The overwhelming ringing was
beginning to drown out the voices.
She didn’t know where it was coming from but it was
getting louder with every ring. Then without any explanation
she found herself at the bottom of the staircase. The very staircase she had
been struggling to climb. All of her efforts had been in vain. Her only option was to start again.
As she began to take the first step she had the urge to reach out. There was something she couldn't see but knew was out there. Then the telephone appeared and before she could say hello she heard an unfamiliar voice on the other end. It whispered to her, “You have to keep going. Don’t stop”. Then there was a dial tone.
“After climbing a
great hill,
one only finds that there are many more hills to
climb”-Nelson Mandela
I chose a simple layout but still wanted the viewer to be able to see the background image. My goal was to link the image and the post. The picture that I wanted to use originally was a building located in New York that I took a few years back but I didn’t think it went with the post. I changed the picture with a picture of a beach shore in Panama City but didn’t want to change my post. I finally decided to keep my post and search for a picture. This time I wanted a never-ending staircase. I wanted to place an image and/or video within the blog. I decided on a Langston Hughes poem, “Mother to Son”. I wanted to place it under the post because of the poem’s content. The mother is encouraging her son not to give up no matter what obstacles he encounters. The environment she describes in the poem is that of an impoverished upbringing and how she was able to overcome it. I placed the video under the post because of this. The video would be the first step and the post is the next step or a few steps higher.
ReplyDeleteCritique:
ReplyDeleteThe text followed the idea of climbing. I interpreted this as metaphorical, rather than a literal climb. I interpreted the “voices all around her” as the major figures in her life, rather than literal voices on the staircase. I was a bit confused as to what the “ringing” was. I realize that these posts are supposed to be mysterious, but I wish that was explained a little better. I guess I’ll have to check back after another post and see if the writer expands on that portion of the story. I was also confused as to why this ringing put her back at the bottom of the staircase-- what struggle does this represent? Why was the climb easier the second time? What is behind the wooden door? The text was intriguing and left me with a lot of questions, which I enjoyed.
The photo in the blog is used as the background, and is an image of a never-ending staircase. The image worked well with the text, both literally and artistically/metaphorically. Literally, of course, because of the story about climbing, however I also thought that it went well with the artistic and metaphorical tone of the text. The text itself is a never-ending staircase, posing questions that are yet to be answered-- we have to keep climbing to find the answers, like in life. In the image, as in the text, the reader has no idea what is coming next (An end? Will we keep climbing? What obstacles will occur?). The tone is somewhat ominous and mysterious, as is the image of the never-ending staircase. The black-and-white color of the image contributes to the ominous tone of the blog. Furthermore, the image is dominating. It worked well as the background, dominating the page, almost haunting the reader behind the text, because it fits with the idea that the climb of life never ends; both idea and image are equally daunting.
As far as formatting, my only real critique would be to place the video at the beginning of the post. I think had I heard the music while reading, and not after, I would’ve experienced the text in an entirely different way. The music, image, and text all work together famously, but I didn’t get the full experience because I didn’t discover the music until after reading.