Revised - Phase Three Writing

Rethink Locks: A Homegrown, Organic Movement

Once upon a time, growing locks meant something—it had conceptual significance.

Thick tufts of rolled, matted hair denoted liberation, devotion,
commitment, and a dedication to spirituality. Locks had nothing to do
with hairstyles. Rather, locks declared freedom and symbolized the
breaking of psychological slavery, imperialism, and colonialism.

Since then, locks evolved from personal expression to product, sales,
and trend. You can buy them in a package. The standard locking
procedure for many people nowadays feels canned and comes with a
warning, by me: a five-year, organic-only locking maverick. You go to
the hair shop, order up, and "PING!" What do you have: generic,
mass-production-style locks caked with product, forged together with
heat, and done with impersonal care; 75 dollars on average to start,
and 50 dollars every other week to maintain.

Committing to locks compares to having a child. A lifelong,
time-consuming, and sometimes disappointing and frustrating
commitment, your locks will need attention, care, nutrition, guidance,
discipline, and training. That said: why not rethink before starting
yours? Why not grow your own organic locks?

Typical of mass production, quality gets lost in the fray of cranking
out multiple versions of the same things. Natural hair shops line
urban streets like trees line suburban streets. Locktician is actually
a word and an occupation! The result: people paying top dollar for
natural hair. Don't get caught up. Do them at home. Grow them
naturally; discover homegrown locks.

With a twist.

Contrary to the dread stereotype, there will be no dusty, dirty
hair—just clean, healthy locks, chemical-free and guided by nature.
You'll also save a buck or two and learn to pamper yourself through
hair.

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I see you bubbling all over the place -- you're yeasty, and I think it's grand!

The Last "Phase Three"

Like Mark said: Either the movie works or doesn't. You move on. You revise.

Onward, then, means a focus on the end—the last Phase Three Words & Images project I have to think about. Yay. (Not that I didn't love this class—I did and learned a lot. I'm convinced that this class could possibly be the only course of this grad program). am ending the semester on a breezy note: with a simple topic that I can rattle on about for hours.

My topic: how to grow dreads. My title: Rethink Locks: A Homegrown, Organic Movement. I'm posting the introduction to my booklet for your perusal. I have not yet sent this to Stephanie, so comments are welcomed. (Though, to be honest, I'm happy to just throw something on paper to say it's done).

Rethink Locks: A Homegrown, Organic Movement

Once upon a time, a decision to grow locks held weight—it had conceptual significance. Having thick tufts of rolled, matted hair denoted liberation, devotion, commitment, and a dedication to spirituality. Back then, locks were not a hairstyle; rather, locks were an expression of freedom and, often, a symbol for breaking the psychological effects of imperialism, colonialism, and/or slavery.

A choice to lock hair must celebrate, commemorate, honor, and act upon the history, meaning, and intent of such an iconic hairstyle.

Not that locks nowadays don't have meaning, but instead of seeing bursts of individual expression atop dread heads, locks now are mass-produced, "genericized," something to get done, a trend—a meaningless move for no other reason than that locks have mainstream acceptance.

A choice to lock hair must also embrace the 21^st century and future generations of people who will create new reasons for donning dreadlocks. Times change; people change; history changes.

This guide will marry the two ideals with a return to homegrown, organically cultivated locks—regardless of concept. Rethink locks. Why? For the sake of preserving tradition? Yes—but also because synthetic locks are an oxymoron.

Like most mass-produced products, quality gets lost in the fray of cranking out multiple versions of the same thing—such rings true for locks. Natural hair shops line urban streets like trees line suburban streets. The word locktician actually has meaning—and those people earn money from that vague title. The result: a phenomenon of people who pay top dollar for a "natural" hairstyle—locks caked with gel and forced together by heat. Does that not defeat the purpose?

While the best-case scenario would bring the dreadlock revolution completely back to its roots, reality says that mainstream locks and the unoriginal concepts behind those locks will prevail. Fine—but at least consider growing locks instead of making locks. You owe the revolution that much.


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I see you bubbling all over the place -- you're yeasty, and I think it's grand!

A smattering of thoughts about the flash movie

(Better title than "I don't have anything to write about and I'm blogging for time/date stamp sake.")

So, first things first...a part of why I haven't blogged in a few days is that I'm still a little stunned about my movie—disappointed I guess. My film wasn't unsuccessful, but it also got a chillier reception than I had anticipated. Wondering if I bit off more than I could chew.

I wanted to do something different, unique, but also something that speaks to my interests. Typography is my thing. So I figured: I had this great story with which I wanted to do more. I broke it out and did a lot of rework, mostly in that I wrote it as a story to read, not to watch. A point I make in the story (which I cover in the very last five seconds - or less - of the movie) is that text and other generic representations don't do justice in trying to understand the experience of HIV. I thought I'd really illustrate that point with a silent text movie.

But it is a movie?

I still don't know. Stephanie asked me in class why I had to have a text-heavy movie and my answer was "blah, blah, blah." Truthfully, I was a little annoyed to have to explain something to her that I had done previously that week. But truthfully, I don't need a text-heavy movie, but because I feel it supports my idea, it's a concept a hard to relinquish. I'd rather try to make it work than start from scratch. I was glad that, at least, my typography got good reviews from Allison. At least I didn't fail in that area.

I'm hoping the final draft will be more satisfying: in the sense of meeting the assignment and also satisfying an audience.

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I see you bubbling all over the place -- you're yeasty, and I think it's grand!

