Witness

I am looking forward to learning from 1619 - a podcast from The New York Times, which was published on 17 August 2019. While the podcast tells the story of the enslavement of 20+ Africans, horrendous stories of the horrible acts many of our ancestors committed; it is important to remember that these are not unspeakable acts. We must speak these acts. We must bear witness.

For more information, check out the page for They New York Times’ 1916 Project.

1619 was mentioned on John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight on “U.S. History.” If you haven’t seen this episode, I highly recommend it. Let’s not pass on the shortcomings of our own educations to future generations.

The Best Bud

I worked with my partner and his brother to create The Best Bud for submission to the GMTK Game Jam 2020 on 12 July.

Please download the game to play.

(This will involve an extraction, so if you are not particularly tech savvy, don’t hesitate to contact me, and I’ll do what I can to help you.)

Five illustrations of a rose’

It’s the first Game Jam I’ve participated in where we have actually had a project to submit. The previous Game Jam I participated in, I did not make it to the stage where a micro-site with screenshots of gameplay and text for the player would be included. I had a lot of fun describing the game for the hoards of future players:

Screenshot of the instructions and gameplay that you will see when you click to download the game

As the artist for the game, I created the background, rose in all five stages of growth, and the various grass blades.

Version of the background that was selected for the game

I learned a lot while using Krita for this project. It’s impressive that you can create something in a program without knowing, for example, how to only resize part of an object.

Five grass blades

I also designed a machete that was left on the cutting room floor. I tried to time-box myself to about 5 minutes…. I’m sure I spent about 30 minutes on it, and plenty left to do.

Having a final project to submit was thrilling. It also showed the valuable lesson of pairing things down. We never would have had a game to submit if we hadn’t removed the vines and the machete. The old adage of “before leaving the house, take off one item of jewelry” is certainly outdated, but the sentiment can be applied to situations like this: leave your machete behind so that you can play the game. I’m sure I’m quoting someone there. Regardless, the importance of knowing what to cut is essential.

We’re able to create intricately detailed worlds in our minds. To creators, the balance between time management, detail, and “perfection” is a tricky one.

Machete Sprite

Usually, when I am creating quickly, I end up with several versions to choose from; I suspect this allows me to move on to the next part, rather than perseverating over design decisions and details that—yes, have an impact—but are not perhaps directly pertinent to the goal of the project. I even find myself doing this now; I’m dealing with the tension of not wanting to spend too long on this post, but also wanting to make sure I am eloquent and engaging. (Bit of a long shot on that, I’m afraid.)

That being said, I humbly toot my own horn for playing around with a new media. While it took a nudge from my loving partner, I am reinvigorated by playing around with a Wacom Tablet and Krita. (Shout out to Krita for being an awesome free, open-source processional painting program beginners like me can use.) I have LOADS to learn, but all I can do is try. Not too shabby for a pandemic.

With that, I’ll leave you with some other parts of the game that didn’t make it to the submitted version but were a blast to make:

Version of the background that was not selected. Oddly reminiscent of WWI battlefields to me for some reason.

Vines that may come out of the side frames to thwart the growing bud in later versions

Make sure your voice is heard!

If you haven’t already, please register to vote.

Verify whether you are registered to vote.

Request an absentee ballot to protect you and other members of your community safe from COVID-19.

Create reminders regarding the election to make sure your voice is heard.

Make sure your voice is heard!

Thinking of Helena.

I often think of Helena, a grandmother figure of mine, whom I was able to get to know for the first twenty-four years of my life. She lived to age one-hundred, and she lived well. At her funeral, the back of the pamphlet included an image that she had taped to the inside of her closet door. It was the following quotation in calligraphy. I now have that image in a frame on my desk. It reminds me of how to live well à la Helena.

“One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words. ”

— J. W. Goethe

It is important to remember the things in life that bring joy. I do my best.

Learning OHMS

Yesterday, while exploring the Oral History Metadata Synchronizer (OHMS ), created by Doug Boyd at the University of Kentucky, I was led to  “OHMS Viewer: synchronized transcript” . By way of showing the capabilities of OHMS (specifically, the way OHMS connects the textual search term to that moment in the recorded interview), I was able to listen to the “Interview with Martin Luther King, Jr., March 18, 1964.” Very fitting for the day after Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. I shall leave you with a segment of that interview regarding the slogan “Freedom Now:” 

Warren, Robert Penn (Interviewer). Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, University of Kentucky Libraries. (1964, March 18). Interview with Martin Luther King, Jr., March 18, 1964 [Audio podcast]. Retrieved from http://nyx.uky.edu/oh/render.php?cachefile=02OH108RPWCR03_King.xml#segment1987 .

Coding and Reflecting.

Today, two weeks into 2017, have spent a fair portion of the day encoding letters written by readers from 1971 issues of SPIDER-MAN. I am fortunate enough to be working on the Comic Book Readership Archive (CoBRA) by transcribing and encoding examples of participatory readership. There were many times when my hands grew cold and tired today as I typed for hours on end, but I pressed on. I finished encoding 1971 and was able to move on to another year. Although there are perhaps many hurdles—globally, nationally, locally, and personally—ahead in the year 2017, I work in the belief that I can move onto another year in good time.

So, in the spirit of how I choose to look forward toward 2017 (and in preparation for MLK Day), I shall leave you with this:

“Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction.”

— Martin Luther King, Jr., from “Loving Your Enemies,” in Strength to Love

Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1964. Fair use.

P.S. For more information on that quotation, please see The Book Haven: Cynthia Haven's Blog for the Written Word out of Stanford University.