When I embarked on this assignment, I knew immediately that I wanted to find a premodern manuscript image to use, because I have a background in European medieval history and love book history. Fortunately for all of us, there are thousands of digitized manuscripts online, and many of the holding institutions enter the scans into the public domain or share them under Creative Commons licenses.
While looking through the holdings of the Virtual Manuscript Library of Switzerland, I came across the fabulous gentleman pictured. Our bold knight is the frontispiece of a lengthy chronicle about the convocation of the Swiss Confederacy and the subsequent Burgundian Wars (1474-77). He seems paused mid-motion, as if he heard a sound, so I searched for a Creative Commons sound effect that might suit that mood. I settled on a short piece of modern music played on French horn, which is rallying and optimistic but also, to my ear, clearly excerpted from a larger work.
Ho-nee-um Pond by Richard Hurdgives the viewer the feeling of a long cold winter. The image almost makes you feel cold just looking at it. I enjoy landscape images but this one gave me pause. I appreciate the glistening appearance of the lake and all the degrees of grey and white this image has. It gives the impression of being alone in a vast quietness, with nothing around for miles.
Jet Fueled Vixen by Kevin MacLeod caught my attention because of the intensity and momentum of the music. With the harsh sound of the track it can feel almost sinister. Giving a feeling that it belongs in a movie right before the big scene starts.
While the picture gives a cold but serene feeling, adding music with the image changes what one perceives. It almost tells a story…
The storm has passed and there is no sound but your own breathing, something is coming. The snow muffles the sound of who or what is coming from beyond the trees. Crisp cold air chaps the skin as the cold seeps up the legs. The realization hits, you are alone and something is coming.
Without a sense of intrigue, the world feels dull. Maybe that’s what draws some of us to mystery novels and true crime. Myself, I love to create stories full of drama and twists of all kinds. I have always been drawn to works of all kinds that draw up my interest in the mystical and fantastic and inspire me to craft stories surrounding them. It is no different with these two works.
Ben Watkin‘s photo, “Cat,” captures a cat looking into the distance from below, the lighting and blur in the background creating a sense of melancholy and mystery while Hans Zimmerman‘s song, “Rainy Mystery,” creates an ambiance that feels like the background music for a drama. These two works join to create an unwritten dramatic story that is up to the viewer to compose. Overall, they are a good example of how two separate works can inspire and draw up our own creative ways of interpreting and shifting our surroundings into fiction. On their own, the former is just a photo of a cat and the latter is just a musical piece, but together they join and weave a dramatic story.
Just two weeks ago, I found myself staring at a playground located directly on top of a bomb shelter. The juxtaposition of this scene struck me. The playground was a representation of innocence, childhood, youthful joy, and life, Yet, it sat atop a building that represented fear, death, threat, and destruction. This playground was located in an Israeli community only a couple of miles outside of the Gaza strip, right between two lands that hate one another. I got to see this when I visited Israel over New Year’s. I was reminded of this when I saw the photo above.
When I imagine that same photo in my hometown, happy feelings arise. It brings nostalgia as I remember my childhood, dreams of the future for the kids playing, and peace as I look at the sunset. Yet, when I remember a similar playground in Israel, I feel sad, angry, and anxious. This is because context matters. The context for the Israeli children I met was a playground located a mile away from people who wish you were not there, in a political climate of tension that has been building for years, and in a town where you only have 8 seconds between when the alarms go off and a bomb hits. I grow sad to think that these kids might not make it to be an adult and angry at the lack of peace in the world. I remember one man sharing how his house doesn’t have doors so his children can easily run when a bomb alarm goes off, and I do not feel the same peace as I look at the sunset in that photo.
Those feelings of fear, stress and sorrow are the same feelings that arise when I look at the picture above of innocent children playing paired with the sound of sirens and bombs in the background. It is a pairing that feels like it should not exist, yet unfortunately, it does. Yet, this does not take away the beauty of the image or diminish the joy of the children in that photo. Instead, it highlights the strength and bravery that so many people have to continue living their lives despite the danger around them. The ability to find joy amidst a world of conflict. It is truly beautiful to see a sunset and children playing with hope for a better future rather than fear of the present.
I remember the tour guide saying, “I often ask myself why I have not left yet, but then my children tell me that this is their home and they don’t want to leave. And that is why I choose to stay.”
