My Blog Shift

Today's blog title is supposed to mimic phonetically "My Dog Skip" but I don't know if the already dull humor translated to anyone else besides me.

Like time, my blog too must keep going forward. I want to give it a facelift, as well as sharpen its strengths by adding relevant images. Some music, perhaps? The blog is undergoing renovation...

This blog is also a platform to share opinions, which I do often, and encourage readers to do the same. My opinions root mainly from my father and are always hard-nosed and straight-forward. Readers, be bold! Like it, don't like it, notice an absurdity, whatever it is I encourage you to share.

Small or large, tell it.

Did I ever mention seeing the construction worker driving a tractor while talking on a cell phone?
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Ted Sexy

Stories, tales and exaggerations are genres of writing. Specifically, Sara refers to writing with a corresponding image, including but not limited to: a graphic novel (story); children's poem (tale); exaggeration (sardonic comics).

With examples from Persepolis, Improbable Records, and Married to the Sea comics, Sara will illustrate how visual elements and text enhance each other to form a lasting impression through a solid image from a connection made.

Her talk will show how text and images form a hilarious union.
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Making Meaning and Mixes

Last week, my classmates and I presented projects that featured our interpretation of how to "tell a story with images." The parameters were loose and we each employed various techniques to tell our stories. There were photo essays, slideshows, and even a film.

The process is a give and take: each person made a presentation, and we viewers made meanings from the images we saw.  Our personal and emotional ties influenced how we each perceived the images.

While I created a slideshow for my presentation, I've become very interested in experimenting with image remixing.  With Sumopaint, I upload photos I've taken and digitally manipulate the photo with the application software.   Each image remix enhances and/or alters the visual aesthetic.  I find the whole process both stimulating and satisfying.

As I remix, I think about how the image morphs from its original into something relative but different.  The feeling emoted from each original to its remix changes.

Here is a photo that I took in Amelia Island, Florida:

Coastal

Here is its digital remix:

Sun Peep

The original photo was taken on an overcast day, no sun in the sky.  The remix was altered to bring out the natural blue hues of the sky, and a "sun" was added to peep behind the clouds.

What do you make of each image?

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Reel Images

What is an image?  Images are photographs, typefaces, familiar faces, a favorite place or flower.  The sight of such images are evocative for their viewers.

Truthfully, we each have our own unique interpretations of the same image because it is natural for us to graft our own experiences onto that image.  We want to make it ours.

How an individual engages with an image is in fact influenced by several factors, vis-a-vie aesthetic engagement: sensory, emotional and representative stand out in my image reels.

For my blog for class this week, I digitally remixed photos and grouped them together into image reels.

The images are shown morphing into their originals.

Shadows of myself.

Static.

Cherry blossoming.

Saffron.

Left.

Getting a bit more experimental now...

Somewhere over the (Jersey City) rainbow.

Water : sky.

Water falling.

Got the blues?

Sharps.

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Words and Images: A Perfect Marriage

I have come across the most incredible, inappropriate and awesome collection of words and images on the web.

What is it, you wonder? It's Married To The Sea, a website that deems itself "The Champagne of Comics".

If Married To The Sea were not already married, I would marry it. Who knew that snarky text could spice up simple black and white two-dimensional comics?

Married To The Sea is the brainchild of Natalie Dee, an artist who boasts several webcomics from her pen, including the most popular, Toothpaste for Dinner.

What I appreciate about MTTS is that Dee has put together a collection of comics with an old-school visual feel and made them relevant with sarcastic banter. Check out her take on the D.C. monument for a better idea of what I mean.

Dee's comedic genius is but one way to enjoy words and images together. MTTS has also inspired me to expand my own ideas on how to "tell a story with images" for next week's post. Even I-a writer!-can take crumby, boring pictures, and make them hilarious by adding outlandish commentary.

A delightful combination of word and image, if you ask me.

PS, as a poor, unemployed, no-I-don't-have-7+years-experience-doing-anything-other-than-maybe-chewing-food member of society still hopelessly job searching, I greatly appreciated this MTTS spoof.

*Since I have linked to several of Married To The Sea's webcomics in this post, I would like to thank Natalie Dee for her brilliant artistry.
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Making Writing

Lynda Barry is a visionary. In her book What It Is, she employs repetition through visual play as her primary communication tool. Her aim in this book, which is to educate writers on writing, is nontraditional yet still quite effective.

