From my blog post back in Oct 2009, I defined what makes someone pre/post Oprah. If you haven’t noticed, Twitter from its conception to now has become increasing useful as a medium of communication. One could say that it is more powerful piece of communication than today’s conventional telephone. Within five years, a causal user of twitter should have at least 500 followers and at least a quarter of those could be identified as family, friends, colleagues, or acquaintances.

Not sure where I was going with this draft, but it is very interesting to see how social media has evolved and stayed the same over the years. Not ever sure if the Pre-Oprah Twitter/X users even really matter or are even referenced in conversation. During the time of this draft, social media was innocent. It wasn’t about going viral.

Now, I believe that the Pre-Oprah Twitter/X Generation learned how to speak publicly before algorithms rewarded outrage, but after gatekeepers disappeared. I hesitate to say this, but as a digital elder, I know when to post and not to post because silence is sometimes wisdom. I tweeted publicly before attention became currency and before outrage was incentivized. Twitter taught us that words travel, that tone matters, and that even a small audience deserves care.

Here was my answer: Web 1.0? Here is a link – I was writing about Web (Procurement) 4.0 in 2009 –https://procureinsights.com/2009/12/03/todays-zycus-webinar-on-esourcing-2-0-is-here-was-interesting-yet-it-did-not-tell-the-whole-story/

And, below is the actual December 3, 2009, article to which I refer. Sometimes old dogs can teach new dogs a trick or two about the current state of procurement in 2025. ;)

Today’s Zycus Webinar on eSourcing 2.0 is here! was interesting, yet it did not tell the whole story

Posted on December 3, 2009

Like most professionals in my field I receive endless invitations to attend conferences, webinars and store openings.  As a result one has to be selective in terms of which invites they will accept otherwise, and like the frequency of corporate golf tournaments during the dot.com boom – I actually reached the point of being able to break 90 – I could literally spend every day of every week of every month . . . well you get my drift.

But through this voluminous wave of exciting breakthroughs and must attend seminars, occasionally one will grab your attention.  While Zycus is a sponsor of this blog I can assure you that it wasn’t this aspect of our relationship that caused me to take notice of their most recent Webinar.

As many of you who have been following this blog from its early days already know, my background in researching the utilization of advanced algorithms within the framework of an agent-based model started in 1998.  Funded by the Government of Canada’s Scientific Research and Experimental Development Program (SR&ED), I developed and patented what I referred to as the strand commonality theory.  Ironically, my theory has actually been reviewed in terms of its application in other environments such as identifying trends relative to the effectiveness of government policy.  (Note: so as not to go on a tangent within this post, here is the link to an April 2008 article that will provide the conceptual overview of the theory and its impact on the purchasing process.)

Suffice to say this background in the research that will lay the foundation for the Web 4.0 business platform, caused me to take particular note of the eSourcing 2.0 is here! Zycus webinar title.  To be quite frank, I was even a little excited.

For obvious reasons, the most innovative companies who understand and have utilized algorithms within their application architecture are not prone to incorporate this fact into their reference or promotional materials.  At least not historically.

This is the challenge that most true innovators face in that with the making of new inroads and breakthroughs comes the unenviable task of creating what I call points of reference that enables the broader market to understand the value of the solution within the context of current day knowledge and experience.

In essence, the challenge is not with the technological breakthrough itself, but the market’s ability to grasp its significance and ultimate impact beyond the realms of what is historically known, a problem by the way that is not limited to the “end user” or client.

In my August 11th, 2009 post titled “Spend Analysis versus Spend Intelligence: More Than a Semantical Difference” I referenced a post by an individual some consider to be one of the top bloggers in the industry as an example of how the reliance on what is known versus what is possible can lead to a kind of visionary myopia.  Here is the excerpt from that article, which was part of a series leading up to a guest panel discussion on the subject of spend analysis versus spend intelligence:

I believe the phrase “spend intelligence” to be misleading. To me, it sounds like a new take or sub-segment of business intelligence software applications which offer analytics and dashboard capabilities and sit on top of existing systems of record. The problem is that spend visibility and analytics is much more complex, requiring data cleansing, rationalization, classification and other efforts which go far beyond what is needed to gain insight into basic HR, financials, IT and other internal information, which fall cleanly in to the BI camp.

The above statement is from a July 11th, 2006 blog post (no, not Procurement Insights) that reflects one of the main reasons why 85 percent of all e-procurement/supply chain initiatives fail to achieve the expected results.  Specifically, the reference to “spend visibility and analytics” as being “much more complex, requiring data cleansing, rationalization, classification and other efforts.”

Now in all fairness, this dismissive view of spend intelligence is representative of the limitations associated with traditional equation-based ERP applications in which the cycle to extract, let alone analyze meaningful data was onerous.  In other words, unless you understood the basic differences between an equation-based versus an agent-based approach to solution development you would quite logically make the same assumption.  You would be wrong, but you would be justified based upon your focus on IT or ERP-centric applications, and the limited framework within which they operated.

It is within the context of the above excerpt that the eSourcing 2.0 webinar fell short in terms of providing the complete picture.  Specifically, that Zycus has leveraged certain elements of Web 4.0-type algorithms to create an intuitive “intelligence dashboard” that enables both the easy collection and timely application of spend data to effect immediate and meaningful pro-active results where it is needed the most . . . at the real-time, operational level where decisions are made.

While the presentation provided a few interesting facts such as the amount of “Revenue, By Industry, Needed to Generate $10M Profit,” as well as the “Top Pressures” CFOs face – by the way, I still find it interesting that cost reductions, mitigating supply risks and improving processes are deemed to be a CFO versus CPO responsibility – generally speaking the Aberdeen portion of the session was generalized in terms of the lens through which it was viewing the subject matter.  In short, you could have easily inserted any vendor’s name relative to the first part of the presentation, which is why the insights of traditional analysts are losing steam in a virtual world that demands distinction versus generalized statistical ruminations.

Even the venue through which the webinar was presented seemed outdated with the tinny sound and ersatz real-time functional interaction through the submission of on-line questions and polling.  There are tools and platforms that for a fraction of the cost enable up to six live TV-type screens to be displayed simultaneously including the ability for one to include a PowerPoint presentation or film clips.  The Q&A within this emerging venue can be opened to live on-air questions with the audience, enabling the presenter to actually make a real and tangible connection.  It is the difference between what David Cushing referred to as traditional and increasingly ineffective eyes looking toward a single stage versus eyes looking at each other.

As indicated, Zycus is a sponsor of the Procurement Insights Blog.  However the $250 US annual sponsorship fee (nor any amount of money) would influence my coverage of a vendor event.  That said while you should most definitely take the time to tune into the webinar, especially the latter half with Zycus’ Senior Product Marketing Manager Bikash Mohanty, you need to view the insights delivered through the expanded lens of emerging innovative breakthrough.  In essence you need to see Zycus’ solution in the context of a proactive, real-time tool for keeping your fingers on the pulse of real-world market conditions that consistently empowers best value-best result decision making with each and every transaction.

Like the old saying, “it’s what’s inside that counts,” (in this case the content of the Zycus message versus the vehicle through which it is being delivered), the growing testimony to my enthusiasm for the power of the solution is reflected in the steady stream of new, international clients that are choosing Zycus as their procurement platform.

In fact just this morning Zycus announced that the world’s largest dairy exporter, New Zealand-based Fonterra “has selected Zycus’ Spend Analysis and Strategic Sourcing solutions to help streamline procurement processes and create an enterprise-wide view of spend to identify savings opportunities and improve sourcing performance.”

The above statement, and those like it give the best and most reliable testimony to a vendor’s ability to deliver(and even exceed) expectations.  This is why I have recognized Zycus as one of the New Titans of the SaaS World for 2009.

Note: use the following link to access the eSourcing 2.0 is here! on-demand webinar.

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BONUS (RELATED) COVERAGE

Below is a table summarizing the similarities and differences between Web 2.0, Web 4.0, Procurement 1.0, and Procurement 3.0, based on the previous analysis. The table is concise, incorporates insights from ProcureTech providers (e.g., Tealbook, Coupa, Zip), taxonomy (20–40% adoption), and digital readiness, and aligns with web sources (e.g.,,,). It highlights their relevance to ProcureTech, including Generative AI and Agentic AI.

Notes on Table

• Similarities: All phases advance technology, focus on data, enhance stakeholder interaction, and aim for efficiency/value, aligning with ProcureTech goals (e.g., Tealbook’s data unification mirrors Web 2.0’s connectivity).
• Differences: Web 2.0 and Web 4.0 are internet-wide, with Web 2.0 current and Web 4.0 future-focused, while Procurement 1.0 (historical) and Procurement 3.0 (current) are procurement-specific. Data types (structured vs. unstructured) and AI integration vary, impacting Generative AI (e.g., accurate reports in Sievo) and Agentic AI (e.g., autonomous sourcing in ORO Labs).
• ProcureTech Implications: Procurement 3.0 drives current ProcureTech success but faces taxonomy (20–40%) and readiness gaps, per McKinsey (2023). Web 2.0 supports platforms like Zip, while Web 4.0 could enable Procurement 4.0, per SIG.

Critical Perspective

• Web 4.0 Uncertainty: Vague definitions and unproven tech (e.g., brain interfaces, Forrester) contrast with Procurement 3.0’s practical focus, per CIPS.
• Readiness Barriers: Procurement 3.0’s taxonomy issues (60–80% unaligned) and skills gaps limit AI, unlike Web 2.0’s maturity, per Ivalua.
• Data Gaps: Limited comparative studies, but ProcureTech100 and Spend Matters validate Procurement 3.0’s relevance.
• Vendor Alignment: Coupa, Tealbook, and Zip leverage Web 2.0 and Procurement 3.0, with Web 4.0 as a future opportunity, per ISM.

Conclusion

The table highlights that Web 2.0, Web 4.0, Procurement 1.0, and Procurement 3.0 share goals of advancing technology and efficiency but differ in scope, tech, data, and AI use. Procurement 3.0 powers ProcureTech (e.g., Prewave, Focal Point) but is constrained by taxonomy and readiness, while Web 4.0 could shape future ProcureTech. Monitor SIG or CIPS for trends.

Chloë: Hi Alex.

Alex: Thank you so much for agreeing to engage in a short interview with me for the project that I’m doing on my blog, which has morphed in the second half of its short duration (from the election to the quickly approaching inauguration) to be one-on-one conversations¹ about some of the more pressing themes raised for me: how we form groups together, how we are audiences for and with each other, and methods of collaboration that will be of assistance for us as our world changes, soon.² We have a new president after the 20th of January.

I’m reaching out to you because you and I are going to be teaching a CUNY grad class together, Socially Engaged Archives: In Theory, In Practice, a very feeding form of collaboration for me. It’s the second time we’ve done it and a collaboration from which I previously learned a great deal. What will it be like to be co-teaching this class with a large group (20-30!) of CUNY graduate students (from your own SPCUNY, from Brooklyn College’s PIMA, and also MAs, MFAs, and PhDs from across the system)? How are you anticipating our class that begins after the inauguration?

Chloë: We talked about this shift of your project a little bit before coming to this conversation, and it’s kind of fun because inadvertently, I was part of the first phase of the project because you came to my Hanukkah party. We had a conversation then about whether or not we would constitute “an audience.” And then based on a very specific interaction or twist to the evening, we did, and you wrote about that. I don’t know if everybody who attended the party read what you wrote, but I do know at least a few people did and really enjoyed seeing themselves being reported back in that way.

And this reminds me of some elements of the first iteration of the class that we taught where one of the things that I would sometimes do was create a sort of live note taking document during the class. This wasn’t exactly notes in a traditional sense, but a kind of record of emotional responses, shifts in the room tones, or representations of other types of lived experiences that coincided with our learning.

And then subsequently, I gave you a similar sort of gift of note taking and emotional reportage for your 60^th birthday last year. So, I’m coming to this second iteration of our class and thinking about these different ways that reporting or witnessing takes form for me. One of the things I’ve been considering is that a challenge in these moments of political upheaval is of leadership for us, the teachers, where many people, quite correctly, are looking to us to know something that we don’t yet know. And they’re looking to us for information, assistance, guidance, mentorship in a moment where we also feel totally uncertain. And I realized that one of the gifts that I do have, and one of the things that I can bring, even in my own uncertainty is this gift of report-back.

