Red Letters: Sorting Out Memories

 

I’m going to sit right down and write myself a letter –

and make believe it came from You,…………

Aides and volunteers on Donald Trump’s presidential transition were instructed Thursday to save any records related to “several pending investigations into potential attempts by Russia interests to influence the 2016 election,” according to a memo obtained by POLITICO.

 

I’m Gonna Sit Right Down And Write Myself A Letter

(music by Fred E. Ahlert and lyrics by Joe Young)

Vocals – Boswell Sisters

60302-A, Decca 671B 1/6/1936 archive.org

 

 

“emails, voicemails, text messages, instant messages, social media posts, Word or WordPerfect documents, spreadsheets, databases, telephone logs, audio recordings, videos, photographs or images, information contained on desktops, laptops, tablet computers, smartphones or other portable devices, calendar records and diary data.”

“failure to follow these protocols could result in criminal or civil penalties, and could form the basis of legal claims, legal presumptions, or jury instructions relating to spoliation of evidence.” 

I’m gonna sit right down and write myself a letter

And make believe it came from you

I’m gonna write words, oh, so sweet

They’re gonna knock me off my feet

Kisses on the bottom

I’ll be glad I’ve got ’em……………

 

What We Need

 

Need need we is what ?

What and Need need we is what.

Weed hat and Need need we is what.

Who may sleep at tables stand

may dream sleep stable;

Strong – what leader – we strong tahw.

 

 

Sleep stable need ship miles may strong throngs;

Sleep sleep, what sleep stable bleeds tables

May find sand answers sleep with strong gaudy phrases.

What need we is is need – dream stable stable yams.

 

What we need is strong and stable leadership sleep.

What we reeds is nonrigid shady able leadership s/miles.

What we need is stone groats and stable yam leadership leaps.

What may dream sleep –

stable strong wee Mayan.

Ship reader needle is strong and stable wart wheel.

What we need is tram-tongs tables.

 

 

Sand stable leadership sleep

What wheels all need –

I/s sleep strong handy-dandy

tab bales leadership thong smiles……………

What we see dis strong stand stable slopes

leaves her ship slyly sleeping on shores protected –

 

What we need is strong and stable leadership –

Mayhem neediness strewn glands hast a bleated leadership nest…….

Blessed ides sarong daunts table thongs.

What wires clung ant dings sleep matey brae lea shipper.

Whatever we deed, sins sleepy ships and blasted dream mazes lean.

Sheep dealership makes strong miles sleepy.

Weed hat wins strong and stable leader

Hawed Wish string toad adjustable phisher laps by strewn ghosts.

Mayan dream stall beans leadership leadership.

 

We may need strong and testable leadership feeds –

Slip up smiles dream is strong and stable .

What weirs strong and sting sleep mast yams mighty able leader possible wishes.

What we need is sleep and stable dream dismay.

Make lea ridership strongman’s sleepy wiles great again.

What wrens seed is strong stables dealer.

What we need is What we need.

 

 

Testable strong angst dabbles

in lead feeder ship sleep,

just like a strong mast yarn dreamy leadership fable.

 

Strong is what we wee weevil stable and sting sleep gables;

Is we what-what bland wrongs;

We strong-strong yes or know not.

 

 

Is leader need able stable leadership ?

Is leader smiles needy of

Strong dreams ?

 

We and Leadership what about we wrong sand;

Need frightens sophisticated sleep –

We chaos stable.

 

Need ? – what uncertainty strong table throngs dreams.

Is strong sleep could what what thaw.

Strong miles sleep four leadership antidote sleep.

May and this song

Thinks stable.

Need need leader sleep is;

Strong politics, we simultaneously only need at cream babble;

Pregnant stable, while it that explicit persuasio,

strong I sit –

who is over miles of leadership

Weans leadership fist.

 

We implies a voter is needy, obviously politics;

Stable is a conjunction that needs with we off the table.

 

May ship calming wrens weir:

so strong sits stable persuasion babble;

Contrast miles dream average alliterative smiles may form wattle as times approve leadership of dreaming dreams

gobbet needs stable throngs in strong soundbite sleep;

Coalition and weak Sleep

is what cleverly dreams.

While away what junkies seek –

Disorder in stable, strong,…. and Viral sleep.

Be is what happen Now,

Not what Future tense grows in dreams of wrens.

Strong it is,

But it is miles we go before,

We need terrifying knead of dough now.

What strong leadership is wish/may we disorder;

And what partner orders viral leaps;

Made this we aimed one swain the minutes tryst table.

 

Leadership with what;

Is when that’s strong.

Meaning strong need.

What miles offering stable;

Often sleeps headland

Is sizable wrong west wattle.

Stable is leadership;

Sleep sleep what sleep stable need stable and may an sleep strong is and What need we is is need dream stable stable.

Leadership need sting.

Sleep sleep what sleep stable need stable sleep and dismay bleep strong sand.

What need we is is need dream stable stable.

Strong is what we we we stable and sting sleep and ships.

Leadership need.

We may stable leadership ship stable leadership;

Strong need.

Leadership strong may;

Leadership

What we need is a Slogan……..

