Free Music Archive

Here’s another site if you’re looking for incidental music for your multimedia Harlot compositions. I’ve already brought up Musopen and Funky Remixes, which are at different ends of the spectrum, I’d say, but the Free Music Archive contains a much broader sampling of genres. Of course, not everything on there is what I would label quality, but they seemed to have a great selection of classical, old time/historical, and electronica, while other genres are merely solid. It’s still worth an earful gander, though.

Oh, and the site labels every individual track with the particular copyright. Everything on there is either creative commons licensed or in the public domain and available for download. Lucky you, huh?

I’ll even give you something to start you off with. Hmm, let’s go with a little middle-eastern psych rock (love that combination, by the way): Hayvanlar Ami’s “Gökte Güller Açryor,” which has a creative commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share-Alike license.

jezebelles

Have you heard of Jezebel? I look at this publication kinda as a sarcastic Vanity Fair. Although they talk about celebrity, fashion, and stereotypically girlie things, they’re quite critical of it all. For instance, they have articles ranging from the ever-evolving drama of Jon & Kate Plus 8 to animal rights advertising to an excellent run-down and critique of Huckabee on The Daily Show. The site’s description:

Jezebel is celebrity, fashion, and sex without the airbrushing. The witty, informative tone draws a readership that is intelligent and sophisticated, but still willing to get down and dirty. Jezebel does what those women’s monthlies only wish they could.

Sorta reminds me of Harlot–exchange all of that celebrity and fashion stuff for rhetoric and we ain’t far off. Certainly, I think some of their articles fit nicely into the realm of rhetorical critiques of pop culture with a dash of wit. Given the site’s high readership, perhaps there’s something that Harlot could learn from its (maybe not-so) distant cousin. Of course, they’ve been at it a bit longer, have major sponsors, and their editors even get paid! Ah, to earn a wage at this. Harlot is a bit too indie for that major sponsorship though, eh? And we encourage our audience to be more participatory as well. It’s a thought. One still in development.

Writing and weeding

I’m working on an academic article about Harlot, and the irony does not make it a smoother process… so I was out in the backyard weeding.

I enjoy the excuse to sit around outside, but I always have qualms about weeding–in part, because I’m never quite sure I’m pulling the right ones. But even more so, because I get uncomfortable about messing with nature. (Or rather, “nature,” since this is my urban and bricked backyard, after all.) I have these funny guilty feelings about killing something that’s growing, like its an environmental sin (cue Catholic upbringing) to in any way interfere with the natural course of, well, nature. I know that this isn’t logical, that there are immense and innumerable complicating factors… but still.

Side note: My students were so put off by Gore’s rhetorical choices in An Inconvenient Truth that they seem to have found the movie less than persuasive. It sure as hell worked on me. I’ve always considered myself an environmentalist. But now, all the time, I think about these things, the tiny details of our relationship with the earth. Negotiations and love songs.

Anyway, back in the garden, I’ve found that I can pretty comfortably pull the weeds that grow up in between the bricks of the patio, or where they might adversely affect our vegetable plants. I don’t want to analyze this, but I also tend to be more lenient with the ones I like, like clover. So delicate and pretty, no harm there. Today I didn’t yank a big ugly dandelion because there was a ladybug on it. Not logical, but a system is developing.

I weed the human areas and try to let the plant areas mostly alone. Which brings me to the borders, the lines that can be drawn and redrawn, the liminal spaces, the messy areas. I thought maybe I’d take a hard line and just declare a point past which the weeds are not welcome. But that line is hard to draw–and more importantly, I thought, they place the weeds within the surrounding areas in an interesting and precarious position. They’re in contested space (in my head, at least) between human and natural environments–and again, I wonder, who am I to decide? Plus, I’ve read Anzaldua and believe in the dynamic, disruptive potential of the borderlands. Again, not necessarily the most logical thought process… But for now, I’m going to let those spaces be, just to see what happens there.

Which brings me back to that paper about Harlot, into which I now think I should work some of these ideas about the messiness and growth potential of such border spaces. That’s some good gardening.

