Wrap Up

Oh my gosh! Rex and I had the same thought about a wrong answer today, too! Does this mean I'm just as good at crosswords as he is? He rated today's puzzle as medium-challening, and I agree.

"Thought 45D: Zephyrs were BLIMPS, not BREEZES (clearly I was thinking of Zeppelins)."

The word zeppelin will forever make me think of The Golden Compass. Wonderful book. Anyways.

I was surprised to see that Rex isn't an embrace-er of new technology. I would think that as a daily blogger and lover of the embedded video and image, that he would also be into gadgets. And I see him as a good example of a "new active consumer" like Henry Jenkins mentions in his book Covergence Culture, as he consumes media (the puzzle) and then creates his own content out of that. But he definitely doesn't like GPSs, and had this little rant about Garmin:

"41D: Big name in GPS devices (GARMIN) — Do not own one and likely never will. It would be more distraction than aid. I would almost certainly drive my car into a lake. Also, I think farming out your sense of direction to a machine—maybe not so great an idea."

I thought Rex's tone was particularly informal today. He swore (sort of: "WTF is "Hollyoaks" and WhoTF is GEMMA Atkinson?"...well he did say, "crap TV"), posted an image of a scantily clad woman, and signed off with a brief, "Gotta go watch 'Conan.'"

His anti-Garmin rant generated a lot of responses in the comments, including this one:

"For the longest time, I thought I had the worst sense of direction. Until a few years back, we were in Rhodos, and I could find my way around perfectly while my husband was totally lost. I realized that I use specific local cues instead of a broad sense of orientation. So, in a place with twisty, windy streets but lots of variety, I shine. It turns out females (even mice) simply do it differently from males..."

I used to have a terrible sense of direction. When I first got my license I couldn't figure out how to get from my house to the mall, despite having done so a million times as a passenger. But when I moved to a city for the first time during study abroad, it was like something finally clicked in my brain. I think it was because everything was unfamiliar and exciting, and so I actually payed attention to where I was. Not to mention I spent a lot of time walking around with my nose in a map.


Before starting this project I rarely read the entirety of Rex's post. Now that I have been reading them every day for a week, I think that I do understand a bit more about who he is as a person. He is a consumer of pop-culture, both current and past, he's a bit silly, and sometimes he's cranky (like when he doesn't like a puzzle theme). Pretty good personality traits for a successful crossworder, if you ask me.

Mondays

For the first time in a while, today I was unable to complete the Monday crossword. Rex gave it a rating of medium, but I thought it was HARD. I am kind of sick, so I will use that as an excuse.

But I'm expected to think of Erse on a Monday morning? And I'm still not sure what asis (sales tag words) means.

I think really what today came down to is that I am a poor US History student (first president to be impeached: Johnson) and that a lot of the clues were referencing things and people that are far outside my area of interests, like golfer Larry Mize

I felt some real bonding with Rex today, for two reasons. One is that we both made the same mistake: "Sadly, I finished with a stupid error: Had PAT for PET (41D: Caress)"

The second was because of his signing off paragraph. Rex often does the crossword the night before it comes out in the paper (they're available earlier online). Today (or last night, I guess) he gave us some information about his bedtime ritual:


"See you tomorrow. I'm going to try to squeeze in another 'Mad Men' before bed. That, or keep (re-)reading 'Lolita.'"

That's pretty diary-like. It definitely made me feel a bit more of a personal connection with Rex, though I realize it's completely one-sided. It's also interesting that he likes Mad Men. Our bedtime rituals are not too far apart, except that I've been reading Moby Dick. Perhaps I could write a blog about commercials every day and Rex could read it.

Musings on McLuhan

Today's entry made me nostalgic for UPN. As one of those deprived children who grew up without cable, I was pretty into that channel. Just like Rex I also remember Moesha

.

I was also once featured in a spot for the Natick Outdoor Store (wow, their website is horrendous) when I was a kid, but the only person who ever saw it was my friend's dad.

I've spent some time trying to figure out wether or not Marshall McLuhan, author of Understanding Media, would have considered the Internet a hot or cool medium. The conclusion I have arrived at is that the Internet is a cool medium.

A cool medium demands interactivity by nature of incompleteness. One reason McLuhan defines television as a cool medium is because the pixelated image on the screen forces viewers to complete the image by themselves. So, that's one check for cool medium. Yes, computer screens are increasingly high definition, but the fact that they are not as complete, or hot, as newspapers and other printed media seems to be one of the reasons most people still prefer not to read on the computer.



Another characteristic of a cool medium to examine is interactivity. It's possible to read Rex's blog and ignore the comments section, links to other blogs, links to other webpages, embedded videos, etc. But I would still reason that his blog is interactive in the same way that a telephone is interactive, and therefore a cool medium. Not taking advantage of the opportunities for interactivity doesn't mean they're not there. For example, if I was on the phone with someone, but didn't listen, the telephone would not become any less of a cool medium. I would just be a bad friend.

Advertising

Rex has a spot on his blog for people to donate via pay pal to keep his site, "...strong, independent and ad-free!"


It is ad-free, in a way. But I wonder if there's still some advertising going on. A blog is, after all, a form of self-promotion. As advertising students, we are told again and again the importance of having an online presence – a personal brand – to sell ourselves to future employers. A blog is a good way to do this, just like a web page is a good way to do this, a twitter account is a good way to do this, a blemish-free facebook page is a good way to do this.

