Blog 10, Comments for Ming (from Derek)

Ming, I enjoyed reading through your blog entries. I found many of them to be really rich with generative possibilities. For some reason, I really liked the quote clarifying the meaning of illusion: “the word illusion does not mean that it does not exist; rather, an illusion is not what is seems”. While that quote does not necessarily set the tone for the blog, it does potentially link into some of the themes you explore therein.

In the beginning entries, Ming, you seem to be wondering about the performance of gender, especially the differences between performing gender in safe versus unsafe spaces, which I found really intriguing. You write about the definition of safe space as one that can encompass “ruptura” (Freire), which I thought was interesting and wanted to read more about. You then mentioned the performance of the First Lady and wives (in general) as occasional athletes, although I wondered what your thoughts were on this. In the two amusing posts on Tina Fey’s observations about acting (one on observing Alec Baldwin and one on Amy Poehler) you display a continued interest in the difference between performing the Self rather than performing what others want you to. These two Fey posts seem to connect to the Theory of Mind post, but you didn’t really comment much on these three posts, and as I read them I was curious to know why these quotes grabbed you; I wanted to read your thoughts and reactions to the quotes. The post about avatars seemed to continue your earlier theme of performing the Self on stage, but I didn’t understand the references to avatars, which ultimately went unexplained (for me). The post on Kaling seems to have connections with both your interest in performance of gender as well as control over self-performance, but you were focusing on criticizing the Vulture article for its lack of depth and for what you seemed to feel was its attempt to frame the female reader in a gendered role. I thought maybe the Vulture article and the Onion piece were communicating in a more complicated way that I wish you had explored further, and maybe could connect to Kaling’s desire to portray herself as someone in the vein of Tina Fey, and therefore go on to explore what Tina Fey might represent, since she seems to be one of the New Girls that everyone is talking about these days (like you, I’ve been out of the country and out of the loop for many years, so I don’t really know what to make of all these folks). You post On Memorials connected back to Performing Citizenship through the theme of performing patriotism and citizenship, but complicating it through protest; again, I wanted to read more about how these intersect for you. I am personally very interested in this area, so perhaps that’s why I wished to read your thoughts and felt disappointed when you didn’t share them. In your post on Mockingbird, I wondered whether you saw any connection between Tina Fey’s comments about “Real Acting” and your impression of Rodden and Macy’s soulfulness.

As a reader, I was also invited to interact with the blog by the elements you chose to include within it. Elements of the blog that stood out to me as scriptive are the photos of women laughing with salad, or just laughing in groups, mouths open; the image of the pipe “this is not a pipe”; and the hyperlinks to the articles. In terms of performances that these objects entail, I felt like the photos asked me to imagine what the women were laughing at. The image of the pipe and its caption demanded that I pause and try to make sense of the statement. The links to the articles invited me to click and follow. I had to engage with the images in order to fully appreciate the text of the post; likewise with some of the links, some of which I had to follow in order to understand what was being written in the post. I also chose to scroll through the blog in chronological order, which is the reverse of how the blog presents itself to the viewer. In this way perhaps I was resisting the scriptive nature of the blog itself…just a little bit.

Ultimately, this tumblr/blog has a lot of really interesting material in it, and it seems like a good way to keep track of what catches your eye—you seem to be using it to maintain a kind of annotated bibliography of things that matter or interest you, things that could be generative, or things that prompt reflection. I enjoyed scrolling through it, and I will return to view more as the course continues.