Tuesdays are going to be marvelous this year. I have no classes on this day, so I am free for to spend a whole day focusing on my studies.

So here I am, underneath the fresh, breeze-cooled shade of a young red maple. Below me, in the dell, the willow maiden sways and dances as spruces and pines bow gently in her direction. A tuliptree leans against the band shell, and up here at the top, in the company of so many Maples, I watch the cloudscape filter light tbetween leaves flush with living energy.

I don't even mind the wrist splint, for the air is sweet with the fragrance of summer grass, my mind is sharp, and my fingers are flying over the keys.

After my post yesterday about convocation, a surreptitious conversation was heard in the wee hours of the night, deep in the recesses of Elizabethtown's cyberspace underworld...

Did you hear? Dr. McAllister is now addressing me as gollum!

haha!

that's funny

you don't really look like gollum though

you look more like Bede.

haha...but I guess Gollum and Bede look similar

I think all you need to do is grow a beard.

As I noted before, with quite a bit of humor, I am a College Scholar at Elizabethtown College this year. But it is no laughing matter. I joked about it the night before, but walking into the convocation ceremony with my gown on, I realized how serious and exciting the honor is.

During the ceremony, I was surrounded by most of the students I most respect. We walked together into the room, and the administration of the college honored us and told us to hang in there until the end. Then they asked us, one by one, to stand, as they read our names to the incoming students, their parents, our parents.

I never stood taller in my life.

Of course, I'm still pretty short. Here's a picture of me with Ben Osterhout, a good friend in the honors program who co-presented with me at the National Collegiate Honors Conference last year.

No, I'm not in pain. I'm squinting. I haven't gotten outside much the last few weeks, and I'm used to low light , reading and typing in dimly-lit rooms. Just call me Gollum. With the sun bouncing off my head like that, I look like I could be gollum.

I saw the full moon tonight.

I saw it ensconced in a deep blue evening sky, illuminating the clouds from behind. For a few minutes, the universe was like a mobile hanging from the ceiling, and the beautiful moon a bluish ceiling lamp.

The whole landscape is bathed in silverblue light.

I could have stared forever, as the moon, an unimaginable disc stuck to heaven's ceiling, glowed with radiance in the haze of our atmosphere.

I have seen moonbows in the evening haze, and they are elusively spectacular, a nighttime radiance of color. But the full moon tonight -- oh!-- it was beautiful. This beauty would be hidden and empty without the light of the sun it reflects. And yet, the dark patches on the moon are part of its beauty. It is a speckled, burned up piece of rock, yet it glows with brilliance given it by the sun. And that is part of the miracle, a mottled grey core surrounded by a soft, smooth, radiant aegis of light.

We cannot look on the sun and retain our sight, but we can see the moon in all its brilliance and marvel at the power of the sun's light, that even in reflection it nearly blinds us.

And so it is with us humans, that Christians get to be moons of God's holiness and beauty. We are mottled, we are burned out chunks of rock that will never be a star, yet we are given light.

I could have watched all evening.

But I must sleep. Classes start tomorrow.

The first year students have arrived. The crazy, tangled hustle of many efforts will soon begin.

For me, I have not really stopped since the semester last ended. So, aside from the writing I must do today, I am taking time to slow down, study the Scriptures, pray, and rest in the enjoyment of beauty.

I find beauty most in sights and sounds. There is beauty in the warble of forest birds as the afternoon sun filters through the last green leaves. I will practice my trumpet again today, perhaps for the last time alone in Zug Hall, alone as I float on waves of lyric sound, alone in the delayed company of so many beautiful minds of the past. Or I will close my eyes and feel the smiles of a friend's voice, or imagine worlds in the measured tones of a narrator reading great stories.

Most beautiful of all are thoughts of Christ.

I have been listening to C.S. Lewis's "Out of the Silent Planet" on BBC7 radio. Much thinking to do, much thinking...

Today, I walk in the convocation processional with the rest of Elizabethtown's College Scholars.

The gown is interesting. I think I would make a good member of Polyphonic Spree. Perhaps I could be the "dark side" member or something. Ak. They already have a trumpet. I would have to work on my dancing anyway.

