Here’s how one uses information design / aesthetics to tell 9/11. [Infosthetics]
If you ever had the urge to speak edubabble, check this handy tool passed onto me by Chad Ratliff. You can speak edubabble for the next 50 years. [Science Geek]
Funniest e-mail exchange, real or fake, I’ve read since I was in college? This one. [27b/6]
Lately, I’ve tried to live a peaceful, tranquil life. Lord knows I’ve only had too much drama personally and professionally with all of these misguided individuals, me amongst those. It’s in that spirit that I bring out my top 5 things irking me right now, with a little inspiration from Ed Lover, whose resurgence as a popular figure comes from his viral series entitled “C’Mon Son.” Here. We. Go.
#5: People Getting Far Too Personal on Social Networks
I’m alright with people having an affinity for the next person or respecting their work, but even the most “normal” of people catch a stan or two. If your whole existence on some social network is strictly replying and responding to one or two people, trying to get their attention and lauding them left and right, then c’mon son. For that matter, if the person finally replies, and then you reply back and they don’t response, don’t get Carrie-d away.
These hands! They tweet!
#4: People with Vanity Plates
If you’ve got a vanity plate, you need to do away with it a.s.a.p. That is so 20th century. Especially in a professional environment where there’s a chance that someone like me has to get on the loudspeaker and call your license plate, I’m going to spell the joint out thrice to let the world know. Just saying. C’mon son.
#3: Chris Brown
I haven’t said anything about “Breezy” because I was really waiting for all the details, like I needed any more evidence of his domestic abuse towards Rihanna than this. What’s worst still is the Chris Brown apologists out there who continue to defend him in the face of all this egregious act. While I don’t consider myself a judge and proprietor of right and wrong, I just think it’s much too soon for Chris to flood the airwaves with interviews talking about what he did and didn’t do when most of his interviews sound like contrived sound bites. I’m not hating; I wish him the best. But … c’mon son.
#2: People Trying To Correct My Grammar
I get it. I’m a math teacher, and a blogger, so superficially the standards for my writing should be pretty low. When I post something important, I should thus expect one person trying to tell me the difference between effect and affect. Only the problem is, I know the difference. And when I point it out, I use an online dictionary, like dictionary.com or something. I then should expect the person to break out Strunk & White’s The Elements of Style. Only that I have the book right above the computer I’m typing from. After pointing this out, I should then expect silence. C’mon son.
[p.s. - I don't mind if you're constructive about your criticism, but to try and look like the arbiter of the English language makes you look ... strunk up.]
#1: People’s Wack-Ass Writing
For the love of Christ, don’t send me your writing if it’s not even close to expressing any intelligible ideas. If I know kids in my 8th grade math class who have more imagination than you, then I’m not reading your writing. If everything you tweet has the words ’soul,’ ‘life,’ ‘love,’ ‘peace,’ and other words that laminate your cred wherever you share your writing, then I’m not trying to read it. If I’ve read your metaphors somewhere before and it’s not an interesting twist, I’m not reading it.
As per my last annoyance, I’m not some grammar tyrant, but if you’re past high school and still don’t know where sentences start and end when writing an essay and it’s not ostensibly on purpose? … C’mon son.
A few months ago, I had the opportunity of meeting Kilian Betlach, writer, former teacher, and present administrator. As most of you have seen on my sidebar, I feature his book This Feels Like a Riot Looks. John Norton and Barnett Berry helped bring us and 10 other teachers together this summer as part of a larger Teacher Leaders Network project, and they’re men who believe people like me and Kilian will be the new wave of teacher book writers. While I’ve never actually written a book, I’ve had visions of doing so for years now, and everyday forms another chapter that inspires me in that direction. Kilian advised me indirectly to proceed with caution:
“I think writing [blog] posts ruined my book voice.”
Say what?
“Well, I got in the habit of writing these posts that were a few paragraphs long, and now I don’t think I even have the stamina to go much further than that.”
