Final Finale Finally

First semester of MATX is officially over! And I'm back in the land of the living!

After a week of very little sleep with dreams in PowerPoint slide design, I'm proud to announce that I got A's in both classes and passed the Pass/Fail Practicum.

Final projects were:
Cut-Ups are For Everyone: The Appropriation of Found-Footage Filmmaking and Media Culture - a pretty straight-forward paper on found art, collage and filmmaking. Focused on issues of ownership, authorship, copyright and fair use by looking at four cases. Ties with with the Surrealist movement, culture-jamming and new media. One of my favorite papers ever. I'll be entering this into the VCU Dept. of English Student Writing contest!

Textuality and Graphic Novels: Identity, Influence and Adaptation in V for Vendetta and Beyond.This project really pulled me out of my comfort zone - not a standard paper at all. I composed a multimedia/hypertext in PowerPoint and then Christian helped me with the online version. It's fun, it's funky. I quoted MCP. I put in a picture of Wilson. I've entered it into the Electronic Literature Organization conference as of an hour ago. First conference I've ever submitted to!

Even though I'm thoroughly hungover from the overwhelming amount of red wine I drank at Melinda's party last night, my confidence level is pretty high. I feel...smart.

Retail Therapy

After a shitty day complete with teary-eyed meltdown in the middle of class and crucial sugary Starbucks peppermint mocha injection, I still needed more to bring me outta the practicum induced funk.

So, Christian and I went shopping and out to dinner at our favorite restaurant in Richmond, this tiny little Mexican place called Su Casa on W. Broad. Best tacos I have ever had. I crave them. I dream about them. And my dreams came true last night for a total of $24.00 w/tip.

Then it was off to Marshall's, for guaranteed cheap clothes. I have purchased new clothes 3 times in the past year: in January I bought some socks. In August I bought some shorts. In October I bought a sweatshirt. Ladifrickinda. It was time to do some major damage and revamp my wardrobe.

Marshall's purchases: 1 pair of jeans, 2 pairs of pants (one casual, one dressy). One cashmere sweater (zip up with hood, my favorite). 3 pairs of knee high socks. Two pairs of patterned tights. One scarf, one pair of gloves. Total: $202.00

Next, Target. Something's up over there - they must have a new fashion buyer. The clothes were kickass cute and actually tailored to fit. I bought six tops of a variety of styles. I bought two black dresses, a belt, a pair of earrings and a hat. Some Burt's Bees balm. And two bottles of red wine. Total: $200.00

Then I came home and sent out my Amazon order:
One 4 Gb jump drive. 15 rolls of 35mm film (various speeds and styles). One battery for the Canon. One battery for the Minolta. An essay book on photography by Susan Sontag. Total price: 130.00.

And I felt so much better when I finished blowing my entire two-week stipend payment in one evening. A thousand times better. Maybe it's also because I've been so starved for new clothes after getting rid of so much when we moved to Richmond. Maybe it also has to do with the 15 bonus pounds I'm carrying on my gut and ass that's making me not fit right into what I have. Who knows? But retail therapy works, and I am proof.

After it was all said and done, we opened a bottle of merlot, sat on the couch, snuggling with each other, the dog and the cats, and watched A Beautiful Mind. And I thought I had problems...

Pinball

My fascination with Pinball is now validated after reading Sherry Turkle's article in the New Media Reader about gaming systems from way back in 1984. She calls pinball the grandfather of video games and discusses how gaming affects adults and children. She states "Being in a relationship with the game means getting recentered on yourself." I love that. Here's another good one: "There is a sense of a force at work, a 'holding power' whose roots are aggressive, passionate, and eroticized." Wawaweewaa! She speaks my language! Finally, academia has touched me at a deep and profound level.

I've been a pinball junky for some time now, with astounding results! I drink too much beer and it's done nothing to curb my cigarette consumption, I've managed to keep up with my US state quarter colleciton, and I am a legend in my own right. I always master the game. Fishtails, South Park, Lord of The Rings, The Simpsons, Theatre of Magic, Pirates of the Caribbean, Sopranos, Elvis, and now...DRACULA!