I suppose now that I have the garb, I should go on a quest for the rest.

Whew! After about 2 months of picking away at it, I finally sat down and created the first part of my online graphics design portfolio: a set of posters I created for Elizabethtown College's Academic Integrity Committee.

I had fun designing these with my friend Hannah Scott. Although i don't get to exercise my design skills often as a literature major, I always enjoy the opportunity to use a different side of my brain.

This week, students have begun to arrive at Elizabethtown College.

Let the speeches begin.

• Today, I give a talk about academic integrity to the peer mentors, a group of students who will be the first year students' guides this year.
• Thursday, I have a luncheon with a bunch of other academic performers. I will then walk in with the faculty during the convocation ceremony.
• Saturday, I will talk to new commuter students. Partway through the commuter meeting, I will leave to attend an Honors Program dinner for new students. I will then leave the dinner to attend an Academic Integrity Committee dinner. After that, I go back to the Honors dinner.
• Sunday, I will be giving a speech to the new student body on plagiarism and integrity. That evening, I'll get to watch as the new students light candles and speak their induction recitation (this is a college, btw. Not a cult) in the moonlight.

Then classes begin.

I don't know what will happen to the blog, but I intend to continue to poast as I can.

Hmm. One of the toughest issues with writing hypertext is this:

One does not communicate text. One communicates ideas.

Transclusion brings in an excerpt of text into an existing bit of writing. But it can't as a technique guarantee that the idea will still get across. In fact, another idea may be presented.

It's the difference between quoting and paraphrasing

Context is such a big part of meaning. It takes a different kind of thinking, a kind of humility to write hypertext. You have to give up some of the authorial power, admit that you can't form the perfect reader experience, and hand the power to the reader.

At the same time, you have to be twice as thoughtful, twice as controlling, just to make sure it doesn't flop.

To Win, Simply Play, by Dylan Kinnett, is a great little hypertext novella. When you read the novella, don't just think about what he does structurally. Think about the kinds of things he can and can't talk about. For example, chronology isn't a big part of the novella. Why not? Because he can't give the chronology direction, and anchoring stories to time would just force the reader to keep track.

n amazing package arrived in the mail a couple weeks ago. It was odd, because I wasn't expecting a package of any sort.

A few months ago, I did some writing for an organization called The Remnant Trust. They are an foundation that brings rare and ancient manuscripts to schools, colleges, etc, for educational programs. They did a program at my college, which is how I learned of them.

I also suggested the program to Patrick Henry College, which has intellectually-powerful, motivated students who would read the manuscripts in their original languages.

When I opened the box, I was greeted by a letter and another package. Inside the package was a leather folder... with a page from the original print run of the 1611 King James Bible!

This particular excerpt of Isaiah 11 has been a great encouragement to me. Why?

• It reminds me of God's faithfulness through time in the preservation of Scripture. Four hundred years ago, there was a pastor somewhere, who picked up this book in wonder, for he could now for the first time read the Bible in his own language. Knowledge and wisdom were no longer the domain of the educated elite of the Church. No, people were now allowed to hear, think, and consider these words for themselves. Rejoice!
• Isaiah 10 is a big contrast from chapter 11. In 10, we see the efforts of someone who was very pleased with his own wisdom, his own knowledge, his own ability to rule. He failed; Assyria was a cruel place of injustice and evil. In 11, we learn of Someone with true wisdom, true kindness, true justice for all. In my own efforts to understand this world, it is a comfort to know that there will be a time when knowledge, wisdom, and kindness will not be so rare as they are today.
• Thus, this manuscript reminds me of God's efforts over time. It reminds me that I am just a small person. It reminds me that He has been faithful for hundreds and thousands of years, and He will continue to be faithful far beyond my imagined future. Like Habakuk, no matter what I see in my lifetime, whether it be great things, or terrible things -- whether I seem to matter or not -- I can still seek to live rightteously and still praise God for what happens. For I know the ending, and it is a happy one.

I have crazy ideas from time to time.

I learned in Philly never to run with scissors, especially not at night.

Don't be deceived. The clothing does not make the man.

