The Babysitter

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In reading “The Babysitter” I am mostly confused I had a really hard time following the narrative as a whole and figuring out what perspective it was taking. The story was written with the intent to blur reality and it does that very well, I would say personally to well since I was lost most of the time. Nevertheless, I was struck with how well It would make a digital “choose-your-own-adventure” style narrative. If the babysitter had some other que to let the readers know what perspective, they were reading then it would be easier to follow along and really engage in the narrative. While this might have taken away from what writer Robert Coover wanted it would have allowed some of his readers to better engage in the story overall. My personal opinion aside it is interesting to see the impact and change over the years from works like “The Babysitter” to things like “Those we love Alive” by Porpentine while The Babysitter is multinarrative it is really only the building blocks of what we have today, as discussed in Electronic Literature written by Scott Rettberg. The effect of multilinearity is so prevalent in todays society it is rather remarkable. The use of how hypertext and links are shared and used in daily life is second nature now. With the internet and web-sharing you would be hard pressed to go a day without interacting with hypertext or a multilinear platform built off of the foundations of The Babysitter and works like it.

 

sources:

Electronic Literature written by Scott Rettberg

 

Robert Coover The Babysitter

 

Those we love Alive” by Porpentine

http://slimedaughter.com/games/twine/wtwla/

 

The Babysitter – January 25, 2019

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Although 1969 provided no technical advantage for Robert Coover to create a piece of hyptertext fiction, he instead wrote what would essentially be the inspiration for hypertext fiction by forcing the reader to use as little information as possible to string together a coherent story.

In his piece “The Babysitter” a mundane plot of a babysitter washing the kids and putting them to sleep takes multiple perspectives in a non-chronological order. However, the lack of chronology is not what is confusing and captivating to the reader. What catches the reader’s attention is the fact that each perspective of the story includes that person’s imagined story of how the rest of the night unfolds. The babysitter’s boyfriend and his friend imagine raping her or seducing her, the babysitter imagines accidentally killing the baby, the father of the children imagines cheating on his wife, etc. These are just some examples of the various plot lines in the story, and some of the characters even create multiple stories within their minds about what actually happens. As a result of this mixing pot of plot lines, the story seems to constantly be correcting or contradicting itself, further adding to the confusion and noise that the short story creates.

This piece was very important for hypertext fiction, which is, at its very basic structure, a mixture of technology with writing to add to the story in a way that an analog piece of writing could not do. A common feature of hypertext fiction is interactivity, meaning that the story can branch off into multiple paths, or further immerse the reader by putting them into the story, and a countless amount of other techniques. In his novel Electronic Literature, Scott Rettberg states that “hypertext fiction may not have swayed the culture to accepting nonlinear storytelling on the computer and the network as a successor to printed books, but it has served as a foundation for many new types of literary work in digital media” (Rettberg, 86). An overall criminally overlooked genre of writing, hypertext fiction has nonetheless proved influential for postmordern writing. Nevertheless, hypertext fiction’s influence will likely continue to appear in new writing, both digital and analog, but it all starts with “The Babysitter”.

Blog 2 :Hypertext Fiction

,
Christine

While I did enjoy reading Coover’s The Babysitter much more than Taroko Gorge, The Babysitter leaves me wanting something more when it comes to being able to comprehend a story or at least get a grasp of what it is trying to teach me. The story goes back and forth between Harry and Dolly Tucker, the young female babysitter(Jeannie?) with the two children Jimmy and Bitsy, and her boyfriend Jack who is hanging with his friend Mark. Already we have three narrative paths to follow (and possibly a fourth?).

Good luck keeping track of what’s what.

At first, I felt that I was somewhat able to follow what was happening in the story. Mr. Harry Tucker fantasizes about doing sexual activities with their babysitter Jeannie while his wife seems slightly suspicious of him. Jeannie’s boyfriend Jack wants to go further with her but is too timid to do so so he also fantasizes about her while his friend, Mark, tries to talk him into seeing her with him. And then there’s Jimmy who seems to have an odd fascination with the lovely babysitter as well.

