I found an interesting strategy in Image Grammar that allowed me to further practice imitation as well as using brush strokes. The strategy provided me with a fairly basic urban legend and asked me to embellish it. I tried to effectively utilize specific nouns, specific verbs, appositives, prepositional phrase, and adjectives out of order in my sentences.

Image Grammar by Harry R. Noden
Chapter 8: Story Grammar and Scenes
Strategy 2: Build Visualized Scenes with Urban Myths

    On a muggy July night, Carl silent and somber wondered down the main street of Shade Creek, Colorado past McCreedy's Funeral Home. He sauntered past the open door, hearing the sounds of funeral music and noticing his friends crowded in the entry. An icy tingle crept down his spine, and he is driven toward the commotion. Carl entered a large room, the parlor, and thought it was peculiar that no one noticed him. He waved hello to Anne Collins, his ex-girlfriend, but she did not respond. Anne upset and unnerved did not even look at him. Carl then saw his friend, John Harlow, and tried to have a conversation with him without any luck. John stoic and proud walked over to the casket. Carl trailed behind John and looked into the Oak coffin. He observed his own face smiling at him. His blank eyes wide open gazing into his very soul. 

    Taking a lesson from fifteenth-century scholar Erasmus, I found another strategy in Image Grammar to help me practice imitation and improve my vocabulary. Erasmus would give his students a sentence. He would then ask them to produce five new sentence that communicate the same message as the first.

Image Grammar by Harry R. Noden
Chapter 6: The Artist's Special Effects
Strategy 2: Return to Erasmus

Example: Don't worry about the world coming to an end today because it's already tomorrow in Australia. (Charles Schulz)
1. Stop fretting about Armageddon occurring today because tomorrow already happened in Australia. 
2. Quiet your concern of Earth ceasing existence today because Australia is already experiencing tomorrow.
3. Cease your fears of an Apocalypse on this day because Australia has already made it to tomorrow.

Example: The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us. (Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes)
1. The best evidence that evolved aliens inhabit space is that they have never attempted to communicate with Earth.
2. Solid proof advanced extraterrestrials occupy the galaxy is that they refuse to establish human relations.
3. Support for the idea that superior life forms traverse space can be found in the belief that they have not revealed themselves to the people of Earth.

Example: There 's no such thing as fun for the whole family. (Jerry Seinfeld)
1. The idea of something being enjoyable for the entire family is absurd.
2. The thought of an activity being loved by every member of a family is ridiculous.
3. A whole family finding joy in a activity is impossible to believe.

Example: When somebody tells you nothing is impossible, ask him to dribble a football. (Anonymous)
1. If a person insists everything is possible, tell them to dribble a football.
2. Teachers may tell their classes nothing is impossible, but they have never dribbled a football.
3. I believed I could accomplish anything, until I attempted to dribble a football.

Example: Fall is my favorite season in Los Angeles, watching the birds change color and fall from the trees. (David Letterman)
1. Autumn is the best time of year in The City of Angels, seeing the birds turn different hues and drop from the trees.
2. October and November are my favorite months in California, observing the foul morph into different colors and cascade down from the trees.
3. Fall is my most beloved time of year in Los Angeles, staring at the birds as they transform into different colors and rain down from the trees.

    I found a fun strategy in Image Grammar to help me practice imitation and working with parallel structures.  The words that I have underlined are the words that are different from the original versions.

Image Grammar by Harry R, Noden
Chapter 3: The Artist's Rhythms
Strategy 6: Imitate the Rhythms of Parallel Structure

1. Between what I should know and what I actually know, between what happens and what never starts, between the boundaries of reality and the freedom of dreams lies the consciousness of humanity.

2. Some days you dodge bullets. Some days you get hit. Some days you smell roses. Some days you smell like rotten trash. Some days are made for change.

3. If there are no angels, if heaven really doesn't exist, if God is only a myth, then how do you explain the universe? And most of all, how do you explain the Earth? Beyond doubt lies the truth.

4. When all hope is lost, when light fades from the universe, and when love ceases existence, only then will God have abandoned humanity.