Interspersed between the story of her youth, Barry mixes media, incorporates old news clippings, pastes selections from grade school penmanship books, and draws endlessly. The final product, in turn, is a colorful and (contextually) vibrant book of graphic stories, lessons (for both life and mind), and rhetorical questions concerning the craft of writing.

Barry tells her story from the inside out. She writes from her earliest experiences with memory, vision, writing, and extends her introspection into her adult life. The point she makes is that writing is a lifelong-learning process, and we as writers and artists must continue to refine our craft as we age.

But what happens to writers, or those who wish to write, as they age?  Barry uses a traditional graphic-novel style comic on page 140 to illustrate just that.

In the comic, Barry plays herself and encounters a genie character who's escaped from a can of pork and beans. The genie tells Barry that she is in a can; contained in that comic panel is also the question "Would that image make sense to you?", being in a can that is. Would you rather be In the Can or Out of the Can? Barry's character spends the rest of the strip contemplating this question.

The second-to-last panel shows her thinking for 5, 10, 20 and 30 years. Then there's the last panel, which depicts an urn, and a voice bubble that says "Out of the Can!"

Barry's point in this particular comic strip proves that the longer a writer sits on their hands simply thinking, the less time they have to write. So write while you're out of the can.

Perhaps this is why she has included an extensive workbook section in the back of What It Is, providing prompts and activities to help writers get their mental juices flowing.

Click the cover photo to listen to NPR Talk of the Nation radio show with Neil Conan, where the host invites Lynda Barry herself to discuss how "'What It Is' Plumbs the Depths of Creativity."  The show aired on June 2, 2008, and is no longer available for download. Simply click the Listen to the Story tab and the NPR media player will load the program.

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Electric Images

To me, electric images serve to play out a dream or fantasy through a series of thoughts.  What I've done here is create a series of photos taken during a visit to my parents' home during which two things happened: my older brother, Charlie, was visiting from Ohio, and a massive Noreaster snowstorm was burying the area.  The gusting 50 mph winds carried with them 17 inches of heavy-wet-sleet-like snow over two days.

Since both of our parents worked, and the snow began Thursday early morning, Charlie and I were left all the shoveling.  We were outside all day, literally.  We rewarded ourselves at dark with pizza and a six pack.

During the course of our night, where we shared new stories and fond memories.  I was also feeling nostalgic being in my childhood home with the brother I don't often see, so I felt it my responsibility to respond by taking these photos.

The five originals used are the truest representation of the night.  Revisiting them to create the following remixes was a stellar experience.  My inspiration for the remixes was the color purple, and its many lovely hues.

The dream begins with Charlie and I watching some movie, drinking Yuenglings...

A fierce gust of wind outside brings us to the window.../div>

I ask Charlie, what do snowflakes look like from another snowflake's perspective...

Lomograph...

Let's build a snowman!  A tiny snowman... because that's hilarious...

Remixing these photos was interesting.  I wanted to keep the mood of the night visually authentic, while still incorporating color and texture elements from my own dreamscape.  With sumopaint, I applied various filtering and appearance makeups, while also altering hue, color balance and temperature, and other color elements.  The distortion options were endless, but I wanted to try as many as I could while remaining consistent.

Photo 1: Photo taken of the television with close-up of onscreen inferno.  I brought out the red and blue tones for the fire and background tones, and then choose to pixelate the fire, almost overemphasizing its movie-like qualities.

Photo 2: View of the storm from the back bedroom window onto the yard.  I experimented with the blur tools in the backyard photo, as I wanted hyperbolize the swirling wind actually taking place outside at the time.

Photo 3: Camera zoomed in on falling snowflakes.  The photo from the snowflake's perspective is my favorite visually.  To make the black background appear purple, almost deep-space like, I amplified the red and blue hues, removing green, and playing up the brightness to bring out the falling flakes.

Photo 4: Charlie and I running downstairs to get to the yard.  The photo of the stairs is one I took by accident and realized only when I looked at my camera later; since I find it remarkable that it wasn't blurry but was quite clear, I did little manipulation and instead played up the flash against the stairs and darkened the contrast to bring out the wood grain.

