I went to my friendly-local-neighborhood-coffee-house to see an accoustic act (Jacob Johnson).  I’m pretty sure I was the only XY without an XX.  Heather was out watching sheep (while eating her curds and way…no less…wait…) since the wee hours of the morning.  Regardless, I enjoyed myself.  Johnsons playing can be described as quirky, virtuostic and times purely masterbatory.  It is clear that at times the only person who is enjoying whatever rabbit hole of a riff he has gone off into.  That being said the quirky, generally upbeat and fun nature of the music makes the show Good, its the showmanship that makes it great.

That being said and done, I drove through the rain and came home and clipped some coupons and am at present working on making spaghetti sauce- from tomatoes.  It’s been an interesting day.  I’ve gotten a lot done, and its been rainy.  Yeah.  Good night.

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“The only difference between men and boy’s is the size of their toys”, or so goes the cliche.  However, I think in today’s economy of “Cool” that the difference has more to do in relative price and not so much size.  Everything we have, or likely find desirable either has to be bigger or smaller.  The rhetoric of size on things is quite telling.  The point is, is that it does not have to be bigger.  Take for instance, automobiles, either you want a big one (SUV) or a smaller one (sports car).  Now, these are of course gross generalizations but as a general rule of thumb; desirable things are either larger, or smaller.  Women’s sunglasses…”I’ll take the great big ones that make me look like a bug”, or shoes (so small or falsely shaped so as to be nearly impossible to wear with any semblance of comfort.

Cell phones pose a particular conundrum.  Either we want them to be bigger (like an iPhone) which ultimately we still want to be small…but big enough to be “cool” for watching movies and the likes.  The average viewing screen should be bigger to be desirable (I’m still waiting on that 65’’ LED television).

The iPad is an interesting bled of aesthetics. It is much larger than a cell phone, which until the smart phone’s came around, were getting smaller and smaller every year.  Yet it is somewhat large, but not very large.  I suspect that this moderation is more purpose driven though Apple always seems to manage producing sleek products.

These thoughts were seeded in a discussion with a friend who is writing about writing about the rhetoric of “Cute” .  It’s interesting stuff.

Flickr CC: buzzrichie

Pecha Kucha is a presentation strategy that involves 20 slides (typically visually oriented with little or no words involved in the entire sequence) that automatically advance every 20 seconds forcing the presenter to give a talk in 6 minutes and 40 seconds.  Jason at Profhacker introduces the concept thoroughly.  Having been previously introduced to the concept, I excercized it for the first time last semester in a visual communication course.  I found that I was surprised at the organic nature of the presentation, and consider it one of the better “talks” I’ve given.

I’ve heard it said that “if you can’t be good, be brief”.  However, short does not mean it is good, and not all pecha kucha are designed equally.  With that, I’d like to discuss some tips and tricks (and perhaps opinions) about Pecha Kucha.

Firstly, Make a template.  Go ahead and set up 21 slides and set the first slide to “advance on click” and the other’s to advance every 20 seconds.  This way you can load your presentation and not have it automatically advance.  This way you can avoid having to hurry into your presentation the moment you open it up the presentation.  I used the first screen as a Title screen and clicked in as I began my talk.

Avoid words in your slides.  I appreciate the notion of Pecha Kucha being visual, thus avoiding the slide reading that many are familiar with (dread).  Even in my title slide, I used a “sign generator” to make a billboard with the title of my presentation on it.  While Photoshop or Illustrator could be used, web apps are quick and painless.

Don’t “read” your presentation.  One Pecha Kucha that I saw was presented by a person who very cleverly examined the amount of typed text that they could read in 20 seconds and then approximated that in a script format for each slide.  While this worked moderately well technically,in my humble opinion it lacked panache.  Artful performance enhances any presenation.  I prefer to prepare my talk by running through the slides.  My most recent Pecha Kucha involved about 4 full length dry runs and it worked very well (in my opinion).

I created my presentation to be intentionally episodic.  I had a new idea for every slide and though each slide was not related to the next it followed a logical progression.  In that way I was able to cut off after each slide and start the next.  This helped me avoid getting into a really long discussion on any one topic and going down the proverbial rabbit trail.

One person suggestion I have heard is to think of your pecha kucha as you would storyboarding a cartoon.  As a visual medium, pecha kucha benefits from being manipulated visually.  An interesting strategy for this is to get brainstorm images and then make cartoons of them on post-it notes, and to manipulate them in this manner.  Otherwise the images can be pre-sorted in Power Point and then dragged around in the slide sorter.

Regardless of the value of these suggestions to you, I implore you to employ all of the creativity that you have in giving presentations and in particular doing a pecha kucha.  Performance ability is key to any type of presentation, however, It is my hope that some of the tips listed above will assist you in using Pecha Kucha as an effective presentation tool.

