apple butter

Here is my final video project. I hope it makes you hungry :)

camera!

Hey Y'all. At the end of class last time I was talking about the camera I bought, and so I'm posting a link to show which one I choose. I wasn't really sure what I wanted, just something good for the money. The guy I spoke with at the store was very complementary of this JVC model. I was originally looking at buying a Sony, but after the guy told me I was going to have to buy a special SD card for the camera just to use it, I was pretty sold on the JVC...especially after I found out the SD card was going to cost me something ridiculous like $60.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=9185865&type=product&id=1218049843479

Here are the reasons why I like this camera:

1. Huge internal hard drive: no need for an SD card, but there is a slot in the top of the camera to add an additional card for extra memory. And that means nooooo discs or tapes!
   
2. Easy to use features.
3. Small and Compact.
4. Pretty good sound quality.

I hope this is helpful...I had told several of you that I paid about $300 for the camera, but I bought an extra card with it. The real price is $270.

beauty is only pixels deep

The creation of cyberspace has accomplished some amazing feats. Outside of the fact that now you can access any information you want whenever you want, there are also some downsides to this new "space" as well. Just this last week an uproar rippled through several internet circles concerning Ralph Lauren's new advertising campaign showing off over Photoshopped models. And as sad as this poor girl looks (and since that report another image has surfaced from Ralph Lauren with an equally disturbing figure) many women still idolize these non-existent people. Also take a look at online avatars. Women characters are usually always tall, thin, busty, and can kick some major ass in nothing more than a loin cloth.

Page 99 discusses the "blurring associated with cyberspace." It's very striking (almost punctus you could say) reading the quote stating that Mariah Carey's image was having more fun than she was. What is it about the internet and this new cyberspace that has amplified a woman's need to be perfect? I wonder much of this on the dawn of Maria Shriver's Women's Conference report published recently summarizing that women today are far more unhappy in life than they ever were before. Fortunately Dove is fighting back in an almost MEmorial type of way by creating a campaign to combat with an eye for an eye exposing the fashion/beauty industry for the fraud that it is. Enjoy, and remember this the next time you think a lady looks pretty on the screen.

ireport

ha! take that radio...

Have fun in class this week, and feel free to let me know what I'm missing! (I'm at a dinner tonight, or I'd be there)

change up!

While I was taking some sick time off this week (because everybody plans to be sick and all), I was thinking through how I was going to put together my video project. It occured to me suddenly that if I was true to my word to work on where the project took me, I think it's time for me to change the topic of my Electronic Monument.

I always wanted to do something I know a lot about and have a lot of appreciation for, and I think my images summed it up well. I am officially changing my monument to be about small town America, rural culture, specifically southern culture.

Any comments? suggestions? Anyone own a copy of Cold Sassy Tree?

face made for radio

This is much harder than it looks...and after it is all said and done, I really hate delivery trucks.

Ulmer: Uno

" You can't worship two gods at once. Loving one god, you'll end up hating the other. Adoration of one feeds contempt for the other. You can't worship God and Money both." - Matthew 6:24

While finishing up my reading on Monday, I was very struck by a line on page 8:

"The digital ear is beginning in the same way as the era of print, with a religious war in which the status of icons is a central issue."

Lets take a few minutes to run down the early history of print.

• Gutenberg invented movable type to allow the first mass print production. (laying down the foundation for what I am currently earning my masters)
• First book to be printed: the Bible
• Protestant Reformation: made possible by mass producing the 95 theses-which was a confrontation against the Catholic Church and their use of icons within the cathedrals (I am watering this down to a minimum, I know, but bare with me)

This is very well documented. Everyone studies this in world history class in middle school. But what is the religious war now? I continued reading hoping some great gem would bloom from the pages, but I was sorely disappointed. So I took the next logical step and googled religious wars. According to the UN, there are currently 56 religious conflicts, but not a single one of the descriptions mentioned a holy war about images.

Maybe this sentence jumped out to me because I was recently studying this very issue, but what is America's new god? I believe it's ultimately money, because it's not the God of our country's forefathers, and it's certainly not the same God that was the center of the Protestant Reformation. When a building falls, not only is it a blow to the ego of the country, but it also is a large loss of capital. Would a god-like obsession of materialism actually make it onto the UN's list of holy wars?

revised photography

As of last class, I have taken more photography (or to be slightly more accurate, I have gotten more film developed), and after the dust settled, below are the final photos I choose for my project/paper.