How do these very real moments from our lives and from the rooms that we’re in become part of the experience of being together? How is that a group form of witnessing that kind of equalizes everyone in our seminar across a shift in a political moment, while also maintaining the very unequal relationship in the seminar where we are the teachers and some 18 to 28 people are our students?

Alex: I love that answer. It raises for me—this incredible skill that you have, the live reporting—that you doesn’t just record words but sort of emit how affect is riven, live, to an encounter. When we teach, when we’re in class together, when we are building that dynamic space in a feminist context, I think of that as a very collaborative experience—between professors and students and between students and students—organized by power, as you said, but also letting power fluctuate. It’s live and it dissipates. We all know, as teachers and students, how intense a classroom can be, but it is a temporary intensity. What’s interesting about your live witnessing is that it then also produces a digital record, which has a different function, although related to the class itself.³ And I wonder if you want to speak a little bit more about that tension between the ephemeral and the record, especially given that ours is a class about artists using and making archives and scholars using and making archives.

Chloë: It’s this dual subject position for me which is the hardest part of teaching, where I feel like I’m the performer and the class is the audience. That’s the hardest part. And so in a way, this note taking situation puts me—I’m still in my position of power—but it puts me in a position of less performance within that position of power and more that my power is as the audience to the audience. So it’s like I’m topping from the bottom, right? It’s a huge amount of control to be responsible for this document. But also I’m the bottom. “It’s not my performance, it’s yours.”

And I think that shift, maybe queer, maybe feminist—all of those things given my own subject positions and life experience‚ can demonstrate the many positions of artists who are working with archives. The archive is shaping and informing the work, but also the artist, in a way—through what we’re calling remix in our assignments, or reinterpretation; what we teach through focusing on annotation or citation; what we do through all of these different ways of dealing with classifying and scrambling information. All this hands-on archval work puts a huge amount of power in the hands of the archivist/student where they are making their own intellectual or creative stamp that actually controls how information flows. And this is maybe my, I don’t want to call it an art project, but it’s like my project within our class, to be continually demonstrating that through my own weird behavior.

Alex: That’s not weird. But I think the other thing about anticipating what we will do when we’re going to be teaching after a new president is in place, part of the beauty of that for me is that of co-teaching (when it works) and collaborating (when it works), which is that all the power is not mine. All the agency is not mine. All the responsibility is not mine. And the experience becomes more flexible for that reason. And I think we’re going to need a lot of flexibility in whatever is coming next, to the point where I can see us rewriting the class as needed

Chloë: Oh, we could be throwing the whole thing out. But I am open to seeing not exactly what is needed, because I don’t think people will know what they need. But in working across the shifting times to figure out what’s changing.

Alex: And so these practices of flexibility that are responsible and responsive and that are caring, I’ve always thought that the feminist classroom is a model for so much of what can be good in the world. So many of the decent and thoughtfully engendered ways of being in the world I have found expressed in feminist classrooms, whether I’m the teacher or the student.

Is there anything we haven’t mentioned about what we are calling, say, a co-taught feminist class, that is a model for how to prepare and think about being in groups?

Chloë: Can I talk about Aristotle?

Alex: Well, yes, that would be you being weird.

Chloë: Great. Okay. So I have read some Aristotle sometime ago. What is well known among people from the theater and performance stripe is the Aristotelian idea of theater and the role of catharsis in theater. The specific spatial relationship between the performer, the audience, and catharsis. That catharsis is something that exists spatially between the audience, which watches the play on stage, the stage, and then somewhere arcing up into the middle. Maybe where the stage lights are is emotional catharsis. And I think retooling this for the feminist model is to state that all of those things are intermingled, but also that they’re a lot more complicated.

So that spatially what’s happening is (this is going to be hard to describe in writing in a blog, but what I’m doing with my fingers is I have two fingers and then they’re intermingling with my other two fingers. And then it’s like that wiggling of my two fingers from each hand together is the space of catharsis, but also is my hand. My fingers are bumping up against each other.)

And all of this is impacting the ways that witnessing and performance and group management come together that are fundamentally changing in real time. And I think it’s this desire to create affinity that is somehow defined and established and unchanging. That has gotten a lot of us seeking solidarity into trouble.

I talked recently with Aruna D’Souza about her new book, Imperfect Solidarities, which I have not yet read. But in talking to Aruna about the ideas in her book, this idea of imperfection, I think is both politically helpful and somewhat troubling to a lot of people right now. It’s like feeling out how to deal with this imperfection, or the ripples created by the commingling of performer, audience, and catharsis in the same moment. This is very much what’s at hand for us in our classroom and kind of globally, in what you are calling the “interval,” and then what comes after.

1. This is my fifth such interview. The first four are with my boyfriend (about the intimate audience, writing, and depression in the interval); the second with Michael Mandiberg (about being audience to another’s need, as that person is careproviding for a partner undergoing chemo); the third with Aymar Jean Christian (about his work on the African-American cookout as a model for community and mediamaking); and the fourth with Dan Fishback (about his show, “Dan Fishback is Alive and Unwell and Living in his Apartment,” and what this raises about alienation and solidarity practices with the chronically ill and those in Palestine). ↩︎
2. Here is a summary, “4 questions and 21 audiences at the new year,” of the writing I did from November 20 to January 1, 2025 via the first rubric for my self-imposed practice where I blogged, seriously, about every audience I put myself into. ↩︎
3. I have taught this course, based in my VHS Activism Archive, four times at CUNY. Twice before with fellow Brooklyn College professor, Jenn McCoy. Iterations of the class are held in and transform the archive (see Archive of Past Courses pull-down menu). ↩︎

In this second phase of my blogging practice during the interval between election and inauguration, I have decided to be in close conversation with people in my world who can think with me about ways to be together now and later, forming audiences and gatherings that can feed us. I recently had the extraordinary pleasure of getting to see an advanced copy of your comic, The Cookout: A Guide to AI: Ancestral Intelligence, which is part of your larger forthcoming book project, Reparative Media: Cultivating Stories and Platforms to Heal Our Culture. Your work is so deeply aligned with ideas I’ve been invested in for my whole career about community-based anti-racist queer and feminist media praxis, but even more thrilling, things I’m thinking about right now. I am more than happy to host you here!

Aymar: I’m honored. Thank you.

Alex: My pleasure. I have been writing and thinking about and being in audiences in this period, and this has often brought me to the role of food. And here you are having created a luscious body of theoretical and practical media work on the cookout! Can you talk about how food is integral to your project of community building and media making?

Aymar: Absolutely. When I got to Northwestern in 2012, I was new to the city. I had been to Chicago, but I’m not from here. And I spent my first years kind of very lonely. My partner was in LA. After going through kind of a month’s long depression, I realized I needed community. But, how do we actually build it? I luckily knew at least one person in Chicago who happened to be very social, a postdoc at the University of Chicago. And he kind of dragged me out to mostly queer nightlife and some other art events where I started to slowly meet people. And when you go out, you start seeing the same people, you strike up conversations, but in that public space you can only get so deep.

So eventually I realized I need to start bringing people to my home and cook for them so that I can have more meaningful interactions. I was mostly focused on queer artists of color, because those are the people who I feel see me and who share some understanding of what it’s like to be in this world. So sometimes it would be like, oh, come to my apartment before we go out. I’ll have a little bit of food, a little bit of drink, and we’ll kind of pregame and whatnot.

And it was really through that practice that I started to build a community of collaborators, not just people I hang out with and talk to about things. The start of my creative research practice, OTV | Open Television, was with the people who I first hosted. We went on to make films, and they introduced me to other people who wanted to make films and it grew from there.

Food can bridge the public and the private. It can bring people out to the public. But then also when we invite people to our home (I grew up with a family where if you came over, you were offered food and that is how you felt at home), it’s this incredible technology for making connections.

Alex: I have a European parent, a Hungarian parent, and it’s a European or Hungarian sensibility as well, which I don’t see with all Americans. If you’re here at our house, you are going to be fed. But you’re work is about a uniquely Black or African-American or African diasporic food format: the cookout.

Aymar: African-American people have nursed themselves for generations through untold oppression through food, right? When you don’t have complete agency over your body and labor, the one thing you can do actively is nourish yourself to the best of your ability, to sustain your life and the lives of the people that you love. And to do that, they developed something called soul food, which is a blend of African and European and indigenous cooking traditions, ingredients, and so on. And that becomes, I think after slavery especially, a form of gathering community and creating new structures that don’t revolve around colonialism.

I’m talking about this in an African-American context because my parents are Caribbean immigrants. And so this is an ancestral practice. But I do think the term, “the cookout,” is most often used by Black American folks to talk about ritualistic practices of community gathering around food and other forms of art. There’s also music and dance and other forms of cultural expression. It’s a really rich allegorical framework for thinking about how we gather around culture, about food as central to culture, as a culinary art form in addition to other art forms, and how art is this technology for connection.

And so for me personally, my parents love to host. We had this massive backyard, small house, but massive backyard. And so they always wanted to bring their family to their house to celebrate. And of course there was just an enormous amount of food. My dad is on the grill. There’s just these foil platters of all this stuff, some of which is Caribbean, some of which is Black American. There’s the mac and cheese and the potato salad, but there’s also oxtail and curry goat. And it was this mash of cultures and a mash of my family and a way for people to come together even though they were very different from each other.

And I remembered that practice when I was starting to write the book about OTV, all of this community gathering that I had done, and understanding what it meant to be a host, because that’s what I was doing, whether we had food or not. I was holding space and saying, here we are coming together to consume, sometimes food, and in most cases, film and TV stories. And I started thinking how I don’t necessarily love to be around lots of people all the time. So I was like, how did I get it in my head that I could actually do this? And I went back to those cookouts and it became a productive metaphor for thinking about media technology in a community-based way.

Alex: I love learning and thinking with you because I feel like we’re talking about very similar things, but from a slightly altered perspective, which is what difference can do for us! We’re asking a lot of the same questions about making media or art, and thus meaning, in community as a template for living in this world, living in this time, and surviving in this time, one that is quickly transitioning into a deeper and louder and more aggressive form of fascism that was already building. We’re in the interval anticipating that a turn will be happening even more overtly. We might be turning towards something new again, something ominous.

Aymar: I’ve actually been writing a short piece on media and fascism. So this is good rehearsal. I want to go back to 2017, because Venus is going to be in the same part of the sky and in the same part of its cycle in the coming months as it was then. There’s a resonance with this moment. And that time, Venus in 2017, was the most energetic part of the OTV project: we had the most people coming out to screenings, the most energy and enthusiasm, the most ambitious storytelling. It was incredible how in the context of such visible hate, people so clearly wanted to be with those they felt safe around. And we can definitely problematize what “safety” is and how certain people feel more safe than others across contexts.

It was winter in Chicago, there was such energy and actually this palpable love. So obviously, community is so important to survival, just being with each other. Being there for each other in as many ways as we can is everything in the context of an authoritarian, fascist, or however you want to say, regime.

But I think what’s interesting for me about the cookout is how do we cultivate infrastructure around that? How do we make that sustainable? How do we resource the people who take on the tremendous labor of gathering space and holding community, which includes things like accountability?

And for me, the cookout is a framework to think seriously about how we develop and distribute community at the same time that corporations and other authoritarian institutions think about developing and distributing capital and power. And so OTV is an interesting metaphor because it’s a kind of Netflix. Netflix can be thought of as a kind of neo-colonial media project. They’re in all these countries, they have two, 300 million subscribers. They want to colonize the world with this very specific form of Hollywood, corporate storytelling. And how do you think about the reverse of that, the underside of that? How do you create your own distribution infrastructure for gathering people around stories and audiences?