We’re all busy, between work, school, and general life, and it’s really hard to escape the everyday noises, literally and figuratively. I choose to pair a beautiful night sky in the forest with the sound of deleting messages as a story of disconnecting. I imagine hiking out to this wonderful spot, selecting all from my inbox, and deleting, them so I can enjoy the sounds and sights of nature. I was drawn to this image because it’s simple, yet what it displays is so complex, trees of likely decades, if not centuries old, and the stars, whos light has burned bright for thousands of years to reach us here on Earth.
Taken alone, the image is calm and serene and one might think of the sound of the wind rustling through the trees, or crickets, or even the hoot of an owl. The modern sound of a message deletion, which is a bit robotic, sticks out as a contrast to the natural wonder of the photo.
This is a reminder to us all, including myself, to take moments to enjoy what’s around us and put down the phone. I know I need this reminder as a nudge, that we’re all in this together, and it’s ok if we don’t respond immediately to all the notifications on our phones, sometimes we need to step out into nature and really focus on the stars and our place among them.
As an avid gamer, I decided to use my past experience for this weeks lab assignment. There are times when you try to play a video game that maxes out the performance of the PlayStation 4, and when the game is about to start, you hear the fans of the PlayStation 4 kick off loudly like a plane about to take off on the runway. Most computer users would probably know what I’m talking about, because it sometimes happen when you try to run a heavy program on your computer, you hear the fans loudly making noise to ensure the computer is kept cool while it runs this hefty program. Looking at the picture, I don’t think anyone would expect that audio to be what accompanies it.
This PlayStation 4 image by Evan-Amos that I came across is perfect, as it shows the console in its full form and lets everyone easily know what it is. After searching long for a good sound of a plane taking off, I finally found the one created by jone_oost which perfectly matches the exact sound and rhythm that I’m trying to portray. Together, they create the story that I am trying to tell.
I’m a Boston Terrier owner first and foremost. My Boston Terrier’s name is Buster and we work with the Boston Terrier Rescue of Florida.
I came across this photo of a Boston Terrier by Michael Gwyther-Jones and instantly thought this was the facial expression a Boston Terrier would make if they were getting beamed up by an alien ship. I thought pairing the dogs bewildered look with the tractor beam sound by shimsewn would capture the moment perfectly.
Overall, the pairing of the tractor beam sound enhances the slightly confused but curious look on the Boston Terrier’s furry face.
In a world of constant movement, it is easy to miss subtle specifics. Having a scene easy on the eyes in the form of color, softness, and vastness unfolding in front of you becomes the main allure to “Wetlands Sunset.” I felt in only putting a small section of sound, nothing too incredibly long, the viewer, and listener gets a small piece from “Kauai Rain Ocean Birds“, this particular :34 second part was called “Kauai Shama thrush”, of what can interrupt a hectic day and provide calm; just a small portion enough that individuals might want to check out more from this artist.
Just enough of a sample exists to slow your day, a small enough excerpt to invite individuals to want to check out more from this artist. I like the concept of small portion to lead to further investigation based on interest. Sometimes all it takes is a small portion of something to realize to enhance your life, a little investigation of acquiring more will help your life be even better.
My name is LaSandra Barnhill. I grew up in central Florida in the 80s and 90s, when the transition from big hair, jelly shoes, scrunch socks, and plastic t-shirt clips slowly transitioned into JNCOs, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, and grunge. The Magic Kingdom was overrated and lousy traffic on I-4 was the bane of most of central Florida’s existence, and likely still is. I wouldn’t change any of it for the world, which is why I’m one of the author Carl Hiaasen’s biggest fans. He’s a Florida-based author and most of his stories take place here. If you’re not familiar, please check him out. His writing style is hilarious and loved by Floridians and non-Floridians alike.
I moved to Tallahassee, Florida in the Summer of 1999 to attend Florida State University. It turned out that my college career path was a long and winding one, finally bringing me to pursue a Master in Information Science (MSI). I still live in Tallahassee, Florida near the university’s campus. I work for the Florida Department of Education in the Student Services department. We are mental health-focused and school-based social services driven.
Both my work and personal life are centered on youth-focused servitude. I am highly motivated to enrich students’ and young people’s lives. I am a Scout Leader with Scouts BSA, formerly the Boy Scouts of America. I’ve been active in scouting for over 10 years. My oldest son is an Eagle Scout and my youngest is working on his project. The Scout slogan is “Do a Good Turn Daily,” and we try to commit to at least one community service project a month.
In other hobby news, I foster a deep fondness for retro role-playing games (RPGs), of course, my generation pioneered them.
