On Wednesday through Friday, May 16-18, I attended the WebVisions 2012 conference at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland. Below is a quick overview of all sessions I attended on Friday, with links. See Twitter updates using #wvpdx.

The CSS of Design Storytelling: Context, Spine and Structure – Traci Lepore
(9:15 am to 10:00 am | session details)

Storytelling is an age-old tradition, because it’s one that just plainly and simply works. As the book Storytelling for User Experience by Quesenbery and Brooks says “We all tell stories. It’s one of the most natural ways to share information, as old as the human race.”

But to be a really good storyteller, you need to understand three basic concepts: Context, Spine, and Structure (CSS). Each is critical and necessary, and all three need to work together.

In this session I will walk through these concepts and how to understand and implement them in your user experience design work to ensure a good story that covers all of the components of CSS—Context, Spine, and Structure—and is compelling, engaging, and memorable.

• Twitter: @TraciUXD
• Slides: slideshare.net/treygd/css-design-storytelling
• Storytelling tenets: Context, Spine, Structure
• Context (Theme, Mood, Audience): setting, theme/message, the big picture, emotional aspects
• Spine (Plot, Characters, Climaxes): basic storyline(s) that runs throughout plot and characters
• Structure (Patterns, Infrastructure, Through-line): progressions of the story
• Stories are a great way to help people learn by engaging their emotions
• Book: Storytelling for User Experience
• The role of storytelling in UX design is to be the bridge: managing the pieces to communicate a compelling and engaging story
• In UX design, the plot must cover the goals and scenarios
• Source for a lot of the content: “Improving Web Site Usability and Appeal” by Kevin Keeker

Casting Off Our Desktop Shackles – Jason Grigsby
(10:15 am to 11:00 am | session details)

No matter how much we try to put ourselves into a mobile first mentality, it is hard for us to do so fully. Our access to PCs prevents us from experiencing mobile the way many in the world do.

We’re currently fighting for parity among experiences. We’re arguing that the mobile version shouldn’t be a dumbed down version of the desktop site.

But we’ve set our sights too low. In a true Mobile First world, the mobile version should be the best experience. Mobile shouldn’t just match the desktop experience, it should exceed it.

• Twitter: @grigs and @grigs_talks
• Website: Cloudfour.com
• Slides: bit.ly/shackles-wxpdx
• “There is no mobile web.” Agree or disagree?
  1. Mobile doesn’t mean taking things away.
  2. Our vision of mobile context is often wrong.
• Mobile as the 7th Mass Media?
  1. Printing press
  2. Recordings
  3. Cinema
  4. Radio
  5. Television
  6. Internet
  7. Mobile
• More notes coming soon.

Strictly platonic: Responsive Design + Development – How to Avoid Digital Land(scape) Mines – Matt Fordham, Taylor Winters
(11:15 am to 12:00 pm | session details)

Users expect their experience on a website to adapt across all their devices – including mobile, tablet, laptop and desktop. The demand has coined the industry term – responsive design. The ideal effect is a satisfying and relevant experience to users on every size of display. Is this so much to ask?

What users don’t see is the behind-the-screens, starting with the people crazy enough to craft experiences that inherently respond to users demands – designers and developers. For progressive developers, this is an easy to grasp evolution. For designers, it presents a new host of challenges with some serious digital land(scape) mines.

To create a successful responsive web experience – and not cause any friendly fire in the process – requires design and development be in lock-step, harmony rather. Matt Fordham and Taylor Winters will talk through the fundamental need-to-knows from a developer’s and designer’s perspective, respectively and respectfully (well, mostly). Depending on levels of attention some combination of the following can be gathered:

+ The fundamentals developers want designers to know when designing a responsive experience
+ The cornerstones of a successful process for engineering a responsive web experience
+ A real-time working example for attendees to access on devices during the presentation – we’ll review key points of common responsive design layouts and the associated code

Plus, alarming statistics about why a responsive web experience is critical and helpful responsive design resources.