Empire, the punk bar a couple blocks from us, has Dracula pinball. I found it accidentally a few months ago, taking a different walk home from class. On my first time in the bar, first time playing this machine, I won a ton of free games (CRACK!) and got a high score of 600 million and change. The bartender was amazed: "I dump 20 bucks worth of quarters in here a week to get a score like that!" Sucker.

On my second time back, I beat the high score with a whopping 1 billion 38 mill plus. My moniker, KTX, graces the screen along with KTX as the loop champion with 21 loops.

On Wednesday, I popped in again for a quickie. As opposed to Detroit, where I played obsessively and almost exclusively at Jumbo's, I've really curbed my consumption of flippers and balls. But since I've been so good, I thought, why not, I'll pop in for a beer and a couple games.

Nice that it's 3 plays for a dollar. I'm doing okay, crack a few free games, no earth shattering scores, but some games in the millions. Go to get another dollar in quarters. There's the bartender, Cutie McPunky and two neophytes at the bar - both of them ignoring me, though the bartender pays a little interest in my successes. When I ask for the next round of quarters he says "Yeah, it'll hook ya" and chuckles. I chuckle back and say softly
"I've got the highest score"
and wink at him.

He looks at the dudes at the bar and says
"That's her?"
and they grunt with such sheer hatred for me. Fatty McFat and Coughy McCough must be real burned up that some girl came in and blew them away. Some stranger from out of town with no track record of loss, no sense of shame, no bruised ego. I don't even brag about how good I am, in fact when people play me, I encourage them and teach them tricks of the table. I'm not very competitive about it, I just love it. And to these guys, I'm suddenly notorious, an enemy. Come on fucker, I'll take you on any day.

So I play my last dollar as best as I can. I score two free games out of it. My track record is really like 5 games for a dollar. That's the best deal in town. I finish up, smile and wave goodbye - and only the bartender bids me a good evening.

Clean House/Free Culture

Even though I should be reading Lessig's Free Culture, we spent the day cleaning out our little mini-room which has become a storage closet. We moved everything out and moved the jellybean black couch in...hence, I now have a quiet study/yoga room. It can also double as a guest room. Having this room clean is like having an entire new dimension to our living space. It's streamlined. We were able to move all of Xian's drums and music gear into the hall space where the couch was, so instead of having a whole drum kit in our dining room, we've moved it all upstairs. Along with this newly renovated space for me to chill and get work done comes new responsibilities. I have no excuses for leaving my books, bookbags, school shit all over the house as I am used to doing. Oh well, a little structure and fung shui can go a long way.

Blog ethics

I've just deleted my most current blog post, where I scanned and made anonymous a very absurd and awful paper a student turned in to me. I blocked out his name and made no reference to the course. In the paper, he references how "hip" he is, four times, and that he's "neato". The joke is that for his grand sense of self, the paper had absolutely no academic content or value, other than being ridiculous. After tonight's blogging/new media and ethics discussion in my History of Media, Art and Text course, I ran home with such an immense sense of guilt and terror. Though all efforts were made to keep the student's identity unavailable, I think the potential for trouble was imminent. I kept thinking, as I practically ran through campus, I'm fucked. I'm fucked for finding something funny and posting it in this wasteland. The fact that I covered his identity isn't enough to cover my ass because really, I compromised my integrity as a professor. Lesson learned. More than a lesson, a hands-on, tangible, worldly, first time ever brush with the underbelly of the internet. You can get the gist of the idiocy in the paper without me posting a scanned image of it; the above paraphrase seems to suffice. What I'm afraid of, sincerely afraid of, is that what I post on my PhD mandated blog will one come back with a vengeance and keep me from landing a job, grants, respect. I bitch all the time about media ethics, low standards, inaccuracy, and here I go and do exactly what I've found to be distasteful. No sense in beating myself up over it, damage averted for now. But my filter is up and that does make me a little sad. Now I have to censor myself in this forum, which I didn't want to think was possible. Alas, repercussions are so "in". And so traceable! It would probably be better if I posted drunken photos. I'll leave that to myspace.

Tetanus

Someone please! Bring me a rusty nail to step on!

