the only thing people really talked about was how great Jon Stuart was. He was proclaimed to be a genius while being one of the only stars of parody they mentioned.

The majority of the panel, along with the rest of the attendees in the room, were so enamoured with Stuart, that they failed to really discuss more than him. Slowly the entire discussion dipped into this sort of Bush-bashing Gospel service (maybe I'm exaggerating a bit... but still, it was silly). Meanwhile, I couldn't help but think to myself "What about 'The Onion?'" or the scads of other parody publications out there. Heck, for the sake of balance, why not talk about "The Half Hour News Hour" on FOX?

The lowest point in the panel was when someone in the audience made the claim that because Dennis Miller tells intelligent jokes, he should be telling liberal jokes--because clearly, liberals are high-brow academics. Everyone on the panel gave up this weird groan of approval, and I just rolled my eyes.

Lesson Three: Wear ear buds all of the time
The first thing I noticed about New York (which unfortunately lead me to an initial negative reaction) was the amount of people trying to talk to you. You can't walk down Time Square without someone coming up to you and telling you about some comedy show--because apparently they happen 24 hours a day. We also couldn't eat in a McDonalds without getting approached by someone asking for change.

At first I was shocked how anyone could live like this. How could anyone put up with being talked to by someone on every block? There are a lot of blocks in downtown New York! But then it hit me... they wear earbuds. I had the chance to spend a fair amount of time walking around New York, and the one thing that I noticed was that a ton of people wore earbuds. After all, they were talking about banning iPods on the streets of New York. Now I see that lawmakers don't understand why people wear the iPods in the first place! It's not so listen to kickin' jams (although that is a great side-effect), it's so that you can pretend to not hear people talking to you.

By the third day in to the trip, I was considering just putting in my earbuds and walking around. Not necessarily plugging them in to anything, but just having them on so that I could ignore the next guy trying to hand me free tickets to something.

Lesson Four: Grab Swag
As my adventures to C-PAC have taught me, it's all about the swag. Whether it's something as simple as a keychain or as grand as a bobblehead, it is your job to take it. The conference tells you that it's your job by giving you a tote bag. You would be doing a disservice to the conference and to the tote bag if you didn't grab all the swag you can.

4C's was no different. Their exhibit hall was a little smaller than C-PAC's, but it was filled with quality booths: book publishers. The publishers at the conference ran the gamut from small academic publishers to big time book sellers like Harper Collins and Penguin. When I first got there, I made the rounds, found a few cool freebies and signed up on some newsletter lists. I was most excited to see the Ayn Rand Foundation there (they were also at C-PAC). For a foundation that publishes a book called "The Virtue of Selfishness" they sure are willing to give stuff away! I got both "Atlas Shrugged" and "The Anthem," thanks to Karissa, along with a giant poster of Atlas. Totally awesome!

But the real prizes came on the last day of the conference. The exhibit hall closed at 2:00pm, and as noon rolled around, publishers were looking around at all the books they still had left. So they started slashing prices, or in some cases just giving them away! I instantly got in line at Harper Collins, who were giving away three free books per person. I was able to nab a Post Secret book, "To Kill a Mockingbird," and" Understanding Comics." Folks like Wesbter's were just giving away dictionaries, so I made sure to grab their "Crossword Puzzle Dictionary."

My colleagues on the trip made sure to get some sweet books as well... and when it was all said and done, we each had an extra bag to carry home.

Posted by MikeRubino at 12:52 PM | Comments (0)

March 23, 2007

Made on a Mac

I am blogging right now from the Apple Store in downtown New York... it's a glorious moment.

Thanks to this MacBook Pro and Photobooth, I'm blogging proof (see above).

Posted by MikeRubino at 11:53 PM | Comments (0)

Trainsitting

This Friday, I, along with two colleagues and a professor, will be presenting at the Collegiate Composition and Communication Conference in New York City. You could think of it as one of the largest gatherings of English and composition professors in the country--you could also think of it as a great reason to travel to New York.

We decided to travel to NY via train, probably because it opened up the possibility of partaking in an "Agatha Christie" mystery during our 9-hour trek. This is the first time I have ever ridden on a train, and thus far (since I'm writing this while still riding on the train) it's been a pleasurable experience. In fact, if it didn't take noticeably longer to travel by train, I might recommend that you do it more often.

You have alot more room on a train than you do on a bus or a plane, in fact my first thought when getting aboard was that we have too much room. The seats are a combination between a normal air plane seat and a barber's chair. There are all sorts of pedals and levers, and even an arcade joystick, that adjust all of the various ways to relax.

There's a tray that can slide forward, so that you can use a computer or put together a relatively small jigsaw puzzle. Below the tray is a foot rest that plops down after stepping on a small pedal beside it. The chair itself can recline backwards with the push of a thick button (it's really almost too big for me to consider it a button, but we'll go with button). Then there is this bright blue leg-lifter under the seat, which I believe is operated by the joystick (however my joystick is broken, so I can't know for sure...) The only thing missing in these chairs is the ability to spin, which would make this less like a train and more like one of those Chevy Gladiator vans.

[This entry was written on Wednesday, Mar 21 at 11:00am... on a train.]

Posted by MikeRubino at 10:03 AM | Comments (0)

February 15, 2007

Marshall vs Brown: My Senate Race

My indy study about political campaign advertising is really starting to move now that I have finally settled on the two candidate's names and their campaign logos. Now that their design style has been established, I can focus on finding people to play the characters, and start work on their expanded design pieces (mainly direct mail literature).

My two candidates are James Marshall and Ray Brown. I went with these names for a number of reasons; the main one being their varying lengths. One of the challenges of campaign advertising is making sure whatever the candidate's name is, it's clear and legible in any circumstance. While people in the entertainment industry can change their name if they happen to get stuck with a weird one, people in politics can't. That's how we get such strange political figures as Sam Brownback, Barack Obama, and Dick Armey. You have to deal with these strange names and make them appealing, at least design-wise, to the voting public.

I chose James Marshall as my first candidate because his name fits the 'long-name' category. It has a few challenges to it from a design standpoint. It's length and also its number of taller letters, the M, H and double L's. I've been taught, and have observed, that names like this are best legible when designed with a serif font. The serifs on the ends of the letters allow you to distinguish them better. For my final design, I also went with Marshall's name in all-caps with a larger M in order to eliminate that sort of rollercoaster shape of the tall and short letters.

[I came up with the name "James Marshall" because, well, it's Harrison Ford's name as president in "Air Force One." I like to think of this made-up senate race as the precursor to him becoming president, even though I won't be using his picture as the candidate.]

For his opponent, I went with the name Ray Brown. It's a rather bland name, I know, but it's also short, and lends itself well to a little more creativity in the design. I'm looking at Marshall as the sort of traditional candidate; his logo is more reserved and formal. Brown's logo is thick and bold, and he's running on the name Ray, moreso than Brown. Sort of a throwback to Ike's presidential run. Some candidates can manage to pull this off, but most fail–one could argue it's because they have a bland first name... or a bland design.

For my research into the field of campaign name design, I found a wonderful website called 4President.org. The site has collected and scanned in campaign materials from every presidential campaign dating back to 1960. The best part about the site is that it doesn't just include the designs of the major candidates for each race, but also everyone who had entered the primary (which is really where you find the more unique and interesting designs). I went to this site for inspiration and to study the techniques... while granted, not every campaign has design theory behind their logos, the ones that do really shine.

[I think for a future blog entry, I will take the time to analyze the designs of the winners and losers of some of these races... because if you look back at some of the name designs over the years, it's clear that the better design has won. Coincidence? I don't think so.]

Now that my logos are finished, I am starting to find folks to be the candidates, and also thinking ahead to how their campaigns may be run from a design/message standpoint. I haven't yet decided if these two are both Republicans, running against each other in a primary, or if one is a Democrat. I don't necessarily think it matters too much for the purpose of my independent study, it would only really come into play when the mudslinging comes around after Spring Break (because doesn't all the mudslinging roll around after Spring Break?)

Posted by MikeRubino at 1:40 PM | Comments (0)

February 1, 2007

Catholic Social Teaching and Conservatism

Here at Seton Hill, there is a strong emphasis on the lessons of Catholic Social Teaching (CST). Being a Catholic, myself, these lessons are nothing new to me--I've been taught to abide by them since high school. Just looking at them, though, it's easy to assume that a good number of these lessons go against the modern perception of conservatism or Republicanism.

I was sitting in my Senior Sem. class this afternoon, participating in a great lecture about CST when I heard something that really made sense--something that I had never heard in all the years that I have learned about these lessons: in order to properly enforce the lessons of Catholic Social Teaching, the outcome of your actions has to be beneficial to all parties involved. I had never realized that there were two sides to the coin of CST, but it certainly makes sense.

How does this apply to conservatism? While I'm not going to dissect every lesson from a liberal and conservative viewpoint (although it is totally possible), I'll just point out a few things. CST is supposed to inspire reflection and thought about our actions and how we contribute to society, and so therefore I totally believe that we are able to approach every lesson conservatively or liberally (it all depends on our personal choices). Some of the issues just lend themselves to Republicanism, like the lesson of Respect for Human Life, while others appear to skew more liberally, like the Principle of Participation (which deals with the forming of unions).

Looking at a number of these, however, I can see conservative means to reach the desired ends that CST has in mind. Principle of Participation stresses respect for each worker and their right to a fair and decent wage. But it also stresses the right to "private property and to economic initiative" (Reflections 5). In other words, the company is also allowed to benefit, and needs to think of its workers as well as its economic bottom line.

The example in class was about a company moving its factory from America to Mexico because it didn't have to deal with American unions and high wages. While it's easy to say "well they're slighting the American workers and taking advantage of Mexicans by paying them less!" I saw it a bit differently: firstly, they are paying them less because the peso is worth less than the dollar. But remember, CST says that the decision needs to be good for everyone. By moving their factory to Mexico, the American company is helping out the Mexican economy and helping their bottom line. If they intend to do this, however, it would be wholesome of the company to provide severance pay to the laid off workers. And if the American unions were trying to strong-arm the business into paying unfairly high wages, they're no better than the company that fired everyone. There must be a give and take in order for CST to work properly, and I believe that it's highly possible for a company to do what's best for itself while also looking out for others.

The lesson of Preferential Protection for the Poor and Vulnerable also seems, at first glance, to be a justification for support of Johnson's "Great Society" and welfare programs. While yes, I wholly agree that we must take care of the poorest members of our society, that doesn't mean we should just hand everything to them. Remember that this needs to be good for all parties. It would be much more beneficial for the government, and its welfare programs, to teach the poor to raise themselves up; it's the whole "teach a man to fish" saying. Building up the urban slums into respectable, safe communities will help bring people out of poverty (not raising the minimum wage). How do you build up these communities? Why, through small business and entrepreneurialism! If you have small businesses that are well-managed and that employ locally, then it will encourage other businesses and chains to move in as well, and more money will stay in the neighborhood, etc. It's a cycle that can work if the government can step back and let capitalism do what it does best.

Speaking of which, there is one aspect of CST that is one of the main aspects of conservatism: Subsidiarity. In the handout I received in class, written by William J. Byron for America, the National Catholic Weekly, it describes Subsidiarity as follows:

The principle of subsidiarity puts a proper limit on government by insisting that no higher level of organization should perform any function that can be handled efficiently and effectively at a lower level of organization by human persons who, individually, or in groups, are closer to the problems and closer to the ground. Oppressive governments are always in violation of the principle of subsidiarity; overactive governments frequently violate this principle.

When it comes to governments, less is more and local is better. Conservatism subscribes to the idea that the government is part of the problem, not part of the solution. If individuals or private companies can handle things on their own, then they should, and that states should certainly be able to decide for themselves what is best for their people (within reason). Just look at two examples of what the federal government has done that could have been handled on a state or local level: raising the minimum wage (something our state did do on its own, and now the whole country may be facing the same thing) and allowing abortion (something that more conservative states have been trying to break free from for some time). Now, there are some issues that are being handled by the states, things like voting to allow/disallow gay marriage, property tax reform, etc. It's great that states are deciding these things on their own, and a while it's impossible to please everyone in this case, we as citizens have a louder say in legislative decisions when it's at the local and state level.

As I said, I can't go through every aspect of CST in a single blog entry... but it's something to think about. Each one of these lessons can be solved liberally or conservatively, and while the initial outcome might be similar, the long-term effects may differ.

Posted by MikeRubino at 7:36 PM | Comments (1)

January 23, 2007

Here I Go Again On My Own: The Planning of Two Independent Studies

This semester, I have the pleasure of creating two courses just for myself. I needed two art studio courses to finish off my requirements for the BFA in Graphic Design, but nothing at this stage really appealed to me. I did, however, desire more practice and experimentation in the field of Graphic Design--so I took matters into my own hands and designed two Independent Studies.

I highly recommend you try an "Indy Study" (as I like to call them) during your time in college. Sure you have to wade through a ton of paperwork and signatures to actually get them approved, but once you have you can rest knowing that you've created a course that you will actually appreciate. You must appreciate it, it is based off of your own ideas, your own need to explore a subject in greater detail. The fields of Art and English really lend themselves to the Indy Study, but I'm fairly sure that you could find something to study in any area. These courses do more than just teach you about a specific area of interest, they also teach you how to manage your time to meet goals.

So for my last semester, I created two fairly expansive Indy Studies. The first is called "Web Multimedia Integration" and the second is "Political Campaign Advertising."

Web Multimedia Integration is a fancy way for me to say "learn more about Dreamweaver and Flash." But I don't want to sell the study short, because while I will be using those two design programs pretty extensively, there is a little more (after all, it's called "multi-media" for a reason). I will also be doing a good deal of video editing in Apple iMovie. The school currently, as far as I have been told, doesn't have a registered version of Final Cut, so iMovie will have to do. Basically, I plan to design a fairly expansive website in Dreamweaver, with a lot of Flash elements weaved into the design. Then I will hopefully produce a full-length video project to boot, and feature a number of clips on this new website.

Not surprisingly, I plan to make the new website for my radio show. It's about time I give the show a proper website, instead of a Blogger page, and really dig into interactivity and information about the show. Hopefully the website will have features like an animated character bio page, a crazy adventure timeline, a podcast player, and eventually some video clips from our live performances. All the while I will be advancing my current understanding of Flash and Dreamweaver into a more professional realm.

The second study, Political Campaign Advertising, was inspired because of my recent internships and design work from the previous election. I believe there are theories and techniques to good political design that go beyond "red, white and blue" and "bald eagles." So I will be studying examples of previous campaigns, critiquing the designs of both winners and losers, on both the national and local levels. My primary text is a book called Packaging the President by Kathleen Jamieson. The book covers the political ad campaigns of every presidential campaign from Eisenhower to Clinton (the latest edition stops at the '92 election). I haven't had a chance to really jump into it yet, but the book seems to cover everything from polling to radio commercials and print advertising; it covers the messages sent by the candidates as well as they way they were perceived by the American public.

But instead of just re-designing some Bush/Cheney materials, I'm going to take things a little further. I will be creating two candidates from scratch (I haven't decided yet what office they are running for), and they will be facing against each other. So each project will center around one or the other in this little mock election. I did a sort of dry-run of this idea with the Dodge Intrepid radio show--where I staged an election for mayor of Aliquippa in 1940. This project will be similar to that, only a bit more serious. Each candidate will have his own logo and design style. Then I will create direct mail pieces, billboards, websites etc. In the end, I'll create a television commercial for one of the candidates--using either Flash or iMovie.

I'm very excited about working on both of these Indy Studies. They are providing me with a chance to get some more experience in the design field and hopefully some good stuff for my senior show.

Posted by MikeRubino at 1:44 PM | Comments (2)

December 18, 2006

Oh Yeah.. My Game

I almost forgot, in the crazy hustle and bustle that was my weekend, to post a playable version of my final project for EL405.

Now, as I have said in previous academic entries, this game is nowhere near complete... however, I'm very proud of producing this in the few weeks that I worked on it. It's pretty fun, although I don't know how many people have played it aside from me.

So, if you'd like to play the game, click here to open it in a new window. There still aren't any preloaders... but the game is under 1MB so it shouldn't take too long to get running.

Enjoy.

Posted by MikeRubino at 12:38 AM | Comments (1)

December 13, 2006

EL405: Blog Portfolio III: The Reckoning

It looks like this is going to be my last formal, academic blogging portfolio. I won't be doing very much "academic" blogging next semester, although I look forward to keeping everyone updated about my independent studies and our planning for 4C's. But, I must say that I have had a great time working in Flash, despite the major stress-attacks. I have spent a good deal of time detailing the issues I have been encountering with my game, and any of the solutions I have found.

So, what follows is a list of all of my academic blogging this semester. Enjoy, and have a Merry Christmas!

Coverage & Timeliness (Blog entries featuring analysis and commentary on required readings.. all completed on time or ahead of schedule)
• Platforming, Sidescrolling, and Settling in Flash I speak of my frustration with lowering the expectations of my games while trying to learn how to make a sidescrolling game in Flash MX 2004.
• Hammer Down My first impressions of Hammer are quite positive in this discussion about open source 3D design tools.
• Zombie Bowling Puff and I work on creating a new brand of morbid lounge sports with Hammer.
• Collision Course The progress in my Dodge Intrepid game begins to finally show.
• A Bad Flash Day My final development journal entry for EL405.

In-Depth (Extended analysis on various blog entries)
• Hammer Down In this entry, I discuss the advantages of corporate design software over comparable open-source software. With its ease-of-use, I definitely gave Hammer the award for being better than Blender 3D.
• Zombie Bowling Continuing our class experimentation in Hammer, I discuss the process Puff and I went through with creating our game. It was a simple mod, but it showed off the strength of Hammer and what we could produce in just one class period.
• Collision Course I show off the first screen shots in my Dodge beta, while discussing some of the remaining issues I have with the game. While I'm not expected to have a polished, complete game, I do have some large kinks to work out before the final presentation on Wednesday.
• A Bad Flash Day I spend a good deal of time talking about the final issues I am having with my game, and how I have grown as a designer while, at the same time, being humbled by this intimidating program.

Comments & Discussion (Discussions on classmate's blogs that I've participated in)
• Comment on Stephan Puff's blog about Blender 3D
• Discussion on Stephan Puff's blog about Hammer
• Discussion on Amanda Cochran's blog about Hammer
• Comment on Amanda Cochran's blog about her final project.
(I am sure I have left more comments than currently listed, however with the template errors running rampant on MT, I haven't kept track of what got through.)

Xenoblogging (Helping along the blog-o-sphere)
• Comment Primo: First to comment on Amanda's entry on her portfolio

Wild Card
• Soiled Beans Seton Hill gives out Splenda-fied skim-milk-filled iced-coffee to students!

Posted by MikeRubino at 3:09 AM | Comments (0)

EL405: A Bad Flash Day

Today--well technically it's tomorrow already, not today, but since I haven't gone to bed yet, it's today-- was a bad Flash day. This, of course, it terrible timing. I would much rather have experienced my "bad Flash day" two or three weeks ago, when I was just learning the ropes of Flash game design. Today, I have an early alpha, beta, lambda version of my Dodge Intrepid game... and it seems to be just a few lines of code away from being how I'd like it.

My biggest issues have been the collision detection and getting into and out of the game. The collision detection was solved, as I mentioned previously, by pasting in some code from a tutorial. However, by doing so, this disabled Dodge's running animation. I may be very close to solving this puzzle, thanks to some code sent to me by Dr. Jerz. I just don't know, exactly, how to implement said code.