• Twitter @WINTR_US
• Website: wintr.us
• Responsive web design: a broad range of devices can access a single source of content
• PC usage is down 20% since 2008
• Traffic to mobile websites has increased 200% since 2010
• In the U.S., 25% of mobile web users browse only on their phones
• Responsive web design patterns by Luke Wroblewski cited again
• Great responsive design examples: mediaqueri.es, crushlovely.com (fluid), colly.com and foodsense.is

Crank WordPress up to 11 – Lorelle VanFossen, Mike Bijon, Jeremy Wilson, Taylor Dewey, Don Elliott
(1:30 pm to 2:15 pm | session details)

Designing and developing WordPress Themes isn’t about a paint job on the web. It’s where design and content meets the code pavement. WordPress Themes are highly flexible and dynamic, pushed to their limits by the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, CNN, Huffington Post, NFL, Number 10 Downing Street, NASA, Harvard, and more than 70 million websites worldwide.

Join Lorelle VanFossen and a panel of WordPress experts for insider stories, tips, tricks, and techniques to move you away from boring templates and crank up your designs with techniques to create powerful, dynamic websites. This engaging, high energy panel will discuss how WordPress Plugins influence design and functionality, wireframes to frameworks to WordPress Themes, and the future for WordPress Theme development including mobile, HTML5, CSS3, and the new federal laws on web accessibility.

• Twitter: @gravitatedesign, @tddewey, @geekcode, @ElliottDesign, @lorelleonwp
• The WordPress Codex and WordPress API
• Extensible tools in WordPress: Advanced Custom Fields plugin
• Cool WordPress magazine plugin: Edit Flow
• Best WordPress e-commerce plugin: WooCommerce (vs. Cart62 vs. Magento)

SHIFT Deluxe: An AIGA Portland presentation – Chad Rea, Kristin Rogers Brown, Rich Moore, Samuel Hulick
(2:30 pm to 3:15 pm | session details)

Thought leaders of the design community and AIGA Portland will showcase examples of intentional design and processes that are making the world a better place environmentally, economically, culturally, and socially. Join us for this concentrated version of SHIFT that will include brief, inspiring presentations followed by panelist and audience discussion on how to make design for positive change actionable.

• Twitter: @aigaportland
• Four-part sustainability focus: environment, culture, people and economy.  Learn more at livingprinciples.org
• Kristin Rogers Brown: featured The Urban Forest Project in Portland
• Rich Moore (zero one ten, iLoveHandles): featured Muji product designs and the Barnacle iPhone stand. Three design principles:
  • Can you do it in fewer pieces?
  • Can you make it smaller?
  • Can you do it with half the budget?
• Chad Rea (@chadrea): Green is not the conversation starter, yet many companies and brands choose to lead with this message. Leading communication strategies with green/eco-friendly language is preaching to the converted, not to the skeptical masses.
  • “Don’t act green. Be green. Act pop.” (Boring, outdated “green designs” aren’t necessary.)
  • Green can be irreverent. Green can be populist. Green can be all colors. Green can be just as ______. Green can co-mingle. Green can be discovered. Green can be subversive. Green can be invisible. Green can change and change the masses.
• Samuel Hulick (@samuelhulick): Save the websites!
  • Oxford, 1379: example of oak timber beams rotting away after centuries, but there was a replacement stand of trees ready that had been planted long ago
  • Sustainable ethos
  • 3 ways to avoid slash-and-burn website replacement strategies: 1. Respect what’s there; 2. Build for durability; 3. Plan for preservation

The Future of HTML5 Motion Design – Terry Ryan
(3:30 pm to 4:15 pm | session details)

HTML5 and CSS3 are hot, driven by an explosion of new, Internet connected devices.  While they offer many new features that should allow you to do the types of things that you previously did in Flash, actually making it happen is really hard.  Until now.

Mark Anders, an Adobe Fellow who leads the Edge Development Team, will explain how HTML5 animations are done by hand, and show how Adobe Edge Preview 4 can be used to save time while creating beautiful motion and interactive content. Adobe Edge is a new tool that natively uses HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript for fidelity across modern browsers, while enabling integration into real-world workflows. This is a rare opportunity to not only learn about Edge from the source, but to give feedback and influence the design of a new tool under development.

• Twitter: @tpryan
• Slides: slideshare.net/tpryan
• In the near future: Adobe Edge: Motion and interaction design for open standards. Build with HTML5, CSS and JavaScript. Works across available browsers
• In the less-near future: CSS shaders: Cinematic 3D effects for the Web. Make browsers do more

Whither Twitter? – Laura Fitton
(4:30 pm to 5:15 pm | session details)

Twitter Twitter Twitter Twitter Twitter. How is it changing the world? What else might it have in store for the future of business, politics, social change and global economics? What secret Twitter superpowers are barely understood and have barely even been tapped yet?