Less common, my family practices Native American Dance and we sometimes travel for my oldest son to participate in Grass Dance at Powwow.
We also love roller skating, weekend trips, and museums!
I started listening to podcasts when I discovered Serial, a spin-off of the “This American Life” production, which was originally released in 2014 and was hosted and produced by Sarah Koenig. I was hooked and have remained an avid podcast listener ever since. When I learned in the first lecture that we were going to learn to produce a podcast, I was stoked! I’m really looking forward to this class.
Disclaimer: Most of this should be read with dry humor in mind.
Hello, my name is Jeffrey Segassie, but I go by Brett. It’s my middle name. I’m including this because for some reason people tend to be confused by why I go by middle name instead of my first. I’m not sure either, my mom and my family called me by middle name and the meaning is only an abbreviation of another country whereas “Jeffrey” actually means “God’s Peace” and I was born on a Sunday so go figure, the jury might still be out for whether that fits my personality or not. I do know that I try to have empathy for everyone as I was taught, my mom was a great woman, and recently passed. All I can try to be is the man she wanted me to be, that she thought I was.
I was born in Jacksonville, FL and I’m still here now. I am not sure if that is where I want to stay. I would like to travel and see more of the world by living in different places and over the years I’ve realized that Jacksonville is still the beautiful city that I thought it was, but over the past several years it has been a lot more problematic, and not the place I grew up in, and that makes me very emotional that while I grew up being taught to appreciate everyone and their differences that isn’t the world we live in. Equality for everyone should not be an issue. I recently stated to a friend that as a gay man we don’t even have equality amongst ourselves, we all have prejudices, and stereotypes. Maybe it’s wanderlust that I don’t want to live here anymore? I’ve been thinking about using my library degree, when I obtain it, to work in Europe of in other countries, but I’m not sure where to start there.
I’ve also been traveling to Atlanta my entire life and I tried to figure that out some this morning. Let’s say I went there every Christmas and Summer for starters until I was eighteen and I’m still doing that now, that’s somewhere around over 25,000 miles driving just by the time I was legally an adult and I know that it was a lot more than that. When you factor in an idea this way it shows the importance of statistics in your life and everyone has their own. I have my own, which to me shows that I’m more of a staunch character than I always think of myself and everyone can think of themselves in this way when you view different lenses of what you’ve been through.
Look whether you’re a fan of Killing Eve or not sometimes we’re all angry clowns inside. LOL
I attended a non-denominational Christian college, which was Florida Christian College, and is now Johnson University South. It is interesting that there are at least five different types of non-denominational Christian schools of thought, ours was on Alexander Campbell, and there’s at least two or three biography volumes about him have been published, but the author Eva Jean Wrather, spent at least seventy years of her life compiling a biography of more than 800,000 words. People ask me why I attended college there when I did not intend to go into a field teaching religion. I went because I knew some people there, I wanted to move to the Orlando area, and be away from home without being too far away, and I studied Humanities. It’s interesting that now they have more “marketable” degrees Nursing, Business, etc. but I do not regret the people that I met and what I learned there. It would be great if everyone used hermeneutics and context and research about what they talked about before just saying something (I actually learned that there) and how to dress properly (It astounds me that people come to interviews in T-shirts and shorts). It was proved that I didn’t move too far because I’d get calls in the middle of the day with my mom telling me she had driven down and that she needed help finding somewhere to stay. I appreciate that a lot more now than I did then. I worked in the library there which made me want to work in libraries and I graduated fourteen years ago and I’m only now working on my Masters degree because I had doubts and life along the way. If I can give anyone inspiration it would be to not let your doubt get in your way, to just go for it, because time will go on regardless. I’m in this class because it seemed like I learn something from it I’m not sure I’d be great in technology. I’ve always been able to pick up on it. Not programming, what I’m worried about is not that libraries will become obsolete, things change, I’m worried if I don’t have some experience in IT the degree I’m getting right now will become obsolete so I’m trying to learn what I can.
I’m also a cat person. This is Oliver.
I have said somewhere on Twitter @brettsegmented, also Tumblr tumblr.com/brettsegmented (Do you ever just go back to your archived posts and remember things you loved and loved about yourself?) before that I have a very powerful cat. As a jest and to be somewhat serious. I do love dogs too, but when you’re roommate decides to breed them and doesn’t tell you and the dog has 15 puppies you get kind of burnt out. I just want my own, but I don’t think my cat would appreciate that right now.
