Tanabata, Pegasus and Laputa

An exchange student rewrites a Japanese myth…

Eiko: July 7 is Tanabata.

Starlight: Tana – what?

Eiko: Orihime, the WeaverPrincess and Hikoboshi, the CowHerderStar, were married. There was a leadup to this but we'll skip that. Once married they got a bit lazy, weaving and cow herding. Orihime's father became annoyed and stuck them on opposite sides of the Milky Way and allowed them to meet only once a year, and only then if they had done their work diligently for a year. So every July 7 they can cross the Milky Way and meet on a bridge made of wings of magpies flying together.

Starlight: MAGPIE wings?

Eiko: Sounds a bit far-fetched, doesn’t it? Maybe these days they might use FaceBook, or Skype each other?

Starlight: Out of keeping with the original story. How about… (thinks) How about that winged horse, Pegasus, flies down and carries them to some meeting place?

Eiko: I know. Up to Laputa, Castle in the Sky.

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Voice-over

Guest Blogger “Starlight” came up with this incredibly credible contemporary ending: Pegasus flying the pair to Laputa for their annual holiday. All the more apt for a Milky Way location since Pegasus is a star constellation. And the link to Miyazaki Hayao’s Laputa revitalizes Tanabata into a modern myth.

...

Merging Film and Social Media

Asked about a conference…
Rima: It’s on Film and Media.

Pru: Papers linking film and media? 

Rima: Mostly they’re on film or they’re on media. An exception was a panel on the changing face of filmmaking. One paper was on a Pakistan film. Made cheaply using cell phone and DSLR camera. Strong story, man is shot. Censorable content and couldn’t be posted on YouTube. So it was posted to Vimeo. Despite this, it garnered 40,000 ‘Likes’.

Pru: Not bad.

Rima: Another presenter emphasized that even films made by smartphones can go viral if their story is strong.

Pru: How does a video go viral?

Rima: Social media. That presenter said he employs a full time website manager, blog writer and FaceBook writer to publicize his films.

Pru: Hmm, a merging of film and social media then. Another role to tack onto the credit list.

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Voice-over
Social media is labor intensive. But it’s a crucial PR tool for creative artists. Generating the contacts, writing blogs, creating a fanbase, administering forums are necessary to attract an audience.
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Pulling faces on Social Media

Transmit THIS!

Daniela asks Dave about the rise of social media.

Daniela: Why did Facebook suddenly become so popular?

Dave: Short answer is it was the next new thing. After Web1.0, which was basically one-way transmission, people were ready to try interactive.

Daniela: If that’s the short answer, what’s the long answer?

Dave: Bunch of theories: Six Degrees of Separation, Social Information Processing, Media Richness Theory. Theories to explain things like compensating for non-transmission of nonverbal cues over computers.

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Voice-over

Many theories explain aspects of the rise  of social media. Some theories account for details, like Six Degrees. Some develop as media evolves like Social Information Processing Theory. And some theories such as Media Richness Theory are challenged by new ones such as Media Naturalness Theory.

Frigyes Karinthy’s and John Guare’s Six Degrees of Separation concept.

Joe Walther’s Social Information Processing Theory.

Richard Daft and Robert Lengel’s Media Richness Theory.

Ned Kock's Media Naturalness Theory.

See also short film on Social Media:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKFbJ-byTXI

...

FaceBook + Google = 1984 False analogy?

f.b + g = 1984

A darkened room, whispering…

Julia: It’s getting like 1984.

Winston: What is?

Julia: FaceBook collecting all your private data and putting it online.

Winston: False analogy. You volunteer your private information to FaceBook. Orwell’s Big Brother was watching you.

Julia: Well how about Google then? It watches where you go and collects that information without asking.

Winston: False analogy again. Orwell’s Big Brother used the data to control the citizens. Google sells your information.

Julia: It still feels like 1984 with all the spying going on.

Winston: I will say this though. FaceBook and Google add up to something like 1984. It’s a partial analogy.

_________________

Voice-over

An analogy compares A with B and finds that they share features.

A false analogy is one where A and B may superficially share features but underneath there is little relevance or only a few shared features.

Hillary Clinton commented at the UN on the recent civil unrest in Syria, that to compare Syria to Libya was a “false analogy.”

Valid analogies may range from strong through partial to weak. Winston’s reasoning that two false analogies add up to a partial analogy is intriguing. It has an instinctive validity.

...

Rhyming as a signal of verbal intelligence

GM likes to rhyme responses.    
wh5: Robert only had 40 friends on Facebook a couple of months ago. Now he’s got over 200.
GM: Friends? What means friends?  I saw George’s profile. He claims 500 PLUS “friends.”
wh5: Well, maybe such people just collect people. Like stamps. Or insects. Grab them. Pin them. Display them. Label them “friends.”
GM: So is all this connecting to “friends” becoming a competition?
wh5: Seems so. And what is a “friend”?
GM: Someone you spend time with, send messages to, lend things to.
wh5: And an acquaintance?
GM: Someone who you glance at, meet by chance, then exist in an expanse.
wh5: And is this “competition,” you allude to, coming from people competing, or companies wanting growth?
GM: It’s froth. It’s growth. Both.

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Voice-over    
In structure, this is a cooperative conversation of question and counter-question to reach consensus.

Stylists sometimes caution against peppering our prose with alliteration, puns or rhymes. But there can be fun in it. Some like Geoffrey Miller go so far as to say rhyming is difficult to do, that a speaker has to try harder to make a rhyme, and likens it to a peacock display, or in a human context, a signaling of verbal intelligence.