My Super-post

Note that I lost the final page of my super-post. Professor Moss has it in her possession, but I must have forgotten to save it.

Timothy Rabb
11/3/09

Failed Kanye West Project

I initially intended to focus my project on proposed sources of narcissism, but since the list of potential subjects was virtually limitless, I decided to narrow my search down to celebrities. After Professor Moss’s revelatory video clip presentation on vibrations in the mass media, I finally settled on the self-proclaimed “voice of this generation,” rapper Kanye West as my study subject. I considered a celebrity figure to be an excellent subject, partly because a celebrity’s high-profile status allows for the analysis of a wide array of video and audio records, but also due to the inherent sense of vanity possessed by many celebrities.
More specifically, my plan was to assemble an array of video clips, accompanied by the popular rapper’s music and arranged in chronological order. This would serve the purpose of creating a sort of visual map of the landmark events in Kanye’s life, revealing causal connections previously unbeknownst to most of Kanye’s listening audience; these connections would hopefully shed some light on his egomaniacal behavior. A good portion of my arrangement was to include clips of Kanye with his late mother, because I considered her death to be a marked turning point in Kanye’s life and a potential source of his subsequent narcissism.
Unfortunately, I was forced to completely abandon the thesis of this project in favor of another. Because of the copyrighted nature of most print, visual and aural materials that feature Kanye, it was nearly impossible to amass a collection large enough to be fit for this comparative analysis.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Timothy Rabb
11/10/09

Roommate Project Proposal/Failure

After a bit of thought on the reasons for my Kanye project’s lack of success, I decided that I wanted to retain my original theme of a character study of narcissism, but with the aid of a different subject. Since I have a roommate whose behaviors closely correlate to those observed in narcissistic personality disorder, I decided that he might be an appropriate subject for observation. Though one might immediately label this diagnosis as unreasonably judgmental, I’ve included a list of traits below that conclusively categorize him as narcissistic, courtesy of Wikipedia. I consider Wikipedia to be an adequate resource for materials of this nature; as a matter of fact, several studies have been conducted comparing the factuality of Wikipedia with that of the Encyclopedia Brittanica, and Wikipedia has been proven equal in reliability:
Note that, among those listed, I’ve emboldened the specific traits that my roommate most clearly exhibits.
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders fourth edition, DSM IV-TR, a widely used manual for diagnosing mental disorders, defines narcissistic personality disorder (in Axis II Cluster B) as:
A pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:
1. has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)
2. is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
3. believes that he or she is "special" and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)
4. requires excessive admiration
5. has a sense of entitlement, i.e., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations
6. is interpersonally exploitative, i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends
7. lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others
8. is often envious of others or believes others are envious of him or her
9. shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes
I had the intent of recording verbal conversations/arguments had between my roommate and other members of my house. My new idea was to attempt to highlight the ways in which a single self-centered individual can cause absolute tumult in a house full of ordinarily well-mannered people.
Ultimately, I rethought my motives for the project and decided that – since my means of collecting information was incredibly deceptive, and the entire process behind my proposal was more mean-spirited than scholarly – it would be best to conduct a study of another subject or find another topic altogether.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Timothy Rabb
11/20/09
Plans/Reasons for Final Project Proposition

Because of the fact that both my Kanye West and roommate project propositions were somewhat condescending in their approach, I’ve decided upon a more neutral, personal project thesis. For the project, I plan on perusing through 8-12 articles I’ve written during my tenure as a film critic/reporter at the Michigan Daily newspaper. While scanning these pieces, I’ll circle the words I deem most relevant and create a new written poem for each respective article, using my chosen words as a point of reference. My goal in this is to examine the new meaning a word or phrase inherits based on the manipulation of its proximity and order relative to other words and phrases. I also want to juxtapose both the original and manipulated works for the purpose of noting their similarities and differences. In the process of conceptualizing of this project, I formulated a set of rules to govern the writing of my “transitive poetry”:
1. No more than three consecutive words may be circled at once. Because I’m trying to create a legitimate, unique new work, copying whole phrases verbatim would undermine my efforts. Instead, I’ll allow for a reasonable proximity between ideas so as to create autonomous new concepts.
2. These words will not be arranged in the same order in which they appear in the article. My project also explores chronology in addition to proximity, and it would defeat my entire purpose to simply string together gapped words in the same chronology they were originally written in. My goal is to manipulate the work, not simply condense it.
3. To facilitate flow, coherence and originality, extraneous words may be added to the new poem, and existing words may be modified to another tense or exchanged with a synonym. Pertaining to the words I’ve circled in the article, I do intend to use several of the most profound ones in their original form to establish the dominant theme of the poem. However, the majority of the words are only intended as a foundation upon which I will build an entirely new structure.
4. Because I wish this project to be a learning process and not just a personal reflection, a different style of poetry (ex. Ode, sonnet, haiku, etc.) must be used for each individual poem.

After I’ve finished writing these poems, I don’t wish to have naught but a drab, banal verbal presentation to illustrate my project. Therefore, I will use several of the poems – particularly those that were born from film criticisms as opposed to interviews – to create a graphic compilation. To do this, I’ll pick a font that I feel best represents the style of each poem; then, I’ll superimpose each poem in its entirety over a promotional poster of the movie that inspired that poem.