Photo 5: Charlie high-fiving our brave mini snowman. Outside, our childish spirits took hold and we built a snowman, a tiny one to contrast the big storm.  I wanted this photo to mimic an Impressionist painting, something that had rich texture and fine accented dimensions, so I played with the lighting and color balance before crystallizing.

What I've learned from this photo project is how to see an image, then revisit it to highlight its outstanding qualities in a way that will burn its electric imagery into your mind so you will always remember.
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Image Tropes in Until the End of the World

So far I have seen half of Until the End of the World.  During the screening of that first half, I took note of image tropes I thought I found.  Visual tropes are, essentially, visual images that have become ubiquitous in our social culture.  Here are five tropes, bolded:

1. When Claire leaves Italy for France in her car, there is traffic so she goes off the beaten trail.

2. Claire picks up Trevor and they get out onto the road, and visible through their back windshield are hitchhikers with their thumbs out on the side of the road.

3. When Claire returns to Gene's apartment, there are several paintings of human silhouettes.

4. While Claire and Trevor are in bed, the bounty hunter comes into their room with a gun; Trevor responds by "showing a gun" under the bed sheets, probably made with his thumb and forefinger.

5. In China while tending to Trevor's recovery, a shot of the forest outside is framed through the window, making it appear to be a painting of its own.

Throughout the movie we see several hand-held devices with video screens; these are examples of the second kind of image trope, one where the "form of a person or thing, a visual impression obtained by a camera or other device displayed on a video screen".
- hand-held phones and video faxes
- Claire watches Bounty Bear graphics on screen through her video camera
- see the country landscape via screen on Claire's video camera
- simulation of nuclear blast in space shown on TV
- Claire's view of Trevor's sister through the vision-camera device

I am curious to see how tropes will appear in the film now without the use of all electronic devices.  I suppose there will be more images such as those I listed in #1-5 above.  We shall see...
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Typeface type thing.

Since watching the film Helvetica in class I have thought considerably about text design and typeface insofar as the the meanings that they convey. Typeface gives an impression about the material it is used for, and there are different kinds of typeface for different kinds of material. Academic material today is typically in Times New Roman, while Helvetica still dominates corporate logos.

In the 1960s text designers saw a need for consistency with typeface and thus came about the creation of Helvetica. This typeface is well-balanced in every aspect. Traditional text designers see it as the industry standard for typeface. Other nonconformists see it as the typeface of corporate hacks. Regardless of where anyone's opinion stands, it is obvious that Helvetica is the predominant typeface in American culture of the past fifty years.

Personally, I never thought about Helvetica at all, never used it as my choice of font. After watching the film, however, I began to see Helvetica everywhere. I would point it out to friends as we passed street signs, or where I saw it used in commercials. I don't see it as a font I'd use, but learning more about typeface as the cultural movement that it is, I do think more critically about the fonts I use with my own writing.

Typeface is a reflection of your personality.

I think that typography is a fascinating thing. So does the website http://ilovetypography.com/ a blog all about typography. I found many of the articles quite useful and interesting while I'm learning about typography as a movement.
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Snow shmow

After two snow storms, there was a lot of ice and accumulation to worry about.  While I was out during the week, I took photos on my cell phone.  In doing so, I feel I employed the lomography method of photography, since I didn't think about composition before I shot, rather I just shot what immediately compelled me.

Here's some of what I saw in my travels.

Monster truck parked on top of a snow mound on Main Street, Manayunk.  This was taken from my car while I drove.

My younger brother Dylan and I went to Chipotle on Lancaster Avenue in Ardmore.  I guess everyone else in town also wanted to eat there so all the parking spaces in the front lot were taken.  I parked around back and after we got our grub on, we saw the week's weather extremes and their effect on the back of the building.

Dylan with a giant staff-like icicle.

This rogue shopping cart received no shelter from the storm.  Talk about being snowed in...

The largest icicles I've ever seen in my life.  They hung from the roof of the building, about 15 feet high from ground level.

Over the weekend I was in Manayunk again.  My friend who lives in the neighborhood pointed out a car in the middle of a side street.  She said that it stalled out while the driver tried to rev it up the frozen-over street.  The driver must have been revving pretty hard since after the truck stalled out, the engine caught fire and the truck's front actually melted down to the frame.  I wish there were more light on the street, but you can see that the front of the truck is lopsided and gnarly.