• Twitter: @Pistachio
• Slides: slideshare.net/pistachio
• oneforty: can still find it at socdir.com
• 10 Things to Know in 3 Easy Parts
• What
  • An EKG for Attention
  • Sensing & signaling network
  • The Message is the influencer
  • Any to many
  • 5 BILLION publishers
• How
  • Be Useful (it’s not about you; make it about the readers; turn the message inside out)
  • Tame the Fox (The Little Prince reference)
  • Maintain loose ties
• What Next?
  • Explore the humble # (the flocking mechanism of Twitter)
  • Vulnerabilities

A few more things:

• Guide to Twitter: “Listen. Learn. Care. Serve.”
• “Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing about.” – Ben Franklin
• If you want to build your following … take AMAZING care of your followers.
• Crazy spreadsheet: Twitter chat schedule
• Useful tool: marketing.grader.com

That is all. WebVisions 2012 is over. For my notes from previous WebVisions conferences, see 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008 and 2007.

On Wednesday through Friday, May 16-18, I attended the WebVisions 2012 conference at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland. Below is a quick overview of all sessions I attended on Thursday, with links. See Twitter updates using #wvpdx.

Correspondent from the Future – Baratunde Thurston of The Onion
(9:15 am to 10:00 am | session details)

In this technology and future-oriented talk, Baratunde, host of Popular Science’s Future Of on Science Channel, goes behind the scenes of his television show as well as his digital strategy work at The Onion and other companies to give a deeper analysis of the issues raised in his exploration of the future. From self-driving cars to creepy Japanese robots to a real, functioning orgasmatron, Baratunde will share anecdotes, images and a thoughtful, provocative and humorous analysis of what the future might hold.

• Twitter: @baratunde
• Book: How To Be Black
• Projects on Twitter: @jjpolitics, @FutureOf, @TheOnion
• CultivatedWit.com organization

How to Not Be a JavaScript Hack – Phillip Kerman
(10:15 am to 11:00 am | session details)

The good news is browsers have seen phenomenal performance gains in their ability to render JavaScript. But the demand for sophisticated applications has also grown. Match this with the fact mobile devices are inherently slow and you will quickly see why streamlined code is important. Not only do developers need to squeeze every drop of JavaScript performance possible, but more importantly, they need to avoid pitfalls that can cause applications to come to a screeching halt and crash.

This session covers: basics of JavaScript (like avoiding variable collision and memory leaks); best practices for good performance (including simple caching, closures vs. global functions, as well as comparison of different object-oriented patterns); and, when to use CSS transitions instead of JavaScript.

• Twitter: @phillip
• JavaScript and jsFiddle resources and code samples: tinyurl.com/javascripthack
• Overview:
  • scope
  • hoisting: if a function is declared (vs. an expression), the function gets hoisted to the top; so, list all local variables at the top
  • closures
  • immediately invoked functions
  • expressions (IIFE)
  • modules
  • namespaces
• Understand why JavaScript libraries/frameworks like jQuery and xjs are advantageous
• Learning
  • “hate list”
  • learn by doing
  • books: JavaScript Patterns and JavaScript: The Good Parts
  • don’t optimize too early
  • don’t beat yourself up
  • avoid boilerplate code (i.e., using the same pattern for every project)
• Tooling
  • editor for JS: Komodo Edit (free), WebStorm ($49+)
  • JSLint (code quality tool, remove errors/”lint” from your program)
  • browser dev tools
  • jsFiddle
  • case for unit testing (because JS gets interpreted at runtime, generating lots of test cases are essential
• console.log() vs. alert()
• JavaScript garbage collector: delete pieces of memory that are no longer in use

The Web’s Third Decade – Faruk Ateş
(11:15 am to 12:00 pm | session details)

Our medium has entered its third decade of existence, and is ready for some growing up. Our definitions and understanding of the web are rapidly getting out of date, as, too, are our practices for building on it. It is time to re-evaluate where things are and, more importantly, where they are going.