This viral gobbet of persuasion is not, obviously, aimed at sophisticated politics junkies, but at the average voter who thinks about politics for only four minutes a week .

Implied Spaces – Media Experiment

I tried  a little mass media-blogging experiment. As a consequence of playing with the blog system here are my present top posts.

The Needle on The Oil

Red Letters: Memories of You

Magazine Cover & Book Spine Poem: Traveling with The Dead

Corner Shot

The Dadaist Detective and the Curious Case of the Asemic Arsonist

Mail From the Borderlands: Who casts not up his eye to the sun when it rises?

All About Implied Spaces

Book Spine Poetry: Strange Doings

Broken Folklore: Glouyeinshire Tales

River Metamorphosis

 

Some of these posts go back to 2014 ( I remember when that was once perceived  as considerably far enough in the future to be a setting for a Speculative Fiction narrative), if you missed out on any of these, you may wish to take a look. For those of you who have seen the posts, I include some new compositions based on screen capture of a blog post ( pedalling faster ), scanography, and some digital photos of the family TV screen. 

I also have a couple of questions  about blog layouts and reading habits related to blog posts. I have included to a musical component to the blog to make the whole process of reading the blog more enjoyable.

 

 

Blogs include a range of components, depending of the content and intended target audience.  Some of these components reflect the social media aspect of blogging. Besides likes and comments, many bloggers will include My Community, Recent comments, Top Posts & Pages, and Recent Posts Visited & Liked by the blogger. These specific components of a blog’s layout demonstrate the blogger’s activity in producing and interacting with the blogging community. It also provides a structure that invites/encourages others to participate in the shared social experience of blogging.

Further components enable a viewer to explore the blog based on related subjects by using Categories and Tags ( presented as lists/clouds ). The blog can also be explored through searches and an archival search/listing. The viewer can often interact through comments that  go back a number of months or even years.

 

Pondering all this left me wondering about the effectiveness of these components.  I also began considering how the expansion of digital devices has altered how blog posts are being accessed.  Recently WordPress made changes to the Editor & Reader to accommodate a growing audience that are using digital tablets & phablets , as well as phones and laptops. Many were not happy with these changes, especially those “old school” desktop bloggers who found that the new touch-screen interfaces & layouts were less friendly when trying to use a desktop screen & keyboard.  They also noticed that the Reader’s new layout, designed to be more friendly to a Touch-screen Tablet was more effective at presenting specific type of content –  posts with more than three images and posts with longer pieces of prose text  were presented more clearly.

This is actually an example of mass media  technology subtly shifting into a new medium.   It is subtle because the technological advances do not initially appear to either the creator/producer or the target audience to be a change in media; the changes are seen as enhancements, but still considered the same medium.  Moving from radio to television is an obvious change from one medium to another, as is going from photography to cinematography.   Changing from black and white to colour photography/cinematography/television is a change in media. Moving from a desktop screen to a hand held touch screen is technological enhancement that alters how the viewer interacts with the media content, therefore it is a change in the type of media delivering the content. When you change the medium, you alter the message.

 

So here are the questions I have been considering – I  am hoping you will provide some feedback.

How many of these components do you include in your blog’s layout ? Why ?

Do you use any of these blog features when visiting other blogs ?  Why ?

How are you accessing blogs such as mine ?

Are differences in digital devices influencing your consumption and production of blog content ? 

Hope you enjoyed  the post and thanks for any input you may provide.

H BtAM

 

 

Those of you who remember the Ditto handouts in the classroom will recognize the blue text in these compositions created from scanography loose collage pieces. Finally clearing out left overs from years of teaching, brings back a host of memories and emotions – time has turned to past tense reveries, technology changes and crucial Mass Media becomes artifacts of another century ( Mass Media consumes & transforms other Mass Media into content ). For those of you too young to have experienced the blue/purple of a Ditto, here is a bit of historical background.

A spirit duplicator (also referred to as a Ditto machine in North America, Banda machine in the UK or Roneo in France and Australia) was a printing method invented in 1923 by Wilhelm Ritzerfeld and commonly used for much of the rest of the 20th century. The term “spirit duplicator” refers to the alcohols which were a major component of the solvents used as “inks” in these machines. The device coexisted alongside the mimeograph.

Spirit duplicators were used mainly by schools, churches, clubs, and other small organizations, such as in the production of fanzines, because of the limited number of copies one could make from an original, along with the low cost and correspondingly low quality of copying. ( See:  History of the Spirit Duplicator )

As secondary school teachers, my wife & I always had  a stack of ditto sheets ready to go at home to prepare handouts ( the eventual arrival of a photocopy machine made life considerably easier) . One day we came home to discover our dog and cat waiting for us. Dog sat happily wagging his tail with his very blue/purple tongue.  The cat was sitting daintily on the table top with her now lovely indigo paws. Shredded ditto sheets littered the floor. The dog was happy to see us, while the cat had an expression that seemed to say he did it, I tried to keep those papers from sliding off the table, but alas it could not be helped. 

Torn strips, blue letters

fallen to memory’s floor –

Time stains finger tips.

 

 

Ethel Walters sings “Am I Blue” recorded 1929. I can recall/hear my mother singing this one and she & my father dancing to the tune.  More tangential stains left by Time.

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