5. This is a man who loves, a man who teaches, and a man who cares this is Buddha.

6. This was a place where blood was split, where strong men once fought, and where love died.

    I have been working on improving my ability to paint images with words in my writings. As a way to practice, I selected a strategy from Image Grammar and  focused on using zooming and layering techniques to create brush strokes. I attempted to incorporate specific nouns, specific verbs, participles, absolutes, appositives, prepositional phrases, and adjectives out of order in my sentences.

Image Grammar by Harry R. Noden
Chapter 2: Artist's Eye
Strategy 8: Breathe Life into Dead Character Descriptors

    My buddy, Dan, smashed and bewildered, teetered around the party. I knew his salvation from drunken Hell rested on my shoulders. Plotting a course of action, I established our escape route.
    The party, a maze of drunks, writhed like the inside of a bee hive. I made my way over and guided Dan towards the front door.
    Asking for trouble, Dan groped several ladies on the way out. Threatening to castrate Dan, the ladies, drunken divas, transform into a feminist mob.
    They had us surrounded. I stood beside Dan, heart pounding with concern, mind racing with words to say. Attempting to be civil, I apologized for Dan's drunkenness. My words fell on deaf ears. Since these ladies were not into the teachings of Jesus Christ and could not forgive, I knew I could not let them crucify Dan for his mistakes.
    Our salvation came in the form of an open front door. I grabbed Dan and thrust him past a few people and out of the house. My mission was a success. Dan and I had made it outside of the house and were safely on our way home.

    I wanted to work with noun and using them to create descriptions. To practice that and imitating other writer's styles, I picked a strategy from my copy of Image Grammar. Here is my attempt at a noun collage.     

Image Grammar by Harry R. Noden
Chapter 5: Advanced Techniques
Strategy 1: Describe a Setting Using a Noun Collage
Imitation of Annie Proulx's The Shipping News

    Epcot was bustling. A tour of identities, Chinese men in business suits with silk ties, French women in the latest fashions and finest perfumes, rose, lavender, peach, candy. Tall Russian men. Heads shaved and shined, polished into reflective mirrors. Sunshine. Golden rays of love. Irish men with green hats. Ethnicities like colored confetti, the world in bits and pieces. The business of many nations, a collage of life.

I found a strategy in Image Grammar that allowed me to continue practicing my zooming and layering skills. The strategy asked me to listen to instrumental music and paint a scene using the music as inspiration. I took full advantage of specific nouns, specific verbs, participles, appositives, prepositional phrases, and adjectives out of order to create brush strokes.

Image Grammar by Harry R. Noden
Chapter 8: Story Grammar and Scenes
Strategy 4: Use Music to Paint Scenes

    Scanning the plains of battle, Eagles fly over the carnage. The smell of blood hangs in the air above the fighting. Men crooked and broken lay scattered across the vast expanse. This was a national park, Yellow Stone, but now it is the site of Armageddon. The sound of death is all that can be he heard anymore. Broken bones, severed limbs, and sharp blades are the instruments of this hellish orchestra. Welcome to Hell on Earth.

    Meditating before battle, the hero prepares for a storm. Warriors tall and strong lined-up on different sides of a battle field. Masked men, Samurai, glide across the plains rallying their troops. Thunder rages in the sky and lightning crashes toward Earth. A battle fierce and destructive unleashes on the ground. Glory is given to those that survive.  

    In my Foundations of New Media class, we have started to explore some of the smaller new media players. In the book I have been reading, Paul Levinson's New New Media, these smaller new media players are referred to as the small potatoes. This group is comprised of New Medias that somewhat fell off the map and new medias that never quite made it on the map.
    The most prominent of these small potatoes is MySpace, which at one time wasn't such a small potato. According to Levinson's book, MySpace had over 300 million user profiles during its prime. That is certainly a lot of people doing their MySpace thing, but I was not one of them. I was either too cool for MySpace or MySpace was to cool for me.
    I may not have gotten into MySpace like 300 million other people did, but I cannot deny the effect it had on new media today. MySpace was the place that made having online friends popular. It is also one of the earliest examples of a new media offering blogging, photos, videos, music, and IMing all in one place. MySpace was pretty much the forerunner to Facebook and for the most part most new media today.
   
