Final *weep* Post

Since the beginning of this class I have found myself being challenged by the ideas of autobiography as some form of self-expression and an impulse driven act. We have discussed how others, the individual, and ourselves are driven to make confessions from a religiously historical context and the implications of that as almost a necessity within our own digital revolutions. Our discussions have reached all the way to idea of how thoughts of self improvement through personal organization and the need for an "Enterprising Self" invade into the gray areas of self analysis, the process of finding ones true self. While our course study I think has often been a bit vague and sometimes self-determined I think it forced an opening mindset of our autobiographic world. It is through our analysis that I have become eagerly conscious of my own self and actions that consist of some attempt to define and convey my"self".

Being surrounded in a media driven profession, a business that I believe partly revolves around creating sensual art for others pleasure others, affords me the opportunity to create something that will be displayed to other people, it is meant to be shared. Each and every piece, sound, video, set piece or lighting choice that I help to engineer has my name written on it, my life instilled into it. Through the information of our class I have begun to recognize others and myself in a work of art.
Within the theatre culture that I work in, I have always noticed personal style implemented in some aspect on the stage but now I begin to notice how any choice also reflects personal experiences, feelings and preferences.

Secondly I have begun to notice how our society functions through this almost self-absorbing individualistic culture. I notice more often the sharing of personal happenings and stories as a means of connecting within the over-arching culture, sub-culture, group, and personal associations. As we’ve talked about, the reasons for spilling ones own personal guts are many, including self-gratification and the attempt to fit into a judgmental society, which is what I find so interesting about the topic and how it fits into society. There are so many reasons during a single day to discuss one’s self. But I’ve lost my train of thought and don’t quite know where I’m going with that.

I will continue to find modern autobiographies and written works to be more a product of personal greed, a way for an out of date actress or over the hill football player to produce a money making product, instead of a need to tell a particularly interesting tale. But on the other hand I do approach autobiographies, whether it be Russo’s or the late Anna Nicole Smith’s, with a degree of interest as to what story they do share and it’s application to society or their own self. I’ve become interested in the publication of private diaries which were solely meant for self analysis to autobiographies as life stories which can reveal the story of a hard knock life or possibly confessions of previous actions (Ahem …Mr. Simpson).

In the end I was pleased with autobiography Pythons as it gave a good laugh as well as an extremely interesting look into the formation of self analysis and the idea of ethics and societal form to an individual. I found that, after reading closely and paying attention to possible shifts managed by the autobiography coordinator, the book was still a product of the autobiographic self and composed through deep self analysis. The stories and retrospective moments on the lives that encompassed Monty Python weave an introspective tale of human beings and their history, their own thoughts and actions.

book blog 2

So... While reading this book, I've already mentioned the fact that it was as much
biograohical as it was autobiographical, I began to ponder the idea of group biography
and where the self is located in such a method of analysis, I've already mentioned the fact
that it was as much biograohical as it was autobiographical. While it is evident that
within each page there happens to be a piece of autobiographical information usually
presented in the form of 'Name:what this particular person remembers about this topic' I
can't help but affirm that this book is just as much bio as it is autobio. The self lies
within a little phrase that is enclosed by phrases about someone else that is surrounded
by a story of a group of people. Or maybe, an idea that I find interesting, the self
is the group and, as with all of society, without those around us we, as a the self, is
nothing. I mean if you really thik about it. Any of the members of Monty Python could be
an absolute nothing without the others, living in a cardboard box without a real story to
tell. While I am refering to famous people and their potential to not become famous, I am
also refering to the idea that any single person, based on the theory of nurture over nature,
is a product of their socity so that their story is constantly interlinked with the story of
everyone else. I guess this might border along the lines of our discussion on biogaphy vs.
autobiography

Book Blog

When I first heard of The Pythons: Autobiography by the Pythons, I was
quite intrigued by the subject matter and expected quite a bit of such a book.
Although, even with the promising subject matter I worried that it would not be
atubobiographic enough for this class and that the mediator would impose a
biographic influence on the piece. This is something that we in class have
talked about on numerous occasions citing that an autobiographic text is meant
to be told about the self, by the self, and outside interference could alter what
an autobiography is supposed to be.
Fortunate enough for me within the first few pages, skipping the intro, I realized that
the book was purely a round table discussion between the Pythons. While I'm sure that
everything that was said didn't make it into the book or at some point was altered for
any number of reasons, the book got across a message straight from the comedic troupe's
mouths.

Final presentation blog post (corrected)

final presentation blog post

I had a bunch of problems uploading my document to blogger so I had to post it to google documents, minus the picures... I'll try to fix in in a couple of hours.
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dc4hr3j6_2cnt39m

A Ditigal Life

Within the technology to chronicle daily life comes the theory that we as a society and individually will be able to work harder, live faster and generally improve to the point of living, breathing, emotionalizing machines. We as people will be able to remember and self analyze every portion of our day with ease and without time restriction. I would like to point out though the idea of the computer as a crutch that holds up our lifestyles. While we record every second of our life we easily slip into a process of dependence of a system that runs our lives for us. Our enterprising self gets lost upon the need reanalyze an image or sound and the dumbing down of modern society, who needs to stay witty and sharp when you can rely on a computer to always back you up?
Take a look at this article.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20071126/sc_livescience/fakephotosalterrealmemories

While this only hints at one of the problems that were presented in the text, secured information and alteration of info, it gives the idea that with a single computer glitch our crutch can become a self deflating and misleading system.