This project has really taught me the art of design-triage. When it looked as if one aspect of the game was getting too muddled with errors, I moved on to something else--something fresher and with more flexibility. Since I couldn't get my running animation to work, I focused on actually ending the level. Once the player collects the only book on the level (I've been viewing this level as a sort of training mission for a much larger game... the level is relatively simple, and shows you some various jumping challenges and passive penguins. Like most training levels!) I wanted a vortex to open up. With the help of my ActionScript-master-roommate, Stephan Puff,I was finally able to get a crazy, rotating vortex to appear once your "Book Score" rose to the lofty goal of 1. My current issue is that I can't get the hit test (the command that tests the collision of two objects) to load Scene 2... also known as "The Scene of Champions."

Again, performing triage, I decided to move on to finishing the title screen. I had previously finished the "credits" page, which listed the voice actors of the show, along with a link to our podcast. Now that I knew how the game was actually going to work, I could quickly create the "how to play" page. The tricky part now, would be coding the "start" button so that it loaded the level 1 file. Since I made level 1 in a different FLA file, I would have to use the loadMovie command to open it in a blank movie instance. However, upon doing this, I'm finding that the game loads in the frame but goes insane. Really insane. Despite the various "stop" scripts attached to the movie, the game world flips through pages like mad, and Dodge just sort of sinks off screen. It's a jarring experience, really.

So, as I write this final development journal, at least for this class, I know my project is a little rough around the edges. Perhaps for my independent study I'll purchase an actual Action Script book, that teaches you the coding language so I don't have to rely on amalgamating code from various tutorials.

I am very happy with the progress I have made with Flash because of this class. New Media Projects forced me outside of my Flash comfort zone, prompting me to make games and learn more ActionScript than I thought I ever would. I wasn't a huge fan of Flash from a design standpoint, mainly because their Pen Tool seems to work differently from Illustrator's, but now I have a deep respect for the program, and those who have mastered it. I realize the program's power, and it has become more accessible to me thanks to Dr. Jerz's class.

This Dodge project that I shall be showing tomorrow is, I hope, only the first stages of something larger. Who knows when it will be finished, if ever, but it has the ability to be added to in levels (literally, I can add a level at a time). Much like the show, it could be a serial game. Right now, I feel as if I have created only a crappy adaptation of the show--just like most videogame adaptations of film and television shows. But I hope that this project speaks for the advances I have made personally in Flash.

So yes, today was a bad Flash day. Nothing was working for me, and I spent alot of time doing a bunch of little things. But you need these bad Flash days to put you in your place; so that you are humbled. This program is very good at humbling me.

Posted by MikeRubino at 2:12 AM | Comments (3)

December 7, 2006

EL405: Collision Course

My final project for New Media Projects is really starting to come together. It's going to be a beta for a one-day-amazing Dodge Intrepid game. Right now, it's sort of a weird platforming game with questionable quick-sand level design.

Thanks to a tutorial file by Magnetos (who I believe is the arch-nemesis of Java-guru Charles Xavier), I was able to get a form of sidescrolling that I actually sort of like. Instead of a long level that scrolls as the player moves, the level is now divided up into pages (frames). So when the player walks off the right or left of the screen, the frame goes forward or backward, respectively. I can't really think of another game that works like this, but I guess it's similar to the old fashioned Zelda games, where each screen was a different part of a dungeon... but that's a stretch.

So the big issue with the game currently is the collision detection. The game is set up so that all of the platforms are in one movie clip called "World." Dodge's character (known as "hero") does a hit test so that it doesn't pass through anything in the world clip. It's really a great way to make platforms because you only have to define one movie clip. But my problem is that, while he will stand on things just fine, he sort of just passes through stuff that is higher than his feet.

Here's an example: One screen has an incline that builds to the right, so that when you jump off the incline (and on to the next frame) you will clear a massive chasm. However when you walk towards the incline, Dodge just keeps going straight. You can jump and he'll move up to the top of the hill (as if it were a ladder), but it looks really stupid. In the tutorial that Magnetos made, his character doesn't pass through anything, and it looks very good. I've been trying to examine what I'm doing differently, but I can't really find much. Perhaps its because his character is a little bitmapped Zelda? Or maybe there is another key to the puzzle that I'm missing.

Basically, I need to have the ground completely solid, so Dodge cannot pass through it, only on top of it, and I need Dodge's figure to be able to collide horizontally with things.

This brings me to the next challenge I have. Right now the first level is made up of 10 screens, which is pretty good if you don't run through everything (which, at this point, is very easy to do). On a couple of the screens, I have these penguins. Using the "pacing bad guy" script from Magneto's tutorial, they sort of waddle back and forth on the screen in a manner so menacing it would reduce Madeline Albright to tears. Unfortunately, because of that whole collision detection thing, they don't really kill Dodge.

Ideally, I would like to give Dodge a punching attack, which could kill the penguins (or stun them, if PETA is watching), and an actual death animation for when they get him. It would be neat for the player to also be able to swash the penguins like in Super Mario.

Aside from those two issues, the only other big thing I need to do with the game is make the level end. After the player collects the book, a vortex will open, and the player can hop in and end the level. Eventually, perhaps after other levels are made, the screen after the portal will display all of the books you've collected. And then you are taken back to the library where you can check out everything that you've collected over all of the levels.

Things are coming along shakily, but occasionally I make huge strides in my project's development. I'm really breaking new personal ground by taking all this coding and game physics on--it's something I never really expected to do in Flash. Next semester, I am doing an independent study on Flash integration with websites and video projects, but I may be able to add more advancements in my Dodge game to the list.

Posted by MikeRubino at 2:05 AM | Comments (1)

December 5, 2006

EL405: Zombie Bowling

In class today, we continued experimenting with Hammer. While Puff and I had certainly enjoyed our zombie romp last time we worked with Hammer, this time around we wanted to do something with a little more structure, a little more linearity, if you will.

Originally the plan was to make a Half-Life 2 version of "Duck Hunt" (the Nintendo classic). We constructed a room, not really worrying about the textures of the walls or anything, and then figured out how to make a fence. The plan was to fill half the room with an assortment of birds, and have them confined by a fence. The player would be on the outside of that fence with a deadly arsenal--which consisted of weapons not exactly found in the original Duck Hunt. People would be able to shoot at the birds without them escaping the confined area... so it would be like Duck Hunt taking place in three-dimensional space. But, the first thing we needed was a fence.

Building a fence was a fairly simple task... you could choose from literally dozens of fences found in H-L2 and could just place them into the room. Making them actually act like a fence was another step entirely. You had to make sure that the properties of the fence were set correctly, otherwise it wouldn't show up in the game world. Once Dr. Jerz fixed that for us, we were ready to go.

The plan seemed ingenious... until we actually played it. The birds just stood there, sort of pecking around, like they were in a Florentine piazza. Puff was able to pick up one of the weapons scattered about the room and blow them to bits. The novelty of the situation wore off, and I started to get the feeling that we were deranged trespassers at a strange aviary.

We quickly abandoned the idea of the birds and the fence, and replaced them simply with zombies and citizens. The citizens were a key component of the game world, because they distracted the zombies long enough for us to grab a weapon and back far enough away to use it--plus it was fun to see the zombies and the citizens chase each other. Again, however, the novelty of the scenario wasn't going to last. We needed something that would produce different outcomes each time, something with speed, and something that would still involve massive amounts of zombies.

The solution was zombie bowling. We turned our room into a long, narrow hallway with a slope running about 3/4 its entire length. At the bottom of the slope were about twenty zombies... and at the top was a hovercraft and the player start position. You can probably see where this is going.

The player hops in the hovercraft, turns to the right, and floors it down the ramp. At the bottom, hopefully once the player has reached his/her maximum velocity, the craft plows into the zombies in a similar fashion to how the Untouchables break into hooch-houses. The first few times, results were mixed: either we would plow through the zombies, causing them to fly all over the place, or we would sputter to a stop, forcing us to sit there and be eaten alive. Adding to the fun is the random time limit imposed on the player by the withered IBM computer we're using. The system isn't too keen on rendering this stuff, and so you usually have between 30seconds and a minute before it freezes.

After some hilarious test runs, we decided to lengthen the ramp, allowing us to go faster. Unfortunately my carelessness in connecting the ramp to the floor of the game world led to a disappointing first run in front of the rest of the class. A second try, however, showed greatly improved results! We were able to fly down there, smash a few zombies, and still have time to hop out of the craft and run around before the game froze, or we were eaten.

Our time with Hammer has come to an end, and I will be left with fond memories of messin' up zombies. Any game that lets you create your own scenarios, filling a room with pointless bad guys and improbably situations, is okay in my book. It brings me back to my days of playing Tenchu 2 on the Playstation, and Timesplitters on the Gamecube. Like those games, however, I usually get more into messing around in the editor mode than I do with the actual game.

Posted by MikeRubino at 4:27 PM | Comments (2)

November 30, 2006

EL405: Hammer Down

Thursday's workshop in Hammer was a really good time. Perhaps it was because we were able to produce an actual room to play with in a short amount of time, or maybe it was because Hammer runs in the beautiful Half-Life 2 engine; either way, it was fun.

Hammer's interface is much simpler and intuitive than Blender 3D, the open source modeling program we've recently worked in. Creating a room is as simple as drawing for walls, and assuming you aren't going for some French salon or Jazz-era speakeasy, the gritty textures Valve supplies with the program work just fine. After a few tutorials, we were able to fill our room with some zombies, a few shotguns, a smattering of grenades, and a couple pigeons, then we compiled our game and let the chaos unfold.

This, of course, begs the comparison: is Hammer a better product because it was made by a company, rather than an open source project?

It's a debate that one could write research papers, blog entries, and books on... but for this small instance, I would argue yes. I am a semi-supporter of open source: it is great for some things, and awful for others. There is a certain amount of commitment and knowledge required for open source software, and there is also an air of pretentiousness. Open source software is generally made by a collective group of people who all share the same passion for customization, coding and making things the way they want them. This is great, except that it usually means open source software is unintuitive and complex for the average user.

A prime example has been Blender 3D, a 3D modeling program that manages to be extremely powerful and frustratingly muddled all at the same time. The interface is cramped, vague, and obtuse. Most of the buttons are abbreviated, and if you want to actually function in the 3D space, you need to know over a dozen keyboard shortcuts. At the same time, the program can do a heck of a lot, including craft an entire game engine or CGI animation. We performed exercises in this program first, and I found myself often getting frustrated with the two-button mousing system and the constant use of keyboard shortcuts. The programs biggest advantage is its ability to output the final product to a number of other programs, including high-end 3D modeling software like 3D Studio Max and Maya.

When we finally got to Hammer, after jumping through a hoard of anti-piracy hoops in Valve's Steam software, we found a program that was easy to use and very, very fun. Hammer is a slick piece of corporate software that is both very powerful and very user-friendly. The people at Valve worked hard to make this SDK as accessible as possible so that people could mod like crazy, and it shows. It reminded me alot of another easy 3D modeling tool: SketchUp. Hammer operated like so many other graphics programs (alot of Adobe software comes to mind): you have a toolbar to the left which features all the items and selection tools you may need, and on the right are palettes for various details and properties of the items in the game world. This sort of setup, that mirrors other popular software, allows users to get into the program faster because they feel this sense of familiarity. Hammer's biggest downfall, really, was the fact that it can't output to formats outside of Half-Life. Granted, this is a tool to create mods for Half-Life, so I guess you shouldn't expect much beyond that.

You could compare and contrast corporate software to open source software until you are blue in the face, but in the battle of Hammer vs Blender... Hammer smashed the competition into pieces.

Posted by MikeRubino at 4:42 PM | Comments (2)

November 28, 2006

EL405: Platforming, Sidescrolling, and Settling in Flash

My latest issues in producing my final Flash project stem from my inability to figure out side-scrolling and platform jumping using ActionScript. My hopes of finding various tutorials to teach me have been a little side-tracked. The tutorials exist, however they are hopelessly vague. Either folks making the tutorials stubbornly insist on not explaining things, or they are creating the tutorials too fast to really make the code universally usable. I did find a few that helped me at least get some semblance of a platform and gravity engine installed, but I can't seem to apply that to a game just yet.

To be blunt: I'm frustrated. Mainly because I am sick and tired of compromising every vision I have for a game in this class. Each project I have done starts out with these (what I deem) great ideas for something that I would really enjoy playing and making. But with each project, I have to scale back, I have to rethink. And now, it looks as if I will be doing the same for my Dodge Intrepid side-scroller.

Right now, the only aspect of the game I really am confident on is the opening menu. The menu looks sweet. I mean, if there's one thing I got down in Flash, it's making menus. It's the rest of the game, really, that is hurting my soul.

At this point, there is a lot of "get it done" mentality going through my head. Just get the game done, who cares if it's what you really want. Just get it done so you have something to show. And maybe that's a good plan of attack for now. Get it done so I have something to build from and work on in the future. A good starting point. With only two weeks left, and really only one class period left, since the other two will be devoted to Hammer, I will have to make the best use of my time.

This is why I have been considering making the Dodge game into a more Lode Runner-style adventure game, rather than a side-scrolling beat-em up. What's the difference? Really only one thing: there's no scrolling. My main issue would be eliminated, and I could focus instead on creating a large level with lots of platforms, ladders, etc. Of course, I don't think I would have the enemies chase you around like in Lode Runner, but rather they would be stationary and you would have to fight them to get to the books you need.

I'm still toying around with the idea. I just want to have one cool level made for the final, and then after this class is over I can make more in my spare time (if such a thing exists). The big problem I have this going this route is that the graphics would need to be smaller, which means less detailed artwork.

I have a long road ahead of me... I just hope I have enough time to dedicate to this project to get something finished.

Posted by MikeRubino at 1:03 PM | Comments (1)

November 21, 2006

EL405: Blog Portfolio Part Deux

My second blog portfolio for EL405: New Media Projects focuses most on my Catholic Social Teaching project. The class has moved away from the traditional texts and I, as a student, have begun to focus my efforts more on my projects. There haven't been as many blogging opportunities during this second portfolio, but what I have here is a detailed development journal of my learnings in Flash. I'm looking forward to sharing more of my development as I begin work on Project 2.

Coverage & Timeliness (Blog entries featuring analysis and commentary on required readings.. all completed on time or ahead of schedule)
• Catholic Social Teacher Has No Square Jaw I brainstorm game ideas based on the Catholic Social Teaching model.
• Flash Faux Politics While not related directly to an assignment, I did spend class time developing this project.
• Putting Project 1 in Perspective I talk about designing the rooms for my untitled CST game.
• Extreme Progress... but still no title. More development journaling about my CST game, including screenshots.
• A near finish product with a real title! A finalized project 1 with a title!
• Project 2 Moving On An entry about moving from Flash to GF2 for my final project.

In-Depth (Extended analysis on various blog entries)
• Flash Faux Politics In this entry, I explore how I created my campaign headquarters and talk about the importance of preloaders in Flash projects. I am more than ready to admit the concessions I had to make on this project due to time.
• Extreme Progress... but still no title. I talk about Puff and I exploring Flash coding. The hardest part of my game was figuring out how to get the sounds to play the way I wanted them to. Even after finishing the game, the sounds still didn't operate perfectly.
• A near finish product with a real title! An deeper look into my finished project 1. In this entry I talk about the design choices I made with the game, and talk about the balance of exploration and narrative.

Comments & Discussion (Discussions on classmate's blogs that I've participated in)
• Discussion on Leslie Rodriguez's blog about Audacity.
• Comment on Karissa Kilgore's blog about Project 2.
• Discussion on Amanda's blog about Project 1.
• Discussion on my blog about CST.

Xenoblogging (Helping along the blog-o-sphere)
• Comment Grande: Posted two comments with ActionScript code on Amanda's blog.

Wild Card
• We Are Dead. We are Robot Jox A dorky blog entry about my impossible quest to find a movie that I remembered from my childhood.

Posted by MikeRubino at 11:22 AM | Comments (0)

November 20, 2006

EL405: Project 2 Moving On

My proposal for the second, and final, project this semester plans on being somewhat of an ongoing project for me (provided I can get a good grip on what I'm doing). I'm basically adapting my Dodge side-scroller from Games Factory 2 to Flash. I know it's not as wonderfully new and exciting as some projects, but at the same time it's where my heart is.

My original plan was to develop a single level for our early exercises and then develop the game further into a number of levels for the final. Now I must face the music and admit that this shall not happen. It's not because of a lack of ambition, because I've certainly got enough of that to power a tug boat. Rather, it's because I have been unable to remain focused on this grand scheme while working on my McTeag game and various exercises. That, along with the fact that Games Factory 2 is an obtuse, limited piece of software and I have little time to march across campus to a comp. lab to learn how to use it. Plus, I have to think of usability.

GF2 can export to a webpage so that the game can be playable in any browser. However, GF2 is only made for PC's I would need one to edit my game in the future. And, you need a "pro" version of the software to export it to web. All these things mean less and less control of my game after I finish EL405. It would be much more convenient to just learn how to make the game using Flash. It would also be more compatible for the web.

The real issue is actually learning how to make a side-scroller in Flash. Puff and I spent a good while talking about making the game in Flash--it was he who said that it would probably take the same amount of time to make the game in GF2 as it would in Flash, and I am beginning to agree. While I know how to use GF2 somewhat, it's unintuitive interface slows the user down. So while I will have to teach myself new aspects of Flash, once I get up and running I hope I can produce a game faster. Hopefully.

And so my main goal for Project 2 is the following: to create a working menu system for the Dodge game, to re-create the Antarctica level that we made previously, only this time make it actually fun to play, and make some sort of ending screen that would lead to more levels. The main source of help for this project will be the Outside of Society, a Flash tutorial website that is devoted to side-scrolling and "tile-based" games.

I will be using much of the same Dodge artwork for this as I did in GF2. The graphics will look marginally better in Flash because it uses vector images instead of bitmaps. I will, unfortunately, have to create the level from scratch, since it won't have the large library of game items that GF2 came with.

Posted by MikeRubino at 11:52 AM | Comments (2)

November 14, 2006

EL405: A near finish product with a real title!

After lots of blood, sweat, and tears I finally came up with a title for my Project 1 Flash game... and therefore, I finished the game. Actually, alot of work went into this game--most of my time was spent trying to get the scoring mechanics to work so that people couldn't cheat.

Scoring isn't really the point behind my game. And really, neither is actual gameplay. What's important is the story, the message, and hopefully the humor. I'm dubbing it "a listening adventure" because that's really what you do. I know we were in a classroom environment today when people first tried it; it was noisy, there were alot of distractions, and the speakers on those onyx-IBMs are paltry at best, so I understand that people had a short attention span with my game. Basically, the game is a long-winded noir narrative. You click something and listen to McTeag draw conclusions about a man's character. And then you click on something else... and listen some more. It doesn't sound like the most fun game on the planet, but I wasn't really aiming for that.

I was trying to find something that balanced exposition and narrative with some sort of exploration. Had I more time, the game would actually have animation and interactivity. Then again, had I more time, I would read more books. So my recommendation for you, if you happen to play my game, is to let McTeag talk. Let him get it out of his system. Because if you click on more than one thing at a time, he'll use his uncanny ability to say two things at once. It's really amazing, but really shouldn't be tried. Because I was unable to have one sound playing block out another, it's very possible to go through and click everything, which sounds something like a cluster grenade.

The other issue I encountered was the sound of the final clue, before the game advances you to the ending screen. You see, you have to find 11 clues in order to complete your assignment. But once you click that 11th clue, I have ActionScript that realizes the score equals 11 and it takes you to the final frame... while the sound continues to play. I need to make Flash realize a sound is playing, and then have it advance to the final screen only after the sound is finished. Something to work on for next time.

I'm very happy, however, with the finished product of my game. It's not as polished as most Flash games on the market, but it's very close. It's education to a certain extent, but really isn't for children. It's a hardboiled detective game that just so happens to touch on Catholic Social Teaching. That's a sentence I don't get to write very often.

So enjoy the game!