Whoa. These thoughts and more have lingered in my mind as I write up draft after draft. Lately, I’ve had to take a day of rest on Thursdays, leaving only 3 posts a week for my 350+ readers. It’s cool since at least people realize I’m working harder at everything than ever before (while my waistline slowly expands and contracts). Still, I’m stuck in a conundrum. Do I write more often just so I can pick up the pace on the actual writing, or write less on the blog to concentrate on other writing forms? Do I try longer form in hopes that I’ll have the stamina to crank out more thorough essays or get shorter so the actual “book” gets the best material possible?
Furthermore, I’m also struggling with not just the act of writing itself but also delving too deeply into my personal life and trying to make this book unlike any I’ve ever read before. There’s an element to my writing that I’d like to say differs from practically anyone else in the blogosphere and maybe even in education: my unabashed willingness to lay everything out there about myself when it comes to certain topics. It’s in line with the motto “Go hard or go home,” and while it’s great for an audience that we’ve built together, I wonder how that’ll translate out there in a less familiar world where the contact is a little less intimate and instantaneous but also more grateful when the product is well worth it.
A friend of mine wrote to me the other day, “I don’t think I’ve met a person as warm and yet so personally guarded as you since I stopped talking to myself. There’s always so much more in what you don’t say … Damn, you’re such an Aquarius person. Get out of your own head for a minute …” Hovering over some of the notes I’ve made in my mind regarding this upcoming project, and how difficult it’s been to extract that writer voice, the one that wants to discuss topics like suicide, poverty, depression / oppression, religion, race, the failure of one’s nostalgia, and the promulgation of secrecy in the name of bureaucracy in a personal and effective tone.
The same one I use to write many of the blogs written here.
Just having to read about those very experiences and rehash some of the grimmer and even the rhapsodic moments in my life ushers in a rush of feelings that, although familiar, clench at my gut. Thus, my writing becomes a sort of exfoliation from within, where I shed that inner skin bit by bit. For my readers who’ve been on this journey since 2003-4, those pieces I’ve shed here and other venues made it easier to write this now. It’s a funky process, and that can only grow exponentially in the face of 200+ pages of my rawest and decidedly more personal material, but it’s a process I’m willing to take in this path of personal growth.
The friend continues, “[this] probably explains why you’re such a phenomenal writer and thinker.”
So it’s either I go hard or I go home. I’m already home, so there may not be anywhere else to go …
Jose, who relishes a good challenge, even when it’s risking a lot of himself …
Every few weeks or so, I run into a YouTube video so excruciatingly hilarious, I deem it worthy to be linked on my site. This is one of them:
I borrowed it from my brother-from-another-mother Carl and I deem it apropos for my reflection tonight, not because I care whether or not Mike Arrington of TechCrunch is right or because I’m going to get my own puppet and take my show to YouTube. Actually, it’s to highlight the artistry of effective expression, especially when done at the fringes of what we deem as popular opinion. Let me give you all the clearest example I can.
In my own explorations as a writer / blogger / teacher leader / web designer / etc., I’ve received some overt (and covert) compliments, all of which I’m humbly grateful for. I don’t consider myself a self-made man by any means nor do I subscribe to the self-moisturizing methods some of my fellow contemporaries exert in environments where no one’s asking for that. As recently as tonight, I dressed as inconspicuously as possible just for that anonymity. In a way, I need to be reminded what it is for people not to know me and for me to focus on the work (and in tonight’s case, the awesome poets on stage at the Acentos Poetry Showcase at the Bowery Poetry Cafe).
But like many of the people on stage and in the audience, I didn’t get where I am today by staying quiet. I connected with the right people. I let my stuff get on search engines and blogrolls. I designed and modded this whole site practically by myself, and learned far more about advertising and search engine optimization than I cared for before I got my own calling card (by calling card, I mean thejosevilson.com). Even after all the nominations, mentions, and TV and blog interviews, I still consider myself on the fringes of the blogosphere because, while people love the blog, you won’t hear CNN or Rolling Stone calling my phone, and I’m perfectly fine with that. I also know I don’t (nor do I care to) have a publicist, agent, or assistant of any sort.