What even…

This story jumps all over the place more and more the farther you read into it. For example, on page ten, the story jumps from Mr. Tucker trying to come up with an excuse t so that he can “run over” to the house, Mark and Jack trying to catch a glimpse outside of the frosted bathroom window, Jeannies’ 8:30 television program, an awkward tub scene between Jeannie and Jimmy(?), Mark and Jack trying to rape Jeannie, and then Mr. Tucker possibly fantasizing about Jeannie in a naughty way. It is so hard to appreciate the little details and descriptions the author has put into this piece when it is so agonizing to try and make sense of this story!

It is extremely challenging to tell whether everything that is happening is real, fake or a mixture of both. Despite these problems, we can connect this story and its spider web of a layout to another hypertext fiction. In Michael Joyce’s Afternoon, A Story, as mentioned in Rettberg’s Electronic Literature, most readers interpret the piece as something that:

“Forces the reader through detours without coming to a clear end “(Rettberg, 70-71)

We see this in The Babysitter. Sometimes she’s getting raped, other times she’s getting murdered, offered a ride home, questionable handling of a little boy’s penis, spanking someone, teasing Mr. Tucker, playing with herself or her boyfriend. The story is almost like a messed up version of “Choose Your Own Adventure” except the reader doesn’t get to choose. They are forced down these various paths until the end of the story. Then they have a choice as to how they think the story went.

Dylan Niehaus – The Babysitter

Dylan

The Babysitter by Robert Coover is an intriguing piece of literature that, while innovative and interesting, is too confusing and fragmented for me to fully enjoy. The story is written in such a way that it is just a series of events separated physically on the page by paragraphs. Each event seems to switch from one location and set of characters to the next. Based on the reading and other quick research I performed to learn about this piece of electronic literature, the point of The Babysitter is to create a story in which the reader is unsure whether or not the events are either reality or part of a fantasy within the character’s minds. But when I read the story, instead of finding myself guessing whether or not what was happening was fantasy or reality, I just found myself confused and frustrated trying to figure out what was going on in the story. Despite my frustration with this piece of literature, I can definitely respect it for the groundwork that it laid out for future pieces of electronic literature that fall into the category of hypertext fiction. The way in which the story involves the reader in multiple narratives is interesting as each paragraph is an event taking place in a different location with different characters. This strategy of listing out separate events instead of writing a traditional flowing narrative laid out the groundworks for future pieces of hypertext fiction. The Babysitter really cemented the idea of creating a story that can be seen in different ways by the reader, which was quite a feat considering that it was created before electronic literature was a recognized medium. Future writers of hypertext fiction could look back on The Babysitter and utilize present technology to create their own stories with branching narratives by providing different hypertext links, giving the reader more control over what happens in the story. Instead of being a story that can have different meanings to the reader just by the way the story is written, hypertext fiction is now able to give the reader a direct way to shape their “own” story.

Hypertext Fiction

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0alloldusers

Coover’s story “The Babysitter” works as a model for later works of Hypertext by creating a nonlinear narrative path without using electronic tools. The narrative directly involves the reader by providing them with various perspectives on the same story and not directly revealing which perspective is which. The narrative switches between perspectives along the way, which can cause further confusion for the reader. Because of the way that “The Babysitter” is formatted, the reader must infer which perspective is which, and try to formulate a coherent story from both the information they are given, and the information they are not. This story makes sense as a precursor to modern Hypertext because modern Hypertext tends to feature fragmented narratives that are connected through various “hypertext” links. “The Babysitter” works as a Hypertext narrative without the technological advancement of Hypertext. In other words, the narrative could be easily translated to modern Hypertext and have a similar effect on readers today.

The Babysitter

Mariah Gwin

The main quality with works of hypertext are their non-linearity. Though Robert Coover’s “The Babysitter” may appear at a glance to be linear given its written out, print-based format, it is anything but. If someone were to read it linearly, they would quickly within just the first few paragraphs find themselves deeply confused or simply catch on that there is a different way to read this particular work. Looks can be deceiving after all.

While this work cannot be considered a work of Electronic Literature, it is an early example of multi-linearity.