[Note: the game itself, after being compressed, is about 2.1MB. A little larger than expected, but I'm not surprised given that there is almost 10 minutes of audio throughout the game. The game itself also runs at 800x600... which will be really large if you are running anything smaller than that resolution.]

Posted by MikeRubino at 4:19 PM | Comments (2)

November 13, 2006

EL405: Extreme Progress... but still no title.

Over the weekend, I made a tremendous amount of progress on my Project 1 Catholic Social Teaching Game. While I still must overcome many hurdles in getting this game to a finished state, the largest seems to be a title. I can't think of a good title for this thing, and it's killing me! How long must I refer to it by its slang nickname: CSTProj1?

I spent a good amount of time on Saturday actually drawing the locations and objects for the game. As I mentioned in a previous post, all of the environments and objects would be created in Adobe Illustrator and brought over to Flash. By doing so, I have greater control over how things look... it's also much easier, in my opinion, to work with vector lines in Illustrator, since it doesn't break up line segments like Flash does. The two environments in the game are "the coffee shop" (which is strangely modeled after my favorite coffee shop!) and "the apartment."

One of the things I have been working on tonight (after some help from Puff), was creating the invisible buttons for the environments. Both environments are filled with things to click on, and by doing so, various audio clues will be played helping the you learn about the guy you're investigating. Since a number of the objects were built into the background, invisible buttons had to be placed over them. Now, when you roll over an object that you can click on, it enlarges, making it painfully obvious that it is clickable. However, this pop-up technique is only used for the vital clues about CST... there will be some hidden Easter Egg buttons as well!

It's very easy for me to not give away too much... since the story is continually morphing as I develop the game. What was going to be a missing person's case on Friday now is looking more like a personal investigation. The objects and their CST relations are still the same, but the overarching story continues to change. Tomorrow afternoon I plan on doing a little recording studio action in my dorm room, and then implementing the sound with the rest of the game.

Posted by MikeRubino at 12:28 AM | Comments (3)

November 9, 2006

EL405: Putting Project 1 in Perspective

For now I've finished on the planning aspects of my game and have decided to actually begin working on the mechanics. I could honestly sit and theorize about what would be sweet to use in my game for hours, but that's just the easy stuff. Actually putting this all in to practice is what's challenging.

In my game, which doesn't have a title yet, you play a detective assigned to a missing-persons case. Some guy has up and vanished, and by snooping around his apartment and talking to his co-workers, you have to figure out what happened to him. The game will rely heavily on narrative and clicking. There will be more teaching and funny one-liners than any sort of "gameplay," but that's how most detective games go anyways.

Developing a game around Catholic Social Teaching has been harder than I thought (aside from my earlier, more extreme attempt at a CST game). But now that I have my game storyboarded, I spent the morning returning to my days as a young artist by doing some one-point perspective drawings. It has been years since I did one of these, and I had forgotten how fun using a ruler and horizon lines can be! The room (which is pictured in the screenshot) is of a small apartment. I drew it by hand first, then scanning it into the computer and traced it in Adoble Illustrator. What you see is a very basic, generic room outline. I haven't added any lighting, textures, color, etc... once I do that, I will then add the objects for the player to click on. Each of these objects will give the player some sort of clue (all tying in with CST) about the missing-person's character.

So far, things are going nicely. I plan on getting most of the game up and running before actually working on a script and recording voices. I may or may not be calling on my fellow Dwellers for voice help (depending on how fast I need to get this thing together.)

Posted by MikeRubino at 12:16 PM | Comments (0)

October 31, 2006

EL405: Flash Faux Politics

The majority of my Flash dealings over the past week have been putting together my Dodge Intrepid campaign page. While not necessarily adhering to the assigned tasks at hand, this experience has allowed me to delve deeper into Flash and learn things on my own to fit my own needs. Of course, now I am buckling down on developing my Project 1, alot of what I learned with the campaign page will translate directly to the project.

One of the issues I encountered with this design is the sound. I felt that the sound files were too large and obtuse to actually bring in to Flash. So I modeled the program off of a design that we use to actually run the sound effects for the show. The files reside in a folder and are called up by Flash. The code uses the following process (in laments terms): "Create a new sound>the new sound is equal to 'file name'>On release of 'button' play sound."

The one thing I think my current program could use is a preloader. It doesn't for two main reasons: I didn't have enough time, and I don't think it will work with loading external sound files. This Flash app was on a tight deadline, since it needed to go live online by today (since it applies mainly to the live show coming up on Nov 4th). Had I more time to develop it, I think there could be many more features implemented into the design, like a slide show, talking points, and maybe even a voter ballot. (I may try and make the online voting ballot in Flash...) But the big reason I don't have a preloader is because I don't think it will work.

The preloaders described in the Flash Journalism book deal with loading video and sound embedded in Flash. As the program works now, the internet browser downloads all of the sound files individually in the background of the program. So you see the interface, but all of the buttons may not work right away until the sound is done downloading. Dr. Jerz and I talked about having a "preview" sound clip play to tide over the viewer, but since I didn't have any graphic representation of a loading or buffering action, I thought that would be more confusing than helpful. So just for time's sake, I added a little disclaimer at the bottom telling everyone to be patient.

The development of Project 1 is coming along nicely, though. I still don't know what the "story" or "moral" is of the game... but I'm really starting to figure out how it's going to play. The game will be half "Choose Your Own Adventure" and have "Myst-click-fest." The story will play out through text in various frames (possibly with narration... or pictures with narration...) and then you will hit road blocks in which you must look for clues and uncover plot points by searching rooms. It will be a detective story teaching one of the lessons of Catholic Social Teaching.

Posted by MikeRubino at 4:05 PM | Comments (1)

October 23, 2006

EL405: Catholic Social Teacher Has No Square Jaw

Developing a game that embodies one of the main principles of "Catholic Social Teaching" is proving to be a harder task than I first anticipated. Mainly because I need this game to be something that I would find fun playing.

Unfortunately, I can't somehow meld my Dodge Intrepid game into a CST module. If you have listened to the radio show, you know how Dodge doesn't fit in with CST. He loathes the poor, barely respects elderly, and could care less about being a "steward of the Earth." His basement contains six pillars cut from red wood trees! And of course, Allister Farious, Dodge's nigh-immortal nemesis, applies even less to CST. He hates unions--and fair wages altogether-- employs children, and has no problem killing those who stand in his way. The only aspect of Catholic Social Teaching that could apply to him might be his involvement in social and civic life, since he is running for mayor.

The game I originally proposed in class dealt mainly with the primary lesson in Catholic Social Teaching: respect life. The lesson focuses on the Church's stance against abortion and euthanasia, and my game idea encompassed both of those horrendous acts. Yeah, I'll admit the game could be over the top, but it would almost have to be to get the point across.

That said, I will more than likely not be making my originally proposed game. Partially due to the technical limitations of GF2 (and the fact that I would have to go to a solitary lab on campus to work on it) and also because I still think there is more to consider with Project 1.

Posted by MikeRubino at 12:15 AM | Comments (5)

October 18, 2006

EL405: Blog Portfolio

What follows is my blogging portfolio for EL405: New Media Projects. The range of these entries spans from our early discussions on game theory, to our foray into Interactive Fiction, and then into Flash and 2D game design. This class has been mainly about workshopping and game theory, without as many readings as previous blogging courses. However, there has been plenty to write about, as you shall see.

Coverage & Timeliness (Blog entries featuring analysis and commentary on required readings.. all completed on time or ahead of schedule)
• Limits in Games An entry covering the first half of Koster's Theory of Fun.
• Taking Games Seriously Innovation in the game market today.
• "Go South" or "Not Dennis" An entry covering a number of IF games, including the Strongbad e-mail poking fun at said games.
• The Ups and Downs of Simple Code I discuss Inform 7's coding language and how it is easy to learn and difficult to master (like Othello).
• Reaching the Widest Audience Commentary on Darby's Make Amazing Games and Games Factory 2.
• Alien Extraction A link to the finished IF game produced by Karissa Kilgore and I.
• A Few Minutes More More discussion of Darby's Amazing Games book and playing with GF2.
• The Big Picture Case Study An in-depth discussion on MSNBC's Big Box Flash program.
• Developing Dodge The first entry in my development diary for the Dodge Intrepid game.
• Advancing Antarctica Continuing develop discussion on the Dodge platforming game.

In-Depth (Extended analysis on various blog entries)
• Limits in GamesAn entry covering the first half of Koster's Theory of Fun and Game Design. I discuss sand-box games, formalist game design, and ways for games to inspire creativity and experimentation.
• Taking Games Seriously Covering the second half of Koster's book, this entry touches about innovation in games today. How game designers are influenced by previous games they've made or played, and how Nintendo hopes to inspire innovation in the market.
• "Go South" or "Not Dennis" A lengthy entry covering my experiences with a number of Interactive Fiction games, as well as musings of "Hugo's House of Horrors." This entry also covers the Strongbad e-mail assigned for class.
• The Big Picture Case Study A detailed look at MSNBC's development of "The Big Picture" Flash program and it's ability to make the news and information interactive.
• Developing Dodge My first entry about the development of my side-scrolling "Dodge Intrepid and the Pages of Time" game in Games Factory 2. I discuss the issues of animation and getting started with GF2's interface.

Comments & Discussion (Discussions on classmate's blogs that I've participated in)
• Discussion on Karissa Kilgore's entry on Games Factory 2
• Comment on Karissa Kilgore's entry on Inform 7
• Discussion on my entry on level design
• Discussion on my entry on object creation
• Comment on Stephan Puff's entry on Darby's Amazing Games in Minutes.

Xenoblogging (Helping along the blog-o-sphere)
• Comment Primo: First comment on Karissa Kilgore's entry on Inform 7
• Comment Grande: A lengthy comment on Karissa's entry on GF2

Wild Card
• "Crank" as a Videogame Film I analyze the film "Crank" from the perspective of a videogame film.
• Unveiling "RSite" An entry discussing new media campaigning with the launch of a new videoblog.

Game Draft
• Dodge Intrepid Game: Demo Level Posted by my partner Stephan Puff on his blog, this is the very, very rough demo of the Dodge Intrepid game that I will be developing.

Posted by MikeRubino at 7:10 PM | Comments (0)

October 15, 2006

EL405: Advancing Antarctica

While working in the Game Factory 2 on my Dodge Intrepid game, I spent my last session crafting the Antarctica level. Because of the time frame involved in developing these games I don�t have the time to craft all of the graphics for these levels.

In GF2, it�s best to make the graphics first and then define them as platforms so that the player characters don�t fall off the screen. If you don�t have the time just yet to create proper graphics, but you still want to get a working demo, just create a colored rectangle object and define it as the platform. I used this method, first showed to me by Dr. Jerz, to set up my level. I created all of the platforms using gray rectangles, and then I would find the graphics I needed and lay them on top of the gray. The character will still be walking on the gray boxes, but the player wouldn�t be able to tell.

The Pro edition of GF2 comes with a number of cool textures and characters preinstalled in its library. While a lot of them are made specifically for a certain kind of game, the platforms and wall textures can be used for almost anything. I found a number of �crystal level� textures that I was able to shift to look like an ice cave. So I just laid those into the scenery and then re-edited them so that they would become active objects (the idea that these textures are �quick backgrounds� that can�t be changed to active objects still befuddles me).

Another trick that makes creating platforms a lot quicker is the qualifier property. If you make a rule that a certain character or object cannot pass through something with the property of 0 for example, then you can assign a whole bunch of objects with this 0 qualifier and you save yourself a lot of time coding. Sounds confusing, and for some reason you can�t use the qualifier option on everything, but it�s great when it works.

Posted by MikeRubino at 7:14 PM

October 14, 2006

EL405: Developing Dodge

When I heard that we were going to be developing 2D arcade games, I began drawing up elaborate plans to turn my radio adventure serial into a side-scroller a la Shinobi or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on NES. I spent a great deal of time on the phone with my co-writer James and my co-actor Mike, discussing the various elements of the game. It would be an epic masterpiece… if I could only get it made.

Actually sitting down to the work with the Games Factory 2 program has been an experience quite different from my original expectations. The book, Make Amazing Games in Minutes, was a crock; a product of slick marketing and design-outsourcing. You could make amazing games in minutes if you knew the program inside and out, and had your animation and images created by a professional designer. However when in practice, I find GF2 clunky, unintuitive, and buggy. It promises a lot, and may very well deliver a lot, but so far has been just a tad difficult.

I spent the limited amount of class time trying to get the mechanics down before actually working on the levels for the game. This has proven to be more than a little frustrating thanks to changing contextual menus and GF2 jargon that I can’t seem to get around. The other issue is that you can’t work in class on the GF2 Pro version and expect those files to open up in the trial version. Despite these hurdles, the game is slowly coming along.

I spent a lot of time in Adobe Illustrator, crafting the Dodge figure and his various animations. At first, I drew him exceedingly large, however when converting him to a bitmap, the fine details tended to get a little muddled. The style of the characters has to be simplified in order to still look good in a 640x480 game screen.

The main focus of the game will be punching and collecting books (two things Dodge does best!) You begin each level with the simple mission of collecting all of the book strewn about the world. Then, as you progress from left to right, you have to fight the various goons (in the first level, they are Buick LeSabre’s penguins). Dodge’s animations are a tad limited, but in actuality he doesn’t need to do a whole lot. He runs, jumps and punches, just like in the radio show.

The plan right now is to develop this first level to meet the requirements of the GF2 group project. Then, I will continue work on the game so that it is ready for the term project, due at the end of the semester. I expect that I’ll be scaling back my plans for the final game because of time constraints, and my inexperience with GF2.

Posted by MikeRubino at 7:10 PM | Comments (4)

October 10, 2006

EL405: The Big Picture Case Study

Before taking a look at "The Big Picture," I decided to follow it's evolutionary trail. Watching the Enron interactive story, the precursor to MSNBC's "The Big Picture" creation, I was surprised that I had never seen anything like this before.

While in college, I don't have cable television, so all of the news I learn about is from online sources. For video, I'm most likely watching Fox News' free video player, which, while nothing fancy, gets the job done. The shift of the recent years to more people getting their news from the web has lead to a practically every news station, both local and national, posting their videos on the Internet. I was able to watch the Swann/Rendell debate last week unedited on KDKA's website. And the rest of my news comes from places like the Drudge Report. But not once have I seen something like the Enron interactive news story, or the Big Picture.

The strengths of the Enron story lie in its ability to make accessible what some would see as an uninteresting topic. Corporate scandal can often be a confusing mess of jargon and greed, but MSNBC was able to summarize the important stuff in a nice package. The story even appeals to younger audiences because of its appearance as a videogame, which author Mindy McAdams refers to as "Sim-City-like illustrations."

It was the evolution of the idea, not the design, that lead Ashley Wells to design the Big Picture. The idea that people on the internet should receive a unique experience, instead of just a rehash of a print magazine, pushed MSNBC to deliver exclusive, interactive content. The Big Picture offered not just a narrated news story, but the ability to control how you see the news, and what you do with it. Their technology allowed you to skip to various scenes, much like a DVD, while the video was still streaming. You could choose different segments from the pane on the left, or allow the small news anchor guide in the bottom right to show you around.

Allowing people to vote on what they're watching, or on the ideas proposed within the segments, plays on a concept that has taken the internet by storm. I can't figure it out, myself--since Americans can barely make it to the real polls-- but people love to vote on things. Every online video service out there has a ratings system, every online store has customer product ratings, and even videogame review sites allow their readers to contest the editor's reviews by writing their own. The Big Picture melds a compelling news story with the ability to vote.

In the Civil Rights story, MSNBC asks for your opinion on each issue that is brought up. Amazingly, while the video is still running, a pane slides out over the image and asks for your opinion. Should affirmative action be practiced in universities? Choose "yes" or "no" and see what the rest of the viewers said (56% say no, by the way). The voting system becomes more complex when it comes to the 2004 Academy Awards. Here, viewers are ranking the actors and films that are nominated for each category. You have five actors, each with his own bar, that you can drag and drop in the order you think they rank (number one winning the award, of course). The ability to jump between ranking people, video of the event, and clips from the films they were nominated for, gives the viewer control over what he or she cares to see. If you have seen the film that the actor is nominated for, you may not need to see a clip of it, that choice can now be made by you, instead of a producer in a newsroom.

The amount of information presented in the Big Picture seems like more than what you could possibly get out of a simple typed news article. While the story is playing in the large window, you are sent "quick facts" in the bottom center window, and can provide comments and feedback in the window next to it. These "UI components" as Wells calls them, allow for further interaction and learning at a pace decided by the viewer.

The overall package of "The Big Picture" is very impressive. I'm not sure if I would always be in the mood for what is often an overwhelming news experience, but because they don't produce these segments for every issue or story, I can surely see myself coming back to it.

Flash has always been somewhat daunting to me, since I have used it only here and there for various projects. I give Wells, and the rest of the broadband crew at MSNBC, credit for taking the time to master both the coding and design side of Flash. They created an immersive news experience.

Posted by MikeRubino at 10:00 AM | Comments (1)

September 28, 2006

EL405: A Few Minutes More

Darby, "Make Amazing Games in Minutes"

The latest two chapters in Darby's book are getting better. As I had assumed, once he got past the chapters of introductory material, and started getting into the meat of TGF2, things would get a little more helpful. Last class, we really got to explore the basics of the program, and then play around a little bit. I was glad to see that everything was at least semi-intuitive.

Part of the fun from last class was being able to just play around with the rules of the gameworld. I find that messing around in the program first, without following any rules or processes out of a text, yields the most familiarity with the program later on. The first thing I did was go in and make every object in the game have either an eye patch or a handle-bar mustache (it's tradition). But later on, as we learned how sort-of-easy it was to make things shoot, move, and ultimately be destroyed, I had a little more fun, making Smiley cookies shoot sporks at Frownies. It was a messed up game.

So as we go through the steps of making certain kinds of "retro" games, not only are we learning the rules of these games, we're also breaking those rules. I'm looking forward to today's class, where we'll begin to make a bat-and-ball game. I wonder if the bat would look better with a mustache or an eye patch...

Posted by MikeRubino at 10:10 AM | Comments (0)

September 26, 2006

EL405: Alien Extraction

Last week in my New Media Projects course, we finished our first games. Karissa and I teamed up to create our very first Interactive Fiction game, mysteriously titled Alien Extraction.

I'm going to try and figure out how to get the game on my own website, but for now, you can go over to the course blog and play it there. Enjoy!

Posted by MikeRubino at 12:23 PM | Comments (0)

September 25, 2006

EL405: Reaching the Widest Audience

Darby, "Make Amazing Games in Minutes"

After reading the first four chapters of Darby's book, I am really looking forward to getting started on a game or two. Darby realizes that readers are also getting pumped to start creating... but he stresses planning. Game-making is the same as writing a good paper: you have to do a sufficient amount of planning and preparation before actually sitting down to make the thing.

While the opening chapters of the book were somewhat base and childish, I did like Darby's suggest for outlining your game. Creating the idea, the objective, and the obstacles and then seeing what is actually feasible is a smart way to go about things. Sure the whole book seems to be an infomercial for The Game Factory 2 (TGF2), but after fiddling with the program a bit it's clear that it's the best tool for what we aim to achieve.

How I wish TGF2 was a Mac program... having Inform 7 on my Mac made everything that much easier (and the Mac's version actually had more features than the PC one, which is always a plus.) However, the Click Team--the programmers responsible for TGF2--doesn't produce this product for those of the OSX variety. A Mac alternative is Power Game Factory, a side-scroller-creator that actually looks cleaner than TGF2. Unfortunately, the creators of this game are almost violently anti-PC, which means that any game you create is stuck on a platform that only holds roughly 10% of the market.