For another example, I turn to the aforementioned Acentos, now a foundation sponsoring and promoting Latino poets, many of whose voices would never be heard in the cacophony of literary heads trying to create a silo so only those with, say, MFAs from prestigious colleges or their arms hanging off the pelvises of prominent predecessors in places that actually may NEED new voices that consider themselves in the fringes … like I do. Tonight proved that these un-settlers could come into a sanctuary of rarely-heard voices and make beautiful music together, or in this case, poetry. While that’s a huge credit to the egos of former and current board members of the Acentos Foundation, it also demonstrates the fact that, as humble and reflective as these ladies and gentlemen are, their efforts may have been buried in the graveyard along with other well-meaning organizations if they didn’t take the time to promote their efforts and make sure they stayed in the forefront of people’s minds and tongues.
Does this warrant everyone getting a Facebook fan page or writing press releases about their joints? Not really. I honestly believe that if you can’t count to 100 people who are feeling your work, then maybe it’s not in your interest to do anything too wild. It doesn’t mean that I too am creating a silo. If the work is good, then promote away. For those of us who aren’t blogging / writing or anything that needs a little promotion, they should remember that very few of their favorite popular people ever get noticed until they put themselves in the position for this thing called “luck.”
In other words, shut up.
Jose, who’ll write this in more personal and poetic form exclusively on his Facebook fan page …
Recently, Vibe Magazine closed its doors, at least in print form. For those who never ventured into black publication, Vibe Magazine was a Black-based magazine started by Quincy Jones last decade. The ostensible vision of the pub was to highlight Black culture, but with a bit of a White lens. It mainly featured R&B and hip-hop acts while also dipping into some rock and dance artists from time to time. While the racial aspect of the magazine’s foreclosure has been done almost to death in blogs and other chat venues, I consider this turn of events truly irking.
Here’s why: growing up (and growing up literate), hip-hop and R&B magazines kept me abreast of all that happened in the hip-hop community in ways I wasn’t really allowed to explore in my youth. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to go to my favorite artists’ concerts because I couldn’t really afford to. I was also very limited in my exposure to rappers until high school when I found out the Roc-A-Fella Records offices (the former home to artists like Jay-Z, Beanie Sigel, and Memphis Bleek) were a block away from my high school. I still have high stacks of magazines from the Source, Blaze, Vibe, and XXL that I’ve kept over the years.
Comparable to the way we used to be fascinated by time capsules, these publications represented everything that was hot and cold during my lifetime. While not everything resonated with me (Cash Money articles, here’s looking at you), I found myself taking whole days out just reading the latest cover with DMX or Eminem on the cover, and wanted to collect every cover Jay-Z or Roc-a-Fella ever appeared on. And forget about Biggie and 2Pac covers; they never got old to me. Every little detail was important to me, from the producers and managers to how one rapper’s style differed from the other and the creation of that rappers’ music.
Those publications brought a certain amount of access to the artists I obviously couldn’t get anywhere else. Plus, the writers who’d bring those stories didn’t have their names all over the piece, but brought a certain style, grit, and fluidity to their pieces that parachuted us into their subject matter that made me want to become a writer secretly. And I guess without these publications, we don’t get the opportunity to see that type of writing in full bloom. In the digital world, people often say that sohh.com and sandrarose.com will replace the need for the aforementioned publications, and in a way, I see that as a valid point. On the other hand, though, I have yet to see the caliber of writing like we’ll see in those publications. Many of the bits we see look more like AP pieces or, in other cases, just crap.
And that leads me to the present situation. Where do all the writers that have followed the Raquel Cepedas, Toures, and Dream Hamptons of the world go? The ones who want to be the Edward Murrow, William Lloyd Garrison, or Bob Woodwards of their time? It’s a really shaky time for those who want to take that profession as their full-time position, and make those of us with day jobs, like me, wonder what becomes of those in the writing profession. Where do the future stories about our favorite mainstream and underground artists come from? Where do the good, in-depth stories come from?
No way am I saying it’s Armaggedon for the business of journalism / investigative writing is dead. There must be change for people to keep up with the new demands on information. Yet, I strongly feel that the pickings will be much slimmer, and the panorama of memories and experiences with the writing may become more limited. And a small part of me feels like we’ll have to settle for the obscure quip. That is, if the newer blood doesn’t get a chance to start. For urban youth, Vibe was a good place to start, much like Spin, The Daily News, or Ebony would be a good place to start for burgeoning writers in that niche.