The story consists of over one hundred fragments – paragraphs set off from each other by space breaks, that take us through multiple and divergent sequences of what might have or what could have occurred during the course of one evening between a babysitter, a baby, her boyfriend, and the mother and father of the house.

By describing the events of the night from these multiple perspectives, and providing the reader the opportunity to experience multiple endings through the course of the work, Coover has clearly and quite deliberately developed the structure for housing various paths the reader could take within the single text.

Later works of hypertext are all born digital but follow a similar structure to that which Coover demonstrates with his multi-linearity, storylines, and paths. Instead of separating by space breaks, each section of text would be in its own node whether on Twine or StorySpace (pre-Twine), and would have a word or sentence linking to the next node of text following a path. The digital age could far better take advantage of this method of storytelling and providing interactivity for the reader, but Coover’s “The Babysitter” certainly cast a light on the potential in storytelling linearity/multi-linearity and its structure.

Blog 2 – 1/25/19

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After going over the weekly readings, we can look at Hypertext, not as a classification but as a common term, the word hypertext is used to describe writing that is made possible by the invention of the computer and is created in the nonlinear or non-sequential space. Also, unlike print, hypertext offers numerous paths between text fragments. With its webs of linked fragments sometimes referred to as lexias, these fragments give us alternate routes that hypertext uses drastically with technology, giving us interactive independence which frees’ the reader from the author control. Hypertext users and creators are thought of as co-learners or co-writers, mapping and remapping the textual, visual, and kinetic components.

The mechanics behind “The Babysitter” follows somewhat of a TV guide listing. It is separated into sections, each of which links to a television program. From the beginning, Robert Coover uses key phrases to link the reader to characters. For example, the repeated phrase of “light brown hair” identifies Mr. Tucker, while “enough’s enough” or “that’s enough” identifies Jack. As the story develops, the character’s points of view begin to blend, and annoying attempts are made to differentiate among them. When we get to the end of the story, chaos has substituted the stories simplicity and reason. The shift in viewpoints is supposed to simulate channels changing and the fragmentation of realism in television. When we look at the beginning of the story, it was somewhat easy to recognize and distinguish the different points of view. By the end, it was somewhat jumbled.

Robert Coover’s “The Babysitter”: Multilinearity and later works of hypertext fiction

kzoller

Image result for coover the babysitter

Rettberg stated that movement within a multilinear narrative can be demonstrated through a change of tone, shifts in point of view, and through fragmented texts. (Rettberg 2019, p. 57). Coover’s story “The Babysitter” achieves just that, involving the reader in multiple narrative paths by rewriting the events within the story, alternating between points of view, and by telling the story in fragments.

Every so often, Coover would revisit an event in his story but change the details in subtle ways (this happens more frequently as the reader progresses the story.) This served to build up tension and cause the reader to think critically about which narrative they were following at any given moment. In addition, Coover alternated the point of view in each paragraph, allowing him to introduce more elements to the narrative for the reader to explore. He also presented fragments of the story at a time, cueing the reader to mentally change the setting, characters, and mood in their minds with the corresponding narrative paths.

To conclude, the story’s structure involved the reader in multiple paths by presenting them with rewritten passages, alternating points of view, and with only fragments of the story at a time. Each of these features caused the reader to think critically, introduced more elements to the narrative structure, and cued the reader of transitions within the story, which in combination helped to move the narrative along and presented the reader with multiple paths.

In many ways, Coover’s story “The Babysitter” was a model for later works of hypertext. Generally, the hypertext genre includes fragmented text, alternative narrative structures, and complications of character development and chronology (Rettberg 2019, p. 68), which can all be identified within Coover’s piece.

As discussed earlier, the author represented the story in fragments. This enabled Coover to utilize an alternative narrative structure that was unlike the classic format of printed works. With this alternative structure, the author was able to arrange events in a loose chronological order that made it somewhat complicated for the reader to interpret. He also shifted to a different character’s point of view after every passage, inviting the reader to ponder the characters’ motives in a complex way. Each of these aspects- fragmented text, alternative narrative structure, and complicated chronology and character development- are all reflected in later hypertext works, which were largely based upon Coover’s model of storytelling. I am interested in somehow including these aspects in my final project.