And for me, it is key to create a game that can reach all platforms. It's sort of like a publisher who is trying to decide whether or not to develop a game strictly for the Gamecube. You could certainly create an excellent Gamecube game that would really take advantage of the system and all it has to offer... but then you would only have a very small amount of people playing it. The same goes with Power Game Factory. Thankfully, TGF2 can export games to the web, which will be clutch for reaching the widest audience.

Posted by MikeRubino at 2:47 PM | Comments (1)

September 20, 2006

EL405: The Ups and Downs of Simple Code

While working in Inform 7 to code our game "Alien Extraction," I've discovered that it's both a blessing and a curse to have such a simple coding language. Inform 7 uses a "plain English" style of coding, instead of something complex like JavaScript. So instead of having to look up all sorts of phrases and commands, you can just type something like "The hat is a thing" and suddenly you created a hat that is, indeed, a thing.

That may be all well and good... until you make an error, or try to do something complex. As we discovered yesterday, something like creating a massive trap for a character is much trickier than crafting a nice "If...then..." statement. The plain English coding turns from a very powerful tool to somewhat of a hindering one--while still infinitely more accessible than Java or any other sort of raw code. The issue is that when you actually do something wrong in the code, like say "type" instead of "kind," it's tricky to figure out what exactly is wrong. You instead have to keep trying synonyms and different syntax to get the code to compile properly--if the game used regular code, you would normally be able to see the clear issue, whether it was a bad command name or some sort of misplaced bracket.

But, Inform 7 technically uses its own brand of coding (despite masking itself as plain English) and we have to learn this code in order to make the game we want to make. The game Karissa and I are making, which is about a small alien who travelled to America in an aluminum boat, just finished its second round of beta testing. While I still can't get the game to do everything I'd like, I'm very happy with what we've come up with thus far. Inform 7 definitely allows the coder to "jump right in" rather than study code for a while, and I'm happy about that.

Posted by MikeRubino at 11:46 AM | Comments (0)

September 6, 2006

EL405: "Go South" or "Not Dennis"

There is no better way to describe Interactive Fiction than how Strongbad does in e-mail #94. Not only are these games ridiculously difficult because of their lack of visuals, but they also tend to be very limiting and unexplicable in their understanding of commands. That isn't to say that Interactive Fiction is bad--I rather enjoy it--but it shows its open-endedness can sometimes be a bit frustrating.

First there was Pick up the Phone Booth and Die, a game with a pretty clear non-objective. You are standing in the middle of a courtyard, next to a phone booth. Clearly you have to do something to this phone booth to win, yet it's locked, cannot be broken, and of course cannot be picked up (lest he welcome death). Now, you also shouldn't try eating it, which is what I did, because apparently that also results in death. It was a charming little game with a good sense of humor (you are endlessly mocked if you are actually killed because you "picked up" the phone booth.)

That game, however, is cake compared to the rest.

The second game I tried was 9:05 by Adam Cadre. You wake up in your sparse bedroom and find that the phone is ringing. After answering it (which is complete task in and of itself, let me tell you), you find that you are yet again late for work! And while you may be late for work, that certainly doesn't make you type any faster, and it doesn't make the computer understand your commands any faster... and so I went through the arduous task of picking up everything, running around the house, and trying to leave, only to find that I had to get a shower and eat before leaving.

This all ties back in to Foster's discussion about summarizing actions, clustering them together. It's not often that we are forced to actually recall each and every step we took to get ready in the morning, yet these games force us to get them right. I went to the dresser and changed clothes; then I found out that I had to get a shower first. Sigh. So I go over to the bathroom and try to get a shower. Then I realize that I'm wearing all of my clothes, holding my dirty clothes, and carrying a watch, keys, and a wallet! It was a real exercise in "going through the motions" and detailing every tiny step that needs to be taken.

I then moved on to Deadline, a game that claims to be a mystery. The opening description about the Robner Estate had me intrigued, and reminded me of one of my favorite classic PC games: Hugo's House of Horrors. The Hugo games, along with a whole sub genre of adventure games around the same time, seemed to bridge the gap between Interactive Fiction and Point-and-Click adventure games. There were graphics, however crude, but you still did all of the commands through typing. The games even had elaborate descriptions to make up for the horrid graphics.

But alas, Deadline turned out to be nothing like Hugo, and I quickly turned to something a little more familiar: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

I remember playing this text adventure game before... but not in a small Java applet, or even on a floppy disk. No, I played it an IM window. A few years ago, someone created an IM Bot that allowed you to play the entire game via AOL Instant Messenger. I don't talk to that Bot anymore... but playing this game brought back some good memories... like me losing. Alot.

Hitchhiker's Guide really shows off the power that Interactive Fiction can have when done right. It really manages to capture the feel of the entire series, and while it's still a difficult game, it seems to understand more of the commands you type in (even if it doesn't let you do them). My favorite was when I told my character to crawl, because the room was spinning. The computer simply replied: "You can't. At least, not in this game you can't." It's that kind of self-referential humor that kept me playing, despite my difficulty getting out of the house while it was being bulldozed.

This is probably the most interaction I've had with fiction since I rearranged my bookshelf over the summer, and I know this isn't the end of it. While I have my complaints about these games, I ultimately enjoy them... and I know that when I actually make my game, I'll have the same complaints about it that I do about the rest-- it comes with the genre.

Posted by MikeRubino at 8:13 PM | Comments (0)

September 5, 2006

EL 405: Taking Games Seriously

Koster, A Theory of Fun for Game Design

In the second half of Koster's book, he talks about the evolution of games as an art form, and as a respected medium--right up there with film and music. But, Koster warns that we members of this new medium, games will have to prove themselves, and in many ways, grow up.

There are two basic aspects of a game: the ludemes, or the core game mechanics and design, and the dressing, or the game's graphics and sounds. While there have been plenty advancements in the dressing of games over the past ten years, the ludemes has been rather stagnant.

For games to really develop as a medium, they need to further develop the ludemes, not just the dressing. By and large, however, the industry has spent its time improving the dressing. we have better and better graphics, better back stories, better plots, better sound effects, better music, more fidelity in the environments, more types of content, and more systems within each game. But the systems themselves tend to see fairly little innovation.(Koster 166)

This has been the case especially over the past eight years or so, especially with the current and next-generation consoles hitting the market. There has been little stress on innovation in game design over the years, and instead a focus has been placed on getting more realistic graphics and more advanced physics. While these certainly aren't bad things (I like a good-lookin' game as much as the next guy), I agree with Koster that the industry needs to start evolving a little more in the ludemes area.

The lack in game innovation may be attributed to a lack of competition. The console market has been dominated by Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony for the past ten years (or since the fall of the Dreamcast), and because of this, it is nigh-impossible for any outsiders with fresh ideas to shake up the market. Many have tried, and many have failed.

The software side of things isn't much better. With companies like EA and Activision holding much of the market share, game companies can't take as many risks as they used to. But in this day and age, market share isn't as much of a factor as another reason Koster presents. There is always a market, no matter how small, for the game you create, and with the Internet, cell phones, PDA's and the like, there are a number of ways to circumvent the PC/Console gaming market.

Rather, the software side of things is experiencing a lack of ludemes innovation because of the way game designers work. Koster writes that game designers are having trouble evolving their games into new, unique styles of play because they are relying too much on their knowledge of other games. They have played hundreds of other games like the one they want to make, and little pieces of all those games can slip into the designer's game. This sort of thing happens in every medium; when Quentin Tarantino was filming the "Kill Bill" movies, he was constantly borrowing, and referencing, ideas, shots, and design elements from other works of Asian and American cinema.

How many times after the game Max Payne came out did you see Bullet-Time in other games? Or perhaps the idea of distributing stat points each time a character levels up? These game-gimmicks are constantly copied and shared throughout the gaming world, which slow down innovation (while also creating a sense of familiarity between games by different companies).

I must say, however, that Nintendo is actually taking great steps (and risks) to avoid such pitfalls in the next generation console war. While Sony and Microsoft are releasing their consoles (with Microsoft's XBox 360 already released) with enough horsepower and graphics capabilities to render a way to save the Edmond Fitzgerald, Nintendo is putting graphics to the side in support of a more innovative gaming experience. Their new Wii console will utilize a motion sensing, one-handed wand to control its games. It's a daring and risky move that has so far made them a media darling. Their other innovative hardware unit, the DSLite, has already proven its worth, outselling the Sony PSP in both Japan and America. Its dual-screen, touch-sensitive gaming has been embraced by the public. While the PSP, which is a standard hand-held unit with better graphics, has been selling well, it's figures can't seem to "touch" the DS.

And so as games, and their consoles, continue to evolve, will they be able to mature into their own respectful medium? Koster argues that as a medium "we [gamers and designers] have to earn the right to be taken seriously."

Posted by MikeRubino at 10:55 AM | Comments (1)

September 3, 2006

"Crank" as a Videogame Film

After seeing the new Jason Statham action film Crank, I couldn't help but realize the influence that videogames are having on Hollywood. The film, which opened on Friday, is one of the first videogame movies that was never a videogame. The directors set the tone of the film from the very beginning and never let the viewer forget that they are watching a live-action game. Overall, while extremely gory, explicit, and visceral, the movie was extremely enjoyable. It's no "Citizen Kane," but it's also no "Double Dragon."

"Crank" begins like every videogame does: with a Start Screen. In the film, after the production studio logos are done with their little intros, the title screen appears as a bright, 8-bit homage to Nintendo and Atari. The movie title is spelled out in a pixelated white font, and below it is a bright red, beating heart. The title screen sets the entire tone of the movie, and the scenes that follow just reinforce the fact that you're watching a movie clearly inspired by today's games. Taking a cue from the critical failure "Doom," the first scene in the movie is completely in the first person (although done a little better than in "Doom.") Statham's character, Chev Chelios, has just learned that he has been poisoned by a Mexican gang and he has but an hour to live... unless he can keep his heart running on pure adrenaline! The most wastes no time setting up the objective for Chev and the rules to which he has to play: get revenge on the Mexican gang without dying of heart failure.

Instantly, Chev is running out of the house, cell phone in hand. He's speeds out of his garage like a scene from Grand Theft Auto, and immediately begins finding contacts to help track down his nemesis. After stopping to chat for a little, Chev quickly learns that if he stops too long, his vision begins to go and his heart starts to stutter... so he needs to get into a brawl to get the adrenaline going. It's a great concept for an action movie, and something almost completely taken from videogames.

It reminds me of games like "Shinobi" for the PS2, in which you have to keep collecting the blood of enemies in order to stop your health bar from draining. It was a hectic gaming experience, so it makes for an even more hectic movie experience.

The movie is also filled with a huge variety of character stereotypes, which made it seem extremely similar to the game "True Crime: Streets of L.A." (and Los Angeles is also where the film was set). Chelios has to deal with Mexican, Chinese, and African American gangs while driving around trying to connect the dots. He even has to deal with the guy who played Pedro from "Napoleon Dynamite" (who plays a cross-dressing homosexual in this film... the guy really has a great resume, I'm sure.) All along the way he's getting in gun fights (with seemingly unending amounts of ammo, of course).

The idea that Chev is constantly "dying" and has to find various ways to refill his adrenaline meter (okay, so there isn't a meter, but there might have well as been) acts as a sort of "Continue" system for the character. He extending his life, or starting over, as the film goes on. It would have been extra cool had the movie actually had one of those "Continue? 10..9...8..." countdowns.

"Crank" did feature a number of other onscreen indicators, however. The film was extremely stylized in it's approach to editing and inter-textual dialogue. Sometimes subtitles (in foreign languages) would appear when characters talked. Other times, names of various items that Chev was looking for would appear. It was as if sometimes they were listing new objectives for him, or perhaps hints that he should follow. Other aspects of the film, like jump cuts, a brief and undeveloped love interest, and Chev constantly stealing vehicles from drivers-by all added to the idea that this film is a videogame. At the end of the movie, right as the credits are about to roll, you return to the Start Screen, and the pixelated, 8-bit menu returns... just like what happens when you beat (or lose) in a game on your Playstation or Gamecube.

The movie is certainly not for everyone, and seems to follow the trend of very violent, explicit games (decidedly ignoring games like "Katamari Damacy" and "Animal Crossing.") While the film has been getting mixed reviews, the majority of them are positive. I think Devin Faracy said it best in his review of the movie on CHUD.com: "'Crank' is the movie they warned us the video game generation would make."

Posted by MikeRubino at 2:30 AM | Comments (1)

August 31, 2006

EL 405: Limits in Games

Koster "Theory of Fun for Game Design"

Koster's extended look into the psychology of games is really starting to hit home for me. Being an avid gamer, and having discussed many of these philosophies before with my gamer friends, I can relate to his ideas on pattern recognition, evolution of game genres, and fun equating to accomplishment. His brief discussion on formally constructed games is what really got me thinking.

Koster writes, "The more formally constructed your game is, the more limited it will be."

If you look at games that are formally constructed--the original Mario Brothers, Space Invaders, etc.--they are very limiting, while still remaining fun. You are still accomplishing tasks and vanquishing enemies. The player still experiences the sense of power and success. But there is only so much to do in these games. In Mario Brothers, you move from left to right, jumping on bad guys and trying to hit the flag by leaping off that last tall block staircase. Exploration, secrets, and items didn't really begin to play a vital role until later on in the Mario franchise, and even then the game didn't break the bounds of its formalist design until the Nintendo 64 incarnation.

The less form a game has, the less limiting it becomes, and the more time a player will spend with said game. Look at Grand Theft Auto (any GTA game, even the old 2D ones on the Playstation). It's an open environment, a sandbox that the player can explore and experiment in. In the newer GTA games on the Playstation 2, the story and missions become second fiddle to my desire to mess around. I could spend hours just driving around in cars, looking at the environment, interacting with NPC's, and finding little secrets hidden within the game.

Informal, open design allows players to take their time learning the environment, and also pushes their creativity. Instead of telling the player what he has to do to succeed, he can decide for himself what is fun and what isn't. The same goes for sandbox strategy games, where the player assumes the role of God, or King, or Mayor, and must build and manage a society. Games in which the players can create their own world adds a bit of attachment to the game and makes succeeding all the more sweet. Games like Dungeon Master, Black and White, Zeus, and Civilization have that lasting appeal because the player is the one calling the shots. There are still rules to follow, but they are looser; no one is telling you what to do or where to go.

Another aspect that Koster hits on when talking about formalist game design is the idea of adding variables to make things less restrictive. The best example of this is adding realistic physics to a game. Having the ability to pick up and throw things, and watch them bounce around or tumble as they would in real life, removes a layer of formality to the game. Instead, there is a sense of randomness, just as in real life.

Just the other night, my roommate was trying out Half-Life 2 and I sat and watched him throw a brick around a room for a solid five minutes. While we both agreed that there were probably more pertinent things to do in the game, the implementation of the Havoc physics engine allowed him spend time playing WITH the environment, instead of just playing IN the environment.

Any time I find a game that has realistic physics (especially "rag doll" physics, in which bodies tumble around realistically) I spend more time experimenting and having fun. While these games become more base and primal--because afterall, I'm getting kicks out of throwing around bodies--they show that adding a little informality to the game can take an otherwise mediocre experience and raise it up. Games like Minority Report for the Gamecube, Flatout for the PS2, and Splinter Cell 3 for the X-Box are instantly way more fun they would be normally just because of physics. Especially Minority Report... man, I could toss bad guys through glass and over balconies for days! But I digress...

While it seems like actually more work to make a less-formal game, it may be worth it in the end. Designers have to account for all of the things a player may try, or create an engine that is prepared to render and calculate anything. It's tough, and not something I think I could necessarily do... but I'm glad that someone is.

Posted by MikeRubino at 12:15 PM | Comments (1)

May 5, 2006

EL150: W;tty Reflections

I first read W;t by Margaret Edson during my freshman year in college. It was for my Seminar in Thinking and Writing, but since we were covering it at the end of the year, discussion was rather limited. The play didn’t have much of an effect on me at first, since I wasn’t in a class that had the mindset for literary analysis. Now that I have matured in my thinking, and have gone through an intense semester of reading, talking and blogging about drama and literature, this play resonates with me.

I said on my blog, the idea of putting this play at the end of our semester was an ingenious idea. The way our class has been set up, it felt almost as if we were training for this play—which is not to say that the play itself is difficult to grasp, but rather, it has deeper meaning and weight when applied to what we have recently learned. While there is an obvious connection between the play and the actual sonnet (“Death be not proud”) by Donne that is featured prominently throughout the play, it’s ties with grammar are even more important.

The play’s early hang-up with the comma is quite interesting considering its meaning. The comma is detrimental to decipher meaning from a sentence. The scene featuring Vivian getting lectured by Dr. Ashford about the wrong edition of Donne (featuring a semicolon instead of a comma in “Death be not proud”) stresses the importance of correct punctuation. This ties back nicely to the chapter in Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynn Truss. She goes as far to point out that commas are so important that they even have major affects on religious doctrine. She points out a comma in Luke 23:43 can change the entire basis for the Catholic view of Purgatory. Similarly, the use of a semicolon instead of a comma in Donne’s poem drastically changes the immediacy of death and its passive nature. When the comma is present, the gap between life and death lessens, becoming a mere beat. When the semicolon is there, the two become more separate—a definite pause is implied, more serious than a comma, yet not as final as a period. It also makes the poem suddenly theatrical. Dr. Ashford makes the recommendation that if you want to read theatrical poetry, go read Shakespeare’s sonnets.

I find this all very contradictory to the actual title of the play, which contains the much more serious semicolon. The reasoning behind this title design is rather mysterious, because a comma could have easily been manipulated to replace the I in “wit.” But the designers, and/or author, chose the semicolon. Perhaps they were trying to allude that while death may be a beat away in Donne’s sonnet, in reality it is a larger, more painful pause until the afterlife. Vivian’s struggle with cancer certainly cannot be given justice by a mere comma. Her fight lasts for quite some time, and is something of a roller coast ride of hope and despair. The audience watches as she reveals her past, her character, and her inner turmoil. She should have been nicer, she should have been more compassionate, she should have given Jason an A. All of these things come out in the play in a time span much more than a simply comma, in all its light and suggestive manner, could bear. Or perhaps the semicolon is used because this is a work of theater, a dramatic play in the same vein as Shakespeare’s sonnets. This use of the semicolon in the title could be referenced directly by Ashford during the scene previously discussed. But now I feel about as hung up on the punctuation as Ashford and Bearing themselves.

One thing that has been on my mind since our classroom discussion was the idea of Dr. Ashford’s visit at the end of the play being totally imaginative. Could Vivian have really just hallucinated the entire experience? While it’s something I never considered, I now think it’s quite possible. Ashford isn’t let in to the room by Susie, and isn’t doesn’t even seem to be abiding normal visiting hours (if they even have visiting hours for patients of this type.) It’s heartbreaking to watch Vivian break down to tears in the loving arms of Dr. Ashford. Yet the idea of Ashford comforting Vivian makes sense given the previous scene she is in. Ashford, after lecturing Vivian on the importance of getting the right edition of Donne poetry, recommends that Ms. Bearing go outside and enjoy the weather. She doesn’t condemn her to the library, but instead wants her to enjoy life, to learn that there is more to this world than punctuation in a poem. Vivian ends up returning to the library, signaling her fate as a slave to literature. It’s from that point that she gives up hope of being a rounded, happy member of society. She may be “happy” in the world of literature, happy with herself over her latest journal article or book, but she’ll never marry, never have children, never truly be loved. And just as she is dying, slipping out of coherence, she imagines the only character that could still be living and care for her. That character reads her the children’s book that her father used to read to her. And for that brief time, Ashford is her parent, her guardian and protector.

The play is powerful when read—I can only imagine trying to sit through it in the theater. I enjoyed my semester in Intro to Literary Study, and I feel that this play was the perfect conclusion to it.