What do you guys think?
Jose, who wants to re-read his old magazines now …
It’s been less than a week since my vacation started, and my mind tingles like it did when I was still in the Mr. Vilson phase, full of thoughts and ways I’d change my routine for that day. Little did that part of my brain know that I really wasn’t going to wake up at 530am, get in my uniform, and belt out my lesson plans that day. Still antsy from my own delusions, I got up and turned on my Mac, possibly to be productive, or maybe to knock me back asleep. I fire up GMail, Facebook, Twitter, and the website I’m working on in that order, and this manuscript that’s full of serious potential.
Just then, I see one of my friends online, someone who’s also really impressive with the essays. She considers herself a fan of my work, and often seeks me out for advice on writing and the like. While we’re going through some of my projects, I ask her when’s her book coming out. She said, “Huh?” Either she meant that as, “Shouldn’t I be asking you that?” or “How did he know?” So I keep pushing the issue and she tells me she’s thinking of writing a book after all, but doesn’t have the time.
An amateur writer’s lament.
Not having the time to write is often our biggest conflict. People who write for a living notwithstanding, those with “day jobs” have a really hard time writing at the same time. Looking at my own schedule over the last few weeks, from working on school infrastructure and designing professional development to working on others’ websites and collaborating with artists, I haven’t paid as much attention as I’d like to my simple pleasures, like this blog. Even with more people reading my jots, I haven’t been able to do as much writing as I’d like.
So, when asked by this writer what my best advice for her was, “Write like hell. And just keep writing.” I added, “Maybe I need to follow my own advice. You’ll notice that when I stop writing, it gets really sluggish, but when I write a lot, I don’t stop.” She nodded. I then looked at this manuscript, the one that every writer seems to be working on eternally, and decided I’d at least finish a piece of it.
After that, I went right back to sleep. My revelation was just enough to put me back to rest …
Jose, who doesn’t like mentioning names because it’s about the idea, not the person … (but thank you) …
In this increasingly popular post entitled, “But I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For,” a commenter by the name of Kat, whose discussions on Twitter have given me food for thought, linked me to a video by Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love. Anyone who’s even ridden a subway, gone to a Barnes & Nobles, or walked down the park has made some contact with said book, even if they don’t know what it’s about. They know about a third of the women in their lives have read it, and that it’s probably made loads of money. What no one may ever see is the dedication she put to that book, or how that book may never come into existence if not for her conversations with her different personas and forces.
In the video, which I’m highlighting at bottom, she quotes Norman Mailer as saying, “Every little book has killed me a little more.” The man’s written more than 30 books easily over his life, and there’s this deep anxiety with leaving that much of your person for the world to see.
I think about my own struggles as a writer (yes they exist), and more often than not, it’s that question of whether or not I’m going to make a remarkable post, or a remarkable book, or anything where even a few of someone’s friends has on the bookshelves waiting to be read. Then, I think of the times when I just decided to write what I felt and really felt that writing, whatever the topic is, and more often than not, that’s where I’d get the conversations going, and the replies to my e-mail, or my site. It’s wonderful how that all works, and so, as you all watch this, think about how you are as a writer, and maybe we’ll find some commonalities.
Jose, who is getting closer to finding what he’s looking for …
Trying out some voices this week. People asked me the definition of voice, and I’m exploring my boundaries. Experimental today. Education tomorrow. Explosive on Thursday. You know how I do.
It is 1am on a Saturday.
Somewhere in a far-away planet, I’ve left my mind while my physical being lays sprawled on a bed, quilt tucked sloppily underneath it to protect it from the coldest and briskest of winters.
Distraught. Pensive.
It is 145am.
While comedians hone life philosophies to the masses, I’m wondering where the time flew. Time is a deathly relative thing. Blink once and the terrible moments and anxieties still confront me like lights flashing before me, mirroring the exact coordinates at which my molecules lay in this dimension, but always out of context. As if time as a dimension never matters. Blink twice and I find myself alone, in a relative peace, and mentally thinking I should be anxious.
And I’m not.
I feel nothing.