I was going to make a longer post, but time is running out. So here's what I'll be seeing in a few minuts as I heft my luggage and trudge toward the regional rail station.

Being away is nice. Being home is nice too.

See you soon!

For those of you who enjoyed Flaming Bobby, here's a little bit by Mark Bentine, Intermediate French for Beginners.

Another great audio brought to you by the web savvy of Wayne Stewart, worldwide distributor for Foot-O, the Wonder Boot Exploder!

The Goons are too much fun, any time of the day.

It's simple. Come up with a title like this:

The Library Company of Philadelphia has wireless. Yay!

I love short morality fiction about real events.

Take, for example, take the plight of Cromwell Hicks, who in this story was just recently expelled from Yale for a few petty jokes -- abducting a prof's daughter in the dead of night and planting explosives in one of the academic halls....

What does he to do in that kind of situation? Kill blacks and kidnap women of course. But first, he robs the bank owned by his dad.

Oh well. He was an illegitimate child anyway.

Where was the legitimate child that his mother had hidden from her husband? In Eastern State Penitentiary of course. And yes, his real (and rich) father had put him in jail for trying to pass counterfeit money. And no, he didn't know he had a son at the time. Well, he thought Cromwell was his son, but he was wrong.

Oh, it all works out in the end. Everyone dies -- almost. The wronged, legitimate son survives in his attempt to rescue his "sister" (they were raised together, but didn't know they weren't biological siblings) from the flames of the riot where she was imprisoned by the illegitimate son.

One presumes that they married and lived happily ever after.

Like I said, gotta love good ol' 19th century literature.

As I was reading, Phil Lapansky, research librarian here at the Library Company, peeked over my shoulder, got excited, and handed me a bookled he has compiled on George Lippard, the author of this story. It turns out that Lippard published this book under a number of titles -- I'm currently sitting in front of two of them.

Lapansky has actually photocopied all editions and done a textual criticism with a detailed annotation of all revisions between editions...

One final thing. I hereby resolve never to name any character "Mr. Snick"

When I went to Philadelphia on Sunday, I was very excited -- and a bit nervous. Why?

There is a novel in Philadelphia.

I was going to photograph it.

In July, someone got picked up by the police for photographing this novel.

I saw another sticker on the University of Pennsylvania campus.

Unlike most novels, Implementation doesn't exist in a book. Rather, it exists on hundreds of stickers around Philadelphia. Looking for the novel has made my trip to Philadelphia more exciting.

Implementation is very relevant to hypertext writing -- thinking about it helps me think about how I could better create hypertext systems.

Although all the text is written by the two authors, the novel itself is up to three groups of people. The ultimate authors are those who print the stickers and put them up all over the city. They can author whatever experience they want. But even they can't determine the final structure. That is up to the reader. A reader may encounter just one paragraph, or a reader could make a conscious effort to read the entire set of stickers. The novel requires reader interaction in the writing process, for the reader has to find the stickers and construct the connections of meaning between them.

The final authors (deauthors?), I suppose, are the sanitation people who take down the stickers. I do feel a little bad for them -- there's enough residue in the city already.

Is it a good novel? To answer that, I'm going to pull a phrase completely out of context from Conrad's Heart of Darkness. The novel...

This novel isn't something to I'd recommend reading for content, but for the idea -- the Implementation.

I visited the library of the University of Pennsylvania today.

Let me correct: two of the many libraries of the University of Pennsylvania.

I never imagined the coolness of libraries that literally have multiple copies of everything. Who stocks multiple copies of the Domesday Book along with a shelf of commentaries?

Dr. Adams noted that Harvard, where she studied, has an even bigger library.

I can't even begin to imagine how cool that would be.

On a whim, I called Dr. Kimberley Adams, my literature theory professor. Good news! She was nearby. It is comforting and fun to see people I know when I am visiting a strange place.

I took the subway a few hours early, registered for the Library Company of Philadelphia, and ate a marvelous chicken sandwich at Maggianos. Then, I walked back toward center city, by the Lord & Taylor. I stepped inside to take another peek at the marvelous Wannamaker Organ, the largest organ in the world and sovereign of all the kings of instruments. I have lately been playing with organs, and I have learned a new respect for the instrument.

