Living in a Fantasy

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“When the”

The Bondswoman’s Narrative by Hannah Crafts is a fascinating narrative about how Crafts survived the hardships of slavery. The book was found and edited by Henry Louis Gates Jr, who decided to keep in the parts where Crafts had struck out words and chose replacements instead. Usually, when edits are made, the strikeouts are taken out completely, but not so in this case. I found this strikeout, in particular, to be thought-provoking because Crafts struck out the first ‘when the’ but then continued the sentence with the exact words, showing that she had some sort of change of thought. My initial impression was that she changed her mind and decided to go along with her sentence, after all, thereby keeping the first two words in the sentence. The more I thought about it; however, I realized that she could have been considering writing a different sentence entirely. It makes me wonder what she could have considered describing instead of that sentence. Perhaps she would have told her old master negatively or focused more on the portraits. Of course, we’ll never know what she could have been thinking, but it is an exciting idea to sit and ponder.

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Pinterest and Obscurities

The website Pinterest is a media platform that is all about seeing things, which makes it ironic that there are things that get obscured on the forum. We can see the picture, who posted it, and the other accounts that have saved it. There are times when Pinterest cannot show the creator of the photograph. There are many times when people will add images that aren’t theirs but still take credit. This allows those people to get false praise and makes searching for the actual creator much harder. Sometimes, the creator may obscure the true intention behind Pinterest boards or posts. For example, various images of cakes could be saved as a simple ‘cake aesthetic’ board that other people can use on their boards. However, those images may all lead back to the same bakery business trying to sell cakes without explicitly advertising. While on Pinterest, it’s wise to think about the origin of the image you’re saving. This can help prevent you from moving forward with someone else’s plan on the platform. 

When considering Pinterest and its analysis possibilities, the website does hold a highly personal bias due to the algorithm that photos which images it presents to its users. How the Pinterest algorithm works is that it shows you ideas based on the ones you’ve already liked or categories you’ve declared an interest in. They also offer you images based on their popularity with other users on the platform. This can cause you to miss out on exciting posts and obscure the analysis you may be doing on a topic. To overcome this bias, it’s good to consider what you’re searching for and look at the number of pins the image has. I recommend searching and then scrolling for a while before looking at what pictures arise from the platform.

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Pinterest in Action

My board on The Printing Press

While reading “A New Introduction to Bibliography,” I often struggled to visualize what a printing press looked like, the type, the paper, and various other things. While the book went into great detail and provided good diagrams to help me understand, I still couldn’t find myself understanding what it looked and acted like in real life. 

Using Pinterest, I’ve compiled various images surrounding the Printing Press. Including a couple of types of models, very old pictures of compositors working, examples of type, examples of books, and a variety of other things. Creating this board honestly helped me understand what this looked like a lot more and the type of books that it would produce. I found myself having a greater appreciation for the printing press and a better understanding of our reading materials for class.

 I can only imagine what else I can find here that may help me visualize or understand other concepts we discuss in class—especially those set in a specific historical setting or with various meanings. I’m sure if I put in a title of Blake's poems with or without his name attached, I would get a wide variety of images that bring new associations to the poems. 

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Pin your Inspiration

Pinterest is a free website on which users can create accounts to create ‘boards’ using the images on the site. The official website says, “Pinterest is a visual discovery engine for finding ideas like recipes, home and style inspiration, and more.” The boards could be themed around anything a user’s hearts desire with a wide variety of topics. I use my personal Pinterest for gaming tips, drawing tips, writing prompts, and image inspiration for writing. I have also found book and song recommendations as well. Those are just my interests. However, anyone could possibly find any interest they may have on the site. 

I can use this website as an aid to literary criticism to help me better visualize what might be happening or the settings put in a story. I could also use it to help me visualize more complex concepts, as sometimes, putting concepts into pictures that relate to them can be more helpful than putting them into words. Pinterest is also great for assisting in making associations, as actually seeing things can be better for someone to understand why items could be associated with one another. 

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While walking on campus, I usually don’t pay attention to the world around me. Usually, I listen to music, focusing on my destination and not the journey. While walking with my friends toward the lake, I was paying attention and saw this tree. 

I was surprised I had never noticed it; it’s enormous with three big trunks meeting a single log. I couldn’t help but marvel and wonder how old it was. It looked like it could be in the setting of a fantasy novel. 

Discovering this reminded me of how sometimes I must slow down and pay attention to the world around me. Otherwise, I would miss out on wonders like this one.