It is now 147am. In a little over two minutes, my mind’s eyes slid through galleries of the people I formerly, currently, and will have any relationship with. In that time, I recalled a good thousand or so people, the time it took to build those relationships. the human parts of me I sacrificed. How humans react to that. The human parts I severed. And in an instant, for an instant, I let that all go.
Time is funny that way.
It is a few weeks later.
People stand in rows and aisles. Watch this life form amaze the world with his fluorescent exterior. Clothed like every one of them but every bit as naked. With all those superpowers I have in my grasp, the imploded bodies, the moving objects, and the manipulation of other life organisms, I’m every bit in touch with reality as the next life being.
It is now 1050 tonight.
Humans think that with anyone possessing such powers, they’d find peace for everyone, that war and strife will end somehow. These thoughts never end.
They never end.
Jose, who’d love to just play with different voices all day …
When your voice finds you, it doesn’t matter how you express it: your signature’s all over it.
I write this because, after seeing The Soloist, a movie about a Los Angeles-based writer who finds a homeless cellist / prodigy and a must-watch for any writer I know, I’ve given tons of thought about where to take the writing “thing.” Not to spoil the movie (as it is a biopic of sorts), we have the contemplative Steve Lopez, a man committed to a beautiful but dispassionate view of the world and a raw and soulful writing style that garners him success, fans, and everything except a positive relationship. On the other hand, we have Nathaniel Ayers, who also has an excellent talent with his violin (and later on, we find out, he started with the cello).
Superficially different from the writer, but distinctly similar in that they’re both looking to get out a message carried deep within them, and trying to battle themselves just for the chance to reach that higher ground. After the movie ended, I found myself inspired and in the throws of the same feeling that seems to connect all writers / poets / musicians / artists as a whole. We draw upon some force within us and draw out the very best of us to express some message or say something truly inspiring. We go to great lengths within our person to make some of our greatest pieces happen.
Personally, I know some of my best pieces came after 2-3-4-5 hours of reading around and looking at research, and reaching into the bottomless pit of my mind to clean thoughts out. Yeah, it got that deep at times. I look back at the revelatory nature of them, and wonder whether others can understand the madness it takes to be that kind of writer, but people’s loyalty to the work indicates a more positive reaction. If I can even elicit a fraction of the care I put into my most prized work, I’ve done my job.
And that’s where the musician and the writer really find their common ground. We can concern ourselves less with the works that garner our mainstream / commercial successes and focus on the works that influence the conversations we have, then we’re truly artists in that respect. Whereas conversation is the bridge from one to one or even one to some, art is the bridge between the one and the many.
Whether you’re writing or you’re playing, your voice carries.
I woke up in sudden shock today on the A train on the way back from work. A blonde lady in her mid-30s woke me up as she sat next to me on the 59th Street stop. I was alarmed at first, but I turned back into sleep mode when I saw this Black man in a cool busboy cap pedaling his books. He had his three types right on him, all self-published, and all with glossy paperback covers. 2 of them were poetry books and the third another “ghetto story.”
I almost wanted to tune him out like I tend to tune out all the product-pushers around me. The tons of people with their latest product, blog, mixtape, MySpace / Facebook / Twitter page, dance, special recipe as they upgrade their efforts to annoy the hell out of me with their subpar work yet oversold hype. They’re the reason why so many of us stick with only a handful of people to provide us with our whole entertainment and download the rest: no one’s going to pay for a whole product worth only a tenth of its price. I’ve also become better at muting commercials and sniping spam from my various channels in the hopes that I could get focused.
But this was different.
All of a sudden, as he’s promoting one of his books, he caught my ear with a hot line, and another one, and another one, samples of some of his best work in his book. I was intrigued, not because this man had the nerve to interrupt my almost daily iPod listening / napping sessions on the train, but because he had this earnest and proud face as he looked at the books he was promoting.
While it’s easy to don masks of sincerity, I felt a weird connection to his moment of gravitas that I rarely feel with an artist. It’s the same feeling I caught during StaceyAnn Chin’s book reading last week at Barnes N’ Noble, the same feeling I caught when Bassey Ikpi told the world she had a contract for a book on Twitter, and the same feeling I got when the Loisaidas promoted their latest video “No Me Dejes” to their fellow Nativity Mission School alumni. People who actually care about their work get this euphoric and reflective look on their face as if, while they may not have accomplished all they wanted to, they can rest peacefully knowing they’ve made their footprint in the sand, and dug deep into it, too.
