Procrastadabbler

Yeah, most blogs are probably ranting about Bush this morning, but I’m not. I’m writing about the Post Punk Kitchen and the new literacies.

I love how the new literacies work and the fact that they aren’t (necessarily) independent of the old typographic literacies.

The New York Times is an old typographic newspaper. In fact it’s seems rather emblematic of the old literacies. But, they have a fantastic online edition. Much of it is free, although you do have to subscribe. I subscribed and have it set up to send me selected headlines every morning through the email. I then scan the email and read those articles that interest me.

You following me here? Hang in there, I”ll get to my point eventually. Maybe.

Ok, so today I’m doing my usual routine of scanning the headlines, reading and generally avoiding doing anything remotely resembling work. I assuage my guilt by telling myself that as an academic I need to keep up with what’s going on in the world. So I’m reading about the State of the Union address, and the different reactions blah blah blah. Really nothing we haven’t heard before. However, they do have this totally cool interactive page that shows the frequency of certain words in all of Bush’s SOU speeches (http://www.nytimes.com/ref/washington/20070123_STATEOFUNION.html).

Then, like the proverbial ray of sunshine there is an article on Vegan baking.

Yes, vegan baking. That is, baking that doesn’t use eggs, milk, or butter. I love food and I love cooking and baking, and I love eating. I love vegan entrees. But baking without eggs, milk, or butter!!! Hard to believe. So of course I have to read the article. And look up the website. And it’s fabulous and was added to my list of favorites.

The best part (and here I’m returning to my opening paragraph — see I am capable of following standard literary forms) is that I started with knowledge of a old literacy (The New York Times) which led me to subscribe to the new literacy form (www.nytimes.com) which led me to look up www.theppk.com to discover a wonderful wealth of information about vegan cooking, complete with video. And here’s the final fun kicker. Post Punk Kitchen is totally within the mileu of the DIY (do it yourself) mindset of the punk and post-punk movement. It is also very much a new literacy. It involves multimodal texts, a definite attitude, and a sense of humor.

Now here’s your task. Go play. Have fun.