Posted by MikeRubino at 12:17 AM | Comments (0)

May 2, 2006

EL150: Blog Portfolio 2

Having pushed all personal, extracurricular blogging aside, I now give you my second blogging portfolio for EL150. This is the second, and last, collection of links required for the class, and I think I've gathered all of my best writing. There are certain requirements that the entries and comments are supposed to meet, and they have all been divided into categories describing each requirement.

Now... where did I put those funny entries?

Coverage & Timeliness (Blog entries featuring analysis and commentary on required readings.. all completed on time or ahead of schedule)

• Cleopatra as Fortuna A look at the academic article "`To the Very Heart of Loss': Renaissance iconography in Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra." by Peggy Simonds.
• Honor vs Affection, What is "Heart"? Analysis of Shakespeare's use of the word "heart" in "Antony and Cleopatra."
• Caesar's Strategery I take a look at Bower's article on Caesar's strategic leadership ability and his triumph in Shakespeare's play.
• Slipping into a Comma A discussion about Truss's chapter on commas and their origins in oration.
• Selling My Colon on the Black Market I talk about Truss's chapter on semi colons and their infinite mystery.
• Curious Incidents Pt.1 My take on Mark Haddon's autistic-POV writing style in Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.
• Curious Incidents Pt.2 I examine the second section of Haddon's book in comparison to Foster's chapter on Quests.
• Resurrection Blues Pt.1 An early look at Arthur Miller's late play and a nice discussion in the comment section.
• Hyphen-nation Examination of the use of hyphens and Truss's chapter on their use.
• Diamond Age Pt.1 My love for the Diamond Age begins to show as I discuss Stephenson's style and the issue of racism.
• Primed for Womanhood Part two of Diamond Age featuring a discussion about the future's surveillance system and the use of fairy tale in the novel.
• The End of the Diamond Age The third part of my series on the Diamond Age, where I discuss the final chapters of the book as well as my disappointment with the ending.
• Term Paper Progress I blog about the progress being made on my term paper rough draft.
• Resurrection Blues Pt.2 A look at the second section of Miller's play and his personal religious beliefs (or lack thereof).
• W;t and Tying it Together I talk about Edson's play, and how it related to the other material covered in the course.

Depth(Extended analysis on various blog entries)
• Lynne Trusss Rant on Apostrophes My in-depth look at Lynn Truss's chapter on apostrophes. I accomplish this task by not using any apostrophes in this entry. I look at the common misconceptions about the apostrophe as well as what I learned while reading this chapter.
• Curious Incidents Pt.2 I examine the second section of Haddon's book, which expands Christopher's quest to find his mother. I draw conclusions about the section based on Forster's writings about quests, and talk about the difficulties navigating a train station.
• Primed for Womanhood Part two of Diamond Age featuring a discussion about the future's surveillance system and how it relates to dating in America. Also, I explore the metaphors behind Nell's night-time friends and their mysterious deaths throughout the book.
• The End of the Diamond Age The third part of my series on the Diamond Age, where I discuss the final chapters of the book. I spent a good amount of time writing about this book throughout the assignment, and my disappointment with the ending is fully expressed. I also talk about the extended metaphors used by Stephenson in the book.
• Utopia Crazy-Talk I comment on Hayles's ''Is Utopia Obsolete?'' and his observation on the negativity of America in science fiction. Is only trouble interesting, or do sci-fi writers have ulterior motives?
• W;t and Tying it Together I examine the character of Vivian, and how Edson's play tied in with the other material covered during the course.

Interaction (Commenting on classmate's blogs)
• Comment on Elyse's entry on The Diamond Age
• Comment on Kevin's entry on Resurrection Blues
• Comment on Andy's entry on Resurrection Blues
• Comment on Amanda's entry on Eats, Shoots and Leaves
• Comment on Dena's entry on Resurrection Blues

Discussion (Discussions on classmate's blogs that I've participated in)

• Discussion on Elyse's entry on Eats, Shoots and Leaves
• Discussion on Andy's entry on Resurrection Blues
• Discussion on Amanda's entry on Eats, Shoots and Leaves
• Discussion on Amanda's entry on How to Read Literature Like a Professor
• Discussion on Dena's entry on Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Xenoblogging (Helping along the blog-o-sphere)

•Comment Primo: The first comment on Kevin's entry on W;t
•Comment Grande: A lengthy comment on Kevin's entry on Resurrection Blues
•The Link Gracious: In reference to Cleopatra's sexual advances, I agree with (and link to) Andy's blog entry.

Wildcard
• V for Vendetta: A Politcal Analysis I examine the political messages presented in "V for Vendetta" and how they differed from the author's original intent.
• Zombie FAQs by Mike I take the time to answer a view general questions about the zombie lifestyle.
• A Mouth Full of Franklins An in-depth look at the meanings behind the "Money Mouth" emoticon.

Posted by MikeRubino at 6:37 PM | Comments (0)

EL150: W;t and Tying it Together

Edson, "W;t"

Margaret Edson's play "W;t" ties in, rather ingeniously, with many of our past texts in EL150 and is a great play to end the semester with. Vivian's discussion about Donne's sonnets (specifically "Death Be Not Proud") and the importance of Donne's original punctuation fits right in with our own study of the sonnet and Truss's "Eats, Shoots and Leaves."

Edson describes Donne's use of the comma as a mere pause, showing that the difference between like and death is merely a beat. "Nothing but a breath--a comma--separates life from life everlasting," says Ashford, Vivian's professor. It's not as final, or as dramatic as a semicolon. She also points out the importance of the lowercase "death" over the capital "D," again making death less powerful, less powerful, less grand.

The character of Vivian was quite in intriguing, in that she was once a pretentious member of the intelligencia, and has been reduced to nothing more than a shell in a hospital gown. Vivian, of course, has a hard time coping with this, and dealing with the idea of not being the smartest person in the room. Vivian is coming from a world in which she was in control. She is used to ruling over the lives and grades of naive undergraduates, analyzing and deciphering a poet who's been dead for 300 years. She was an authority, a respected scholar... and now she is just a patient. She is forced into a world where she doesn't understand the vocabulary, and the vocab that she does recognized is used differently. Worse yet, she is barely respected, and instead thought of as a test subject.

Vivian begins to realize her cruelty and coldness as a teacher from the moment she meets Jason, a doctor who was a former student of hers. "I should have given him an A" she says to herself as he gives her a pelvic check-up. What follows are a number of flashbacks referring to her days as a student and as a teacher. As a student, she spent all of her time in the library, punishing herself for any ignorance she may have had. As a teacher, she belittled her students, and refused to show any sympathy when one of them had a death in the family. Now, we see Vivian alone, dying. No one has come to visit her. She feels as if she has lost her dignity in this weakened state: "I was a scholar when I had shoes, when I had eyebrows."

I really enjoyed this play and the complex character study Edson presents.

Posted by MikeRubino at 3:49 PM | Comments (3)

May 1, 2006

EL150: Resurrection Blues Pt 3

Miller, "Resurrection Blues" Pt 3

I can't say I was really surprised by the ending of "Resurrection Blues," since it was alluded to rather early on in the play. Miller's decision to plant the seed of doubt regarding the Messiah's existence was never really stopped from growing after its first mention. There really wasn't a point after Henri first proposes the idea where I was lead to believe that this character actually did exist.

The ending to the play involves an emotional debate and goodbye to a beam of light above the stage. It's hard to really imagine the actors getting worked up and teary-eyed about a character you never meet. The emotional impact of these events is somewhat watered down because of this. The play also seems wrap things up rather quickly during the last few scenes, and so the ideas and drama seem under developed.

Miller's message at the end of the play simply goes back to the individual. Rather than placing our beliefs on a figurehead, we merely look within ourselves for the moral good. While I don't necessarily agree with his message, he really drives it home with Stanley's character.

When asked about whether or not Charlie should be god, Stanley replies "He could be god like... in a more general inspirational way. I mean the actual improvements would just have to be up to us, that's all."

Jeanine reaffirms his statement, replying, "And each for himself."

Perhaps Miller is making a stab at organized religion, being a non-practicing Jew. Is he asserting that each person should worship on his/her own, without the guide of a Messiah? Or perhaps he's leaving it even more open, because many of the characters still say "goodbye" to Charlie, so that people could look to a Messiah if they need one.

The idea of the reality TV producer seemed undeveloped by the end of the play. A one-dimensional character that was merely after one thing: ratings. Maybe this is Miller's view of TV execs, but I personally thought he could have tried a little harder.

Posted by MikeRubino at 12:20 AM | Comments (2)

April 25, 2006

EL150: Resurrection Blues pt2

Miller, "Resurrection Blues" Pt. 2

I had to go back and give myself a little refresher on the play, since it seems so long since I picked it up... but it came back to me quickly: Ralph (Jesus-figure) is going to be crucified on an American reality show in a fake South American military state. Right right.

In Scenes 3-5, Miller moves things along rather quickly... and at times it seemed almost too quickly. While the play has an interesting story, and some clever wit, the structure leads something to be desired. The most interesting idea presented so far is that of Ralph's actual existence.

Henri presents the idea that this savior may just be in everyone's imagination. At first, I would think this is Miller dealing with his Jewish heritage, wrestling with the idea of a Jesus figure in history. But he doesn't simply stop there. Miller (through Henri) goes as far to make the assertion that the Jews were never enslaved by the Egyptians. Perhaps people have just convinced themselves that these events happened so that they could draw conclusions, or create beliefs. He goes on to draw a correlation between this and Vietnam, saying that we entered into the war because of a claim that our ships were attacked in the Gulf of Tonkin. While I don't know how all of these claims would sit with a diverse audience (since Miller basically attacks Judaism, Christianity, and American history all in one scene). Perhaps this shows Miller's decision to throw nuance aside and just go for the jugular.

And yet the idea of Ralph never existing is rather intriguing. Could he just be a myth, conveniently around to change the lives of people who need it? Or maybe he is just a master of bi-location (being in two places at once, a la Padre Pio)? I'm looking forward to seeing how this one wraps up.

Posted by MikeRubino at 10:38 AM | Comments (0)

April 20, 2006

EL150: Term Paper Progress

My term paper for EL150 currently has more twists and surprises than a Jack Ryan novel. I am studying the short story "The Machine Stops" by E.M. Forster, and am looking at it from a Marxist/Socialist perspective.

At first, I took at blind stab at a thesis, and decided to talk about how the Machine in the story acts as a sort of welfare system, and eventually breaks down the emotions and human dignity of Vashti (one of the two protagonists). While this idea is still somewhere in my paper, the fact that the actual form of "welfare" to which I was referring wasn't created when he wrote the story caused me to rethink some things. The ideas of the welfare liberal have been around since the 1800's, and so it's highly possible that this claim can still be made.

In Dr. Seigel's listing of definitions under Marxist criticism, the term "material circumstances" stood out to me. Her definition, which comes from Dobie's Theory in Practice, reads: "the economic conditions underlying the society. To understand social events, one must have a grasp of the material circumstances and the historical situation in which they occur." So I will be looking more at what Forster was talking about at the time, and what was going on around him in England during the early 1900's.

My recent research suggests that while Forster was a liberal, he was more moderate or centrist by the standards of the time. Two of my sources talk about how he was often at war with the liberal mindset, and with the ideas of Stalinist communism. He stressed personal responsibility, and stayed away from extremes. So perhaps his use of the Machine as a socialist care system was a commentary on the negative effects of such an idea.

Posted by MikeRubino at 7:40 PM | Comments (1)

Meat Haggle

The invite granted, Dad let the man in
Boxed steaks in hand—meat wrap’d in plastic froz’n.
“Now show the cuts!” Dad said, so wild his grin.
“What will you charge me for but half a doz’n?”
Fillets cost nine, but six: that’s forty-five.
The local store, its sales are less, for steaks.
He’d never pay that much while still alive.
A bargain stops the sale, the good deal breaks:
“Pay forty-four? No, sir; some other day.”
“If less than forty, show me to your door”
“A twenty’s all I’ve got til date of pay.”
“My back does ache, I’ll carry these no more.”
On this day, Dad saved massive deals of dough.
He’s frugal, but it pays. Trust me, I know.

Posted by MikeRubino at 8:40 AM | Comments (0)

April 19, 2006

EL150: Utopia Crazy-Talk

Hayles, ''Is Utopia Obsolete?''

I tend to agree with Hayles's assessment that "American contemporary writers have lost faith in their country’s ability to achieve greatness." It's a sort of pessimistic outlook on not only our country, but our world's future, that permeates the science fiction community. This pessimism almost always revolves around, or at least features, technology.

Stephenson's "The Diamond Age" shows a very bleak, unhappy future in which America is hardly mentioned at all. He makes references to a few West Coast cities, yet its unclear what has befallen our country. Has it, too, been consumed by the strange tribes that separated the countries of the world? Stephenson presents a sort of flat, overly globalized world where people have no boundaries and no cultural identity outside of their ethnic-religious backgrounds.

The second point I found interesting in this article was Hayles's observation about the effectiveness of the Primer:

It remains a mystery why Nell’s Primer would educate her to be a self-reliant individual, whereas the Chinese girls are indoctrinated to form the massive Mouse Army whose main purpose in life is to rescue Nell. Nell plays the starring role as the quintessential freethinker and ultimate individual, whereas thousands of Chinese girls are bit players defined by their allegiance to Nell, a configuration that reveals Stephenson’s inability to escape his own cultural biases in this otherwise cosmopolitan work.

I was wondering this very point as I was reading the book. Could the biggest difference between the Hans and Nell be that Nell had a singular, life ractor to care for her (while the Hans merely had a computer-generated voice)? The book, which Stephenson uses to sort of stress "quality education," turns the masses into an angry mob (and the other two girls, Fiona and Elizabeth, just go off the deep end after long). It's a strange outcome for something that was said to be so promising.

Without getting too political, I can say that I don't see this pessimism of America's future diminishing any time soon. Perhaps it goes back to that whole "only trouble is interesting" rule about fiction. Why would anyone want to read about a world that's peaceful and happy?

Posted by MikeRubino at 12:50 AM | Comments (0)

EL150: The End of the Diamond Age

Stephenson, "The Diamond Age" Pt 3

The third second of the Diamond Age begins to wrap everything up, and then explodes in a violent terrorist uprising. I have to say that I was taken off guard by the whole Fist uprising, a conflict that I don't feel was played up very well until it blew up in the later chapters. The Fists make a handful of appearances throughout the novel, resembling a sort of terrorist insurgency that is brewing deep within the country.

Time moves quickly in the last third of the book; a decade blows by as Nell quickly advances to womanhood and Hackworth escapes the lustful clutches of the The Drummers (a group of people that I found wholly disturbing, unnecessary, and a tad out of place--but I guess every sci-fi story has to have their underwater-orgy-tribe.) And as time speeds by, so do the stories contained in the Primer. Princess Nell obtains the bulk of her keys and then goes on to meet King Coyote. It all built nicely and tied together. I sort of guessed that Coyote would be Hackworth, but I never dreamed Hackwork would be the Alchemist. As can be expected, the third half of this book contained copious amounts of plot twists, all leading up to the big revolutionary climax.

The metaphor of the Mice Army in the Primer was rather ingenious. Stephenson lays clues early on in the novel, when Dr. X and Fang refer to the thousands of Han girls as "mice," but I really never put two and two together until Princess Nell liberates them in the story. There were a number of little references I got much later in the book (especially regarding the Seeds and Hackworth) that show just how layered Stephenson's work is.

I was surprised to see Carl Hollywood become such a prominent character in this latter half. He went from being a sort of shady porn producer to a cowboy hero! While I was sort of caught off guard by all of it, I enjoyed the fight scenes towards the very end, when Carl, Spenser, and the Zulus (thank God for those Zulus!) fight their way out of the streets. It was also nice to see the skull gun return!

However, the very ending the novel, which involved Nell, Carl and a bunch of naked teenagers in an underground rumpus room was sort of weird. In fact, I could go as far to say that Nell grows up too much during the last two chapters of the book--to the point where she loses her innocence and her character is no longer likable. Now, perhaps this is her final stage of growing up, where she has to rise to the occasion and become the real princess to half a million girls. But her acting as a "flash drive" for the Seed program seemed to be a little odd (Stephenson mentions her getting raped, but I really can't recall when that happened...)

My eyes are burning from the amount of reading I've had to do in the past two days... and quite frankly, after all the time I spent with this book, I was rather let down by the last third of the readings. While "liking" a book isn't a requirement in this class, I can't help but feel Stephenson made some strange decisions that diluted the unity the book held earlier on.

Posted by MikeRubino at 12:20 AM | Comments (0)

April 16, 2006

EL150: Primed for Womanhood

Stephenson, "The Diamond Age" Pt 2

I continue to thoroughly enjoy Neal Stephenson's "The Diamond Age" as I am now past the half-way point of the book. Now, the stories, which seemed disjointed, are all coming together, are tying together nicely. Many plots, which are first was overwhelming due to the jargon-filled nature of the story, are now one big cohesive glob.

Early on in the section we were to read, Hackworth visits Dr. X a second time and Stephenson takes the opportunity to talk about the new use of the foyer. He writes about how in the Diamond Age, people use the foyer as a way to observe people before a meeting. So if you are going to visit anyone, you normally have to sit in a waiting room or lobby for ten to twenty minutes while you are put under very strict surveillance. Hackworth takes the time to sit, read a magazine, and drink some tea, while workers are on the other side of a digital wall watching him. This entire process draws a nice parallel to going on a first date with someone. When you first arrive at (for the purpose of this example, we'll say a guy is picking up a girl) her house, she is normally still getting ready in her bedroom. And so, it's customary for the parents to sit you down on the couch and observe you while you wait nervously for her to be ready. It seems like forever--how hard is it to get ready on time?--and yet it's only about ten minutes. They may even ask you some questions, some meaningless small-talk just like most people practice in the Diamond Age. What her parents are really doing is watching how you act, how you present yourself, and if you are good enough to court their daughter. It's a situation very similar to the future practices of Dr. X, and most people of influence in the Diamond Age.

Stephenson is also starting to mix in more fairy tale stories from the Primer itself. The majority of the time, the stories simply retell the action Nell is experiencing in real life--her adventures into the woods for example. But, thanks to Miranda, they are also serving as a warning to her. The interference and influence of Miranda, the ractor, was inevitable. Since she is a real human being, interacting with Nell and viewing her social situation, she was bound to express feelings of concern for her well-being. It was very clever of her to try and convince Nell and Harv to escape while Burt was asleep, but I'm glad she didn't. It was more realistic, if that term can even apply to a science fiction book of this magnitude, that a child like Nell would continue to ask questions about meaningless details, rather than grasp the obvious message being presented to her. But eventually, she gets the idea, after almost killing Burt herself! It was rather alarming that Miranda, or the Primer, began actually foreshadowing events that would happen to Nell. Specifically when the stranger approached Nell on the beach. Unless I missed something, this might be the first time in which the book predicts what will happen, instead of giving advice or reflecting the past.

I'm still unsure about the stories revolving around Nell's Night-Time friends. At first I thought they might be metaphors for other people in her life, but it doesn't appear to be so. Then the characters, after a handful have been developed in the fairy tales (in a weird Toy-Story-esque twist), begin to die off. Specifically, the Dinosaur goes first. I can only speculate at this point, but I'm wondering if their dying off is a way of Nell growing up. As her make-believe childhood friends disappear from her fairy tales, she will begin to rely more on herself and grow into a mature woman.

Posted by MikeRubino at 12:16 AM | Comments (1)

April 12, 2006

EL150: Deformities and Someone Else's Eyes

Foster, "How to Read Literature Like a Professor" Chp 21 & 25

Just as Foster has said time and again in this book: nothing in literature can be taken at face value. This has applied to monsters and journeys, and now it applies to deformities. When characters are deformed (a la Hunchback of Norte Dame) they are that way for a reason. Usually it's because they are "marked for greatness," destined to change the world of the story and overcome their problems.