And I think your writing is getting at this as well, that audience members need not be passive. They might be sitting on one side of the theater today and then tomorrow on the other side. Together, we can see the complexity of culture, society, and each other in ways that are so important for counteracting the very homogenizing, concretizing, limiting, scarcity-fueled narratives that get amplified in these periods of fascism. It’s such an important antidote, if you can commit to it and sustain and find enough people who want to sustain it. No one person can do it alone.

There’s so many different scales and levels and ways to do cookouts. It’s a framework that gets people to think about: how am I gathering? who is cooking? who’s offering sustenance to the collective nourishment? who is in charge of the space? who’s taking charge? And that can be a decentralized way for rituals, for gathering practices: accountability, the vibe, and new protocols for bridging those who can nourish and those who need to consume. Distribution is technology, and food is part of that, and we can also use digital technologies. Maybe there are new digital technologies can allow us to structure and support some of these community-based infrastructures, whether they be apps or many other things that I’m interested in exploring.

Alex: I love the human labor, the human nourishment, the human interaction that is at the center of how you’re theorizing media making, and the digital, and of course, how you’re practicing. These Reparative Systems of redistribution and accountability, safety and invitation, reciprocity and care, are critical to how we might have power and agency in the groups we make and find and in the times when we’re most threatened. Now more than ever we need hosts, as well as infrastructures to support them.

And so, given that you’re right here, and that I had written that being in an intimate audience with one person is another form of community and sustenance, you are my first conversational interlocutor in this second and final phase of my practice for the interval.

Gavin: I would say it’s an honor, but I don’t think it is because I’m just proximate. But I’m happy to participate.

Alex: I’m still defining my new practice: what will be the terms and protocols for writing.

Gavin: I like your practice.

Alex: The previous one? Writing a blog post every time I was in an audience?

Gavin: Just in general, the way you fumble, stumble—that’s not exactly right—but you don’t always know where you’re going. When you start, you don’t have a destination necessarily in mind, just some principles and a step forward. But you don’t always know exactly where you’re going and then you just find out. I admire that and I like that.

Alex: Well, yes, I do believe that something wonderful can happen between a person and another person, a person in an encounter with the world or with art, if you stay open, if you just go there. Those open-ended encounters (even within instructions for engagement) can lead you to places you weren’t ever going to go. And in this case, that place is you saying that I lead from principles. Would you be willing to take a stab at what you think those are for this project?

Gavin: There’s something about your understanding of feminist practice, right? The way something is done matters as much as the thing that is produced. That’s a big one. And then general intellectual curiosity and something to do with technologies: a belief in their expansionist capabilities, how they allow for information distribution and knowledge acquisition by populations that might otherwise be prevented from achieving or gaining that information. But you’re nothing like a technophile. You’re not exactly a technophobe, but you’re wide awake to the limitations of technological distribution. The way in a capitalist and corporatist society, distribution becomes narrowed, limited, protective of capital. So it’s not a binary. It’s not like technology is horrible or technology is amazing; it’s like technology is horribly amazing and amazingly horrible. You seek gray areas rather than blacks and whites, and what are the truths within those? I appreciate that you’re not a binary thinker.  

Alex: Indeed, my feminist praxis gets us here (in this grey bed), thinking about and enacting together the intimacy of an audience that can be produced between two people who spend time talking … about the weather, plans, and then also art and ideas. And these topics can intermix if you’re lucky enough. Have any of the ideas of the project—and we have spoken about it several times—been feeding for you, given that I’m hoping to learn about and contribute to our thinking as citizens of this country anticipating what comes next, after inauguration?

Gavin: I admire this project’s attempts to grapple with our current political moment. I feel a little overwhelmed by it, and I feel passive in its face. I remember in 2016 and into 2017, feeling like I wanted to fight, feeling excited about marching. And now, eight years later, I feel deeply saddened at our nation’s willingness to elect this president with full knowledge of who he is. And just deeply … I’m depressed, and I feel less like fighting and more, almost, accommodationist. It’s like, well, it probably won’t be that bad. How bad can it be? And I actually think it’s going to be way worse.

My truth is that I’m less energized and more depleted, defeated by the political reality of what my nation believes and is willing to accommodate and willing to support.

So, I’ve followed way less news. I’m much less engaged by the details. I have a theoretical belief that I want to do something, and I can think of a variety of things, but I’m not energized by any of them. I entertain a notion that I want to write more, and come up with some sort of writing project, perhaps similar to this project you’re engaging in. And yet I’m depressed, and that doesn’t make me want to write or create or do anything. And so I feel passive. I’m interested in your different definitions of audiences, and all of that has been intellectually engaging. But I haven’t been emotionally engaged enough to act.

School’s been out a week and I’m not working and keep falling asleep at 8 p.m. Last night I forced myself to stay up til 11, watching basketball, listening to songs I know by heart. For no reason I woke at 12:30, icicle dripping over my heart, pondering recent misplays, misapprehensions, misstatements, mistakes. The Girlfriend stirred, asked to cuddle, but my frozen guilty heart lay uncuddlable. When the catalog of mistakes stretched past a year I grabbed my laptop to play word games. An hour later I fell back, sleepy, but my mistakes remained primed for accounting. I watched a comedian’s stand-up set, sound off, reading subtitles. The hour ended. I thought about listening to a podcast but couldn’t stir from bed to find headphones. Finally, after running down search-engine holes (the comedian has a new romantic partner!), past 4 a.m., I drifted off. At 7 I awoke, unrested, fixed breakfast, thought about tackling my to-do list. But the icicle still drips and it’s 2 and I’m in my pajamas, guilt-twisted. – Gavin McCormick, December 27, 2024

Alex: Thanks for sharing that short piece, Gavin. My practice of writing since November 20—which also has had strict rules attached to it—has helped me through my depression (as has my reading, as you know uncountable novels since the election. And yours and other’s prose.) When I’m working really hard to write these, I’m focused on at least some of the ideas (and their communities, forms, and protocols) that could play a part in the world we’re heading to. I feel more connected to the art that I see, the audiences that I’m in, in a different way, which is not passive. Of course I don’t think I’ve come up with any solutions, and I don’t know that they’re there to be found. And this is probably always the intellectual’s plight, the artist’s plight: thinking and writing about or even making frameworks to better understand the world we’re in and the world we’re about to be in, which is some part of some solution or at least a better response than being passive.

Gavin: A notable thing about your project is the number of different communities you’re involved in. And one community that has provided a little spark for me is a friend’s writing group. She usually runs them in four-to-six-week bursts. But in this interval, she is planning to run it every other week. We started last Friday, eight days ago. That is a community I feel lucky to be participating in. It has a number of impressive writers. She provides prompts, and we write for 6 minutes (like my piece above), and then share what we wrote with the group. It enables me to keep my own personal flame of writing flickering, a personal community that’s going to feed me. It feels a little fragile because my friend Sarah can decide to stop running the group at any time. But that feels appropriate actually. I’m realizing, in part through your blog posts and their understanding of the different kinds of communities that can form—some of them planned, some of them spontaneous—I also need to participate in something that’s going to contribute more directly to this political moment, something more communitarian.

Alex: Well, that’s not this intimate chat … But I thank you, Gavin, for trusting me with your warming heart. Your honesty, and your words, and your willingness to engage with me on my project.

Gavin: You’re welcome.

I mean, nothing like my Grandma Janet, who was actually a tennis pro (and my mother and I think younger than I am now in the photo I found of her in Suzanne’s apartment). But then again, I did row crew in college.

I only took this photo because my gay male acolytes told me that it might help my numbers (and up my visibility). And honestly, I don’t care about that. I haven’t cared (with Sarah Banet-Weiser) about self-branding or about virality (given its virility) over the many decades I’ve been writing about and on the internet. Or more precisely, I care not to.

What I do care about is how to live during this interval between election and inauguration. Writing on this blog has been a self-care practice—with an audience, and a politics. A self-imposed practice: online but following another set of protocols. Its rigidity gives me structure; its purpose gives me fortitude. The online audience: a (sick, dark, misguided, complicated) residual of this para-professional activity.

Secondly. Is a tennis class an audience? I say, no. I’ve spent about five weeks asking this question of the 21 groups that I’ve joined in search of sustenance since November 20. Once I deem a group blog-worthy, this is the follow up: what are this unique audience’s affordances?

The tennis class I took today stayed too personal, and almost entirely apolitical (I did wear my Brooklyn College hat and VOCAL NY shirt as bat signals), to be the kind of audience that I seek in this confusing interval between election and inauguration. I’m not saying that I shouldn’t do this delightful act of self-care, nor that self-care won’t be critical for us all after the inauguration. But I am trying to learn more about how to gear up with others. How to use our bodies, the digital, our words, actions, and connections to care, resist, and get by, communally. I have learned a lot during this personal practice, and I have learned it by blogging about it on this nearly moribund platform where my audience stays small, I work hard, and I stay present, focused, and respectful to a variety of groups and gatherings.

For the final eighteen days before the inauguration, I don’t really want to keep asking these questions and doing this practice. It’s exhausting and I’ve done a lot and learned a lot.

So third, an accounting: Where did I go? What did I do? What have I learned by joining diverse groups of people and writing with attention and close consideration?