Faruk Ateş will teach tools and techniques for a more modern view on the web, the world’s greatest platform for content delivery as well as function. Learn how the past is improperly preparing us for the present and the future, negatively affecting our work—and what you can do to free yourself from these information shackles.

• Twitter: @KuraFire
• The Third Decade: 2012-2022
• A History of the Web
  • 1991-2001 – Dark Ages of “Web Design”
  • 2001-2011 – Early stirrings of modern civilization
  • 2012 – Cold War shenanigans (with browser vendor prefixes)
• In April 2012, Opera announced that it’s going to implement the -webkit alias: “Opera Mobile Emulator build with experimental WebKit prefix support“
• Historically: we already have a user-agent clusterfuck (with numerous web browsers based on different engines posing as each other)
  • “Internet Explorer wants to be identified as Netscape 4; Konqueror and WebKit want to be identified as Firefox; Chrome wants to be identified as Safari.” Source: “History of the user-agent string“
• Developers or browser vendors to blame?
• Good developer tools: LESS, Sass with Compass. They are CSS preprocessors
• Responsive images: img srcset syntax vs. picture proposal

CSS3 OpenType: The New Web Typography – Thomas Phinney
(1:30 pm to 2:15 pm | session details)

Web typography is changing dramatically thanks to browser support for @font-face and server-based fonts. Web designers now have thousands of font choices where they once had just a dozen. But beyond @font-face, CSS 3 introduces myriad new OpenType typographic controls, bringing a level of typographic precision to web design previously seen only in print.

Covered in this presentation:

• how @font-face server-based web fonts work, and what options they replace
• choices for enabling @font-face, from self-hosting to web font services
• both font-independent and OpenType features, and how to tell which web fonts support which OpenType features.
• see these features in action on web pages, from workhorse everyday typography to the surprising and bizarre, via fonts created by Phinney and friends
• other CSS 3 typographic features such as kerning and hyphenation
• state and near future of advanced typography support in browsers
• “correct” typographic use of all these new features

Additional notes:

• Twitter: @ThomasPhinney
• For about 20 years, web design has been shackled to a few common fonts
• Many font formats required, but converging on WOFF (web open font format)
• Self-hosting vs. web font services
• @font-face CSS tag > font-family
• CSS3 and OpenType fonts:
• Text module: Hyphenation, Grid-based layout, various wrap options, handing punctuation, multiple columns
• Fonts Module: kerning and ligatures (turn on optimized legibility in CSS in Firefox), full OpenType features and alternates
• Ligatures: multiple letters colliding: f-i collision – use standard ligatures all the time – happens via alternate glyphs (built into many fonts)
• Tabular lining, proportional lining, proportional oldstyle, tabular oldstyle
• Stylistic sets for levels of swashiness (swashes)
• Contextual alternates of glyphs plus ligatures
• Firefox OpenType font feature support: mzl.la/ff4-ot

Hulk Smash the Web! How the Web and Digital Technology are Reshaping Visual Effects – Jeff White
(2:30 pm to 3:15 pm | session details)

Computer graphics in visual effects is a relatively young industry in relation to film making, although it is an ever changing industry. In recent years, digital technology and the web have brought significant changes into all aspects of film production.

Jeff will detail how digital capture drove the creation of the Hulk, Ironman and a virtual New York City for Marvel’s the Avengers. He’ll cover the steps ILM took to create the newest Hulk including working with Mark Ruffalo to bring his likeness and performance into a CG character.

In addition, he’ll talk about the impact of the web at each step of visual effects production and how it’s rapidly changing the way visual effects work is done.

• Twitter (for Industrial Light & Magic): @ILMVFX
• Company website: Industrial Light & Magic
• Related Wired article: “Exclusive Video: Making the Hulk, Avengers‘ Big, Green Smashing Machine.”

Building Mobile Applications with Web Standards – Kevin Hoyt
(3:30 pm to 4:15 pm | session details)

If you are building for iOS, the you use Objective C and Xcode. If you are building for Android, then you might use Java and Eclipse. And if you are building for BlackBerry, you will find yet a different Java. But all these devices have a modern browser capable of leveraging many of the emerging web standards. So why not use that browser to build applications that you can deploy in the various application stores? Welcome to PhoneGap.