   

            Every Tuesday night Johnny attended the Happy Faces Support Group in the basement of his local Lutheran Church. He had been coming to these meeting regularly for about a year. Tonight was the first night Johnny was to lead the group discussion and he was feeling nervous.
            It was about 8pm and time for the meeting to start. Everyone took their seats and waited for Johnny. Standing behind a podium at the front of the room he greeted the group members.
            “How is everyone doing tonight?” he asked. “For those who have never been to a meeting before, my name is Johnny McLeady. Thanks to this support group, I recently overcame my addiction to cigarettes. Now every time I get the urge to smoke, I simply eat a handful of sunflower seeds instead.”
              Looking around Johnny could see two new faces in the crowd. They were both women and appeared to be vastly different from each other.
              Johnny continued on his little spiel, “I believe we have a few new members joining us tonight. If they would come up front and introduce themselves, I think we would all like to hear their stories.”
              At first the women appeared hesitant, but with encouragement from other group members the two headed up to the front of the group.
              The first woman introduced herself. “Hello, my name is Carla Sands and I am a former tattoo and piercing artist. I came here tonight because I have a hard time accepting the fact that I am beautiful.”
              After Carla’s introduction, the second woman stepped up to the podium. “Hello, my name is Linda Magnus and I have a problem with tobacco and cigarettes. I need people I can look to for support. This is something I cannot do on my own.”
              The other group members clapped and shouted out encouragements to the two women as they returned to their seats. The meeting continued to progress as usual until it was time for the small group therapy sessions.
             “Why don’t you two both join me for group therapy?” Johnny said to the two women as he approached them from his position at the podium.
             “I was nervous no one would ask me to join them.” Carla said with a look of relief on her face.
             “I was worried about the same thing.” Linda said with the same look of relief on her face. 
             Johnny though that there was something strange about the two women, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. They looked and acted completely different from each other, but from the way they interacted it almost seemed like they had already known each other.
             “Tell me a little about yourselves.” Johnny said. “I want to hear your stories.”
             Linda was the first to start talking. “This is hard for me to say. You seem like such a nice guy. The fact is we are criminals and we have been on the run for the last three months.”
             Johnny didn’t know if he should laugh or be concerned. He never expected to hear that these women were criminals and on the run.
            “I know this must be shocking for you.” Carla said with a grin. “At least the other people we have done this too were shocked.”
            The two women proceeded to produce small handguns from inside their purses. It was about to become the worst night of Johnny’s life.   The duo stood up and started shouting.
           “We aren’t playing around.” Linda said. “Do what we say and nobody gets hurt.”
           “We need everyone to get on the ground and hand over their wallets and purses.” Carla said.  
            Johnny’s life was flashing before his eyes and all of a sudden he wanted a cigarette again for the first time in almost a year. He took out his wallet and laid it on the ground in front of him.
            “Why are you doing this?” he asked.
            “Because we can and support groups like this are easy money.” Carla answered. “No one ever expects a robbery to happen at one of these things its perfect.”
            The two women worked quickly and collected all the money. Once everyone’s wallets and purses were empty the duo took off into the night.
            After that night, Johnny never went to another support group meeting. He started smoking cigarettes again and relapsed into his old ways. Johnny learned something that night. All it takes is one unexpected event to set you back to square one.

    My good friend stumbled upon a really cool blog the other day. It is called Piercing Through and it was created by a student majoring in print journalism at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. The blog describes itself as being about space, spirituality, psychedelics, philosophy, and everything else beyond this realm of existence.
    My favorite part of the blog is the artwork it features. It is full of psychedelic artwork,  beautiful landscapes, and celestial bodies. Images that I could look at all day if I had that kind of time to spare.
    It is a pretty awesome blog site in my opinion. I recommend that you all check it out. If you have an open mind maybe you can learn something new or at least think the artwork is pretty neat. I know that I enjoyed my look around.

http://piercingthrough.blogspot.com/
   

    It has finally happened, I have broken down and set up a Twitter account. Those of you that know me personally know that I have been holding out as long as I could to avoid logging onto Twitter. Now, my life on Twitter has begun and there is no going back.
    So far, I have not done too much with my Twitter profile. I have not tweeted yet, and a link to this blog post will probably serve as my first tweet. I am following a few people and organizations that I am interested in, but I do not have a whole lot of people following me yet.
    All of these things will soon change. I will eventually get a handle on Twitter. By that time, I will probably be using it just as much as I use Facebook. It has the potential to be a great tool for me as a student of English for New Media. I just have to embrace Twitter and let the tweets flow.