1. Nov. 20: Blogs and/as Time: On “The Clock,” Twice. MoMA.
   • This week’s viewing of The Clock was a much-needed reminder that technologies are not always cruel (or digital); that cinema is both a time storage and re-invigorating device of real help to humans.
2. Nov 21. they are lost to vision altogether: gay male films and AIDS. BAM.
   • It is neither the cinema, video, the microphone nor the blog that I champion, but rather the use of extended and connected, situated expression to fight for, stay alive in, and be present for the people who we love. … in hopes of building more enduring links that we can use in struggle
3. Nov. 23: Get thee to a …. A film lecture at Columbia about the afterlives of slavery.
   • I say get thee to an historian! not for truth but because being in their presence, as they perform their very difficult labor of transmitting untold hours of research about some far-flung residual of previous human experience into digestible depictions, is an antidote to both AI doing that badly and/or the quick turnaround of today’s chattering opining classes doing it too quickly and often for reasons that perpetuate or grow the very darkness under review.
4. Nov. 24: The audience (2): at MIX Fest 2024. Black queer and trans films.
   • One way to live in a time of transition, change, waiting, and uncertainty is to go there, be there, take it in, the interval, help make it our own, momentarily and together.
   • I am suggesting that an audience one can join by being in and of a set of human receptive devices is not the same things as the audience one has been trained to want (especially via social media). One is a lived fact; the other an organizing fiction! One is made by comrades; the other is made for capital!
5. Nov. 27: On the (virtual) audience. A Zoom Memorial.
   • Unlike the projection of an “audience” we have been programmed to seek on social media, or perhaps from an (un)responsive God, the imagined but felt crowd of a virtual memorial online co-viewing accrues strength and meaning not from number, or even concrete evidence, but from a heartfelt service to the needs of some and the memory of others.
6. Dec. 2: The audience as community: Visual AIDS. The Whitney Museum. Day With (out) Art
   • audience as community, can also occur with most any group who meets in persistent, movement-centered groups affirming the lived experience of the most affected, while learning from and connecting to history, and using the time we make together to feel, care, listen, and claim what is good, what is needed, and what we can aspire for even, or perhaps most importantly, in the most uncertain times
7. Dec. 5: Audience as community (2): World AIDS Day@Brooklyn College
   • An audience can be a community when:
     • power, knowledge, and vulnerability are distributed
     • connections and differences between individuals are acknowledged and respected
     • a named political, social, cultural, or institutional goal hails and connects
     • work is made and shown and discussed with an articulated objective
     • there are opportunities to speak and to listen
     • food or drink is enjoyed
     • there is time and opportunity to be social
     • history enters the screen
     • next steps are possible
8. Dec. 6: activist video @Media Burn Archive. On Zoom. Susan Mogul featured.
   • small enough to stay known; built through and about history but alive in this present; dependent on political or artistic commitment; dialogic; and “outside the mainstream.” Feminist praxis: not just what is made but how it is done, in own own communities, about our own experiences, using the means available, and then doing this again, but updated, when we need it.
9. Dec 8: No feral femmes for me. Nowhere. When is not going a kind of care?
   • When I missed the night of perversity in two acts, I care in other ways: through intentional and community-minded absence. This is different from but I think related to that act of faith imagining co-presence with an unseen but loving (virtual) audience.
10. Dec. 9: art & audience at the intersection: mercedes 1. BAM, interactive performance.
    • Our participation included verbs and nouns: where being an audience is so many doings, and being a person is the multitude we are.
11. Dec. 10: the positive (virtual) audience (2): What would an HIV Doula Do?. 2 meetings on Zoom.
    • The affordances of this virtual audience intermix information acquisition with human connection, emotion, and empathy activated in a digital space, and propulsive enough to inspire deep identification and more production.
    • The questions become less: online, off, or hybrid? Virtual or embodied? Lecture or support group? And more: what do we need in a discrete instance of human connection, and how can we better distinguish between and use technologies to equip and sustain us?
12. Dec. 11: meta: one feminist reading group. At a friend’s home.
    • When is the Meta©/meta not a downfall? How can we be delighted by our evil twin (within?) If I start by looking at my worst self (not the ideal communities that feed me), what do I see? how is or could be social media the audience as community for the interval?
13. Dec. 13: audience in context: praise, sorrow, hisses & shouts. Whitney Museum and City Center.
    • a work of art (by Alvin Ailey) shifts depending on where and how you engage it. The same is true for the audience.
14. Dec. 15: In attendance: audience as transpersonal. Film screenings in NY small venues.
    • Mustapha’s film focuses on circular patterns of witness and attention. Annette and Uma frame their filmmaking and screenings to include looks back at the filmmaker. I highlight the reciprocity of connection via attendance: a generative exchange; a transpersonal gift.
15. Dec. 16: spirit capture. Hybrid performance at Joe’s Pub and Zoom by Dan Fishback.
    • protocols for access, crip aesthetics, build audiences where our imperfections make us human, stagings deeply woven into the one I/we are making altogether, online and off, with our many pandemic technologies of care.
16. Dec. 17: the audience as village. Soho Rep, Tribeca. Carmelita Tropicana.
    • An audience is a community, when it is in/a village. When going and showing allows for known encounters in a charged scene of recognition, respect, and attention. This has almost nothing to do with how that happens online. Neither the internet, nor social media, can not be a village because they pretend to be universal, they are built on this and other deceptions and misrecognitions, they are porous and leaky while striving to balloon, and they are built on roads and with enclosures by and for capital.
    • Going there to be and see each other in a small audience is a goodness. It is another way of “being in the world,” an act of solidarity, care, community, and respect. Our Villages will be part of how we see and save each other. But we must dream beyond minimal transport (the delight of the night) to better see and then name the tools of our own power.
17. Dec 18: inter-generational hijack: the village (2). A walk in the Village with Theodore Kerr.
    • But friendships can also be technologies of witnessing; as is being in an audience; as is writing about being in an audience; as is reading someone’s now extensive writing (on a blog) about being in an audience.
18. Dec. 25: forgetful and respectful. Hanukkah gathering, Boulder, CO with my child and mother.
    • Groups and gatherings, their audiences and speakers, can be places of empathy and attention, across both differences and memory’s distances.
19. Dec 26: white heads, Black film. BAM. Nickel Boys.
    • More a relay than a singular event, taking up a space in the audience of anti-racist cinema, and continuing this elsewhere, can be part of a process of discovering the other.
20. Dec. 28: festival of lights: 2nd time’s a charm. Angelika Theater and a private home.
    • A party becomes an audience through a shared focus on something bigger than the individual, or even the intense connection of two, through a set of processes to guide our attention and connection. Why we so often need a piece of art or a sermon, some food or a shared problem, a person or a lecture, to make that vital shift.
      • The audience as attentive and loving and captive witness.
      • The audience, a group that helps to bear the dark.
21. Dec. 30: an audience of gay men. Julius bar, West Village, NY.
    • Audience lesson as per C. James: “Who is this for–?” “Today it is for us.”
      • Audience lesson: sometimes the apostles have good advice, heed them.
      • Audience lesson as per Lemembel: queering expectations, breaking rules of engagement, inventing new modes of discourse against the grains of propriety, deliver wonders and behaviors outside of capital, hetero-patriarchy, and neoliberalism.

Fourth: So, now what?

I’ll let you know. Or feel free to help activate the more interactive affordances of social media by dropping me a suggestion (in the comments on the blog, Facebook, Instagram, or bluesky!)

I went to this performance from a chaise lounge in my living room in Flatbush, Brooklyn, where I am also writing now. From here, I can see my laptop screen, and to my right, my entire apartment (it’s a floor-through), and to my left, my busy sidewalk, some trees still holding orange leaves, and the fronts of low (2 story) row-houses. Dan Fishback is Alive, Well, and Living in His Apartment streamed here too, live, yesterday. On YouTube, I see that 627 watched with me. There was also a live audience at Joe’s Pub that I could hear. You can watch a video recording of the performance that I saw here, or read the script.

The performers entered the stage at 1:13 pm and spent some time introducing each other: each artist’s roles (piano, ASL sign language, guitar), their physical appearances, pronouns, and less commonly perhaps, vivid character attributes (as written by Dan Fishback, according to Kenny Mellman) which were sweet, creative. and funny.

According to YouTube: “DAN FISHBACK IS ALIVE, UNWELL, AND LIVING IN HIS APARTMENT is a rock musical theater song cycle about a chronically ill gay bitch trapped at home during a time of global fascism and a mass-disabling pandemic, wondering how to spend the rest of his life living in a nightmare.”

There were many many streams of information available: in-person audience response (online posting was disabled), lyrics, music, sign-language, audio-description (written by Dan, spoken by the performers, available here), and AI generated captions, just like the flu but other people. Making space (on stage) for these streams takes time, and makes the performance about its own forms and formats, in this case illness, liveness, presence, transmediality, performance, screens, watching, participating, singing, playing, the audience, the audiences, eating and drinking, the flu, people, and so on. Integrated access “is creatively structured into the core of the show, and is tied to the show’s values and purpose.”

As I wrote recently here, on this blog—refining my practice in the interval between election and inauguration by being in audiences that can feed and prepare me and us for what’s next—I love the meta. But in Dan’s show, the meta are also protocols for access; they are crip aesthetics. These are rarely upheld in American performance venues; and often practiced by disabled artists. At this live performance, you couldn’t eat or drink and you needed to wear a mask. Given that Joe’s Pub needs food sales to support itself, the math of all this (dis)inclusion is clear enough. Hats off to Joe’s Pub.

At home, I was taking screen-grabs, trying to capture the living spirit onto the [this] stage (a screen) that I might use in this blog somehow (yikes! my practice in the interval requires that I write a blog post about every audience I choose to join!) Only now, as I throw these onto this screen, do I realize that I could compose a perfect version of the “score” I am building in a better way. I could locate key moments from the video recording, now available on YouTube. I need not use what I made (for you) by heedlessly grabbing live. As soon as I realize this, I understand how the imperfections, the human touch, of liveness (and the human will to record and share it) corrals an audience, and connects viewers to each other and the performers. We don’t need to see each other to feel each other when we imagine we are (a)live and aligned and when we stay vulnerable enough to deeply engage (even from off-screen).

I decide to stay with my imperfect grabs. The one above is timestamped 1:24 pm. The fifteen I took work as a clock/record of my interests; I am imprinted, too. I took the one above, excitedly, when at last, Dan enters the room, “flying in” from his bed in Brooklyn. He is so happy to be here, “his eyes light up as he beholds [some of] the audience.” But … he is an avatar. Ron Shalom will play Dan who is too sick to be there/here. I realize that Dan, like me, is watching from Brooklyn and can’t be seen. This makes me sad. And it is also intriguing; a strange mirror on my own virtual attendance. However, unlike the sick mirror of social media, this one feels comforting, or at least honest. More like witnessing than amassing.

Dan: I know you are in bed, and there and not there for your big performance. I feel for and with you. This is transpersonal even as I can’t hold or even see you. Couldn’t you use that to go viral or something? I am moved by Dan’s ambivalence about social media as a prosthetic for presence. I am stretched to understand how our online embrace—audience and performer—off-screen/on-screen is a spiritual practice.

Dan, and sick people like him, have been essentially Uninvited from performance venues because of their ME/CFS and related caution around COVID. “He has to speak through these actors.” At this moment, a simple drawing of a window enters projection screen top right (a hat tip to mine), and a Dan cartoon enter the projection screen bottom left (a nod to me, and all the others), our spectral presence.

I have learned more than I can say from Dan, and other disabled, chronically-ill performance artists, who have been organizing so as to be seen, and to work, but more so to express how abandoning the ill, the old, the sick, the weak, is immoral and apolitical. The Practicing Inclusion in the Time of COVID project that we worked on, with many others, several years ago, a call for disability solidarity, has been proven impossible … and yet, you did it, Dan! (first live show in six years…)

I’m trying so hard, you guys, to like: be in the world.

You guys. You are here with me, Alex, on your computer, in your room, and you are my audience. Are we together? Are we in the world? Dan, are you here, too?

I want to dissolve and only resistance and it’s marching alter pain but the process of staging this show

I wrote that our imperfections make us human, but this AI poem is beautiful, too. Another process of staging deeply woven into the one I/we are making altogether, online and off, with our many pandemic technologies of care.

Dan, I have witnessed your pain—physical, existential, political—and your show. I can’t see you but I hear you. I remember that I was with you, not marching, but sitting (you had brought the most ingenious fold-out stool), and we sat together and became audience and celebrants and activists with so many others at the Emergency Seder in the Streets at Grand Army Plaza. When I had COVID for the second time, justa few months after that, and had debilitating PEM (post-exertion malaise) for about two weeks, I often thought about your chair, but more so your courage and your stupefying strength, to get to that Seder when it must have been almost physically impossible to move that far. You end your show saying: “I suspect that care is where hope begins.” I hope for another show soon.

Encore!

Field argues that these film records of African-Americans, paid to perform fancifully benign depictions of the labor and leisure of the enslaved (some of these workers had been enslaved, most notably “Laughing Ben” Ellington whose images from this fair have entered American culture more broadly; most of the other performers were the children and grandchildren of former slaves), while living and working in life-sized cabins and fields, and on working spinning wheels, all the while under the shadow of the attraction’s huge and cruel but ostensibly stately calling-card, the aforementioned Old Plantation, and across from another attraction, In Darkest Africa, produces an ongoing visual life (not afterlife) of slavery.

Building on the interests of this, my reanimated blog (this is the third effort in as many days)—what we might learn from our mediated technologies’ various relations to time given the brutal and frightening one we have been sliding into—I was most taken by Field’s proposal that these films lock African-Americans into a past and/as perpetual present, a “flattened temporarily,” by way of cinema. The films record a racist performance 35 years after slavery’s end, which would have been known to the audience at the Exposition (at least the past part). But the performance’s movement qua film negates that this was indeed an afterlife of a (fake) past plantation and its people. Instead, Field argues, the camera lens and then the films’ distribution, serve to evidence a merry life at an extant but old plantation, cementing slavery’s ongoing existence in later presents.

What does Field’s work help me understand about time, cinema, and this our dark present in light of technologies of history, memory, and knowledge? Well, certainly that moving images need context for their reception, what I have previously called “holding environments,” and that, as Sam Feder expressed in another project: “cultural myths often lead to dominant ideologies.” But here, I cite my own and other’s previous work about our new king’s old hold on “fake news” (which really is so passé; how can that be?!). So what is new here, for our specific slide into darkness? Perhaps this very old practice:

Get thee to … an historian!

In this, an awful murky window between the racist what-already-is and what will become an even darker reality, a what-will-be organized by new leaders with their own violent, punitive, and fascist take on some Americans and much of American history, I am, frankly, and like many others I think, finding it hard to read the internet’s requisite real-time hot-take, post-game wrap-ups. The internet has been built to feed us in just this way: an unspooling fast replaceable mad-cap screwball of chatter. All those writers are doing their job just as we do ours: write, read, share, quote, confuse, conjecture, preach. Our un- or low-paid work within corporate-owned circuits of knowledge are a good part of what got us to the mad King, twice (I speak of this endlessly, elsewhere, and with many others, so am moving on here, but can name lack of belief and amplification of violence as two of internet-fueled root causes).