In this session, join Adobe Evangelist, Kevin Hoyt on a tour of how to get started building mobile applications with web standards using PhoneGap. We will start by setting up the workflows for both iOS and Android. From there we will build and deploy our first application to each. After that it is off to the races with native device API integration including accelerometer, compass, audio recording, camera and photo gallery access, and more.

• Twitter: @krhoyt
• Presentation (PDF): goo.gl/MjdmI
• Demo: kevinhoyt.com/webvisions/punchy/
• Web standards: WHR 2, HTML 5, FileReader (for reading local files)
• Resolutions and screen densities pose a challenge in the mobile space (e.g., too big on an iPhone 3, but too small on an iPhone 4)
• On mobile/tablet devices, mouse events become touch events (check if “ontouchstart” exists in document; if so, it’s a touch-enabled device)
• Use CSS3 media queries to rearrange/resize design elements to account for fat fingers (vs. a mouse pointer on desktops)
• Rotation/orientation events using built-in accelerometers are great for making cool mobile-specific features. But simulators don’t support rotation events, so you have to test it on actual mobile devices
• PhoneGap: uses a chromeless web browser running inside a baseline native application container that loads your HTML, CSS, and JavaScript for testing for mobile devices. PhoneGap is part of the open source Apache Cordova project
• The ideal scenario, or ultimate goal, is that PhoneGap becomes obsolete

Sex and SciFi – Nathan Shedroff, Chris Noessel
(4:30 pm to 5:15 pm | session details)

Could there ever be a better trifecta than Science Fiction, Technology (OK, Interaction Design), and Sex?! While it may be more common for sex to be used to titillate rather than inform or inspire scifi audiences, sex is a big part of our lives and a major form of interaction. Films like Logan’s Run, Total Recall, THX-1138, Sleeper, Barbarella, and Firefly, as well as television programs like Star Trek: Voyager and Futurama offer lessons to designers that are both specific to the domain and generalizable to the field of interaction design.

As part of their ongoing analysis of interfaces in science fiction, Make It So, the authors will share and discuss a collection of video clips depicting visions of sex-related technologies in mainstream science fiction and their relation to real world technologies from state-of-the-art “sexplorers.” Discussion will address the questions these scenes—and what their presence in the larger film or television show—raise.

• How have sex interfaces been portrayed in mainstream science fiction?
• What can we generalize from these examples about interface design?
• What can we generalize from these examples about Hollywood?
• Which are examples of “good” scifi sexual interfaces?
• What criteria should we use when evaluating fictional interfaces?
• What counts as sexual technology?
• What expectations have been raised by scifi around technology and sex?
• What fears have been raised by scifi around technology and sex?
• How has science fiction extended existing sexual paradigms?
• How have actual sexual technologies been affected by science fiction?

Additional notes:

• Make It So (Sexy): This talk is based on the last chapter of their forthcoming book
• Three areas of exploration: matchmaking, augmented mediated coupling, sex with technology
• Sex-tech breaks sci-fi narratives when sci-fi is exploring something other than sex. In sci-fi movies, sex derails the narrative; sex needs to be treated as a shallow titillation instead of a satisfying, meaningful experience.
• Sex-tech and sci-fi are on divergent paths. Technology breaks sex for most people. But design and sci-fi are more compatible and mutually beneficial. In the real world, unlike in sci-fi plots, sex is a core goal and meaningful force of human existence.

Continue to WebVisions 2012 in review: Part three »

(Also see my reviews from previous WebVisions conferences: 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008 and 2007.)

Building HTML5 Games – Alex Porter, Andrew Cooper, Nathan Bingham
(8:30 am to 12:00 pm | session details)

HTML 5 Gaming is rapidly evolving and there has never been a better time to give it a try. This workshop focuses on using Impact JS and other libraries and tools to create amazing games in the browser without any plugins. We’ll be taking advantage of  the HTML5 Canvas, JavaScript, and modern browsers (Chrome, Safari, FireFox, IE 9+) to deliver fast, fluid games directly in the browser.

We’ll be covering the basics of building an HTML5 game from the ground up, as well as touching on some more advanced topics to inspire developers to push HTML5 gaming to its limits.