Turns Out 1000 Words Feels Just Fine

Finished my writing for the Classification and I feel good about it. I came up at 914 words, or something like that. Thanks to Casey for using the magic editing wand to trim the fat from my first draft. I'm glad I produced a piece of writing for this class that I am genuinely happy about. The fruit content was written on the fly and the profile article was pre-written and combined with a follow-up story, so that it wasn't exactly cheating, though I suppose that could possibly be up for debate. 

 

I won't debate that this'll show off my writer self, who has mostly coasted through this class. (I shouldn't say that in a negative way—on the contrary, I have fallen for design harder than ever before.)

 

And I'm off to deal with that part of the assignment. I'm happy with my draft, which hopefully are easy to see from this post. I'm glad to be re-visiting this and I feel like I have not mounted in a while.

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I see you bubbling all over the place -- you're yeasty, and I think it's grand!

Fiction: I'm Just Not That Into You

This project sprung a surprise lesson on me: I'm not that into fiction. I've never been a huge novel reader, gravitating mostly towards literary journalism and other types of nonfiction. I rarely watch movies. I'll watch a sitcom or HBO series here and there, but my TV repertoire consists mostly of news and commentary, reality competitions, game shows, and a variety of niche cable network: Weather, History, HGTV, Food Network, etc. I don't write fiction either. Everything I write infuses a tangible, even aggressive sense of me and my perspective. I guess I had never really looked at these patterns, but now that I'm faced with this story telling assignment, it's interestingly clear. I'm about facts, not fantasy. I'm creative and imaginative, but more in the problem-solving sense.

 

I figured the most challenging aspect of the project would tie between planning, since I'm so "in-the-moment," and Flash, because of a re-learning curve. Maybe even the graphics, since I'm more a typography person. On the contrary, plotting a fictional story has my head spinning. I didn't consider until now that the story, quite possibly, doesn't have to be fiction, or could be clearly based on a poem. Can abstract graphics, color, and type interpret a poem or talk about real life in nonfiction terms and still succeed as a two-minute silent film?  

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I see you bubbling all over the place -- you're yeasty, and I think it's grand!

IRRUPT -- Word of the Day for Sunday, February 24, 2008, Dictionary.com

irrupt \ih-RUHPT\, intransitive verb:
1. To burst in forcibly or suddenly; to intrude.
2. (Ecology) To increase rapidly in number.

verb
1.	enter uninvited; "They intruded on our dinner party"; "She irrupted into our sitting room" [syn: intrude]
2.	erupt or intensify suddenly; "Unrest erupted in the country"; "Tempers flared at the meeting"; "The crowd irrupted into a burst of patriotism" [syn: erupt]
3.	increase rapidly and in an uncontrolled manner; "The population of India is exploding"; "The island's rodent population irrupted" [syn: explode]

"How appropriate," I thought, going through my inbox Sunday afternoon and reading Word of the Day, after a blurred Saturday nighr road trip to New York. By that point, I was exhausted, but dutifully shifted gears from the Jersey Turnpike to Project 1 for our beloved Saturday class--to Safeway, Caribbean American Heritage Month, and exotic, delicious, toothsome fruit.

Opening InDesign, I grumbled about this signage project "irrupting" my life and otherwise decent mood. Admittedly, this has been one of the most challenging design problems I've had to solve. And I've designed a bunch of things -- business cards, corporate documents, training manuals, slide presentations, magazines, ads, flyers, posters, bumper stickers, T-shirts, as well as done a lot of technical, descriptive, and investigative writing. I've always effortlessly managed to easily whip together success for any design solution I've had to create. Somehow, this was difficult -- and I'm dreading this upcoming revision process.

The biggest challenge for me was relaying my concept on paper; on one count, while the concept was good, it might have been too layered, too inclusive, and therefore murky on the page; one another count, I felt stifled by the necessity to explain Caribbean American Heritage Month and why Safeway was choosing to promote it. Not only that, but I made an explicit choice to feature fruits only from Jamaica for my signs. Again, I felt it necessary to explain why Jamaica was the only focus. I also relied to heavily on concept alone to carry the comapre/contrast theme. Both grapefruits and tamarinds can be eaten as natural fruit snacks and desserts, they are both part of a typical Jamaican diet, one recipe was for a snack and one was for a dessert, one is not exotic (grown in the U.S. as well) and the other is only tropically-grown. ARGH! And then, of course, Caribbean culture in Baltimore is just not that booming...so I felt at a loss, though tied, still, to my concept (I guess that I'm involved in the making of this Month and that I have a personal stake in its promotion and "outreach," I refused to go anywhere else with my idea). I'm boiling over just re-living the back-and-forth internal debate about this...and the dissatisfaction I felt when I landed on the final concept.

I was sweating bullets as we sat in critique (which, I must add, was prettttttaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyy long -- I understand the need and this just brings me back to college crits; I'm used to it, but I do agree with Mark's "half & half" suggestion). In any case, I was nervous, especially after Stephanie made it clear that some people flat out did it wrong. I knew I was part of that group. Seeing my work against the others made me more frenetic...not because I thought my work was inferior, but because I admired the way most people kept it simple while pulling off compelling themes. I was happy with my crit, a little disappointed at the lack of peer feedback I received (though I understood how difficult mine was to read and, therefore, evalutate), but grateful that I was not shred to pieces. I panicked that I did not just stick to my "truly initial" idea of a CAHM food/recipe demonstration stand in Whole Foods, with recipe cards and so forth, but left the critique feeling on track nonetheless and somewhat ready to edit.

Still, dread looms. I feel trapped by fruit. Girl, irrupted.

In any case, I bring some useful lessons to this final revision, some of which are refreshers: trust your gut, simplify where possible, don't bite more than can be chewed, grow and maintain thick skin, don't forget the price tag, nobody's perfect.

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I see you bubbling all over the place -- you're yeasty, and I think it's grand!