Funky Remixes

I talked before about about Musopen for a good place to access classical music that’s in the public domain. Now, I can’t do quite that well again, but I can give you an option to update your music selection. Funky Remixes is a site dedicated to, well, funky remixes; however, they do generally try to list music that uses creative commons licensing. So, even if you need something a little more lively to accompany your project, check out the site and see if anything will fit. You might find something totally sweet you could use. They even have mixes from some notables such as Beastie Boys, David Byrne, Le Tigre, The Rapture (a personal fav), and Danger Mouse & jemini. Oh yes, and they’re all free to download.

If you need a recommendation, then I’d start with “I’M FUNKYN’LOVE YOU” by DEEJAWU. It’s just groovy–er, funky.

Language for Today

Laineys Repertoire, flickr

I just read “Is Language A Window into Human Nature” on Space Collective, in which the author argues that language must be reinvented in order to address our new technological age and the obstacles of this age. I find this interesting, because I’ve been having a difficult time describing what exactly Harlot is in the minutiae. Yes, we publish articles (and mighty nifty ones, I might add), but we’re not just another journal. Heck no, we’re specifically geared toward interactivity and community–through comments, the blog, the wiki. We’re a “place” and a “space” for dialogue. So, why is it that I can’t stop using those two words?

The hesitation I have to use certain words (ie publication, journal, magazine) stems from the connotation of those words. I’m not a big fan of the word “forum” either, simply because I don’t want it confused with bboards or message boards. We are online, after all, and that could easily be misinterpreted by the web savvy.

I wonder if we require our own special word. Hmm. We’re a publication and a community, so we’re a publunity? We’re a journal and a space, so we’re a jourace? Oh, I know, we’re a mag, a blog, and a wiki, so we’re a mogi. Ha, sounds like a band name.

None of these are going to catch on. First of all, they’re terrible, and secondly, they don’t carry any context for readers. That’s what makes creating a new language so difficult. If it doesn’t happen organically, then it’s hard to force on anybody, because no one knows what you’re talking about and they don’t really care to.

Do I wish for one perfect word to encompass all that Harlot is and will be? Absolutely. It’d make my job easier, but at the same time, isn’t it my job to try and attain that–to be active in the movement that is Harlot and push for the convergence of multiple forms of contribution. To encourage the amalgamation of top-down and bottom-up voices in this community? So, what do we call it? Other than a “place” or a “space” or simply Harlot. An interactive online publication? A web-mag and community? A rhetorical realm for the populice? How do you describe all that you are in one simple, understandable word if that word has yet to exist yet?

Available Harlot Positions

Want to show Harlot some love? Think you can show us how it’s done? Ready to play?

We’re looking for new recruits and fresh ideas — not to mention skills. Work with super-cool contributors and reviewers. Enter the exciting world of HTML. Be a magnanimous zenith of greatness. Er, help keep Harlot‘s feet on the ground.

If you’re interested or want more information, shoot us an email at harlot.osu[at]gmail[dot]com.

Open positions include:

Managing Editor

• Guide Submissions through Review Process
• Assign and Recruit Reviewers
• Correspond with Contributors

Layout Editor

• Prepare Accepted Submissions for Online Publication

Editorial Assistant

• Manage all of Harlot‘s Interactive Spaces
• Promotion

Tech Assistant

• Improve and Update Harlot with HTML, CSS, and working knowledge of PHP and Javascript
• Ability to Learn and Adjust to Changing Technologies

You can also find this information in our Announcements and on our Project Page. We encourage you to forward any of these pages on to people you think would be interested. Help us out by posting it around the blogosphere and passing it on to your friends.

We look forward to hearing from you!

Mikey is Listening

Since we at Harlot love the multimedia approach toward our articles as much as the text-based, I thought I might pass along something that might help you get that multi-modality a little bit easier. I know it can be difficult to get into hardware, when all you want to talk about is, say, the rhetoric of a dog park, but the technological aspects of things are important considerations.