For every comment about how great my work is, I always feel humbled by them all, but I’m still waiting for that moment when, after all the writing, the speaking, the promotion, the guest-writing, and the bouts of carpal tunnel syndrome, I can finally hold onto a book with only my name on it, look at it like I can’t believe I wrote it, and frame it. I want to look at that piece of work and never want to read it again, only if people ask for comment about a certain section, and even then, want to be like, “You read it. What do YOU think?” I want to run into a bookstore like Busboys and Poets’ spot in Washington, DC or The Schomberg’s bookstore, see someone pick it up, stare them in the face and say, “Thank you. I mean it.”
I wish I had the money to get a copy of dude’s book, and my book queue is long enough. I can’t imagine how much he loves his book to sell it to people with a wide range of interest … and a low threshhold of tolerance.
Jose, who’s releasing a project in the next month …
Question: What’s the difference between a blogger and a writer?
Yesterday, a friend of mine decided she’d abandoned blogging for a myriad of reasons, all of them viable and understandable in the eyes of the reader and the writer alike. It hurt me to read because I honestly believe in her ability to convey her deepest emotions and ideas. Even when she extended the post, she never bored people with the writing, eliciting expanded responses from her more devoted fans. Yet, because it was so personal, she didn’t write consistently. When she did, the “numbers” went up, but when she didn’t, well, only her most loyal fans stuck around.
Of course, this can only go two ways: either people love her writing and she’s lauded as a contemporary of her time, offering her book deals and money to do her thing on paperback, or she quits blogging as a whole, leaving her talent abandoned and unexposed to a greater community that may eventually appreciate it. Unfortunately for this heroine, the latter happened. And again, her reasons for leaving get to the heart of the ugly side of blogging. She may be a great writer, but she’s not a great blogger, and despite everyone’s arguments to the contrary, there’s evidence that there’s a difference after all.
I’m not going to name names, but oftentimes, I’ll read a blog and think how, while their point of view may be interesting and sometimes entertaining, it’s not good writing. In some of these blogs (irrespective of background), I’ll find misspellings, confusing conjugations and conjunctions, and just a lack of English (or any language) mastery. These bloggers will put up a controversial picture or speak on nonsense, yet the comments, links, and page views keep coming in the hundreds and sometimes thousands. It’s an interesting cross between crass production, formulaic name-branding, and salacious marketing. I admittedly read some of these blogs, but no matter how drawn I am to the content, the less I’m drawn to the overall writing. Many writers looking to get their writing careers off, thus, have a hard time fitting in because this new medium doesn’t always fit into the mold of the blogger, and gets disheartened in the process.
Granted, many of my favorite bloggers meet at the crossroads of popularity and solid writing. People like The Unapologetic Mexican, NYC Educator, and despite our disagreements about whether or not teachers should write poems, dy/dan, and hold the vanguard down in their respective fields. They, along with a lot of the bloggers in my sidebar, attest to how one can be a good blogger AND a good writer, so it’s not contradictory. Yet, relatively speaking, these type of blogs are becoming few and far between. So either people write well and don’t have much of a following, or they write so-so but have huge followings. I don’t like making gross generalizations like that, but the examples of both cases are overwhelming.
With that said, if you’re a writer who wants to blog, go right ahead. Yet, don’t let page views, subscribers, Technorati ratings, incoming links, and every other Internet gizmo determine your worth. Some people are just better at marketing and writing good blogs, and some aren’t. You can’t correlate how good your writing is with how popular it’s going to be.
However, if you reallllllly want to write, the only person that matters is YOU. You can only write as well as you believe you can. Once that happens, then you’ve gotta decide what kind of writer you’ll become.
What’s your take on this? Maybe it might help new writers and bloggers alike.
jose, who just wanted to write this in the aftermath of my friend’s resignation …
I'm Jose Vilson of TheJoseVilson.com. Educator, blogger, writer, poet, NYCer, Black / Latino, political polemicist, and everything in between. Love me. hate me. Read me.
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