While he is talking about physical deformity, I couldn't help but relate this to "Curious Incident of the Dog." Christopher isn't physically deformed, but he is mentally deformed. He's a special kid who is able to overcome these obstacles and succeed in his journey of growing up. Fosters assertions apply to both the physical and mental handicaps of literary characters.

The second chapter we read, "Don't Read With Your Eyes," just seems to be more common sense. In it, Foster talks about how we can't read every story with our own perspective of 2006. Instead, we have to be able to understand a story from the viewpoint of someone closer to the time period in the story. Someone who is closer to the financial situation of the characters. Alot of people, I think, do this naturally. We are able to think about what it could have been like back during the Industrial Revolution, or during WWII--whatever setting the story presents.

But then there are really people who don't read a story with "someone else's mind", and those are the people that don't understand it. I remember back in high school, some kids would just attack a story like "To Kill a Mockingbird" because they didn't see why it applied to today's society. They were reading the story with their own eyes, comparing things to their own life and experiences... and that doesn't always produce the best understanding of literature.

Posted by MikeRubino at 9:31 AM | Comments (0)

April 11, 2006

EL150: "Diamond Age" Pt.1

Stephenson, "The Diamond Age" Pt. 1

I'm really enjoying this book. It's not often that you get a chance to read a cyber-punk science fiction novel in a literary studies course, so I am interested to see how the discussion for this book progresses.

The first thing I noticed about Stephenson's book was it's parallel narrative between an upper-middle class family (the Hackworth's) and a lower-middle class family (Tequila, Nell, and Harv). Stephenson focuses on class separations a good deal in this story, stressing the differences between the Victorian elite (who actually seem to be old-fashioned instead of more advanced) and the lower class workers (who tend to rely more on technology.) And happily, the two stories start to intertwine, like all good parallel narratives should. The story of the Hackworth's and Nell inevitably collide in a manner that really surprised me. Towards the end of our reading, a third story was introduced: Miranda the ractor.

Throughout Diamond Age, Stephenson treats racism with a sort of casual apathy. It's there, and he points it out, but yet the narrator doesn't seem to challenge it. It's as if the narrator has grown up knowing only what his future society has told him, and that is to label everyone. The racism first became clear during the Bud story (which segued into Nell's story). Bud, who has an awesome machine gun his head, goes to an Arab banker to get a credit card. Bud's been short on cash ever since "a couple more big air ships had come in from North America and disgorged thousands of white and black trash into the job market." Stephenson doesn't discriminate when it comes to his discrimination, as he mentions "dot heads," Amerasians, Jews, and scads of other races with general nonchalance. Is he saying that in the future these sorts of stereotypes and biases will just be inherent with our culture? Or perhaps that they will lose their meaning?

Another nice touch for this complex science fiction novel is Stephenson's "explanation chapters." While the whole book is set up as if he left his chapter outlines in tact, every couple of sections he takes the time to explain the world to us. Stephenson will dedicate a whole chapter to talking about the theater district in China, or perhaps the land near the shores of the Pacific. By taking a time out from the story to better explain the futuristic world he has crafted allows the reader to slow down and really visualize things. This is probably helpful to those who don't read sci-fi because they can't imagine the setting.

Posted by MikeRubino at 5:07 PM | Comments (0)

April 9, 2006

EL150: Hyphen-nation

Truss, "Eats, Shoots and Leaves" Chp 5

Even after reading Truss's chapter "A Little Used Punctuation Mark" I'm still confused about the hyphen. And she seems to be okay with just letting them remain a mystery. Truss presents a number of rules for hyphens, but also talks about how various style guides discourage or encourage them. I try to avoid having to confront them at all.

Talking about hyphens is messy. There are times when I see their usefulness: putting together numbers (twenty-two), breaking up a word between lines (like when you use Justification alignment), and when avoiding "letter collision" in combining words. Those ones are fairly simple to understand. It's when you put two words together with a hyphen that really throws me a for a loop.

The hyphen to break up a word into two lines is what interests me from a design standpoint. I have been taught during my years in the Graphic Design program that it's "bad design" to allow a bunch of hyphenated words per paragraph (two lines in a row is the worst). Of course, this makes things very tricky when you are trying to get certain words to have hyphens and also balance the weird gaps of space that Justification presents. It's a balancing act all thrown into discombobulation thanks to the hyphen. But other times, the hyphen can save the day... so I have to disagree with the folks who want to abolish the hyphen altogether.

I also found it particularly humorous to read the quotes about hyphens from political figures. Both Woodrow Wilson and Winston Churchill hated the hyphen (but the hated it diplomatically).

Posted by MikeRubino at 8:30 PM | Comments (0)

EL150: A Dash of Punctuation

Truss, "Eats, Shoots and Leaves" Chp 4

Lynne Truss's chapter "Cutting a Dash" is sort of a montage of various punctuation rules--all of which deal with emphasis in writing. A bit of the chapter seemed like common sense, particularly the stuff about exclamations and question marks; although, I do find the bit about indirect questions to be very interesting, since that's a mistake I often make.

When talking about the actual dash itself, and comparing it to the hyphen, my mind perked up a bit. I didn't really use dashes much until I got to college; I had always thought of them as equivalent to parentheses. And in many ways, they are equivalent, just stylistically different. But they really offer two different ways to read something. Truss addresses the issue, saying:

Is one version preferable to the other? Reading both aloud, it would be hard to tell them apart. But as they sit on the page, it seems to me that the brackets [parentheses] half-remove the intruding aside, half-suppress it; while the dashes warmly welcome it in, with open arms.

It all goes back to how you want your interjection to be perceived. If you want it to add on to the sentence, elaborating or adding some detail, then use dashes. If you want to just editorialize or comment on it (nothing that is pertinent to the idea) then use parentheses.

Posted by MikeRubino at 7:18 PM | Comments (0)

April 6, 2006

EL150: Resurrection Blues pt.1

Miller, "Resurrection Blues"

A few years before Arthur Miller died, I had the chance to go see him speak as part of the Heinz lecture series in Pittsburgh. He managed to be both dreadfully boring and bitter towards America all at the same time. Perhaps it was his age, or his new book at the time (something about politics and liars). Either way, I can sort of see some of this cynicism blended in with this play.

Resurrection Blues is a funny, fast paced play about the son of God being crucified on reality television under a South American dictator. Yeah, that's a mouth full. But so far in the play, I think it's coming across rather well. I don't remember Miller relying so much on one-liners, and in a sense I can't help but think about Woody Allen's Banana's while I read. But this is far from Allen's slapstick masterpiece, and instead is laced with social commentary that is more than just a little bit obvious.

We have yet to meet the "messiah" that they refer to briefly as "Ralph," but already he sounds like the real deal. The man thought of as the son of God is busy healing people sickened by blood flukes, walking through walls, and beaming out rays of blinding white light. And, just as in the New Testament, some people believe he is a person of significance, and others see him as just a terrorist or a criminal. Meanwhile, we have an advertising firm sending a film crew down to televise his crucifixion. Miller writes the characters as fast-talking Hollywood-types, referring to each other with pet names and steering their conversations crazily, like someone driving a car and looking for his cell phone at the same time.

There is also this strange case of two pregnancies revealed within close proximity in the play and I'm not yet sure why. Emily, the director of the film crew and one of the objectors to the crucifixion, tells her mother about possibly being pregnant out of wedlock. A few pages later, one of her crew-members receives word from New York that she is pregnant in marriage! While it's too early on in the play for me to figure out the significance of these events, I can just feel that they'll mean something down the line.

Posted by MikeRubino at 10:30 PM | Comments (3)

April 4, 2006

EL150: Curious Incidents Pt.2

Haddon, "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time"

Firstly, Dr. Jerz picked a great spot to split the book in half. Sunday evening, I had read the first half of the book, right up to the point where Christopher finds out his mother is alive. Little did I know that the very next chapter I would learn that his father was the guy who killed Wellington! Talk about a twist that I didn't expect to find so soon.

But it was learning this twist halfway thru the book that really broke the allusion to it being a pseudo-detective novel. I wholly expected to learn who the murderer was at the end of the book, like most great mysteries... but then again, this book isn't really about the mystery, it's about "growing up."

The action of the plot really began to pick up once Christopher learned that his father was the killer. He decides to make that classic "exodus" that all young characters need to make in order to group up. This book fits nicely into the Quest chapter in Foster's "How to Read Literature Like a Professor." The point of Christopher's journey isn't really to find his mother (even though he succeeds), but rather it's about him learning to take care of himself... or at least start to.

It was interesting reading about Christopher trying to make his way around the train stations and subways... and while I'm not necessarily in his situation, I definitely know how he feels. I went through the same sort of experience when I travelled to DC for the Inauguration. Those stations are mighty confusing, and you really don't have time to stop and figure things you. You have to make a choice and go with it.

That said, I was rather annoyed by the copious amounts of description that accompanied these chapters. Dr. Jerz warned our class about them before we were sent off to finish the book. And while I gathered that this description was a positive aspect of the book, I was put off by it. I understand that the boy is autistic, and that these are the sorts of things that they are known for (and having read this far into the book, I wasn't surprised by it). That doesn't necessarily mean it's good writing. The descriptions tended to mess up the pacing of the book. The point that Christopher is overwhelmed by his atmosphere is made very clear... but once again, I think this super-description is just a way for Haddon to stretch his legs and do what most writers try and avoid.

The ending to the book was fairly complete. I would normally object to a final chapter that ties up all the loose ends and points upwards to the future. It's a little too cliche for my tastes. But I also realize that this book is supposed to be written by Christopher, and in that sense, I can forgive the kid. The ending felt a little too ABC Family at times (what with the dog and Chris getting an A on the test) but that sort of saccharin-covered ending is what makes books like this so dang popular.

I have to say that despite the numerous criticisms I have, I really enjoyed the story. It's not the best book I've ever read, and not even the best book I've ever had to read for a class... but it carries with it a nice dose of charm and a plot that's interesting, exciting, and surprising.

Posted by MikeRubino at 8:24 PM | Comments (1)

April 2, 2006

EL150: Curious Incidents Pt.1

Haddon, "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the NIght-Time"

Unlike my classmates, I didn't have to read this book over the summer; this is my first stab at Mark Haddon's "Curious Incident." Sure I've heard alot about it--a bunch of my friends read it last year and made a point of recommending it to me. And now that I've read the first 119 pages, I can finally join the discussion.

First, I think it's worth talking about Mark Haddon's choice of writing style. The story is told in a first-person point-of-view by a 15 year old boy. The twist is that he's autistic. The narration wanders along in dry, emotionless detail filled with lots of non-sequiters and footnotes. It all makes sense coming from an autistic child, and yet I can't help but feel like this is merely a cop-out style that allows the author to ramble along without having to worry about the normal conventions of fiction. It seems to me that he could easily sit down and clack away at his word processor, keeping every crazy thing he wants to write, and just explain it all away under the umbrella of "autism." There are plenty of books written from the perspective of mentally challenged narrators, and so I don't find this one to be particularly unique in the realm of style.

I also can't help but feel like this book is very close in style to Kurt Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions. The book is written from the third person point of view as if it were being presented to readers from a different world. And so Vonnegut explains everything in the simplest of terms, complete with childish illustrations that drive the point home. And while it isn't overtly autistic in style, it's very emotionless and basic in its execution. Haddon uses the same sort of mechanics, including little drawings by Christopher that add a little humor into the mix. The simple, explanatory writing style and the illustrations are, however, where the comparisons end.

But it isn't my plan to just attack this book... because there is a very good reason that we are reading it, and that it was suggested as reading for incoming freshman. I think it has something to do with the excellent plot, and the way it is gradually uncovered by our unassuming main character. The entire story begins with Christopher discovering the neighbor's dead poodle... and from there his world is consumed with "detecting" and "investigating" a number of different mysteries--one of which is the supposed death of his mother. As mentioned on other blogs, Haddon is very good at showing instead of telling. And because of Christopher's autism, he can even get away with telling us little details that we might think was a "waste of time" otherwise.

The entire story seems to snowball as we not only become more familiar with Christopher and his obsessive reasoning, but as we also delve deeper into a life that has been, over the past two years, filled with lies. I'm enjoying the story so far, and I really am looking forward to finding out what happens with the mother and the dog.

Posted by MikeRubino at 11:30 PM | Comments (0)

March 24, 2006

EL150: Selling My Colon on the Black Market

Truss, "Eats, Shoots and Leaves" Chp 3

As I continue reading the British rattling written by Lynne Truss, I find that she is beginning to talk more about the type of punctuation that interests me (mainly because I don't know it as well). Sure the book isn't as laugh-out-loud hilarious as it was early on, that only goes to show that she is really starting to teach me something. Everyone always gets quiet when they start to learn.

The many uses of the semicolon always sort of amaze me. I didn't start using it, myself, until just a few years ago. Before that, it was a mystery... and in many ways, it still is. Truss talks about how grammar is a very particular subject that tends to be very limiting, yet it seems like most writers just go willy-nilly with it. It never looks like anyone is following a set list of rules for this stuff; it's almost total punctuation anarchy! Shaw does one thing, Orwell does another, and Woolf just runs with it.

I did appreciate her explanation of the semicolon as a Comma Police Officer, breaking up a mob of unruly commas in a series. That was how I first learned to use the semicolon (back before I started linking all these silly clauses together). To me, it just seemed natural: you have a list of things with commas... you need that thing that looks almost like a comma to break them up. It was like a comma on steroids (and the little dot was a growth or something.)

And, as always, I appreciate Truss' insistence on telling us the history of the punctuation. Having taken History of Graphic Design, I know all about the time periods she is referring to. Monks and printers had a profound influence, it now seems, on the punctuation of the Latin and English languages.

Posted by MikeRubino at 2:10 AM | Comments (1)

March 19, 2006

EL150: Slipping into a Comma

Truss, "Eats, Shoots & Leaves" Chp 2

While this chapter in Lynne Truss' book wasn't as funny as the last, I was interested in it more. Learning about the history of the comma, and the history of punctuation in general, was fascinating. "The rise of printing in the 14th and 15th centuries meant that a standard system of punctuation was urgently required, and Aldus Manutius was the man to do it."

The use of the comma, and various other types of punctuation, as a way to tell the orator when to pause for breathe is something that I, at the Writing Center, tell my clients quite often. And while Truss talks about moving away from that method for inserting punctuation, I find that it's a great way to figure out if you -need- punctuation. One of the basic hints that you may need a comma can come when you read something out loud. If you pause naturally, it's worth inspection to see if you might need to insert our little friend.

When I write, I have a way of putting in far too many commas to begin with. Of course, I know I'm adding way too many, and I keep that in mind when I go back and proofread. I think of it as sort of like a sculptor with marble. I slowly chip away at the commas, until the sentence becomes lean and beautiful... or the Pieta.

Posted by MikeRubino at 1:42 PM | Comments (1)

March 14, 2006

EL150: Lynne Trusss Rant on Apostrophes

Truss, "Eats, Shoots and Leaves" Chp 1

I really enjoyed the first chapter of Trusss book. While reading it, I kept getting this British accent slipping into my mind, which made everything that much funnier. As far as a humorous essay goes (something Im quite fond of) she did a wonderful job of keeping things entertaining. It was a great move to personify the apostrophe as she did.

I did tend to agree with her when she wrote that the apostrophe is a very feminine punctuation, as opposed to the period. While the period has its own associations, it is very male in its execution. It ends the sentence with a fierce karate chop, no questions asked (because if there were questions being asked, the period wouldnt be there). While Im by no means a punctuation aficionado, I am fairly good at recognizing mistakes. Unlike some folks, though, it never really makes me mad. I usually dont care, unless it's funny-- then I tell everyone I see!

One thing that I must confess, however, is my constant misuse of "whose" and who's." For some reason, that one never really sunk in to my head back in grade school, and Im constantly being corrected on it. You would think that since I play the improv game "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" most Fridays that I would have caught on. But Im sure that if you go back through my past blog entries, and even some of my short stories, youll find rare instances of its misuse.

This chapter did have a soft spot (and at times a very harsh spot) for grocers, who seem to be exempt from the rules of grammar. Maybe its because they dont care, or maybe its because they know they control our well-being. If you make them angry by correcting their signs, theyll just stop selling you food, and then you may starve or you may have to travel farther to get what you need.

I really dug her closing remarks on the posse of punctuation. After writing this blog entry, Im thinking about joining their ranks.

Posted by MikeRubino at 7:37 PM | Comments (2)

March 12, 2006

EL150: Honor vs Affection, What is "Heart"?

Hall, "`To the Very Heart of Loss': Rival constructs of `heart' in Antony and Cleopatra."

Joan Lord Hall depicts two different definitions of the word "heart" found in Shakespeare's play Antony and Cleopatra. She goes back to a sense of the "East vs West" comparisons of many other scholars, as pointed out in the Bowers article, but instead of talking about their varying cultures she speaks on each culture's definition of one word: Heart. To the Romans, having "heart" means having honor, courage and valor. Standing up for the good of the state, being prepared to die in battle, that sort of thing. To the Egyptians, "heart" applies more to having affection and love for others.

Shakespeare doesn't just write these two cultures as polar opposites. Characters tend to waiver here and there as to which definition of heart they may hold within. The most blatant example of this is Antony, who struggles with his honor in Rome and his love for Cleopatra. One of the more subtle examples that Hall presents is Enobarbus:

Enobarbus is at first a single-minded advocate of Roman values; he believes that Antony should not make his "will" (sexual passion as well as emotional drive) "Lord of his reason" (3.13.3-4), or be deflected from military campaigning by "affection."

Eventually, Enobarbus leaves Antony, even though he may feel some "affection" for him. "This Roman [Enobarbus] turns renegade to his own rational philosophy; he dies of a broken heart."

After seeing this play performed here at Seton Hill University by the school's theater department, I can relate these two definitions of heart rather easily. Their presentation of the play showed, rather strongly, the differences between the two cultures. The Romans wore suits, which were all dark, honorably, and respectful; while the Egyptians wore more traditional garb that was more sensual and revealing.

The more I think about it, the more I can relate Hall's claim and Antony and Cleopatra to the situation that happened in the 1960's with the Vietnam war. Here, within America, there were two definitions of heart: 1) going to war to fight for your country and democracy, and in essence being honorable and courageous 2) love, sex, and the promotion of a peaceful world. Am I saying that Cleopatra and Egypt are a bunch of hippies? That's for you to decide. And while the play itself doesn't reflect a specific situation during our years in the Vietnam War, the ideas presented behind the two cultures and their use of the word "heart" certainly apply.

Posted by MikeRubino at 6:53 PM | Comments (0)

EL150: Caesar's Strategery

Bowers, "`The luck of Caesar': Winning and losing in Antony and Cleopatra."

In Bowers' article, he makes the claim that Caesar exemplifies the idea of political strategy and theory in Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra. Bowers decides early on that most scholars prefer to look at the superficial differences between East and West and the romance between Antony and Cleopatra, instead of looking at the political strategies employed within the play. The play turns into a grand struggle for the upper hand, and even though Cleopatra or Antony may think they have it from time to time, Caesar is always a step ahead of the game.

When talking about the various strategies employed within the play, I can't help but think back to when me and my high school buddies would spend hours playing Risk. We experienced and used alot of the same techniques that Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra use in Shakespeare's play (minus the romantic stuff). One guy would form a block of three players (a triumvir, if you will) and try to rub out of the rest of us. Of course, pretty soon those three would double cross each other, and perhaps one of the triumvir would be persuaded to join up with a different party. But, just as in the play, the guy who stayed the course, avoided direct confrontation, and delegated attack duties was the victor.