During this workshop we will cover:

• How to install tools for HTML 5 game building.
• Introduction to Game Design, Game Theory and Web Gaming.
• Intro to ImpactJS.
• Making your first ImpactJS game.
• Game Asset generation with Flash and CreateJS’s Zoë (http://createjs.com/Zoe)
• Working with inheritance, animation and sound in ImpactJS.
• Deployment strategies and distribution (Web, Desktop, Mobile).
• What’s coming next for HTML5 Gaming?

• Notes coming soon.

Adaptive Web Design – Aaron Gustafson
(1:30 pm to 5:00 pm | session details)

In this Workshop, Aaron Gustafson will teach you everything you need to know about modern web design with progressive enhancement. Whether you are a novice or an experienced professional, you will walk away from this workshop with a greater understanding of what progressive enhancement is and how to implement this philosophy in your own work.

During the course of the workshop, Aaron will mentor you on best practices as you work together to build a web page from the content out. Along the way, you’ll…

• see where concepts like “mobile first” and “responsive design” fit in with progressive enhancement and your workflow;
• learn how to wield the awesome power of JavaScript wisely, while keeping a watchful eye on how it can affect the user experience or your sites;
• become more familiar with how CSS parsers work and how you can use their logic to apply advanced CSS (including CSS3) in a layered fashion;
• see how accessibility concerns can be easily factored into your development process; and
• gain exposure to ARIA roles & states and see how you can employ them to improve the experience of those using screen readers.

• Notes coming soon.

Continue to WebVisions 2012 in review: Part two »

We had an amazing trip to South America, but it is so nice to be home again. A few small luxuries I missed while in Peru for 33 days: safe drinking water, reliable hot water, toilet seats, being able to flush toilet paper. Two of my new favorite fruits are granadillas (gelatinous, pulpy passionfruit) and shimbillo (sweet seed pod fruit). I kind of wish I could live in Aguas Calientes (Machu Picchu town), which has natural thermal baths and serves as the gateway to the famous Inca ruins of Machu Picchu.

Lima, the capital and largest city, is the hub of travel to anywhere in Peru, so we were there on four separate occasions. We spent the weirdest Christmas ever in the dirty jungle city of Pucallpa (including a breathtaking 360 degrees of fireworks at midnight on Christmas Eve). We spent New Year’s Eve in Lima (including dinner in Barranco in a 1909 train car with stained glass cathedral windows and wood paneling, and dangerous seaside fireworks in Miraflores).

I have almost 3,000 photos to sort through. My girlfriend is already posting her photos to Flickr, but it may take me forever to do the same. Back in Oregon, our cats definitely gained weight while we were in Peru. Even Tanuki looks chubby now. Emotional eating? Or sheer laziness plus unlimited food? Reminds me of this classic A Softer World comic.

Below is an outline of some of the places we visited. I have a journal full of handwritten notes, and there are many stories to tell, but this trip outline is all I can manage at the moment. After a weekend of recovery, I was thrust back into my pre-vacation work life today. The profound culture shock of being back in my own country—and having to return to my desk, in an office with no windows, where I stare at a computer screen for eight hours each day—is deeply troubling.

The Inca Empire: December 4-13

• Lima
• Puno/Lake Titicaca/Uros floating islands/Taquile Island
• Puca Pucará/Raqchi
• Cusco
• Aguas Calientes/Machu Picchu
• Sacred Valley (Písac/Urubamba/Ollantaytambo)
• Cusco/Sacsayhuamán
• Lima

The Amazon jungle: December 13-31

• Lima
• Pucallpa
• Yarinacocha Lake/Puerto Callao/La Jungla
• San Francisco de Yarinacocha (Shipibo village)
• Pucallpa
• Lima

The high desert: December 31-January 6

• Lima
• Nasca/Nazca Lines
• Arequipa
• Lima

By the way, 2011 was the 100th anniversary of Machu Picchu’s “discovery.” And it was the first year of the Nazca Lines-inspired Peru’s New Brand. I love Peru’s new logo.

The terrible Auto-Tuned music

As a bonus, here are some dance-pop songs I remember hearing endlessly and unavoidably on Peruvian radio (mainly CPN Radio 90.5 FM Lima) while traveling. We were subjected to these Auto-Tuned sounds during all hours of the day, especially in Pucallpa. Sak Noel produces music even worse than Rebecca Black songs. Some things can’t be unheard. I ended up liking a few of these songs, possibly due to Stockholm Syndrome. This is music to rot your brain. The last video is a Shipibo song from the Amazon jungle. Listen to them all in this YouTube playlist: “Peru loves Auto-Tuned dance-pop music.”