But, there are other traditions. I suggest that one way to live within today’s darkness—to understand it, contextualize it—is to listen to and learn from workers with deep, slow, and small knowledge sets, built over careers dedicated to understanding with detail the darkness (and light, or perhaps resistence) before us.

While it might sound like I am suggesting getting closer to facts, evidence, and objective reality, this is not what I believe Historians do exactly, not entirely what I want from other humans, nor what helped me so much in my hour in the spell of Dr. Field’s lecture and PowerPoint.

History, like all forms of human knowledge production and circulation, has established methods of research, writing, and explication. It is partial and subjective, and also strives for rigor and evidence.

So, I say get thee to an historian! not for truth but because being in their presence, as they perform their very difficult labor (as if it was natural or easy) of transmitting untold hours of research about some far-flung residual of previous human experience into digestible depictions, is an antidote to both AI doing that badly and/or the quick turnaround of today’s chattering opining classes doing it too quickly and often for reasons that perpetuate or grow the very darkness under review.

How the historian embodies, owns, authors, and performs her knowledge moves and holds the past in the present and through one body and her carefully made slides while opening time and space to include an audience.

In this respect, when I say “get thee to … a historian,” I make two related suggestions, as remedies, today at least, for what ails me. One: travel there. And two: turn off other streams in her presence. Get thee to a knowledgeable person in a different place from your home/office/work/family/computer/screen. If you are not leaving the house for reasons of caution, illness, or the care of self or others, try to practice creative strategies of transition and diminution. When you arrive to the historian in her zoom room or previously recorded lecture, you too can enter with a head at least partially cleared of the other browsers, windows, chatter, and screens that overwhelm us all (no need to romanticize what actually happens in rooms of co-presence).

And thus, get thee not to … a nunnery (although this might be another great choice for some quiet meditation around other queer women) but to … an audience: a time and place of reception, quiet, participation, and connection outside of (same-time quicktime) over-mediation.

Hovering over that link you find a 442 character long URL: https://nl.nytimes.com/f/newsletter/5qBdGic3TpA1-b-Lby4rIA~~/AAAAAQA~/RgRiDPWSP0TeaHR0cHM6Ly93d3cubnl0aW1lcy5jb20vMjAyMS8wMS8wMS91cHNob3Qvd2h5LW1hcmtldHMtYm9vbWVkLTIwMjAuaHRtbD9jYW1wYWlnbl9pZD0zMyZlbWM9ZWRpdF9zbF8yMDIxMDIxNSZpbnN0YW5jZV9pZD0yNzEzMiZubD1zbWFydGVyLWxpdmluZyZyZWdpX2lkPTg1MDA2ODU1JnNlZ21lbnRfaWQ9NTE2OTAmdGU9MSZ1c2VyX2lkPTg1ODQ4NTNlMGFiYTQwY2UwYmFlYWRlMmIxMjU3ZWJlVwNueXRCCmAhknAqYI81MsBSF2tpbmdmaXNoZXI0MjlAZ21haWwuY29tWAQAAAAA

Following that URL in Postman results in a HTTP 301 (permanent) redirect to another very long URL:

https://nyt.et.e.sparkpost.com/f/newsletter/5qBdGic3TpA1-b-Lby4rIA~~/AAAAAQA~/RgRiDPWSP0TeaHR0cHM6Ly93d3cubnl0aW1lcy5jb20vMjAyMS8wMS8wMS91cHNob3Qvd2h5LW1hcmtldHMtYm9vbWVkLTIwMjAuaHRtbD9jYW1wYWlnbl9pZD0zMyZlbWM9ZWRpdF9zbF8yMDIxMDIxNSZpbnN0YW5jZV9pZD0yNzEzMiZubD1zbWFydGVyLWxpdmluZyZyZWdpX2lkPTg1MDA2ODU1JnNlZ21lbnRfaWQ9NTE2OTAmdGU9MSZ1c2VyX2lkPTg1ODQ4NTNlMGFiYTQwY2UwYmFlYWRlMmIxMjU3ZWJlVwNueXRCCmAhknAqYI81MsBSF2tpbmdmaXNoZXI0MjlAZ21haWwuY29tWAQAAAAA

That link in turn results in a HTTP 302 (temporary) redirect to the actual content.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/01/upshot/why-markets-boomed-2020.html?campaign_id=33&emc=edit_sl_20210215&instance_id=27132&nl=smarter-living&regi_id=85006855&segment_id=51690&te=1&user_id=8584853e0aba40ce0baeade2b1257ebe

Although the Smarter Living Column (and the New York Times) is a trusted source you could imagine other lets obviously trustworthy sites potentially embedding objectionable content in a long URL – possibly encoded using a service like bit.ly or tinyurl.com. For example, this same NY Times story can be found at https://tinyurl.com/kn4n48er and there are no clues that it is safe or not. In short (no pun intended), other than the domain name, there is little to give the consumer confidence in what content they are about to receive aligns with its stated purpose. (I appreciate this is a contrived problem as the base URL *is* a trustworthy source.)

Chrome Extension

To gain experience working with Chromium extensions I built a small tool to preview encoded URLs as described previously.  Starting with a very simple but effective hello-world tutorial – linked here, I built a more complex application called URL Decoder.  When the user right clicks on an embedded hyperlink, then left clicks a dialog appears displays the decoded URL. There is also a browser icon where users can manually input URLs to be decoded. The architecture is shown below. 

JavaScript inside of the Chrome extension calls an API gateway function via HTTP POST. The API Gateway is the front-end to a Python Lambda function that uses the requests module to retrieve content from the final (re-directed) URL. Noted that the Lambda function is required because (I believe) JavaScript is incapable of making this call due to browser CORS limitations. (“For security reasons, browsers restrict cross-origin HTTP requests initiated from scripts.” Reference link.)  Also, the popup is a JavaScript Confirm box which is not capable of being skinned. I believe it may be possible to inject a frame to the page and apply CSS, however, that was beyond the scope of this project.

Flaws

This solution works perfectly if the embedded link uses HTTP 3XX redirects. In practice I found that some (savvy) marketers do not use this technique.  For example, this 944 character URL from AWS https://nam11.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Femail.awscloud.com%2Fdc%2FsRhgdM26bquWWERQj_H99hybECKn_ekLAZUi3uLHL6oMj3xvkM9hJ4eBqy6-VQgems_ssMJHfAcBrHmY89UaFkpDPoyo3FfD7pJTtJH_r-YYsooBlnvOuOTrzg18iFFbC1FVWqzAIeKXEyoFfBvTCQVxatvZT2fuk7fgg9Xb3NlTkVPS91-JGHof9Wrc0tRU_IvGeBy2C98dDcmJF1CD9c7-RU2-tvCIBibtjPGuUZdQPSREStKZapj3i-wl1WtG_hs0AUpdPkoPD07jScUk-VkDMduisUtUDU5UyTVd_KkGr4fx9WtlsuzEzKv_xz0VWkrTJP3TKM5V97kzi8aQiM9sVp5Mkxip0ck6zqqS6DSR6j2s-PkZefqGRyhSkzomYIWiFK-7r94kCoNOPrhYVGv049vWrc5bG2Md9VY4pl35FkQ4L42TJnAs3M08VSUm%2FMTEyLVRaTS03NjYAAAF71UYfzLh1Fbc_CJvuB-7Mda5H9zWnny3Ye-AZt3DaP3xYpvU1qQxiz64FUkL92GfAT3shIY4%3D&data=04%7C01%7CScott.Blodgett%40ctca-hope.com%7C745c5ad585ee45a2c9e208d8e7bf3543%7C9b45049cb0db452f9f3375b120b51c52%7C0%7C0%7C637514155738492229%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=eFxgzk1BlZWSrSpzmGdUULPR94TenVFLxQAfDEeTWEk%3D&reserved=0

Results in a 302 which then redirects to an HTML page with a JavaScript redirect to the actual page which can be found at: https://pages.awscloud.com/NAMER-field-OE-AWS-Online-Exec-Focus-March-2021-reg-event.html?sc_channel=em&sc_campaign=NAMER_field_WEBINAR_aws-online-exec-focus_20210330_7014z000001MPSS&sc_publisher=aws&sc_medium=em_60205&sc_content=event_ev_field&sc_country=us&sc_geo=namer&sc_outcome=event&trk=em_60205&mkt_tok=MTEyLVRaTS03NjYAAAF71UYfzDa9N7uc5ng4Icuunx0G1ILXYMYh8bunEE6ZPSKAYkyjidRRZ6q8F1tfJ489YEXjYiPH78z2pUuMNPGskbaXq1UOP0bD1Dk0cjj9DCA7S3nqbYrH

In this case the first redirect works fine, however, the landing page contains a content-less HTML document shell with a JavaScript redirect to the final content. To get around this problem more sophisticated logic would be required which is beyond the scope of this project.

Extension source code is available here on Github.

Following a recent presentation about use of BoB for final year dissertations, I was invited to write a one-page “How to” guide. This is something I will certainly do in the near future. However, that invitation galvanised me into doing something I had thought about for a while, namely producing some introductory videos on using BoB. I have therefore made an initial set of four videos under the title Getting Started with BoB. The videos, available on my YouTube channel are:

1. Unlocking the potential of TV and radio broadcasts in education looks at logging in, and offers a quick tour around the main features of BoB, including the interactive programme guide.
   
2. Using the search tool does pretty much what it says on the tin. Use of a search tool may seem pretty self-explanatory, but there are one or two specifics of searching in BoB that I felt would benefit from clearer explanation.
   
3. Making clips one of the great features of BoB is the ability to pick out the extract that is most important for your teaching, learning or research. This video shows how to do that.
   
4. Adding clips to your playlists finally (in this first set of videos) an introduction to the “playlist” facility within BoB – helping you, and others, find those nuggets of gold again next time you need them.
   

UPDATE: It turns out there are also a set of official BoB “how to” videos available via this link. The two sets have slightly different emphases and are complementary.

1. Collaborate is a good tool. Running any teaching that relies on technology always runs the risk of being fraught. However, I came away from the session with a sense that we’d all shared a really worthwhile hour or so together.
2. Students will drift in and out of the session (and not by design). A slight caveat to the first point, not so much Collaborate itself, but the fact that online sessions in general are partially dependent on the Wifi capability of the students. At various points students “left” the meeting only to return a few moments later. Helpfully Collaborate logs the number of times someone has been in the meeting, so congratulations to the student who fought with her limited signal and came back to the session nine times.
3. Upload any material you are going to share as a PDF not a PowerPoint file. I was glad that a colleague and I had logged in to check the system before the session as my the formatting on my PowerPoint slides was bastardised by the tool. The PDF worked fine (but bear in mind you will lose any animations that you had – so if you want a sequential “reveal” (eg posing a question before revealing the answers) then this will need to be on different slides.
4. Using the chat window for interactivity works really well. I was keen that the session was not a lecture from me, it was to be – as far as possible – a tutorial with input from the other participants. There is a “raise hands” feature for someone to indicate that they want to offer an oral answer, but we found that the chat feature worked rather more smoothly. We actually had contributions from several of the students, but I can envisage that you need to be careful, as with any face-to-face tutorial that you don’t allow any one person to dominate (may need a sensitively phrased “Fred, please give someone else a chance to answer the next one”) or making sure that everyone is actively involved (eg by targeting questions to named students).
5. Having a moderator/co-tutor is really valuable. We had one member of staff monitoring the chat stream (and coordinating the “breakout rooms”, see points 6) whilst I led the discussion. I managed to keep a reasonable track of the comments, but she was able to add encouraging responses there, and occasionally interrupt if there was something I’d clearly missed.
6. Breaking out into smaller groups for Q&A allowed more people to speak up. Having praised the chatbox feed as a feature, it is also good to give participants the opportunity to verbalise and questions. We subdivided the meeting into groups of about 10 participants. Clearly if you are going to do this, you need to have multiple tutors present so they can be shared across the groups.
7. Arrive early, but give some advance thought to your “small talk”. I know there are two schools of thought about how you start an online meeting – for example some people advocate intentional use of the “waiting room” in Zoom to bring everyone into the meeting at the same time. I elected to arrive early and had some fairly natural greetings conversations with other early arrivals. However, these tended to be repeated by co-tutors and other staff arriving later. So [and I’m still ruminating on the rights and wrongs of this], if there are going to be several staff present, it may be worth deciding in advance who might pick up different areas of conversation . Clearly this won’t be quite so spontaneous, but it does avoid four people asking Miriam where she’s from.