Bowers talks about how intelligence (thanks to spies and look-outs) and delegation were the keys to Caesar's victory:

"Intelligence and delegation define the new terms for engagement. These are power terms with Antony never fully understands or utilizes. But Caesar has understood from the very first..."

Antony, instead, is hot-headed and naive. He challenges Caesar and his ever-increasing army to confrontation after confrontation, which always seems to be bungled by Antony's ally, Cleopatra. The biggest mistake Antony makes in the play is thinking that he has the advantage over Caesar. Whether it's marrying Octavia or challenging him to a little one-on-one, Antony's ignorance becomes his political downfall.

Posted by MikeRubino at 5:54 PM | Comments (1)

February 28, 2006

EL150: Cleopatra as Fortuna

Simonds, ""`To the Very Heart of Loss': Renaissance iconography in Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra."

Peggy Simonds reference of Cleopatra as representing the Roman goddess Fortuna fits extremely well with the themes of the play. Fortuna, the goddess of both good and bad luck, is a two-faced seductress who bends the wills of men into taking chances which (more often than not) end up being bad decisions. Simmonds commitment to this claim is astounding considering that she breaks up Fortuna's traits into nine categories, and gives examples (ranging from "okay" to "excellent") for reach one of them.

The strongest example she has is of Fortuna's two-faced persona. My classmates and I said many times both in class and on our blogs that Cleopatra was completely two-faced throughout the play. Half the time she was siding with Antony, telling him how much she loved him and wanted to be with him, and the other half she would sink into this extreme feeling of jealousy and betrayal. She supported Antony, up until she would retreat in battle. And just as Simond's says, Antony takes a risk in trusting her. "More recently," she says, "Michael Lloyd hints that Antony is addicted rather specifically to games of chance, which are mentioned over and over again in the play, and which increasingly cause him to become a pawn of the fickle goddess Fortuna."

After reading this article, I couldn't help but draw similar conclusions about Woody Allen's latest film Match Point, which is a story very similar to that of Antony and Cleopatra. The story revolves around the idea that luck drives every aspect of our lives, and the outcomes of our choices are only determined by chance. It's a story about a man who marries into an English upper class family, only to have an affair with an out-of-work American actress (played by Scarlett Johansson). She, like Cleopatra, is overtly sexual and two-faced. Johansson's character is the embodiment of Fortuna. The parallels between Match Point's aristocracy vs exotic American lower class is very similar to that of Rome vs Egypt. I know this class is Intro to Literary Study (and I keep shifting towards Film Study), I find it important to catch these intertextual references that bridge the gap between Renaissance mythology, Shakespearean tragedy, and modern day filmmaking.

Posted by MikeRubino at 7:09 PM | Comments (2)

EL150: Cleopatra's Sexual Advances and Suicide

Levin, "That I might hear thee call great Caesar 'ass unpolicied'"

In Richard Levin's academic article, he makes the claim that Cleopatra does not fully decide on suicide until after speaking with Caesar for the last time. He goes on to focus on the sexual metaphors Shakespeare uses with Cleopatra, and the tensions that arise between Cleo and Caesar (and not necessarily between Antony and Cleo.)

After reading this article, and perusing what had been written by some of my classmates, I have to say that I agree with the conclusions that Andrew drew. It really all comes down to Cleopatra's sexual advances and trickery with Caesar, and his intense focus on politics and business. While Cleo may make references to sex and orgasms, Caesar is more concerned about destroying her and taking over what remains of the civilized East. I was surprised to read Levin's claim about orgasm references in the play: "Orgasm as death is a familiar Elizabethan figure and an iterative image in the play." I had never heard that before... and I was a tad shocked to read it.

But that just adds to the overall theme of the play: the civilized Roman culture clashes with the exotic and sexual world of Egypt. It is a clash that had been happening for a number of years, through three different rulers (as history says.) First Pompey, then Julius Caesar, and finally Marc Antony were all seduced by Cleopatra (whom Antony calls "triple-turn'd whore"). Obviously, for as much foolin' around as those Romans did, they were helpless when it came to the lure of Cleopatra. That is... until Octavius Caesar, who wants nothing more than to rule the land.

Levin doesn't just come right out and make these conclusions... in fact he presents multiple conclusions and refutes many of his own claims. While at times this leaves the reader feeling like they haven't come away with anything final, it gives the reader a more rounded argument. It's easy for someone to write a paper with one point of view... being able to deconstruct the argument and look at it from multiple angles takes a little more thought.

Posted by MikeRubino at 6:37 PM | Comments (1)

February 26, 2006

EL150: Kinghorn's Deductions

Kinghorn, "`All joy o' the worm' or, death by asp or asps unknown in Act V of Antony and Cleopatra."

While I had a heck of a time trying to find this article, I have to say that when I was actually able to sit down and read it... I wasn't really impressed by Kinghorn's writing. In the article, he merely recounts the death of Cleopatra, and makes the claim that death-by-asp isn't as quick as Shakespeare might make it seem. "These nearly-instantaneous fatalities occur in telescoped 'stage-time'", he says. He goes on to support this claim by supplying data: "The shortest period required for death to supervene following a bite from the Egyptian cobra is fifteen minutes though a healthy victim might survive for several hours." The warrant, or why this information is important: In order to keep the play dramatically interesting, and still able to be performed on stage in England, Shakespeare had to present her death-by-asp in a sort of "telescoped 'stage time'." He was trying to recreate the actual events with as much accuracy as possible, but at the same time needed to be entertaining and dramatic.

This is all well and good, considering that accuracy in literature and theater is usually held to a very high standard. But you have to think of the audience at the same time. As Dr. Jerz mentioned in class last Friday, the audience isn't going to want to sit around and watch as Cleopatra crawls around the stage trying to die. Her suicide needs to be at least more successful than Antony's, and so her immediate death is rather necessary. It's also dramatically satisfying for a main character to die in a extraordinary and awesome fashion, rather than just slowly fizzling out.

Kinghorn goes to great length, mentioning other works based on Cleopatra's death, analyzing the final scene in Shakespeare's play. However I didn't feel that he concluded anything remarkable. He presents many of the characters as "detectives," Caesar as a politician who is able to sweep the whole mess under the table, and the clown as a sort of Grim Reaper. None of this was remarkably groundbreaking in my opinion... but I suppose it was nice to see that I was thinking on the same page as Kinghorn.

[Edited 2/27/06 at 9:25am- Added Data, Claim, Warrant info]

Posted by MikeRubino at 9:11 PM | Comments (0)

EL150: Blog Portfolio 1

To sum up all of the best academic blogging I have done this semester, I am presenting my first blog portfolio. What follows is a list of links (with explanations) that fall into specific academic blogging categories. Feel free to see look into what I've been writing for Intro to Literary Study... or wait for me to write a funny blog entry.

Coverage & Timeliness (Blog entries featuring analysis and commentary on required readings.. all completed on time or ahead of schedule)

•Every Trip is a Quest- In Foster's book How to Read Literature Like a Professor, he talks about how every trip a character takes is actually a quest for self-discovery.
•Bernice Bob'd- A look at the characters of Bernice and Marjorie in F. Scott Fitzgerald's short story Bernice Bobs Her Hair.
•Burn, Baby, Burn- I compare Jack London's story To Build a Fire with my own experience of waiting in line at Best Buy on the day after Thanksgiving.
•The Machine Stops- E.M. Forster's chilling science fiction story happens to coincidentally apply to today's society, and to dorm like specifically.
•Death is so Kind- An analysis of Emily Dickinson's poem Because I could not stop for death. Turns out, I found this entry to really be about going to the prom with death... sort of.
•Antony & Cleopatra Acts 1-2- I address the nature of Shakespeare's historical tragedy, and whether or not "likeability" is a concern with the main characters.
•Antony & Cleopatra Acts 3-5- I conclude my analysis of character likeability in Shakespeare's play.
•Digging Up Politics in Literature- My commentary on Chapter 13 in Foster's book.

Depth(Extended analysis on various blog entries)

•What's Your Symbol?- Commentary on Foster's chapter about symbolism in literature. I talk about my experiences with symbolism both in classroom discussion and with people's interpretation of my own work. I also address the difference between "symbolism" and "allegory."
•Death is so Kind- This is one of my funnier discussion entries. Digging into Dickinson's poem as much as I could, I interpreted it as if Death was asking her to the prom. I also include a more traditional analysis of the poem.
•Antony & Cleopatra Acts 1-2- In this entry, I break down the characters of Antony and Cleopatra in the first two acts of Shakespeare's play. I discuss their current motives in the play, as well as the subject of likeablity. Is it possible to enjoy a play where the audience simply doesn't like either of the main characters?
•Antony & Cleopatra Acts 3-5- I continue my discussion of the main characters in the play. In this entry, I explore the final outcome of the play, and whether or not the characters were likeable at all. Of specific interest to me was their suicide scenes, and their success of executing such actions.
Digging Up Politics in Literature- I speak about Foster's chapter on politics in literature, and give numerous examples of good and bad use of socio-political commentary by author's.

Interaction (Commenting on classmate's blogs)

•Comment on Dena's entry on The Raven
•Comment on Andrew's entry on Bernice
•Comment on Kevin's entry on Dickinson's poem
•Comment on Elyse's entry on Antony & Cleopatra
•Comment on Amanda's entry on Dickinson's poem
•Comment on Danielle's entry on The Raven

Discussion (Discussions on classmate's blogs that I've participated in)

•Discussion on Andrew's entry on Antony & Cleopatra
•Discussion on Andrew's entry on The Machine Stops
•Discussion on Dena's entry on Hácová's article

Xenoblogging (Helping along the blog-o-sphere)

•Comment Primo: First to comment on Andrew's entry on Bernice
•Comment Grande: A lengthy comment responding to the discussion of religion in Forster's The Machine Stops
•The Link Gracious: As an example of dealing with symbolism and allegories, I make reference to Eye Contact's past issues

Wildcard
•MacGyver Political Analysis Pt 1
•MacGyver Political Analysis Pt 2

Posted by MikeRubino at 7:54 PM | Comments (0)

EL150: Digging Up Politics in Literature

Foster, "How to Read Literature Like a Professor" Chp 13

I really enjoyed, and related to, Foster's chapter on political messages within literature. This, once again, brings me back to my Art of Film class from last semester, where we sat down and analyzed possible political messages embedded in film. The same can go for more works of literature, and some of the time, it's actually easier to dig up.

I have to agree with Foster about obvious political messages ruining a story or poem. Being that I am rather interested in politics, I am instantly turned off from a piece of writing if I feel like I'm being force-fed someone else's beliefs. Most of the time, the story is compromised by the author's need to inject some sort of socio-political commentary. For example, Upton Sinclair's The Jungle. It's a hilarious book about immigrants being eaten by rats and meat grinders (at least, it was when I read it in high school)... but then you get to those last few chapters, where Sinclair goes hog wild and outlines every last Socialist message he can muster. Not only is it distracting and unnecessary, but it takes away from the story as a whole.

If you compare that with perhaps stories that contain political messages that aren't immediately obvious, like To Kill a Mockingbird or Brave New World, then you can clearly see which method is more successful. Both of the books I've just mentioned can be enjoyed at face value and stand up to analysis. The author's wrote these stories while reacting to the current events of the day, yet they managed to make their stories timeless and their messages unobtrusive.

Politics have their place in our society, and some literature can reflect the feelings or ideas of the time... but it's up to the author to carefully craft his or her tale to mask these political feelings. I realize that most people dislike political messages shoved in to their films and books, but do authors and filmmakers? Not really. The author's who have the strongest political opinions tend to be the worst at hiding them. Instead, they want their message to be brutally clear (so as not to be confused by anyone), so they spell it out as clearly as possible.

The film John Q with Denzel Washington comes to mind instantly. The movie is about a man who takes an entire hospital hostage in order to get the care his child needs to survive, because he doesn't have the right kind of health insurance to get the proper treatment. One scene late in the movie involves Denzel sitting in a lobby with a bunch of hostages, and everyone begins griping about HMO's. It was if the screenwriters could no longer figure out good metaphors and plot devices to get their messages across, so they infused their hate for HMOs into the characters. I can clearly remember being the only one laughing in the theater when this scene got into full swing. This is the kind of writing that Foster is referring to.

Just last night, I was talking to Danny about political messages in movies. He had spotted my DVD of To Kill a Mockingbird, and I had mentioned that it had been written about as being one of the most successful "liberal message" films in history. He say he didn't see any real politics in the movie; I explained about its historical context and the possible political interpretations found in the film. And I hadn't even read this chapter in Foster's book... So I definitely think he's right on the money with this chapter (and he has been for most everything else I've read by him so far).

Posted by MikeRubino at 7:28 PM | Comments (1)

EL150: A Little Coffee in Blank Verse

When writing in blank verse it's hard to think,
Perhaps some coffee will open my mind.
Two heaping tablespoons in a filter,
Three cups of water, and Mr. Coffee.
Going through this routine every day
Can help build strong minds and mean addictions.
You have to add lots of cream and sugar,
Otherwise its really bitter and dark.
CoffeeMate is my favorite brand cream.
It can stay in your fridge for six months straight
Because its not real milk, it's non-dairy.
It's a great recipe for cups of Joe.
They say coffee stunts your growth--but they lie!
Look at me, I'm five foot five inches high!

Posted by MikeRubino at 6:54 PM | Comments (2)

February 23, 2006

EL150: Antony & Cleopatra Acts 3-5

Shakespeare, "Antony and Cleopatra" Acts 3-5

Well I can't say I didn't see the end of the play coming. Everyone is dead except for Caesar. But the interesting part to me was the timespan between their deaths. Antony dies in Act 4, and I expected Cleopatra to die right then and there (ala Romeo and Juliet)... but instead, we get this brief set of scenes regarding the intentions of Caesar.

Caesar's actions at the end of the play (promising to treat Cleo nicely, yet being a bad guy and wanting to keep her as a trophy) reminded me of Billy Zane's character in Titanic. We know he's a terrible bad guy, we get it... but he still has to pull out a gun and shoot some people before we really get it: you are a villain. So just in case the audience didn't quite get it... Caesar isn't a guy we should like.

But as I mentioned in my notes about the first half of this play, one of these characters had to be somewhat like-able in order for me to care about their deaths. Enobarbus was pretty like-able during the whole play-- he was sage-like and level-headed, like that calm sidekick that acts as the voice of reason in the most trying of times (aside: which is not Pluck.). But he died so early-ish in the ending... and yet no nobly. So I don't know how to feel about him. In the end, though, I did sort of like Antony. He was the anti-hero of the play who decided to die with the little bit of honor he had left.

I didn't care for Cleopatra... whatsoever. she was manipulative, two-faced, and cowardly. As Dr. Jerz mentioned in class, this could come across differently depending on the actress. Some might play her more innocently than others; but looking at the text, I clearly think that Shakespeare wrote her as an evil woman. Her "lover" has just (unsuccessfully) stabbed himself, and wants nothing more than to hug and kiss her before he dies... and she makes all these folks hoist him up to her. She refuses to come out of her monument (that tells you something about her conceited personality: locking herself in a monument instead of a room or cave) and greet her dying boyfriend.

The ending scenes of this play act as a sharp contrast to Romeo and Juliet. They aren't star-crossed lovers, but pride-minded politicians. Politicians who are very bad at killing themselves.

If played right, Antony's death could be really hilarious. In fact, this whole play would make a great comedy errors.

Posted by MikeRubino at 9:06 PM | Comments (1)

February 21, 2006

EL150: Antony & Cleopatra Acts 1&2

Shakespeare "Antony and Cleopatra" Acts 1&2

In the first two acts of Shakespeare's historical tragedy, we see a great deal of underhandedness by Marc Antony, one of the triumvirs of Rome, along with the crazed acts of the Queen of the Nile. Being that the title of this play contains the word "Tragedy," we already know that everyone's going to end up dead at the end. This isn't usually a problem, because we feel for the characters in such a strong fashion that we need to see how it all goes down. But are these characters even deserve our sympathy?

The play opens with Antony cheating on his wife with Cleopatra in Egypt. It's one of those "I'm on a business trip" sort of things that leaves poor Fulvia all by her lonesome in Rome. Antony isn't taking any of his messages, and is refusing to even acknowledge the country he has abandoned... until his wife gets killed while trying to rebel against one of the other triumvirs. Suddenly, Antony feels a renewed purpose to go up there and clean up the mess, and in the process he ends up marrying some other girl just to make an alliance with her brother (this just smells of Shakespeare's normal plot devises).

But what of Cleopatra? Can't we like her? She's a strong, female character who is the leader of a great nation. But we soon find out that she is no less vain and jealous than a high schooler. She flips on her attitudes, going from concern to jealous rage in a matter of scenes. I just have this picture of her laying on her bed curling the ends of her hairs, while the eunuch sings her some tunes, and counts the hours until Ant returns. And when she finds that he has married Octavia, she beats up the messenger (because everyone always shoots the messenger, it's a fact of life.)

So far, I find this play standard Shakespeare affair. It's not my favorite just yet (but really, nothing can touch Titus). I'm just interested to see if by the end of this, these two main characters will have any redeeming qualities.

Posted by MikeRubino at 6:33 PM | Comments (1)

February 16, 2006

EL150: Death Gets Shut Down by Donne

Donne, "Death, be not proud"

In John Donne's well-known poem "Death, be not proud," he talks about how we shouldn't let the fear of dying wreck our lives. The only people who really like death are Chance, Fate, kings, and desperate men. And they really are in charge of when Death shows up to the party for some people. But not for Donne. Rather, he says, "One short sleep past, we wake eternally,/ And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die." So whenever he dies in his sleep, nice and peaceful, Death won't be able to touch him... and he'll be in Heaven with his friends.

Donne tells us to put down Death, don't give him so much weight, let alone the time of day. Death has no control over us or our lives, and when our time comes we won't be afraid. So eat your "poppy and charms" and sleep tight.

Posted by MikeRubino at 8:10 PM | Comments (0)

EL150: Surpise, a Sonnet About Love

Shakespeare, "Let me not to the Marriage of True Minds"

Within his bending sickle's compass come; Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

That's right, not even death can break up some ol' fashioned true love! Shakespeare is talking about how wonderful true love is, and how it's going to last forever, through thick and thin. It doesn't matter if someone tries to break it up, or if the world's about to end... love is gonna last. And so, as he says in the above lines, when Death shows up with his giant sickle and asks you to the prom, you can gladly tell him that you already have a date with someone you love!

And Shakespeare ends his poem saying "Hey, if I'm proven wrong... and love can be broken... well then I never wrote anything." He's so sure about the power of true love that he is willing to bet all of his plays and sonnets on it! People might not think that a big deal if it were Neil Simon (everything he writes is the same anyways), but this is Billy Shakes. He's on totebags everywhere! He knows a thing or two about love, and he's very adamant about that in this poem.

Posted by MikeRubino at 7:51 PM | Comments (0)

EL150: ''Love, Life and Death in Coleridge's Poem 'The Raven'''

Hácová, ''Love, Life and Death in Coleridge's Poem 'The Raven'''

Hácová's interpretation of Coleridge's poem presented two possible explanations for the poem: one regarding the poem's meaning to Colergidge, and another referring to its historical context. While I understood the personal meaning behind the images of the tree (as life) and the raven (as death or revenge), I think it could have more to do with the French Revolution of 1789. Now I don't know if Coleridge necessarily intended for it to be directly about the Revolution, but he surely had to be influenced by it and may have unintentionally made these parallels:

"The characters in Coleridge's 'The Raven' and the representatives of the French revolution share a primary noble intention, but the circumstances and selfish human factors do not allow either of them to carry out their noble intentions as they wished."

A lot can be said about someone's writing when you place it during its moment in history. We're all effected by what's happening in the world around us, and those feelings tend to seep into whatever it is we're writing.