I need to feel good, someway, about the VCU/State of Virginia sanctioned tetanus shot I had to get yesterday. I didn't sleep at all last night, because every time my left arm even bumped the pillow I would yelp in pain. Toss and turn, OUCH, toss and turn, FUCK! I awoke this morning groggy and feeling like I had been hit by a truck. Looked that way too. Christian had to do up my bra because I couldn't reach around to my back. It was excruciatingly painful to even put on a shirt. Four motrin later I started to feel better, at about 4 pm today after my GTA work required me to run my ass off on production day. I still can't fully lift my arm and there's a giant lump in it that is totally solid. Solid like a rock. Solid Gold.

And they drew THREE vials of blood to test me for a MMR vaccine. Brutality, I tell you.

Again, a board with rusty nails would be really great for mental health right about now. Or just a Rusty Nail with Dewars will do.

Goodbye Slumpy

The house at 284 Eliot in Brush Park, Detroit, was a very special old house with a unique history and horrible crumbling structure. I photographed this place for years, and when the front facade crumbled, a group of us went to salvage some of the heavy terra cotta pieces. We were confronted by the cops at the end of mission accomplised, and H almost blew our cover. But I digress...

Amidst all the years of shooting I watched this poor mansion go from bad to devasting to downright dangerous. Last summer, on an all-nighter, G, M, D and I spelunked it. I'm surprised it didn't fall down on us, but it was a thrilling adventure to get inside. The pic on my website is from about 5 years ago, just after the initial facade crumbled and they installed steel stripping. There was hope of rehabilitation. This project, like so many others, was abandoned, while the neighborhood around her was re-built and gentrified.

Well, Ol' Slumpy's gone now, demolished, her memory and architectural splendor squandered by a city that sells the jewels for the price of the polish. In her memory, here's the video of the last of her facade crumbling and some fantastic pics of the demolition by Detroit Funk.

Richmond ROCKS! Don't stop Believin'!!!!

After an awesome, drunken, totally really really ridiculously good-looking weekend with Matt and Marianne where we spent a good portion of time discovering Richmond and a lot of the places I haven't been yet, Christian finally came home after a two-week work hiatus in MI. With much guilt, but little apprehension, I took Saturday completely off from studies and he and I spent a bit of the afternoon exploring what I call the Granite Planet...this part of the James River Park that is miles of huge granite boulders that you can hike all over and make your way across to get to the James River and Belle Isle. Yes, Richmond has a Belle Isle, and I'll tell you what, it ain't ghetto. Once we made it to the river, after climbing an abandoned dam and finding all kinds of cool trails, we found an area of the river where people were picnicing, swimming, and swimming with their DOGS! Now I can't wait to take Wilson to the river. I've never seen him swim, but I know since his heritage is part Newfoundland that he will love the mossy river water. Not worried about him stinking like mossy river, he already reeks.

Tonight we ate at a wonderful restaurant called Comfort, which is only 4 blocks from our house. I had a kobe steak with sides of mac n cheese and squash cassorole. Amazing.

I can't believe how nice it is here...and I love VCU so far. A totally energized, positive environment. Shit gets done here. Good shit. The MATX program is incredible. I have never experienced such a calm, collected and inspiring work environment - and I have never been treated so well personally and professionally. VCU bought four empty buildings on Broad St., right behind my house, which are being renovated to be the studios exclusively for us MATX art folk. And since Richmond has it's First Fridays Art Walk every month, on Friday, me and a few of my new MATX friends decorated/installed the windows of our new buildings with our art - one of my films and some objects to go along with it, Guido's animation, Belinda's print work, Katie's glass, Jenn's sculpture, etc... I'm only here a month and I already have a film showing/art space and a few really cool friends in the program. That's fucking outrageous!

Who's next on the visiting trail? DANA!!!!! Yay! Or maybe, you?

Briar Rose

What a BITCH.

No not really. Briar Rose was one of the easiest and most exciting papers I've ever written. Couple reasons: the hypertext version of the story was amazingly fun to read. It bounced all over the fucking place! It never ended! It never actually ENDS. And then there's the fact that I can pretty much pick apart the end of the "traditional bourgeois novel" and scream out loud - hey, not every fucking spoiled college kid or their grandma own a motherfucking computer or have time or the inclination to sit in front of a machine to read a text. Books are our friends, still. Old, archaic, but useful friends. Narrative, as we traditionally know it, is NOT DEAD YET. So that was fun. Of course, I did not use the term "motherfucking computer" in my paper. I'll save that for the hypertext version...coming your way....soon. Motherfuckers.