Today we looked at strategic planning for online marketing. I think the most important step is figuring out what you want to do and how you’re going to measure it. (There’s a worksheet that goes with the class.) You can learn more below:

An outline of the variety of Pedagogies Involving Capture Technology at the University of Leicester (in 2018). The uses are discussed more fully in the text.

Universities around the world have invested huge amounts in both the software and associated hardware to facilitate the recording of lectures, which can subsequently be made available for student to watch asynchronously. A whole conversation already exists around best practice in use of the LC systems for this primary function.  In this project, however, we were more interested in innovative uses of the technology over and above the standard recording of large venue, and largely didactic, teaching; we wanted to know about Pedagogy Involving Capture Technology (PICT) beyond the classroom. With the help of our research assistant Gemma Mitchell (now University of York), we carried out a series of interviews with staff at the University of Leicester to find existing examples of good practice, with a view to producing a guide for the benefit of the wider community.

For a variety of reasons, the project was never completed on the initial schedule. This is a huge pity on several levels, not least the fact that many of the suggestions we uncovered are directly applicable to the current circumstances in which universities around the world are finding themselves having to adapt at short notice to online delivery of teaching and assessment.

It is now my intention to release some of the findings from that project as a series of blog posts, ahead of compilation of the overall report. This strikes me as the best way to disseminate some of the most helpful aspects of the study in a (belatedly) timely fashion.

In this first post I will share an overview of the taxonomy of different uses of the lecture capture tools that we uncovered during the project. In subsequent posts, we will examine in more detail some of those applications.

As a result of our interviews, and additional knowledge about the work of other colleagues at Leicester, we identified a variety of ways in which our Lecture Capture technology were being used. These were outlined in the table at the start of this post. Examples where a discipline is name in parentheses were specifically identified during this study (those without were other local uses we knew about already).

It was evident that there were three distinct applications to which the technology was being put: (1) to share discipline-specific content; (2) to offer instruction about other aspects of the programme; and (3) for assessment purposes. In each case there were examples of intended re-use (i.e. that the investment put into the initial production would pay dividends by being relevant in the same module in a different academic year and/or within a distinct module) or temporary (i.e. single usage in one cycle of one programme).

Reusable content was often associated with “flipped teaching”  models – for example a series of short lectures in Chemistry for students to watch in advance of F2F sessions which were more discursive, and my own use of flipped bioethics theory prior to consideration of case studies in person. There were also examples where staff offered walk-throughs of typical calculations prior to and/or after students being given opportunity to try similar tasks.

Temporary content included reflections on topic issues with relevance to a given programme and in Criminology, specifically, a set of interviews recorded with individuals who could offer insight for students on that course (eg academics elsewhere, criminal lawyers, perpetrators of crime) but were not able to visit Leicester in person.

Reusable instruction included demonstration of how to use specialist kit prior to a laboratory class (e.g. in Chemistry) to save time in the actual lab time and/or reduce the risk of damage to the equipment.

Temporary instruction was one aspect of the introductions to materials used to introduce the content and the instructors of a DL programme (in Criminology).

Reusable assessment included overview of the marking criteria for an assignment

Temporary assessment was rather more diverse, and included “reasonable adjustment” for individual students with validated reasons for being unable to carry out their assessment in person (for example students with clinical anxiety being granted opportunity to give assessed presentations on their own to camera), and offering of personalised feedback after an assignment had been marked.

Clearly the Covid crisis has actually required a number of institutions to initiate adjustment to their assignments. It remains to be seen whether some of these remain temporary or become more widely adopted in future years.

Subsequent posts in this occasional series will look at these different kinds of usage in more detail. Slides from a presentation made earlier in this project can be found here.

1. 24 hours does not mean 24 hours. 24 hour periods have been set for each assessment, but you should not expect to work solidly on it for all of that time. The broad time window is to allow for connectivity, accessibility and/or time zone issues; remember that the intention is to be close to the original exam format.
2. Revise before the assessment day. Although it is an “open book” format, aim to do the relevant revision in the days before the assessment. Ideally you want to know roughly what you intend to say without looking anything up, and just consult sources to confirm the details.
3. Stick to the word limit. Since you don’t have the usual 2-3 hour time constraints, a word limit has been applied. The word count has been calculated by looking at past papers to see how much previous students managed to say in exam essays. The limits have been set at, or even slightly above, the length of good answers – you really don’t need to be writing more than this.
4. Quality > Quantity. As always, the quality of content remains more important than writing “enough” words – i.e. have you answered the actual question asked, in sufficient depth and in a well-constructed essay (e.g. with an introduction and a conclusion?)
5. Save your answers, and back them up. Remember to save your answers regularly during the day – you don’t want to lose all your work. Save every time you lean back in your chair, go to get a drink or go to the loo. If you don’t automatically have saving to the cloud activated then make back-ups periodically as well. Check whether the system has been set to allow upload of single or multiple versions. If an assignment has been set up to accept multiple submissions before the deadline, you can upload a version of your answer once you’ve got sufficient to make it worthwhile but remember to replace with the final version before the deadline (see point 7).
6. Use your own words. Remember that answers are going through plagiarism detection software so don’t cut and paste from a source into your answer, not even whilst you are working on it and intend to rephrase later! If you are reading from one or more sources, close them, write what you want to write, then check you got it correct.
7. Don’t miss the deadline. Aim to submit well in advance of the stated deadline. On this occasion late submission = 0% not a sliding scale of penalties. (And if you are in a different time zone make sure you have the correct time in mind). Know in advance what the procedures are if you experience connectivity issues.

The session had three presentations. First up was a recorded talk by Dr Torrey Trust (@torreytrust) from University of Massachusetts (Amherst) on The Difference Between Emergency Remote Teaching and Quality Online Instruction. This was followed by Dr Eva Wong from Hong Kong Baptist University sharing, in particular, some insights learned the earlier experience of a sudden campus closure, triggered by the social and political unrest of 2019. Finally, Prof Dave White (@daveowhite) Head of Digital Learning at University of the Arts, London.

Rather than taking you blow-by-blow through each of the talks, I’d like to pick out some highlights and reflections drawn from across the whole session.

1. 1. Most online systems have not “fallen over”, the tools are more resilient than some had predicted, and this is an indication that we were already doing more digitally than we had acknowledged.
   2. Staff and students need to recognise that there are two things going on at the moment (i) crisis and (ii) a move to digital – some of the anxiety people are attributing to (ii) actually arises from (i).
   3. Beware of consciously or unconsciously adopting a “deficit model” – “It’s not the same as F2F and therefore it’s not as good“. Digital is different to F2F teaching, it is not necessarily worse, and some aspects are actually better.
   4. The current crisis has caused us to reflect on what a university education is all about in ways that have been neglected in the (recent) past – this is a good thing, we need to make sure that the fruit of this reflection lasts long beyond the return to “normal”.
   5. “Online teaching” is not just making all of your PowerPoint slides and/or lecture recordings available. Throwing up more content is not the same as contact. F2F teaching allows students to experience “presence”, we need as best we can to engender “ambient presence” in our online engagement with students.
   6. Value and promote opportunities for discussion and interaction – “turn up” early to synchronous sessions to allow for informal chat, be active in online discussion boards for modules – not 24/7, but signpost clearly the times you will be there “live”. Encourage students to interact together informally about course-related materials in ways that mimic coffee shop, corridor or library conversations.
   7. Provide most materials in a way that can be accessed asynchronously. Ensure all synchronous sessions are recorded in some way for the benefit of those who cannot make it.
   8. Asynchronous delivery allows the reflective student and/or those for whom English is not their first language more time to process what they have learned.
   9. Don’t mandate signs of engagement – we wouldn’t expect everyone in a lecture to be entirely “on task” all the time, so allow students to “just be” in some settings. If they choose to mute their video feed, let them (but ensure that someone (possibly tutor) is checking in with them via other channels on a regular basis).
   10. Draw on available resources – online teaching is new to some, but there is 20+ years of experience in good practice learned from delivery of distance learning programmes.
   11. Equally, staff who are newly experiencing online teaching need to be encouraged to share their experiences with peers – modelling “I thought this would be beyond me, but actually it’s gone better than OK” and sharing practical tips.
   12. It is important to keep the Intended Learning Outcomes in mind and work back from those to see how they can be achieved in the new world order – assess the learning not the method of teaching.

Dave White blogs at http://daveowhite.com/ his recent reflections on the importance of “presence” fed into his contribution to this event. See http://daveowhite.com/presence/

Torry Trust blogs at https://ttrust.wordpress.com/ and has co-authored several resources on digital teaching, including the free ebook Teaching with Digital Tools and Apps https://edtechbooks.org/digitaltoolsapps

Paterson, the film, documents a week in the life of the main character, a bus driver in the town of Paterson, New Jersey, who is played by Adam Driver. Paterson’s wife, Laura, is played by Golshifteh Farahani. Their English bulldog, Marvin is also featured in the film. Paterson, the protagonist in the film, is a poet who carries his notebook with him on his bus routes, and on his walks on his way to work, in his neighbourhood, and in the park near the Passiac Falls.  The film brings to life a twenty-first century version of William Carlos Williams‘ 1946 Patterson, from the 1946 5-volume poem by the same name. The film’s protagonist and the 1946 version is a man who is “in himself is a city, beginning, seeking , achieving and concluding his life in ways which the various aspects of a city may embody— if imaginatively conceived — any city, all the details of which may be made to voice his most intimate convictions.”

Paterson the book of poetry

Williams, the esteemed poet Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, and author of the volumes of poems entitled Paterson, was born in 1883 in Rutherford, New Jersey and died there in 1963. He published Paterson in the post-WWII period, between 1946 and 1958. It was described as a “modernist epic collage of place” which recounts the “history, people, and essence of Paterson, New Jersey.” He “wrote his own modern epic poem, focusing on “the local” on a wider scale than he had previously attempted.

In the author’s note to Paterson, Williams wrote, ”

“Paterson is a long poem in four parts — that a man in himself is a city, beginning, seeking , achieving and concluding his life in ways which the various aspects of a city may embody— if imaginatively conceived — any city, all the details of which may be made to voice his most intimate convictions. Part One introduces the elemental character of the place. The Second Part comprises the modern replicas. Three will seek a language to make them vocal, and Four, the river below the falls, will be reminiscent of episodes — all that any one man may achieve in a lifetime.”

Williams also examined the role of the poet in American society and famously summarized his poetic method in the phrase “No ideas but in things” (found in his poem “A Sort of a Song” and repeated again and again in Paterson).”

Let the snake wait under
his weed
and the writing
be of words, slow and quick, sharp
to strike, quiet to wait,
sleepless.
— through metaphor to reconcile
the people and the stones.
Compose. (No ideas
but in things) Invent!
Saxifrage is my flower that splits
the rocks.

James Joyce’s Ulysses

Williams was inspired by James Joyce’s Ulysses. Joyce’s fictional character is Leopold Bloom, who lived at 52 Clanbrassil Street in Portobello, Dublin, Ireland, where there is now a memorial plaque commemorating Bloom.

The James Joyce Museum website describes how Joyce “forensically” documented June 16th, 1904, a day in Bloom’s life. On that exact date, Joyce went on his first date with “the love of his life, Nora Barnacle from Galway”.

The first lines in Ulysses describe the fictional “stately, plump Buck Mulligan” at the top of the Martello tower in  Sandy Cove, Dublin, which is now the Joyce Tower museum. The significance of these lines is explained by the Joyce Project.

“Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed.”