Ahhh, it is beautiful. I wish I still played the piano. I would love to learn the organ, with its amazingly beautiful complexity of sound, the harmony and lyric blending together to fill the entire atmosphere with an ecosystem of musical life.

Then, I walked through City Hall underneath a massive sculpted sphere.

After meandering a bit, I headed over to Cosi's, where I was to meet Dr. Adams. Nice place. I may grab something there tomorrow, while I binge on archives in the area.

We talked for a while about academics, about Philadelphia. Dr. Adams gave me some good pointers on places to eat and things to see. But time ran out. But we were both heading back to center city, so we walked together for a while.

"My husband works in one of those blue towers...the evil empires, we call them"

Before we got there, she pointed out Philadelphia's local temple to the god of money.

It's now the Ritz-Carlton hotel.

Eventually, we split ways. She went to finish her business in town, and I headed off to the 30th street station for more fun in the city.

I spent some time in the 30th street station waiting for the regional line to the place I'm staying.

Did I tell you I look like a sucker?

Fortunately, I'm not a sucker.

She was perfect. Her technique was down, her style was smooth. She started talking to me, trying to fish for info. I responded, curious. She spoke of her "goods business."

Legitimate businesses which earn people enough money to retire at 30 -- these businesses don't have to approach random people in the train station, looking for business partners.

After talking a short while, I took a card and left. Why the card? I wanted to do some research... The first tipoff? She didn't have her own business card. She had another card, with one email scratched off and another written in. This particular pyramid scam is pretty obvious. They don't even deceive well -- it's an incompetent scam as well. Go to the web address, and you'll be redirected to the unhelpful website of BWW.

Tipoff number two? The website refuses to give you information about the business unless you register. This is an old ploy.

I use a very distantly-related variant of it in the new Elizabethtown College website. I got the idea from Eliza Meets the Postmodern, the first article I ever read about hypertext (read it ages ago and forgot it, but some of the ideas stuck).

On the Etown site, we use the illusion of user power to guide people through our marketing information. Our goal is to offset the skimming habits of web viewers -- by guiding them through a page or two, we make sure they get more information than they would normally.

BWW uses different techniques to present as little information as possible. But BWW doesn't even bother with skillful marketing. They do it this way:

You can't get info if you don't sign up.

I don't know what kind of sucker you think I am, but cults are not businesses. Nice try. Better luck next time.

I love it when things come together. Today, I spent the day at the Eastern State Penitentiary.

I'm currently working on a presentation/hypertet for the WWW@10 Conference at Rose-Hulman. My argument is that developments in museum science, creative/literary nonfiction, and documentary practice combine with recent technology to make really cool online historical narrative possible.

The Eastern State Penitentiary is an excellent example of the kind of place that really makes museums fun.

It's the only place I know that asks you to sign a liability waiver before you walk in. No wonder -- it's falling apart.

Along the way, you hear a really good narration combined with first-hand accounts from the guards and ex-prisoners of this maximum security prison. The narration is very good, including background music and sound effects. It was created by people who really understand audio acting -- not just a bunch of boring scholars.

Although Al Capone's voice wasn't on the handheld mp3 player, he was an inmate in the prison for 8 months. Unlike the other prisoners, Capone was allowed many comforts of home -- a radio, writing desk, electric lamp, and even wall paintings. The other prisoners in solitary confinement, sitting in their bare, maddening cells, could occasionally hear snatches of a waltz coming from his cell.

The museum also encourages art installations. Here is a photo of Juxtapositions.

This place is amazing -- when Charles Dickens came to Philadelphia, he came so he could see this place. You should do the same.

Well, folks, I'm bound for the city of brotherly love.

Why?

I'm researching riots.

Go figure.

I hope to post while I'm away (particularly to keep working on "The World of Tomorrow"), but I don't know what Internet I'll have, so the site might be a bit barren the next week.

Until then....ciao!

Last week, I did some research in the Henry Mercer Museum and Spruance Library, in Doylestown PA. I'll post a photo-essay later, but it was an awesome trip.

The Mercer Museum is a concrete castle.