• Michel Teló: Ai Se Eu Te Pego
• Sak Noel: Paso (The Nini Anthem) and Loca People (What The Fuck)
• LMFAO: Party Rock Anthem
• Joey Montana: La Melodia
• Usher (featuring Pitbull): DJ Got Us Fallin’ In Love
• Pitbull: Give Me Everything
• Farruko: Pa Romper La Discoteca and Hola Beba
• J. Álvarez: Junto Al Amanecer and Regalame Una Noche
• Plan B: Si No Le Contesto and Es Un Secreto
• Black Eyed Peas: The Time (Dirty Bit)
• Shakira (featuring Pitbull): Rabiosa
• Jennifer Lopez (featuring Pitbull): On The Floor
• Jay-Z (featuring Alicia Keys): New York
• Britney Spears: Till The World Ends
• Katy Perry: Firework and California Gurls
• And we also heard this from some Shipibo friends:
  Los Shipis: Ishtontani Amenwe

Why is Pitbull, a Cuban-American rapper, sneering and barking on almost every track that gets played in Peru? Some things we can never know. If you’re really in love with this kind of music, check out the PERÚ Top 100 for more pop inspiration.

More updates and pixel art

For more regular updates, you may want to follow me on Twitter. Also, check out my recent Peru-themed 8-bit pixel art at Mascot Mashup.

A magic realism tangent

Because of my current state of mind, the idea of Saturn’s return makes me think about the (unrelated) war on Saturn that takes places in the amazing, surreal The People of Paper by Salvador Plascencia, which I am currently reading. People hide under the lead shells of mechanical tortoises to evade Saturn’s voyeuristic gaze!

For more fantastic works of magic realism, see the likes of Jorge Luis Borges, Gabriel García Márquez, Haruki Murakami and Aimee Bender (specifically the books above). I had the privilege of meeting Aimee Bender on November 11 (yes, on 11/11/11) on the Oregon State University campus as part of the 2011-12 OSU Visiting Writers Series. She read a chapter from her new book The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake (which I love) and a fantastic short story about prosopagnosia (i.e., face illiteracy or face blindness) called Faces. Magic realism is currently my favorite genre of fiction. Note to self: remember to read more absurdity from Richard Brautigan.

Back to Saturn’s return

The Saturn return calculator revealed that my girlfriend’s Saturn return started on Halloween 2011 and it doesn’t end until July 2012. She deemed this a disturbingly long duration and shook her fist at Saturn for cursing her to suffer its trajectory-altering, life-changing transformations for longer than most. I’ve since learned that Saturn returns usually last about a month.

Being curious, I entered my birthday into the calculator and found that my first Saturn return was of normal length (one month), during which I bought my house and took a two-week trip to Hawai’i. Both of these events had great significance to me. Intrigued, I looked at other notable positions of Saturn throughout my life and immediately noticed a clear theme emerging: transformational travel.

Below is my Saturn return chart, which I’ve self-indulgently annotated.

So, was the schedule of all these transformational travel experiences coincidental, or were they somehow written in the stars (or dictated by a certain ringed planet)? I have no idea. I do find it fascinating that the three most significant eras of my life (so far) were captured by a random astrological calculator on the Internet.

Stop watching me Saturn!

The first two are out-of-print children’s books written in the 1970s by American author Tomie de Paola. I tracked down copies of these short stories after my dad visited Oregon in September and helped me remember a few books he used to read to my sister and me. When Everyone Was Fast Asleep (1976) and the more obscure Songs of the Fog Maiden (1979) both feature the magical, singing Fog Maiden and her blue cat Token. These two characters visit the children of Earth at night and bring them enchanting, fantastical experiences:

When everyone was fast asleep, the Fog Maiden sent Token to wake us up. And we slid through the curtains into the night. We floated across the grass, dancing on the dew, and met the elf horse. We all sang, “Tra la, tra la, too lay, too lay, hop-a-doodle, hip-a-doodle, flip-a-doodle day.” Down the road we went, counting moons until we came to the troll house, but we were not afraid. We ate hot buttered bread and drank warm milk with honey, and dressed for the ball at the palace. The crocodiles danced a quadrille and the peacocks waltzed with doves and we all sang, “Tra la, tra la, too lay, too lay, hop-a-doodle, hip-a-doodle, flip-a-doodle day.” When the king and queen arrived, the play began. The lion roared while the gypsy slept, and the princess was saved by the sand serpent. The night was over and the Fog Maiden came to cover everything with her dress. She picked us up and floated over the trees to our very own window, where she tucked us into our beds and kissed us asleep.