Posted by MikeRubino at 7:33 PM | Comments (0)

February 14, 2006

EL150: Sweet Revenge

Coleridge, "The Raven"

I find it interesting that ravens themselves have sort of a symbol attached to them in poetry. Of course, Poe's "The Raven" came to mind. And while the raven in this poem doesn't drive a man mad, he certainly does celebrate when he gets his revenge.

But this raven is still more of a family man. He finds this acorn, he plants it, and goes on an adventure for a year. When he comes back, not only does he have a wife, but he sees that the acorn tree has grown. And so he sets up shop and raises a family... only to have it all destroyed by a woodsman, so that he could turn the tree into a boat. This sort of situation mirrors the culture of the world quite well. There are so often stories told about a family about to lose their home because someone wants to build a high way there.

I guess you could say that this poem is really about eminent domain.

Posted by MikeRubino at 9:16 PM | Comments (1)

February 12, 2006

EL150: A Slew of Short Poems

Nash, "The Turtle"
Lindsay, "The Little Turtle"
Kilmer, "Trees"
Stevenson, "The Swing"
Stevenson, "Happy Thought"

These poems greatly differ from the ones previously read in class. They are lighter, fluffier, and rely on a fairly standard rhyme scheme. These poems also seem to be more clever than they are meaningful. I didn't have to sit there and try to decipher Vachel Lindsay's "The Little Turtle" like I did previously with Stevens' "Disillusionment..."

But that isn't to say that these poems don't deserve the same amount of attention or praise. My favorite poet of all time is Ogden Nash, so obviously I liked "The Turtle" the best. In it, he talks about sexual ambiguity in nature's tank: the turtle. Nash's thinking has always been outside of the box when it comes to his poems about animals. While Lindsay's poem about a turtle is pretty much on the level-- not taking any risks or challenging our view of this reptile, Nash literally goes deeper. You wouldn't necessarily think about how to figure out the gender of a turtle, but Ogden does, with a nice touch of humor.

I was also glad to finally read Joyce Kilmer's "Trees." There have been a number of times when I've heard the now-cliched line "I think that I shall never see/A poem lovely as a tree." I never knew the rest of the poem, but now that I have, I can say that the rest of it is much better than the opening line. Kilmer's personification of the tree is very well done ("A tree whose hungry mouth is prest/Against the sweet earth's flowing breast;").

Overall, not a bad set of poems, that all seem to compliment each other. It was a nice group to read consecutively.

Posted by MikeRubino at 10:02 AM | Comments (0)

February 9, 2006

EL150: Death is So Kind

Dickinson "Because I could not stop for death"

Emily Dickinson's poem is about death finally sweeping her off her feet and carrying her off to eternity. It seriously sounded, to me, like Death was picking up Emily for the prom.

"Because I could not stop for death/he kindly stopped for me"-- she didn't drive, so he had to come and get her. He goes on to talk about how he insisted that she act civil this evening ("And I had to put away/my labor and leisure too/For his Civility"), because if you have ever gone to a prom you know that there's always that couple there that acts totally grown-up because they are wearing fancy clothes. Dickinson goes on to talk about them riding past the school, and watching the sun set, and how they are both wearing very nice clothes ("For only Gossamer, my Gown")... okay, Gossamer means spider-webs, but if you were Death, wouldn't you wear a tux made out of spider-webs? Her reference to "The Roof was scarcely visible" leads me to think this was in a gymnasium, although maybe they were having it at a banquet hall...

Of course, I know that most of my analysis of this poem is a tad far fetched, since Dickinson wasn't much of a people person. Although Death is a pretty desperate date.

I do think this poem is about her Death, and how we are all moving so fast through this world. Each of us goes about our lives, and Death is simply going to have to show up, throw us in his carriage, and take us away. Of course we'll protest it, but he'll make us stop complaining about having to go to work or meet friends... instead we'll have to sit there as the horses pulling the carriage ride off into eternity.

But the prom idea is way more fun.

Posted by MikeRubino at 8:00 PM | Comments (0)

EL150: 10 O'Clock for Wallace Stevens

Stevens "Disillusionment of Ten O'Clock"

In Wallace Stevens' poem, he is writing about a group of lower class houses around 10 in the evening. How does the reader know they are lower class houses? In his description of what the residents' night-gowns aren't:

"None are green/Or purple with green rings/Or green with yellow rings/Or yellow with blue rings"

These colored gowns, accompanied by jeweled rings, would be something that only the aristocracy would wear to bed. As he says in the first two lines: "The houses are haunted/by white night-gowns." He goes on to describe what the people -aren't- wearing, and then speaks about what they people -aren't-dreaming about. The poem ends with a drunken sailor, falling asleep with his boots on... a very blue-collar image of a man who has worked so hard that all he can do is drink and fall asleep.

Posted by MikeRubino at 8:00 PM | Comments (0)

EL150: Spring and Fall

Hopkins' "Spring and Fall"

While Spring and Fall are certainly my favorite seasons of all time, I found this poem to be rather depressing. I think Hopkins is trying to tell us that things are just going to get worse... and that as we grow older, and experience more, our hearts will just be heavier. (Ah! as the heart grows older/It will come to such sights colder").

In the end, Hopkins expounds on why Margaret is mourning: "it is the blight man was born for." He's saying that we were brought into this world to mourn over each other. Ouch.

Posted by MikeRubino at 8:00 PM | Comments (0)

February 7, 2006

El150: The Machine Stops

E.M. Forster "The Machine Stops"

Forster's short story from 1909 was not only excellent, it was a little creepy. After reading it, I came away with two striking images that sadly apply to my own life.

The first is found in section 1, where Forster is establishing how humanity will live in the future, thanks to The Machine. Vashanti, the main character, does what most humans of the future do: "...she fed, talked to many friends, had a bath, talked again, and summoned her bed" all within the comfort of her room. She hated leaving her room, and didn't see the purpose in it as she had everything she needed in there. She had no use for face to face contact.

Unfortunately, there are days when I do the same exact thing at school. My dorm room often becomes her hexagonal room filled with machinery and a standard-sized bed ("for beds were of the same dimension all over the world"). After my classes are over, I retreat to my room, brew some coffee, instant message my friends, read books, instant message some more, and go to bed. My roommates and I often IM each other, even though there is just a slender wall between us. They call to me to come see something on their computer screens, but I refuse to move from my wheely chair. It's quite pathetic, but thankfully it doesn't happen too often.

The second image I found was in section 3 (Homelessness). After Kuno calls his mother and tells her about the Machine stopping, people begin to notice that things are slowly going awry. The music that Vashanti listens to begins to stutter and skip, the lights begin to fade, and the people just begin to adapt and accept the problems.

I couldn't help but find this very similar to the situation most Windows users find themselves in. I know, I've experienced the same sorts of things back when I owned a PC. Little things start going wrong, like specific games don't run correctly, or Windows Media Player starts crashing, and the user just accepts it. You don't go out and replace your computer, instead you just chug along, accepting the fact that for no reason the computer is growing slow and tired. Your music starts skipping, movies don't play correctly, and the internet seems to be dying in front of your eyes. Eventually the whole thing collapses in on itself and you are presented with the Blue Screen of death. Forster pretty much hit the future right on the head!

I really liked this piece, and I think I appreciated it even more because of when it was written.

Posted by MikeRubino at 7:25 PM | Comments (1)

February 2, 2006

EL150: What's Your Symbol?

Foster's "How to Read Literature Like a Professor" Chp 10, 12

Foster's chaper "Is that a symbol?" seems to be so very relevant to me... in a number of my classes. And in many ways, I find myself constantly frustrated with the facts he presents. He sums it up on the first page:

"Here's the problem with symbols: people expect them to mean something. Not just something, but one something in particular.

He absolutely right. People fight with each other, and themselves, to figure out the exact meaning of something found in a piece of literature, or art, or film, etc. The problem with this is that suddenly everyone becomes uncompromising. Everyone seems to think they have the exact answer and they will wrestle you in the middle of Otterman St. to decide who is right.

And so often, I find that a majority of class time can be wasted while students argue with each other over meaning. Being an art major, with an English major as well, I have to sit through alot of these classes, and I have found that they always go better when people understand the concept of "symbolism" versus "allegory."

Foster defines "Allegory": "things stand for other things on a one-for-one basis." Then again, Foster states that an allegory is intentional, the writer knows that what he is putting down really stands for one thing only... and if that doesn't come across, then he/she fails.

Foster is right in saying that every reader interprets a story differently. I've experienced this first hand when I talk to people who have read my work published in Eye Contact. And I always enjoy hearing people's interpretations of my work... and often they find symbols that I never intended to be there.

I find that most artists and writers never intend for their paintings and prose to be interpreted the way they are... which I think goes back to Man's ever-present need to find meaning in everything.

Posted by MikeRubino at 8:50 PM | Comments (1)

EL150: Burn, Baby, Burn

Jack London "To Build a Fire"

After reading this short story by London, I almost felt as if it belonged to a longer work. We join this man on the Yukon trail doing his best to make it to "the boys." London wastes no time with back story and doesn't share much on the terms of the man's motivation. He just wants to get to camp. He wants to be warm. He wants to survive.

I really cared nothing for the man or his chilly plight. I was more interested in the character of the dog, ever so loyal to him (even when he tried to rip the dog open for warmth). London did a good job of trying to decipher the mysterious animal psyche. The dog responds to anything the man says that sounds vaguely like a whip crack. London spells out for us that "The dog did not know anything about thermometers" he just knew that it was too cold to be outside. And once the dog gets his feet frozen in the water, he anxiously begins gnawing on them to relieve himself.

Of course, in the end we learn that the dog was only with the man for survival reasons. He cared nothing of him personally and had no loyal attachment to him. London ends the story saying "Then it [the dog] tuned and trotted up the trail in the direction of the camp it knew, where were the other food providers and fire providers."

I couldn't help but liken this whole story to my experiences waiting in line at Best Buy on the day after Thanksgiving.

Posted by MikeRubino at 8:14 PM | Comments (2)

January 26, 2006

EL150: Geography Matters...

Foster's "How to Read Literature Like a Professor" Chp 19-20

Foster states that "when writers send characters south, it's so they can run amok." He goes on to later state that these characters run amok because, more often than not, they are going head to head with their raw subconscious.

I agree with Foster, but I almost want to take it a step further. When characters travel anywhere outside of their normal habitat, they usually end up behaving way outside of normality. They are constantly challenged with new environments and customs, they are outside of their comfort zone. This leads the character to panic and go to extremes.

Just look at any National Lampoon "Vacation" movie. These people travel somewhere and go completely insane.

Posted by MikeRubino at 9:35 PM | Comments (1)

EL150: Bernice Bob'd

F. Scott Fitzgerald "Bernice Bobs Her Hair"

Both Marjorie and Bernice exhibit strength in this story, but interestingly enough I never see them clash because of it. Instead, I see it as a transfer of power. Marjorie spends a bulk of the story in charge: "Without reservations, will you do exactly as I say?" (section 3, paragraph 64). And so she directs Bernice on all the ways to charm a man and become a "charming girl." Bernice plays along, following directions without really knowing what she is doing.

When talking about her first foray into popularity on the dance floor, Bernice says, "The only trouble was that about midnight I ran short of talk. I had to repeat myself–– with different men of course. I hope they won't compare notes." (section 4, paragraph 25) This sort of worrying, and lack of initiative, shows how weak Bernice is while Marjorie is in charge.

Bernice doesn't really step up to bat until the last section of the story. Once Marjorie is asleep, and Bernice's hair has been successfully (or unsuccessfully, depending on your view of it) bobbed, Bernie springs into action. She packs her suitcase, writes a note, and severs Marjorie's pigtails. Only when Marjorie is out of the picture does Bernice feel a real sense of personal strength.

Posted by MikeRubino at 8:44 PM | Comments (1)

January 24, 2006

EL150: Every Trip is a Quest

Foster's "How to Read Literature Like a Professor" Chp 1-3,5

I found Foster's opening chapter "Every Trip is a Quest (Except When Its Not)" to be particularly relevant. You always hear people talk about stories of "self-discovery" but not once did it occur to me that these characters never intend to discover themselves. If a character decided at the beginning of a novel to "figure out who he/she was" then the entire book would involve them sitting in their den thinking hard about life. While that may be suitable for some, I prefer my characters to be unaware of personal revelations.

Foster states:

"The real reason for a quest never involves the stated reason. In fact, more often than not, the quester fails at the stated task."

When I first read this, I immediately thought of the book & film Sideways. Two best friends go out for a weekend in Wine Country before the one gets married. Their initial quest is to spend their last hours of shared bachelorhood trying fine wines and enjoying each other's company. Of course, they fail miserably as the two of them get involved with strange women, and the main character (played by Paul Giamatti) learns the true nature of both himself and his best friend. Of course, my thoughts about this story immediately clash with what Foster says later on in the same paragraph:

"That's why questers are so often young, inexperienced, immature, sheltered. Forty-five-year-old men either have self-knowledge or they're never going to get it..."

Posted by MikeRubino at 12:20 PM | Comments (2)

December 25, 2005

Post-Gazette Covers SHU Blogging

In today's Christmas edition of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, staff writer Bill Schackner published Freedom of speech redefined by blogs. It's a hefty article that takes a look at how blogs are affecting higher learning, and how blog posts are further reaching that one might think.

I had a great time talking to Mr. Schackner over the phone about blogging, my theories behind blog conduct, and my own experiences through "Tranquility Lost."

The article is too long to just post on my blog, but below are a few excerpts. I definitely recommend reading the whole article. It not only praises Dr. Jerz's efforts (rightfully so!) but also shows SHU as a national leader in the blogosphere.

My incident with the football team is mentioned in the third paragraph of the article:

Junior Mike Rubino got a more extreme lesson about free speech in the blogosphere. His "10 reasons why Seton Hill doesn't need a football team," including a claim that "jocks" would bring more drugs, alcohol and fights to campus, irked arriving players who found his Internet posting months later.

"I even got calls to my room," he said. "They talked to my roommate, thinking it was me, saying things like they're going to kick my butt."

Awkward encounters? Sure. But instances such as these are providing teachable moments for faculty at a growing number of colleges nationwide, including Seton Hill. There, a professor and his prolific community of student bloggers are exploring the good and the ugly about a rough-and-tumble form of Internet discourse whose popularity has exploded.

Later on in the story, Jerz has an excellent quote about how blogs are shaping the World Wide Web:

Students find that their musings on topics from Plato to video games have been discovered by a parent back home who typed their name into a search engine such as Google. Or they'll discover their homework was incorporated hundreds of miles away into a stranger's Internet research.

"In another generation, these students would have simply been users of a computer," Dr. Jerz said. "Now, they are co-creators of the Internet."

And finally, Mr. Schackner mentions my post one more time, towards the end of the article...

The humor can be biting. The fact that Seton Hill would play its inaugural football season at a high school field wasn't lost on Mr. Rubino, 20, a junior from Monaca, as he panned the whole idea. "Hey," he wrote. "Doesn't having a football team require, oh I don't know, a football FIELD?"

Students can easily get blogging tips from Dr. Jerz, a thin man with a rapid delivery who, in one class, stopped mid-speech to tell his students apologetically: "Not everyone is as excited about blogs as I am."

Posted by MikeRubino at 11:23 AM | Comments (5)

November 20, 2005

Mike Rubino: Hillraiser - "Here Comes the Tuition Czar"

This article was printed in the September issue of Seton Hill's student newspaper: The Setonian. I wrote it for my monthly column: Hill Raiser, and I've gotten nothing but extremely positive feedback from this article. I was especially pleased to hear that my thoughts on the subject of Student Account/Financial Aid Office Reform were actually being considered and talked about amongst higher circles of administration. All I can say on the matter is that I wrote this article with a small flash of humor so that it would appeal to more people, but in the heart of the matter is a good idea from a student (who just so happens to employ some ol' fashioned conservative thinking on occasion). I reprint the article below, because it has never been added to the Setonian's online news archive.

You say potato, I say potato… Financial Aid says one thing and Student Accounts says another. With the scads of tuition increases hitting my wallet this year, you would think that SHU would try its best to know how much money I owe them. Instead, I keep getting all sorts of different prices and estimates in the mail. Sometimes exorbitantly high, other times marginally reasonable, never understandable; it’s this type of bureaucrat muck that causes my meal card to expire and my dad’s heart rate to spike.

My parents and I were totally flabbergasted when we received two estimates with a 30% difference in price, one from Financial Aid and the other from Student Accounts. That’s when we discovered that both parties actually don’t hold the same information. Financial Aid has no knowledge of what specific dorm I’m staying in, or what my meal plan is. When asked why, my father was simply told, “they didn’t need to know.” What I walked away with was a new understanding of our two tuition offices at school: they aren’t that different from the FBI and the CIA of the pre-9/11 years. Is it possible that there is a communication wall between these two offices? Is it possible it was also set in place by the Clinton Administration, just like the wall placed between our federal law agencies? Well, the answer to the second question is most likely “no,” but that doesn’t mean the solution can’t be the same.

We need to install a Tuition Czar; someone who is the bridge between these two offices located across the hall from one another. Effectively, this person would be seated at a card table in the middle of the hall in first Admin. This Czar would be able to give students the bottom line, “SHU is giving you X amount of dollars in scholarships and grants, but you still owe us Y amount of dollars.” It’s that easy, and would cut down on half of the paperwork being sent out by the two offices. The Czar would be able to float above the swamp of bureaucracy and provide quick answers without making kids fill out forms or visit multiple offices.

To take all of this a step further, perhaps it would be in our best interest to pass some sort of student account Patriot Act. We can call it the “Bursary Act,” and it would grant both offices access to the same information. All estimates and quotes would come from the same file and everything would be shared. That way, students don’t have to run from office to office, leaving answering machine messages, and writing and canceling checks for different amounts of tuition. Maybe that way I would actually know the truth the first time about how much I need to pay the school, and I won’t unfairly miss a meal because of it.

All of the people who work in these offices are great. They’re friendly and they’re helpful. I just want to make their lives a little easier, and take some of the financial stresses off the students. Then again, if tuition keeps raising by 10% each year, I don’t think any sort of office reform will help the SHU students.

Posted by MikeRubino at 9:25 PM | Comments (1)

September 14, 2005

Weighted Weekend Blogging

What originally seemed to be a semester with a schedule as sweet as American Apple Pie, is turning out to be quite hectic in these opening weeks. Then again, it isn't necessarily the school work that is keeping me busy. Over the first few weeks of school, I've resumed my job as a writing consultant at the Seton Hill Writing Center, begun a job as graphic design tutor on campus, and am interning with the circulation department of the Tribune-Review. Yikes. So the majority of the copious amounts of free time that I once had, has been wisked away by "responsibility" and "hard work."

This week, in particular, has been hectic. Monday night was the SHU Club Fair, where I was working two tables: Eye Contact and the College Republicans. So in between signing up folks to judge literature, I was occassionally called a "pig-faced liar" for being a member of the Grand Old Party. It was a good time, if a bit exhausting. Tuesday, usually my least busiest day, was non-stop action thanks to the Honors Convocation (where I received a scholarship award from the English Department). The event lasted from midday until the afternoon, and ended with a nice mingle-session on the front lawn with all of my favorite professors. From there, Dad and I went to Red Robin for dinner, and then I got back in time to head to the Westmoreland County Republican Committee meeting with Carmen Marotta and a few other SHU CR's.

And so I guess the point to all of this, is to sort of forsee my blogging future, which appears to be firmly rooted in the latter part of my week. Thursdays I'm done with everything at 1pm, and from there I either relax or just go home, where I have no other real obligations aside from Cellar Dweller practice and some graphic design work. I find it odd that I've become so attached to this blog (and I suppose dedicated to those who scan it every once in a while) that I feel it necessary to apologize for any lull in my writing. Oh well... more to come.

Posted by MikeRubino at 12:26 PM | Comments (1)