Play list of music for the film Paterson

The play list for the music in the 2016 includes Soltane Ghalbha, which was composed by Anooshirvan Rohani (b. 1939) for a 1968 Iranian film by the same name, which was directed by Mohammad Ali Fardin. Soltane Ghalbha means King of Hearts. It was played by the Iranian pianist, Mohsen Karbassi. Rohani composed all the music for the 1968 film. and Aref Arefkia and Ahdieh sang the songs that were then dubbed by the lead performers. This is a YouTube video of Arefkia singing Soltane Ghalbha.

Other music is listed on Spotify:

• Walk through this world with me by Tammy Wynette
• Trespasser by Bad Medicine
• I’m still a man (Lord have mercy) by Willie West
• Blue Lester by Lester Young
• The Whole Town’s Laughing at me by Teddy Pendergrass
• Untitled (feat. Scar) (Explicit) by Killer Mike, Scar R.A.P. Music
• Kieh Kieh Dar Mizanheh by Pouran on Best of Pouran
• Blue Mode by Reuben Wilson
• I’m still a man (Lord have mercy) instrumental by Willie West
• Lonely Town, Lonely Street by Bill Withers

The poet who wrote the poems in Paterson the film

A poem by  Ron Padgett

Water falls from the bright air
It falls like hair
Falling across a young girl’s shoulders
Water falls
Making pools in the asphalt
Dirty mirrors with clouds and buildings inside
It falls on the roof of my house
Falls on my mother and on my hair
Most people call it rain

Notes

1. Day 1, Hour 1. This post, which has just begun on March 21, will include Creative Commons and open source content including poetry, Wikipedia links, Gutenberg Press content, a Google map called Mapping Fiction on Web 2.0. I am also making a Google Earth map to help for accuracy that will not be publicly available.
2. This is day 2, Hour 2 of the mapping fiction project. Concurrent to the Google Maps I made for this, I was also working on a Google Earth folder as well. After realizing that Google Maps description fields are not responsive to either Wikipedia code [ https://www.gutenberg.org/files/4300/4300-h/4300-h.htm Ulysses] or html code <a ref=”https://www.gutenberg.org/files/4300/4300-h/4300-h.htm”>Ulysses,</a&#62; I hope to share the Google Earth version. For example, The setting for the first lines in Ulysses is the Martello tower in  Sandy Cove, Dublin, which is now the Joyce Tower museum.
3. According to Wikipedia, Williams, in “addition to his writing, had a long career as a physician practicing both pediatrics and general medicine. He was affiliated with Passaic General Hospital, where he served as the hospital’s chief of pediatrics from 1924 until his death. The hospital, which is now known as St. Mary’s General Hospital, paid tribute to Williams with a memorial plaque that states, “We walk the wards that Williams walked.”
4. The Joyce Project was undertaken by John Hunt, who was a then a professor of literature at the University of Montana, who was aided with over a dozen contributors, from the US, Ireland, Canada, and Iran.  I have created an Internet Archives url here.
5. In 1827, Timothy Botchford Crane (1773 – 1845) ” built the first chasm bridge” across the Passaic River. They were then known as the Passaic River and are now called  the Great Falls.

“So far everything had gone smoothly. The pulley and ropes were securely fastened on each side of the chasm, and everything made in readiness to pull the clumsy bridge into position. It was a wooden structure boarded up on both sides, and a roof. It was about two o’clock in the afternoon and a large crowd had gathered — a large crowd for that time, as the town only numbered about four thou- sand—to watch the bridge placed in position. But the happiest man in the town that day was Timothy B. Crane, who had charge of the bridge. Tim Crane was a hotel keeper and kept a tavern on the Manchester side of the Falls. His place was a great resort for circus men. Such famous circus men of the long ago as Dan Rice and James Cooke, the great bareback rider, visited him. Tim Crane built the bridge because his rival, Fyfield, who kept the tavern on the other side of the falls, was getting the benefit of the “Jacob’s Ladder,” as it was sometimes called — the “hundred steps,” a long, rustic, winding stairs in the gorge leading to the opposite side of the river — it making his, place more easy to get to. . . . Crane was a very robust man over six feet tall. He wore side whiskers. He was well known to the other citizens as a man of much energy and no little ability.”

6. Lyrics to Soltane Ghalbha

The Sultan (King) of the Hearts
A part of my heart tells me to go, to go,
The other part of my heart tells me not to go, not to go,
My heart is not patient, not patient,
What should I do without you,

For the love, o my pretty one, my pretty one,
The world is so small, so small,
Everywhere I go, your memory is with me, your memory is with me,
I won’t leave you alone,

You’re the sultan (king) of my heart, my heart,
You broke through my heart’s gates,
You gave a love promise to my heart,
You joined me,
Now if I’m anywhere but far from you,
I won’t give my heart to anyone as a beloved but you,
I’m filled with wishing and demand,
O my beautiful beloved,

A part of my heart tells me to, go, to go,
The other part of my heart tells me not to go, not to go,
My heart is not patient, not patient,
What should I do without you,

For the love, o my pretty one, my pretty one,
The world is so small, so small,
Everywhere I go, your memory is with me, your memory is with me,
I won’t leave you alone,

You’re the sultan (king) of my heart, my heart,
You broke through my heart’s gates,
You gave a love promise to my heart,
You joined me,

Now if I’m anywhere but far from you,
I won’t give my heart to anyone as a beloved but you,
I’m filled with wishing and demand,
O my beautiful beloved.
https://lyricstranslate.com

References

Joyce, James (1922). Ulysses. London: Egoist Press. 732 pages.

Joyce, James. The Project Gutenberg EBook of Ulysses.
Wikipedia contributors. Paterson (film) Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved March 21, 2020.

Wikipedia contributors. “William Carlos Williams.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved  March 20, 2020.

Wikipedia contributors. “Rutherford, New Jersey.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 6 Mar. 2020. Web. 22 Mar. 2020. March 21, 2020

Williams, William Carlos  (1946-58). Paterson. New York: New Direction. oclc: 1001922820. 248 pages. The first collected edition of all 5 books was published in 1963, preceded by cumulative collected editions of 1949, 1950, and 1951.

Williams, William Carlos  (1946-58). Internet Archives full-text of Paterson.

The unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic has forced a radical rethink regarding so much of “normal life”. The cessation of face-to-face teaching at universities is just one of the areas in which people are having to investigate workarounds to usual practice. One of the interesting observations over this past week has been the sudden adoption of technologies which have been around for a while, but have never quite found the level of engagement that they deserved.

If you are a UK academic or student, I would like to add another example into the mix – the online TV and Radio repository BoB (https://learningonscreen.ac.uk/ondemand sometimes known as “Box of Broadcasts”).

BoB has been around in a variety of formats for about a decade. It currently has over 2.2 million copyright-cleared broadcast programmes available to stream, and over 120 universities and colleges are subscribed – if you are at a UK university you probably have access already but never knew it!

I am a massive enthusiast for BoB, and for the related Television and Radio Index for Learning and Teaching (TRILT). For full disclosure I am a Trustee of Learning on Screen, the organisation that runs both resources – but that role stems from my enthusiasm for their potential not vice versa!

I have written several articles and run workshops about ways BoB can be used in teaching. Rather than repeat myself now, here are a couple of pertinent links:

1. An article Boxing clever in Times Higher Education from 2014 (link)
2. A seminar Do you know Bob? Adventures with technology-based resources for teaching (and beyond) which I ran in in April 2019 (link)
3. Another talk As seen on TV: Using broadcast media in university teaching from December 2018 (link) – there are inevitable overlaps between this and (2) but they were tailored for different audiences, so probably worth looking past the initial similarities – the “back end” of the two talks are rather more diverse.
4. My work in this area was also written up as a case study (link)

In the recent past, Learning on Screen have started to develop subject-specific playlists. A few of us have also tried to co-ordinate disciplinary blogs, which allow for more description of the content and discussion of potential applications. As an example, see our Biology on the Box site.

These are tricky and uncertain time, but I’m hoping that when we get a chance to look back after the storm, the appropriate rise of online tools for pedagogy will be one of the plus points to emerge from the tragedy.

UPDATED (24th April): As the lockdown has continued and with the increasing realisation that emphasis on online teaching will persist for a much longer period afterwards, Learning on Screen have started a series of disciplinary playlists as the cornerstone of the development of more teaching resources. The lists themselves are within the members-only site (via this link).

I was asked to curate a Biology in Broadcast Media list (see this link, again within the members area I’m afraid). Learning on Screen made a promotional video (open access) about the playlist (see https://vimeo.com/407951233) and they also asked me to host a two-hour “takeover” of their Twitter account. I have make the latter thread into a PDF file, which can be accessed via this link.

Introduction to the other playlists can be found on the Learning on Screen Vimeo account (here). Where you can also find a video (here) about other current developments, including free trials of BoB until July 2020.

This survey will present you stories about different forms of public participation in research. Different activities within this area of public participation in research are now called “citizen science” and we would like to hear what your opinion is about each activity.

As you go through these cases, we ask you to consider “To what degree would you identify this as citizen science?” We encourage you to consider your own opinions and views – there are no correct or incorrect ways of assessing every case. Your views matter!

We will ask you to decide to what degree the case that you have read describes a citizen science activity and your level of confidence about your decision. Because the cases are presented in a random order you can do as many stories as you wish and the results will be valuable for the study – please indicate in the checkbox that you want to complete the survey and submit your response.

You can also stop at any point and return later to complete the survey – just use the same link https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/7XN5MQG

The only identifiable information that we ask from you is your email address, in case we need to follow up on any of the qualitative answers you provide. The email address will not be related to any other analysis and will be discarded within 3 months.

Further information

For each story that is presented, you will be asked to set a slider to a level that matches your view about the degree that the described case should be considered as a citizen science activity, as well as describing your level of confidence. You will also see an option to state if you want to describe the activity or explain your decision, as this can help us in developing the characteristics.

Please do as many stories as you wish – ten, twenty or all – the stories are presented in randomised order, the survey is designed so that you can come back to it later if you wish, or you can decide at any stage to leave. Any number of evaluations will be valuable.

Reading all 50 cases can take up to 60 minutes, and we know that this is a very big commitment. Please feel free to stop at any point – your results will be useful even if you complete only a few cases (as they are displayed in a different order to different people). You can click “exit” at the top, the link will be saved and you can then come back and complete the study with the same link.

The survey will help the EU-Citizen.Science project and the European Citizen Science Association to develop short briefing that can be used by research funders, policy bodies, and scientists, to decide which activities, and under which conditions, should be considered to be citizen science.

For any queries on this survey, please contact Prof Muki Haklay (m.haklay@ucl.ac.uk).

Thank you very much in advance for your time and expertise!

The second day opened with an introduction to Kenan Fellows https://kenanfellows.org/ which is a programme to link teachers and provide STEM experience, and therefore they integrate citizen science in schools. Following this, Rachael Polmanteer, who is marine biologist turned 8th-grade science teacher, gave a keynote. Rachael is from Bath, New York (state) and she grows up near nature, with walks to the woods, and lake etc. She was always interested in science – her parents took her to science museums and supporting her interest – driving through zoos, visiting natural history museums, watching whales and were very supportive. In high school, she had to decide between earth science and biology – and Mr Ryan, her earth science teacher who was making it exciting – she hated rocks originally, but her teacher made it alive for the students. He invested in his students so they get a very high mark – 94% as a class average. He made a huge difference and helped each student. When she finished schools, she went to study biology, and got a job in Hawaii working with endengered birds, and continued to share information on Facebook to Mr Ryan, and the linkage was “hey, Mr Ryan, you wouldn’t believe what I’m doing now” and made the connection. So – who is YOUR Mr Ryan?

