Notebook of Sand

• Recent Publications
• Recent Projects
• Conferences & Speaking
"Comparing Spatial Hypertext Collections"
  ACM Hypertext '09
"Archiving and Sharing Your Tinderbox"
  Tinderbox Weekend London '09
"The Electronic Nature of Future Literatures"
  Literary Studies Now, Apr '09
"The World University Project"
  St. John's Col. Cambridge, Feb '09
"Ethical Explanations,"
  The New Knowledge Forge, Jun '08
Lecture, Cambridge University
  Tragedy in E-Lit, Nov '07
Hypertext '07: Tragedy in E-Lit
Host for Tinderbox Cambridge '07
Keynote: Dickinson State Uni Conf
Upper Midwest NCHC'07: Speaker
eNarrative 6: Creative Nonfiction
HT'05: "Philadelphia Fullerine"
  Nelson award winning paper
NCHC '05:
 Nurturing Independent Scholarship
Riddick Practicum:
  Building Meeting Good Will
NCHC '04:
  Philadelphia Fullerine
  Lecture on American Studies
WWW@10: Nonfiction on the Web
NCHC '03: Parliamentary Procedure
ELL '03 -- Gawain Superstar
• (a)Musing (ad)Dictions:

Ideas. Tools. Art. Build --not buy. What works, what doesn't. Enjoy new media and software aesthetics at Tekka.

Theodore Gray (The Magic Black Box)

Faith, Life, Art, Academics. Sermons from my family away from home: Eden Chapel!

My other home: The Cambridge Union Society (in 2007, I designed our [Fresher's Guide])

The Economist daily news analysis

Global Higher Ed blog

• Hypertext/Writing

Writing the Living Web

Chief Scientist of Eastgate Systems, hypertext expert Mark Bernstein. (Electronic) Literature, cooking, art, etc.

Fabulous game reviews at playthisthing.

• Stats

Chapter I: Born. Lived. Died.

There is a Chapter II.

Locale: Lancaster County Pa, USA

Lineage: Guatemala

Religion: My faith is the primary focus of my life, influencing each part of me. I have been forgiven, cleansed, and empowered by Jesus Christ. Without him, I am a very thoughtful, competent idiot. With him, I am all I need to be, all I could ever hope for. I oppose institutional religious stagnation, but getting together with others is a good idea. God is real. Jesus Christ is his Son, and the Bible is true. Faith is not human effort. It's human choice. I try to be the most listening, understanding, and generous person I can.

Interests: Anything I can learn. Training and experience in new media, computer science, anglophone literature, education, parliamentary debate, democratic procedure, sculpture, and trumpet performance. Next: applied & computational linguistics, probably.

Education: Private school K-3. Home educated 4-12. Graduated Summa Cum Laude from Elizabethtown College in Jan 2006. As the 2006 Davies-Jackson Scholar, I studied English at St. John's College, Cambridge University from 2006 - 2008.

Memberships: Eden Baptist, Cambridge Union Society, ACM, AIP, GPA.

Alum of the Elizabethtown College Honors Program, sponsored by the Hershey Company.

The Sitarist
Wednesday, 20 Jul 2005 :-: [soundtrack]

Sunday, July 10. My family was on vacation, and my life was going ballistic with work. I decided to save time by hanging out in Annville in-between church services. I was out of luck. The Lebanon Valley College library was closed. So I studied out on a park bench for a while, talked with Dylan Kinnett from a gas-station payphone for an hour, and wandered into MJ's.

Good times, good times. The Allen Theatre/MJ's is a great place to be. I go there once a month or so to study, think, and write. I ordered a peanut-butter-cup milkshake and sat down.

The study was good. Across from me, a young woman who teaches Chemistry at HACC (Jennifer Thomas?) was grading papers. We chatted about graduate school for a while.

I returned to my work and stared at the screen.

** * **

Just then, a guy walked in with a Sitar. He was on his way to play the Sitar for the yoga classes held at the YMCA in town (mentioned in the linked article). He was early, so he stopped in at MJ's. The musician, Steven Jewett, is definitely a cool guy. In fact, he let me record some of his music (listen).

I wish I had my camera with me that Sunday. The instrument is beautiful. Invented in India during the 1700s, it is primarily used for Hindustani Classical Music (separate from the lesser-known Indian tradition of Karnatic music). The basic notes in Indian Solfege match the Ionian mode in Western Music. This is why the Sitar recorded here doesn't sound too odd to Western ears (more on Indian Music on the Ravi Shankar Foundation website).

Ravi Shankar popularized Sitar music in the West [Ravi on NPR's Fresh Air].

** * **

Steve Jewett is a really nice guy. After staying to record the brief piece, he had to go, and gave me one of his cards:

Indian classical sitar
European classical guitar

and ambient music for meditation, relaxation, and healing.

Steven F. Jewett
musician
717.579.7026 phone
stevejewett@paonline.com
** * **

For more Sitar music, listen to Anup, on Magnatune.