Meltdown.

I really enjoy taking pictures with my cell phone since I always have it with me.  It's only 2 pixels but the photos usually come out clear.  A friend actually commented on the oddities I capture, but I think that my gallery is full of what I see in my every day life.  Understanding more about the lomography method of photography, I know now that I've been a lomographer before I ever realized that I was, only further proving that art is in fact all around us.
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The Creation Complex

We can be our own supreme beings.  This statement supports the beliefs of experimental filmmaker and artist Maya Deren.  Though she worked in the late 1940s and 50s, her essay "An Anagram of Ideas on Art, Form and Film" claims that there was a shift in the artistic ideology of men in the 17th century.

Deren herself claims that to the artist, the ego is the "most precious of man's qualities," (p. 12) and it was the vanity of man's ego that made artists see themselves as creators absolute, their creations serving as extensions of their intelligence and vision.

Once artists began to realize their own power to create, and how this act of creation elevated them to possess a "pride of newfound, individual consciousness" (p. 18), there was a "shift of emphasis from self-expression to self-evaluation." (p. 19)  Deren also argues that this shift was a phenomenon of nature.  Since this ideology spread into form, then, art itself is a form which creates or manifests emotion; rhetorically, this is an emotional sensation.

Artists began to see their craft as more than a reflection of reality and earthly representations, and rather their creations were natural renderings of their own experiences.  Art is not art for art's sake, but art is a form for human synthesis, because it is a creation of man, and man must be revered for his elevated abilities.

Personally, I think that Deren treats this topic with an edge of sarcasm, and rightly so, because why should we as humans begin to value our creations above natural creation?  The point she makes is clear though: artists want to equate their art to any other natural occurrence, since artistic creations are forged from the intellect and will of man.

The universal motivation for all artists remains to recreate experience with originality.  This theme is evident in Deren's experimental films, whose aims are not only to cause viewers to reconsider their relationship to a piece of art in the way they receive it, but also to diversify the subject matter and visuals in film themselves.  In Deren's film "Meshes of the Afternoon" there are various objects/images that may or may not double as symbols; each viewer's individual experience causes them to process the objects/images differently, and they may or may not attach a symbolic meaning to these objects/images.  For example, let's consider the knife and the key.  At points throughout the film they are seen alone, then they interchange.  Is the knife meant to cut bread?  Or does the knife, when it is mirrored as the key, offer something eternal, the very means by which a person receives redemption?

The knife, a key to salvation.  I just made that up.  But my ultimate point is that we as artists cannot deem our work better than this or that piece of art, and rather we should focus on the act of creation and rely more on our audience to attach meaning.  The creation of art can be an isolating experience, but the final product should serve as an experience unto itself.
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What is Visual Rhetoric? A Towering Question...

Garnered from readings for class last week, and the presentation of the 6 perceptions of aesthetic engagement (sensory, representative, appreciative, formal connection, emotional connection, and individual connection) I define visual rhetoric as follows: a strategic blending of visual aesthetics with a concern for the needs and wishes of a target audience that operates within one or more cultures. Visual rhetoric also must involve an understanding of the cultural forces that shape the production and reception of a certain document or visual material.

In brief, visual rhetoric is a careful arrangement of visual aesthetics that considers the cultural scope under which a target audience operates in order to create for said audience an engaging and persuasive physical presentation of ideas or materials.

How a viewer will receive and process the visual materials is unique to each person. If you are to employ visual rhetoric, then you must be aware of this, but must also realize that you have no control over individual experience.

Let me share some of my individual experience with (personal and emotional) sensational images.

Meet 14-year-old me. I am sitting with my friend Bridget in a closed-to-the-public area of Liberty State Park in Jersey City, the Hudson River shoreline only feet away. Both of our Dads work for the JCPD and this was the site of their annual summer barbecue. Thank you Mom for taking these photos.

Standing is Bridget's dad, and from left to right, my little brother, our family friend, and Bridget's sister.

Both photos have something in common: The Twin Towers.

That's my Dad, an American hero, patrolling downtown Jersey City's streets on 9/11/01. The entire Jersey City Police force was on duty to provide medical aid and the safe transport of victims from New York into Jersey City. Someone snapped this photo without Dad knowing; he only received the print two years ago, since it took the photographer that long to locate him. As you can see, Tower One is burning, while Tower Two had already collapsed. I know this because its view would not have been obstructed from behind the building on the right in the photo.