Blue microphones has released a new mic recently, duly dubbed Mikey, which connects and allows you to record directly to your ipod. Super cool, no? Supposedly, it’s supposed to be some high quality hand held recording. I’d love it if Blue Mic would give samples of how the audio sounds, but, alas, it seems I’ll have to trust their ethos. Get this, though, it doesn’t require any software, which is always a selling point for me. (Really, you get enough hardware that requires software and you end up having more software on your computer than Steve Jobs.)

I carry my ipod around with me enough as it is and I wouldn’t be opposed to grabbing some cool audio out on the streets either. Unfortunately, though, it only works with iPod nano, 2G, 3G, 4G, 5G, and iPod Classic, so that leaves ipod touches and iphones out of the mix.

It is an $80 drop, but I do think it’s worth looking into. People create entire documentaries out of flip-cameras, I think someone could do just as well with little Mikey.

via Popgadget

going public

This morning I’ve been reading some of Mike Rose’s work, especially his arguments for teaching academics to write for public audiences (something he’s notoriously good at).  Mike Rose is a Professor in the UCLA Graduate School of Information Studies and he’s well-known for his research on workplace literacy, remediation, and reconsidering our understandings of intelligence in relation to work.

In An Open Language: Selected Writing on Literacy, Learning, and Opportunity Rose points out that though rhetoric and composition as a field is “deeply connected to matters of broad public interest–literacy, teaching, undergraduate education” and we’ve been seeking connection with the public through service learning, courses in civic rhetoric, and work with workplace and community literacy projects, the field “offers little or no graduate-level training for public writing or speaking.”

Rose has been creating opportunities for graduates students in his program to learn more about and get more practice writing for public audiences (See his article with Karen McClafferty, “A Call for the Teaching of Writing in Graduate Education”).

Among the benefits of public writing, Rose says, are that “it can lead to a questioning and clarifying of assumptions,” it forces precision and “a honing of argument,” and forces you to think about what evidence is most persuasive.

I was struck by his comments, of course, because Harlot was started based on the recognition of a disconnect between academic considerations of rhetoric and persuasion and public deliberation of these matters.  Rose’s summary of the benefits of public writing also moved me.  Personally, I have struggled to write blog posts because of the kind of reflection writing for a public audience forces on me.  I agree with Rose that such reflection will only make my writing better, and I aspire to become a better blogger–and a better public writer.  Much like Rose noted above, though my dissertation research is directly concerned with public issues, I have not felt more removed from the public than I have writing my dissertation.

Check out Rose’s blog at  http://www.mikerosebooks.blogspot.com/.  The philosphy of his blog, in his words, is “a deep belief in the ability of the common person, a commitment to educational, occupational, and cultural opportunity to develop that ability, and an affirmation of public institutions and the public sphere as vehicles for nurturing and expressing that ability.”

Call for Submissions: Issue 3

The second issue is out, which is the perfect time for you to think about what you’re going to submit for the third issue. Take a look at our call or flip through it yourself in our announcements section accessible on the home page. . .

An Inconvenient Tangent

I’m teaching a course on documentary this term, and today my students were watching/analyzing An Inconvenient Truth. I picked this doc because we’re talking about the use of personal narratives in/and public rhetoric, and I’m kind of fascinated with the “Al Gore Show” woven throughout the film.

For the most part, of course, we see Gore’s slideshow presentation and listen along with his (rapt) audiences. (As one student suggested, the director lays the prophet robe on Gore a bit heavily.) But every so often, that lecture is interspersed with Gore’s reflections and anecdotes about how he came to be offering that slideshow. And at those junctures, his voice changes, becomes low and intimate, the footage becomes soft-focus or creatively aged, and the pathos becomes a bit heavy-handed.

… as a student’s sudden snort made abundantly clear. It was the snort of a burgeoning rhetorical critic, and it confirmed my hunch about some of the risky, even reckless rhetorical choices Gore and the director made in that movie. And the personal quest angle isn’t the only one. I wonder whether the warm fuzzy fatherly feelings would work on audiences alienated by his Bush jokes? Or are we to assume that no one who voted for Bush (that’s a lot of people) belongs in this doc’s audience?

More as my students figure this all out…