A blog, unlike twitter and a webpage somewhat, enables its writers to ramble on as much as they choose. Rex could easily just post the answer to the crossword. Maybe he could just post the answers and how long it took him. But this blog is about more than just the answers to the puzzle. It's about Rex, too.

I would also consider his blog to be an advertisement for the NY Times crossword puzzle, and the paper as a whole, since they come together. If someone who is so seriously dedicated to crosswording chooses to do the one from the NY Times, it must be great. It's definitely good promotion for the NY Times.

Personally, I found today's puzzle impossible to solve. However, any answer that leads to this

being posted on Rex's blog is fine by me.

As far as interactivity goes, a fan sent in this:

a hand-stitched rendition of the first solved crossword Rex ever posted. If that's not getting involved with the brand, I don't know what is.

Contest and Videos

Today's crossword had no theme, but it does have a contest: "When this puzzle has been completed, put nine holes over the grid and arrange the letters shown to form an appropriate two-word phrase (4,5). Where these holes are is for you to discover."

It was interesting to me that Rex was apparently asked by the nytimes to ask his commenters not to reveal the answer to the contest ("I have been asked to ask you not to post the contest answer in the comments ... so I'm asking"), which he (so modestly) blogged that he had already sent in by 10:12 p.m. Thursday night. So although he is not (as far as I can tell) officially affiliated with the NY Times, they acknowledge that his blog could really disrupt their contest and be a huge spoiler to a lot of people.



One of the answers to today's puzzle is Nigella Lawson (pictured above), which elicited a lot of comments from both Rex and his readers.

He also had a couple videos posted from YouTube, not directly related to the puzzle. He posted this one: after appreciating the puzzle answer "Rock on" and

this one: which has to do with the "Anakin" answer.

Something cute from the blog today is little "P.S. Happy Birthday, Tyler Hinman." Generally Rex is writing to the anonymous masses. But the P.S. acknowledges that the mass is made of up individuals, that he knows some of them personally, and that today is one of their birthdays.

Dailyness and Interactivity

Today I found a quote in the comments section that I really think sums up the interactivity and dailyness of Rex's blog:

"This blog is positively addictive. Rex's take on this solitary entertainment we share, and everyone else's response to Rex have become my favorite way to start the day. I had a moment of withdrawal around yesterday's puzzle when I inexplicably lost my internet connection Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning. Had to go to work without being able to resolve the problem. Aargh! As @dk says, work really is the curse of the puzzle class."

There were 53 comments on today's post. All were from hardcore puzzle enthusiasts. They commented on their own experience with the puzzle. They commented on Rex's experience with the puzzle. They commented about Rex's comments about his experience with the puzzle.[REVISED: picture added]



I think the comment I quoted really gets at the heart of the blog. All these people, these crossworders, are sitting alone somewhere far apart from each other and solving crosswords alone. And they love it. But they also love being able to share this experience. Rex's blog allows them to do this. To be alone and yet not.

I also love how the commenter refers to the blog as an "addiction." Clearly, the dailyness of the blog is very important to many people - more than just the author. Doing the puzzle and then reading a blog about doing the puzzle have become linked in ritual.



The process of doing and then reading someone else's opinion about doing in order to get satisfaction about an activity really got me thinking about some ideas we talked about in class - the idea that we are so inundated with other people's opinions and information that we no longer have to examine our own interests or opinions. While I do enjoy the blog, it does seem a little strange to me that people's enjoyment of something has become so completely linked to seeing how much someone else enjoyed it. I'm not sure if it's bad, just strange.

Blog diary day 1

a week-long diary analyzing the journal-style weblog of your choice. Over the course of the week, your diary should examine the content, tone, interactivity, and daily-ness of the blog. (You do not need to address all of them each day.) And somewhere along the line, briefly ruminate on whether the Internet is a hot or cool medium, McLuhan-wise. Seven pages, double-spaced, in clear, idiomatic English.

The blog I have chosen to follow for the third Contemporary Mass Media assignment is this.

I chose this blog for two reasons. First, it is guaranteed to have a daily update. Second: because I enjoy doing the crossword (although I must admit I can usually only complete Monday and Tuesday alone) and I like to check my answers or see the clues I couldn't complete. If you google "New York Times crossword answers" this is the first blog that comes up. That's not how I was introduced to it (ex-boyfriend), but there it is.

I've learned from previous posts that the guy who writes the blog is a professor somewhere (NYU?) and that he competes in national crossword competitions. He always signs his blog "Rex Parker, King of the Crossworld," but that's not his real name.

Each day he does the New York Times crossword puzzle and times himself. He then identifies the constructor, ranks the puzzle as some variation of easy, medium or hard, and identifies and comments on the theme. He talks about some of the clues that threw him off (mostly blaming the puzzle creator for ambiguous wording) and applauds others. He thought today was "Monday easy," which explains why I was able to finish it.

He also always posts a word of the day, a fun word that maybe he didn't know before the puzzle or that he thinks his readers might not know. Today was tabor, a drum. [REVISED: picture added}

The blog is really only about the puzzle, and the writer's tone is pretty informal. He brags, he posts links to YouTube videos that puzzle answers reminded him of, he makes up brand slogans for Turkey, which was mentioned twice in today's puzzle (Turkey: The Real White Meat). The links add interactivity to the blog. You can watch the videos to get inside the author's thought process. Also, I assume that most people who read this blog at least glanced at the crossword before doing so. In that way the blog creates interaction between crossworders (acceptable word among people who do crosswords).