Since the attack, Ground Zero is still a gaping hole and the New York City skyline is without its most trademark. In an effort to acknowledge and pay respect to the victims, Russian President Vladimir Putin and the people of Russia donated the little-known Teardrop Memorial to The United States. Educate yourself: read the full article.

On September 11, 2006, Russian artist Zurab Tsereteli unveiled his work in Bayonne, NJ (the town next to Jersey City, which is also the town that The Statue of Liberty was in fact gifted from Bayonne, France). The Memorial is positioned so that the teardrop hanging from the center would align with the area between the two Towers were they still erect. A polished marble slab encircles the base of the Memorial; on it is etched the name of every victim from 9/11. When I visited, I located one name, Mary Melendez, the mom of three boys who attended my grammar school. She worked in Tower Two; she phoned her husband after the plane crash and told him she was helping a handicapped coworker to escape; neither survived.

It saddens me to learn through Google search that The Teardrop Memorial has become a thing of urban legend. I have visited the site and can vouch that it does in fact exist. But, I can understand why some may question its existence. Since the Memorial sits on the river's edge, there is only one access point from the land, via Route 440. You then proceed through unfinished labyrinthine dirt roadways, making this and that turn until you reach the site. There are no instructions on how to get to the Memorial, you just have to know.

Since 9/11, the New York City and its surrounding Metro area (which consequently includes Jersey City) has received mass attention. However, almost a decade after the most devastating incident in the Northeastern United States, we all have mostly forgotten. May this meager post serve as a point of reference for all who will always remember.

The images featured above are ones that I personally and emotionally relate to, though I sincerely feel that those who have read this post will feel as deeply moved as I do.

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Disclaimer

After a very recent conversation with a friend (thanks Jan), I realized that the nerd in me only thought of the definitions for the word 'salty' while creating this blog.

Please note, then, that I (maybe unfortunately) did not consider any colloquialisms when deciding to name my blog as such.

Thank you and I hope you keep reading!
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What it is to be salty.

My last name is of German origin, likely hacked short by some John Smith at Ellis Island. A monosyllabic word, it is often confused with 'salt,' which naturally has become my nickname to some.

I find it amusing that my personality so closely matches that of the definition for "salty."
salty (n) - piquant; sharp; witty; racy; coarse; earthy
(Piquant is defined as "agreeably stimulating, interesting, or attractive," of which I am all, and "of an interestingly provocative or lively character.")

Those who know me would agree that I exude salty humor. With this blog, I will illustrate just that, by communicating interesting happenings or occurrences in my life, and reporting any and all noteworthy observations I may make, sarcasm abound.

I share the comedic values and vision of Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld, two people who embody salty and also find humor in the least likely of places. Wit is my defense mechanism both for coping with the idiocy of, and adding to the vibrancy of the world around me. I find some things hilarious that others may deem inappropriate. Or, maybe it's just that I have a humorous way of looking at the workings of life itself.

A few things about me in no particular order:
I'm a Jersey City-born-and-raised Italian-American (disclaimer: what you have seen on MTV's Jersey Shore is indeed an accurate representation of guidos who frequent Seaside Heights, NJ, but is not by any means a platform to evaluate all New Jersey residents or Italians for that matter);

I distrust capitalism;

I loathe ignorance;

I want every driver everywhere to use turn signals while switching lanes or making a turn;

I have great hair, and I know it, and so does everyone else;

I have a magnetic personality that I wish would sometimes work in reverse to repel undesirables;

I love to read and am a nerd with a vast vocabulary thanks to it;

I appreciate creativity and intelligence, and any (healthy) means by which a person may cultivate and enhance their own;

I am a Deadhead-tie-dyed-bandana-wearing hippie who digs all rock-and-roll and groovy beats;

I support herbal remedy;

I have a well-developed palette that enjoys great food;

I love the beach and the ocean and seashells and vacations;

I want to travel the world;

I would prefer to wear sneakers everywhere for every occasion;

I support sitcoms and feel that reality television is the ruination of mankind;

I am a lover and a fighter and a writer, and I always stand up for what I believe.

Thank you dictionary.com for your assistance today.
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