Now if that isn’t an alien abduction story, I don’t know what is. You miss some context without the illustrations, but the premise of When Everyone Was Fast Asleep is that a large-eyed animal (or therianthrope) peers into your bedroom window at night and whisks you away to an alternate, overwhelming realm of anthropomorphic entities.

(Note: I have illustrated the Fog Maiden and Token the Cat as 8-bit characters for Mascot Mashup, my daily pixel art project; they are scheduled to appear on November 10 and 11.)

The third book, Supernatural: Meetings with the Ancient Teachers of Mankind (2007) by Graham Hancock, is about the origins of art, religious ideas, consciousness-altering agents and consciousness itself (and ultimately how these might tie into modern conceptions of fairies, elves, angels, UFOs, alien abductions, DMT, DNA and the spirit world):

Less than 50,000 years ago mankind had no art, no religion, no sophisticated symbolism, no innovative thinking. Then, in a dramatic and electrifying change, described by scientists as “the greatest riddle in human history,” all the skills and qualities that we value most highly in ourselves appeared already fully formed, as though bestowed on us by hidden powers. In Supernatural Graham Hancock sets out to investigate this mysterious “before-and-after moment” and to discover the truth about the influences that gave birth to the modern human mind.

Hancock’s quest takes him on a detective journey from the stunningly beautiful painted caves of prehistoric France, Spain, and Italy to rock shelters in the mountains of South Africa, where he finds extraordinary Stone Age art. He uncovers clues that lead him to the depths of the Amazon rainforest to drink the powerful hallucinogen Ayahuasca with shamans, whose paintings contain images of “supernatural beings” identical to the animal-human hybrids depicted in prehistoric caves. Hallucinogens such as mescaline also produce visionary encounters with exactly the same beings. Scientists at the cutting edge of consciousness research have begun to consider the possibility that such hallucinations may be real perceptions of other “dimensions.”

More than any other book I’ve read, Supernatural almost unifies (or, at least, neatly gathers) cross-cultural supernatural and paranormal experiences throughout human history. There is much to think about. You might have an existential crisis while reading this book. I highly recommend it.

The fourth book, Wildwood: The Wildwood Chronicles, Book I (2011), is “a spellbinding tale full of wonder, danger, and magic that juxtaposes the thrill of a secret world and modern city life. Original and fresh yet steeped in classic fantasy, this is a novel that could have only come from the imagination of Colin Meloy, celebrated for his inventive and fantastic storytelling as the lead singer of The Decemberists. With dozens of intricate and beautiful illustrations by award-winning artist Carson Ellis, Wildwood is truly a new classic for the twenty-first century.”

I’ll admit that I was first interested in Wildwood because I am a fan of The Decemberists—and because Colin Meloy and his wife Carson Ellis live in Portland, Oregon (which is also the geographic setting for the book). Despite being written for adolescent children, I quite enjoyed Meloy’s esoteric, archaic vocabulary and his antique-weaponry aesthetic (not unlike his quirky songs). Plus there are delightful warring factions of talking forest animals! With 560 sparse pages, it is a fast read (it only took me six hours or so to finish it). Definitely worth the time.

I need to remember to read bizarre children’s books more often. For now, it is time to appreciate the rest of the Day of the Dead. I will eat tamales and drink Mexican hot chocolate.

P.S. I visit How to be a Retronaut regularly and these are some recent posts that inspired me: Nuclear Bunker Mannequins (a secret bunker in England), The Invisible Mother (creepy moms hiding under blankets in old photos), Tunnels of the River Fleet (the largest of London’s subterranean rivers), Rephotographing Budapest (perfect overlay of modern color photos on black & white ones), Twin Peaks: The Last Days (I miss that show) and Video Games Then and Now (I prefer a primitive 8-bit aesthetic).