Does being the dreaded grader effect the way a student would approach a teacher when in need of assistance?  At the moment I am a tutor at the campus writing center.  Over and over, students come in aren’t really sure of what their assignments are. I know that students are notorious for not paying attention when teachers are dolling out work, but I wonder if some of the uncertainty of what is expected of them is caused because they do not want to ask for clarification of an assignment.  I always advise students that the primary audience for whatever they are doing is ultimately the teacher even if they are writing towards a hypothetical audience.

I’m reading a book by Martha Nussbaum called “Not for Profit”.  In this very portable book, Nussbaum discusses the need for humanities for the preservation of democracy.  On the surface of it, saying that humanities are necessary for the preservation of democracy seems like a bit of a stretch.  I suggest, having not yet finished the book, that students and teachers really interacting well would also be an excellent tool towards the preservation of democracy, be that the humanities or otherwise.  I’m not sure it comes down to learning humanities, but I’m pretty sure it (everything important) is certainly impacted by education.

At 8:09 I expected Dylan to be on the stage, by 8:30, fifteen seconds later, the lights go down a hasty introduction is read as the band and the man himself quickly crowd the stage.  One nearly unrecognizable song is followed by the next with occasional spatters of words that I heard once, and that I had thought to be lyrics of “good” songs.

Let’s face it, I didn’t come to the show to see Dylan sing, I came just to have a story to tell.  But somehow, I did expect that such an ardent tourer, who is famous for his lack of interest in the audience, that me might put a bit into his music-  maybe some of the “Rolling Stone” or “Tambourine Man” magic.  It wasn’t there.

The songs enough were to make the audience cheer, but, I’m pretty sure they weren’t cheering for Dylan.  They were cheering (I suppose) to be at the concert, to see an icon (not a musical act-an Icon).  And the crowd had every reason to cheer, because the backing band was rock solid, and Dylan showed up.   He rasped a bit, blew a harmonica and said good night just before an uninspired “Like a Rolling Stone”–  and then the lights came on. The audience groaned.  So there we have it– Bob Dylan.  I had a good time (I’m not sure if he did).

As far back as high school I recall syllabuses telling me that by the time I was done with a given course that I would be able to “talk” about a subject.  I think this is largely the kind of education imparted these days– and a valuable one, at that.  In Grad School, if I have been exposed to nothing else, it is new terms and ideas.  I’ve added quite a few (roughly a metric ton) of fancy-sounding-psueudo-ostentatious words to talk about communication darn near anything.  Knowing the terms, and the way that discourse works in any given genre is an important part of the ball game, and I suppose it imparts analytic ability- or perhaps more precisely the ways of discussing something once analyzed.

I’m not interested in posting neat well organized blog posts right now.  To do so would not be representative of what, or how I’m learning right now.  It’s been a fun ride, and I’ve read enough journal articles to… do something.  Anyway, Good night, and what do you think?

Drew’s Cold Combat Strategy

–Sudafed (or Off-Brand) — 2 every four hours.  The standard dosage doesn’t quite cut it for me (“I am large, I contain Multitudes…”)

–Netty Pot- Readers, If you have not been introduced to one of these– I cannot recommend it highly enough.  It’s kind of a nasal irrigation apparatus.  Yes, it’s weird, and yes, the contents of your sinuses pour out of your nose (but, I suppose that’s the point after all)

–Hot Tea- I prefer Peppermint with Honey (that’s not a flavor, I add the honey), or Lemon tea with Honey.

–Multi Vitamin-  Sure, I should probably be turbo dosing Vitamin C, but part of me is uncomfortable with that.  So, I’m sticking to my daily multi-vitamin, which if taken regularly might have prevented me from getting this cold in the first place.

–Cough Drops

Side Note:  I bring my own tissues, and hand sanitzer.  Because University TP, and hand soap just don’t sit well with me.

I have a ton of projects and work and reading to do this week.  With that in mind I am skipping the heavy hitting decongestant NyQuil/Robitussin’s out there.  They are great, but  they turn me into a zombie.

What cold remedies do you subscribe to?

(Image Creative Commons Flikr User : Trish Hamme

-I’m going to go to bed at a reasonable time tonight
-I’m going to take a multi-vitamin everyday (starting yesterday).
-I’m going to start doing some of my reading outside (as soon as its not a bazillion degrees outside).
-I’m going to exercise (as soon as I don’t feel like slime).
-Washing of hands (I have a strong dislike towards hand sanitizer)

I probably won’t keep you posted on this, but we’ll see if i start feeling better soon.  Here’s to it.

(Image via Google Creative Commons Search