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.

Why The Hammer still Matters
Tuesday, 7 Mar 2006 :-:

No: Not that Hammer. This one. I'm talkin' bout the MC.

MC Hammer recently started a blog.

According to this article, the MC grew up in a Christian background. But popularity hurt him.

Sin for Hammer wasn't blatant. He wasn't on drugs, but his business became a drug. Most people who are addicted to success, Hammer told Charisma, "can't identify this 'business' drug. It takes all your time away from God, from the family, from extended loved ones."

Hammer believes he was living an illusion: "You create a utopia around you so you don't have to deal with the reality that you're not in the will of God. You wake up and realize you're a backslider."

I don't really follow the rap world, but I totally see where he's coming from. That was me too, for a time, when I worked solely as a computer programmer.

** * **

So, who cares if MC has a blog? He's just trying to get back some of his destroyed popularity, right? I don't think so. I think he really is trying to use the remains of his fame to make a difference in people's lives. Many of his posts are about the culture of hip-hop and inner-city life. He's admonishing the both mainstream culture and the hood to grow up and do something for a change. But he doesn't just focus on social issues. He recently wrote a moving post about his love for his son.

To know love like this is a secret corner under a palm tree with a slight wind on a lazy day.

He then talks about how God's love for him inspires his love for his son.

In this awesome audio post, MC Hammer says:

I want to be able to look back on all the blogs that I will do in years to come and say that not only did we have fun with baseball and life and family and God, but also, when something needed to be addressed, needed to be said, that MC Hammer stood up and said them.

MC Hammer's blog contains a lot of ideas and ideals about life and culture. It's worth reading.

** * **

I could harly post this without remembering what has to be the most moving piece of art I have seen in quite a while: Johnny Cash's final music video, a cover of "Hurt."