Teachers matter – they change your path, where you’re going. Education was aligned with what she was doing – in the zoo, and in Hawaii, she created a community outreach day which is a single day for the local community to learn about the endangered birds. She moved back to New York state because of wanting to be close to her family and created a not-for-profit – http://www.rachaelsrescues.org. In 2015 she thought about becoming a science teacher – she knew the science, but the teaching was scary. Your first-day teaching: the life of kids dependent on me and you don’t want to mess up with it. She also wanted to do real science with the students. She was told to apply for the Kenan Fellowship. She was interviewed at the point that she had 8 months of experience and got the fellowship in 2016. She was paired with Dr Schuttler and embarrassed Rachael and was sitting at the museum, setting a curriculum so the students can do citizen science.

With the students, she set a camera trap and share the data and that led to 140 students that engaged in the eMammal programme. One of the students, Troy, was not interested but once a best friend was doing it, she wanted to do it too – and she joined science in high school and in college as a result of her involvement in eMammal. She then found herself presenting in the CSA conference in 2017, but the conference changed her – she developed appropriate ways to teach students and use iNaturalist to ensure that data is good quality. Have done bioblitz with 14 years old that got very committed to nature. Another example is an opportunity for students to participate in digs, and as students analysed shark teeth, they discover new information and the students continued to talk about their discovery for a week. With 36 kids to analysing information, there is plenty of work that can be done. With eMammal programme, she extended the effort or a bioblitz to the whole state with over 2000 students carrying out data collection on the same day. This year, created pollinator boxes in school.

In terms of outcomes – there is a clear growth in the success of students as a result of participating in citizen science and being successful in their exams. Now she went for 90% of classes as citizen science: it changes the student thinking, it changes their engagement.

Reyna Martinez, a student of Rachael, talked about her love of science, and interested in the fact that we don’t know about the ocean, and is interested in learning about nature and science. Making a difference and making the world a better place is something that excites her about science.

Yechielle Sabally, another student, talked about the growth of a bean in a bag, but in school also learn about water sampling, bacteria behind the ear, and learn about real science and helping scientists in their work.

Kaden Braye talked about the experience of doing citizen science – doing good in the world, and helping scientists in their work.

Favourite projects include Rob Dunn sourdough project, and eMammal because it allows students to see animals from all over the world.

The combination of citizen science project into the curriculum is done by sharing information between teachers and building the teaching around the project. She has the experience of how to link projects to the curriculum.

The next stage is to move from contributory projects to projects that are designed by the students and creating your own questions is a challenge, but once students learned how to do science, they can do it.

English scientist Tim Berners-Lee is credited with inventing it while working for CERN in March 1989 by submitting a paper titled, “Information Management: A Proposal”. He wrote the first web browser in 1990. Mosaic came in 1993 and Opera in 1995. The term WWW is often mistakenly used as a synonym for the Internet itself, but the Web is a service that operates over the Internet, just as e-mail also does. The history of the Internet dates back significantly further than that of the WWW. Web is the global information system.

Well, 30 years have gone by and much has happened to the WWW. Tim Berners-Lee has been knighted by the queen of England (Sir Tim Berners-Lee). Today, he wrote a blog on the 30th anniversary. Now half the world is online and he says, “The web has become a public square, a library, a doctor’s office, a shop, a school, a design studio, an office, a cinema, a bank, and so much more. Of course with every new feature, every new website, the divide between those who are online and those who are not increases, making it all the more imperative to make the web available for everyone”. He rightfully laments, “And while the web has created opportunity, given marginalized groups a voice, and made our daily lives easier, it has also created opportunity for scammers, given a voice to those who spread hatred, and made all kinds of crime easier to commit”.

He gave a grave warning of a “downward plunge to a dysfunctional future.” Recently at a BBC interview, he took a direct shot at Facebook by highlighting the Cambridge Analytica scandal as an example of how the web has gone wrong. He criticized the use of people’s information for nefarious purposes, like trying to influence elections. He identified three sources of dysfunction affecting today’s web:

1. Deliberate, malicious intent, such as state-sponsored hacking and attacks, criminal behavior, and online harassment.
2. System design that creates perverse incentives where user value is sacrificed, such as ad-based revenue models that commercially reward clickbait and the viral spread of misinformation.
3. Unintended negative consequences of benevolent design, such as the outraged and polarised tone and quality of online discourse.

He says, “While the first category is impossible to eradicate completely, we can create both laws and code to minimize this behavior, just as we have always done offline. The second category requires us to redesign systems in a way that change incentives. And the final category calls for research to understand existing systems and model possible new ones or tweak those we already have”. He gives a clarion call to all for changing the web for the future.

Silicon Valley must take note of this seriously.

While I can not cover all that I learned, or even all that moved me there (people and their ideas and actions), I will use this brief recap of the highlights of the proceedings to help me to better understand critical frameworks that link to the work I have been doing towards the completion and release of my new website (thanks Ethel Moore and Partner and Partners), fakenews-poetry.org: a useful and pretty container holding the media, ephemera, and yes, the poems, that I have been producing with so many others by initiating, in 2018, something like fifteen Fake News Poetry Workshops, around the world, as Radical Digital Media Literacy given the Fact of Fake News. For some, this post might serve as an introduction to the larger #100hardtruths-#fakenews project (initiated during the first 100 days of the Trump administration, thanks to Craig Dietrich for that website), while for others, it might be a recap of the concerns and practices the project engages or a chance to see your own work held alongside that of others who engaged in different places and communities.

But most importantly, this post and the site serves as an invitation to mount and run your own Workshop, in your community, with your own poets, theorists, and participants (feel free to reach out to me! Stage 2 of the website will build out more how-to documents.)

But the project is always, also about sharing what we do and know about fake news and related travesties. In Barcelona, I learned about a number of exciting sister projects, all seeking, as do I, to break through the transparency of interfaces, and to reveal, understand, undermine, or remake all that might be algorithmically, ideologically, financially, and psychically hidden behind the ever more huge and inapproachable back-end, our frothy frozen impenetrable cloud:

• bellingcat: the home of online investigations.
• HyperNormalization by Adam Curtis.
• Safebook by Ben Grosser. Facebook without the content!
• Algorithms Allowed, and much more charting the real costs of “free” interfaces (see image below), by Joana Moll,
• Digital Dietetics, by Javier Lopes, Pedro Fernandez de Castro, and Victor Sampedro. Their project uses a dietary model to facilitate a critical digital citizenship where limiting consumption, setting collective goals for media interaction, and being with others who know more are steps towards better digital health.
• the films of Metahaven, emphasizing our simultaneous time-scales, each a version of competing or even co-exiting realities: real for people in parallel, these versions  are incompatible and also all “true.”

Joana Moll, DEFOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOREST

As critically for my own heart, mind, and practice, I heard presentations that named dynamics that help focus or nuance some of my own perhaps more inchoate motives for the fakenews-poetry project:

• Doro Wiese‘s explanation that information does not not allow us to feel in time, and then many related pleas for slowness.
• a shared response by many of the speakers to begin research into the (very recent) past of the internet to understand how earlier cycles of sudden technological, corporate, and digital change have been reacted to by humans.
• careful attention to delineate between the precise terms and functions of a variety of truth vocabularies—veracity, sincerity, frankness, persuasion, evidence, proof—both in regards to how information is produced, packaged, and sold but also for our (changing) sense of selves as political, psychoanalytic, and human subjects, sometimes embodied.
• an understanding of truth in a time of post-facts as that which produces a sense of coherence, even if it is false, and despite any evidence, thus a new kind of “partisan knowledge” (Emillie V. De Keulenaar)
• a related set of attempts to understand how algorithms and computational propaganda have been used to “dismiss, distort, distract, and dismay” (Berke Alikasifoglu and Gabriele Cosentino)
• several returns to Hito Steyerl’s idea of the “poor image” (what I have called “bad video” in my perhaps old but still too-valid YouTube work), and its links to veracity, and more so addiction, and its sustaining but false forms of intimacy (one click away, so close, just nearby, an immediacy [do see Pooja Rangan here!])
• significant work on new and consolidating interface realisms (what Christian Andersen and Soren Polk call the “metainterface,” one that both represents and produces our new [fake, post-truth] realities, all the while obscuring the labor, networks, and other resources that produce it).
• a continuing keen attention to collectives, commons, publics, and lived networks, including the work by Marco Deseriis on “Condividual” activities: “sharing as ‘dividing’ together.”

Then, some useful questions and tactics:

• do people even want to be truthful (anymore)?
• strive for trust over truth: create invitations to engage with evidence rather than statements of truth which only lead to suspicion (Enrico Beccari)
• Pay Attention to What I do Not Say

With this last tactic as a directive and method, I will conclude by nodding briefly at what was impossible not to notice as being invisible and unsaid at this wonderful event: the many approaches, politics, people, and theories whose names and terms and needs were never (or rarely) uttered over hours and days of astute and informative analysis: that is, just about anything to do with race, ethnicity, sexuality, sex, indigeneity, ability, age and as often as not gender or feminism. These body- and place-based, situated politics, theories, lived experiences and methods with their own regal, lengthy, powerful ideas, movements, and actions that have been so central to our experiences, analyses, critiques and movements about the internet and its world (from #Blacklivesmatter to #metoo, from Donna Haraway to my/our own femtechnet and in particular our “Critical Race and Ethnic Studies Workbook“) were, oddly, invisibilized. A cultural and intellectual outsider, I am not sure why these movements and their core theories and practices of justice, epistemology, creativity, and sustainability were not go-to reservoirs of inspiration and power for most of my fellow panelists. Certainly, a significant amount of the evil, despair, violence, and injustice that has been enacted in and by corporate and political regimes of post-truth have been against others seemingly marked by difference of race, gender, sexuality, citizenship, and otherwise. And, responsive movements have been mounted digitally, and otherwise, in response. Perhaps the connection of these movements and methods to “identity” or the “body” or “community” or “care” or the “individual” make these vital traditions seem inadequate in the face of the immensity of our data and its infrastructure that enclouds us? I really don’t understand … But, I will not testify to the definitive necessity of these traditions, because that’s been done everywhere by my allies and colleagues for decades (you can find many links to such research and action in the #100hardtruths primer), but I will end by repeating what I said in my own presentation:

I want to engage in alternative formats for the generation and movement of meaningful fragments, post truth but gentle, not easily spreadable or digestable, not expendable, but rather demanding your attention and care—so perhaps for this moment at least, made for and consumed by small local groups that will listen together in time. With diverse participants in unique places, I am exploring truth and authentication systems that veer away from cameras, and indexical “truth,” thus mobilizing other systems outside of journalistic evidence or slick socials. I want to engage in alternative formats for the generation and movement of meaningful fragments that can mobilize and save honest expressions about our lived experiences of the internet’s deceptions in ways that might momentarily liberate us, or at least partially remove us from the logics of capitalist and governmental watching and lying that have underwritten this dangerous dishonest flow.

What if we aimed for gentle truths? For now.

From Toronto Fake News Poetry Workshop

Alex, Carolyn, Jazzy and Deborah at Union Square Park, as part of the event, “Dear J,” revisiting “Homosexuals: One Child’s Point of View,” featuring Jazzy and directed by her mother, Juanita Mohammed (1990)

In this talk, I introduce a multi-sited project (three websites: a graduate class, an in-process web app for vulnerable video, and a working group sponsored by the Center for the Humanities, at the CUNY Graduate Center) where I engage in inter-disciplinary, community-based, activist queer film scholarship: VHS Archives. In the talk, I will show some attempts to work with and use some of my own queer media archives, initially held on VHS tape. How I do and did this, often with others in and outside the academy, taking up many art forms and as well as adaptive platforms, and now making use of my own and other’s soon to be lost video fragments, is what I have longed called my committed media praxis. Theory adjacent and conversant, sexual and political proclivities in flux, responsive to communities and collaborators, primarily and definitively process-oriented and often production-based, my committed media praxis in queer media and its archives is about using media as one part of a beloved community’s efforts at doing our best at living queer feminist lives.

Please find here, my power point, script, and three screenshots of me reading (pretty poorly) from my computer: “My VHS Archives: confessions from the field of queer feminist media praxis,” for The Labour of Media (Studies): Activism, Education, and Industry Conference, held at Concordia University, November 17, 2018. Do take a look at the three sites linked above. There’s much to see and explore by colleagues, students, technologists, archivists, friends, and loved ones.

Snow kept me from physically attending.