I definitely recommend the experience of reading Briar Rose and know this, my paper will be on my website soon enough (just have to figure out how that pesky dreamweaver operates). Why is it that I can easily learn a video editing software, figure out depth of field charts by sight, conjure up a million useless tidbits of information, but I cannot for the life of me, figure out dreamweaver?

Working for Tuition

First week of classes has commenced I've also fulfilled my first of work as a GTA for the School of Mass Communications. First, I'm working as an assistant for the undergraduate-produced news show called VCU InSight. Here, I fulfill two roles. I help the students who serve as anchors and reporters shoot and edit their stories. Next week, I'll help update the website for the show. Second, I assist the new studio professor in helping the technical crew get it together - shoot in the studio, run the switcher (which is apparently dead), hook up audio, etc. Then I help edit the final package of the shows, for which I have my own private office and edit suite. Sounds a bit too perfect, or easy, when considering where I came from and the environment that we students and professors were forced to work in. The other part of my job entails teaching a Mass Comm 101 breakout session. I have 25+ students who also go to a 400 person lecture session and then meet with me once a week to go over the course and discuss issues of from their textbook and course. It's a class that meets for 50 minutes. Now I'm used to teaching courses that last FOUR HOURS. This is a breeze!

Except there's this pesky thing called homework, and I'm stuck in four academic courses...so when people use terms like "buttload" and "ass-kicking" they are, of course, referring to the amount of reading I have to do.

My awesome website (work in progress)

Not only are we sort of "required" to have a blog for the program, we are definitely required to build our own, however minimal, functioning website to post and promote our scholarly/artistic portfolios. I've never done this before and Dreamweaver makes my brain hurt a bit - the way that math makes my brain hurt. But I'm a big girl and I will survive!

Here's mine: tell me what you think! Of course, it isn't quite finished.
http://ramsites.net/~treverk/

First week in MATX

Let me be honest. I moved my entire life to Richmond because of the MATX program. Regrets? NONE.

A little backstory: I'm from Detroit, MI. The motor city. Home of the Tigers, Red Wings and Pistons (though truthfully, their stadium is not in the city, but some 50 minutes north into sprawling suburban hell). I have both my BA and MA from WSU...I have been an indentured servant at WSU since before I finished my MA. I felt like they owned me. I served time as an Adjunct and production lab manager for wages so paltry I still had to have a 3rd and 4th and often 5th part time or freelance gig to simply pay my student loan and car payment.

About September of 2006 I had a meltdown. As an artist, I wasn't producing anything. I spent most of my time trying to blow off steam at the Elvis pinball machine at Jumbo's. I drank too much. I gained weight. I felt like shit. I was, in every sense of the word, trapped.

Unhappy, pissed off, knowing I'd hit the glass ceiling, or more precisely, a brick wall, I looked into schools. I accidentally found VCU's program with a simple google search. And MATX came up. Not sure if I wanted an MFA or a PhD, I applied to 4 other MFA programs and only MATX. And VCU/MATX is the only school that accepted me. But let me clarify, I wasn't just accepted the MATX, I was offered a GTA position that covers my tuition, gives me a yearly stipend and comes with university health insurance. When I read my acceptance, I started bawling. Finally, a way out. Finally, a wrecking ball came through and smashed the brick wall in front of me.

Here I am in Richmond at my desk in my office on the second floor of my charming 1880's Italinate townhouse. I'm reflecting on who I was and where I've come from in order to put into perspective how incredibly fortunate I feel to be here right now. Maybe all that time in Detroit wasn't a waste because it lead me to this place and this program and earned me the award from VCU. I have to think this way or I will feel like I wasted the last 4 years of my life on a useless MA and working at a school that treated me poorly for lousy pay. And I'm bitter about it, but that too seems to be wearing off as everyday I discover something new and wonderful about this great little city.

So my first week of classes is over and I have so much work to do...it's a bit overwhelming and I'm kind of scared. But I'm also excited about something and feel a sense of purpose that had been sorely lacking in my life for so long. I do my best work under pressure and I do my best work when I am encouraged and pushed and thrown in head first. The courses are demanding, but I'm not here to fuck around. I want to work hard. I am determined to make up for the lost years of nothingness and anger. And in that sense, I am grateful to finally be overwhelmed again.