However, there are features in hypertext fiction that are absent in Coover’s story, such as link and node structure. These are key aspects in many hypertext works due to their usefulness in identifying paths and representing the story in some visual form. Another feature that is absent is the exploration of navigation apparatus. Generally, hypertext writers use the affordances of technology by providing the user with new ways of navigating and experiencing text. Readers follow a linear progression of paragraphs in Coover’s piece, allowing limited agency for navigating text or choosing the story’s direction.

Sources:

Electronic Literature by Scott Rettberg

Gorge Taroko Gorge: Combinatory Poetry in Motion

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While taking DTC 101, I learned about Electronic Literature. I was fascinated by the medium because I am a writer. Combinatory Poetics is style of writing that I have never heard of. While reading the text I found that it was part of the early avant-garde/ abstract art movement which I have never been a fan of. With that said, I do fine that Poems that I read to be exciting. The poem Taroko Gorge is about nature. It appears the poet admires nature. While reading the poem, the images of trees and rocks I seen while hiking last year came to mind. The poem Gorge is about the human body. It was as if the poet was a practicing coroner that was studying the human body; Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man came to mind.

 

I not familiar with source code. To be honest, I did not understand what the heck I was looking at. I can only assume that it was generated through an algorithm. While reading the poems I kind of felt like I was the scrolling text at the beginning of Star Wars. The way to poems are presented allows the readers to be part of the action. If a few lines were missed by the reader the first time, the reader would have to read it again to fully understand the meaning of the poem. It’s kind of like watching a movie again and seeing something you missed the first time. I would like to try my hand at writing this kind of poetry.

Combinatory Poetry & Taroko Gorge

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Mallory

Before reading these chapters and viewing both the original Taroko Gorge and several other versions, I had heard of blackout poetry and collage, but not combinatory poetry (either physical or digital). Similarly, I had learned about Dada (visual) art in an Art History class, but not much about their textual or audio art, or how that influenced forms of e-literature. With that, I have found a new appreciation for the Dadaists in light of how they paved the way, in a manner of speaking, for Taroko Gorge and other forms of combinatory poetry. Taroko Gorge also seems to have derived at least partially from the surrealists (I believe that this is mentioned in the book as well) as the poems (or poem, if each version is seen as simply one small part of a whole, rather than several distinct versions separate from the source) seem to speak to a subconscious chaos that combines aspects of both Dadaism and surrealism.

I haven’t done much coding (I learned about HTML and CSS in Brenda Grell’s 201 class, but that’s the extent of my experience) but looking at the source codes were very interesting. I would definitely like to learn more about computer coding in order to better understand the digital aspect and the underlying mechanics of e-literature.

Of the other combinatory poems drawn from Taroko Gorge’s code, I especially liked Tournedo Gorge, which combined computer and cooking metaphors in a surprising yet effective way. I hadn’t thought about it before, but the poem showed how both cooking and computer art (or even computer science) are composed of many smaller aspects all lending to a whole, as well as both drawing from the past to build towards the future.

Another that stood out was ‘Wandering through Taroko Gorge’ by James Burling; this poem seemed to draw not only on variables within the code, but with words supplied by each reader. Unfortunately, the website was broken (I believe that the code wasn’t updated enough for Chrome, but again, I don’t know quite enough about code to tell exactly what as going wrong). However, even the broken quality of the poem spoke to the fragility of e-literature, illuminating just how fleeting, and therefore precious, it can be.

Overall, I liked the concept of both Taroko Gorge and combinatory poetry. I believe it builds on both poetic & literary foundations while forging new pathways for artists, writers, and coders alike.

Exquisite Corpse

Will Luers
As the door opened, his worst fear stood before him.
Steve walked happily down the street.
She loved him, though.
The white roses glistened with blood as it dripped into the stream below.
He drank deeply from his glass, ruminating on the past.
I am lost and deeply afraid.
The boy lets out a frightful shriek.
Stunned, they quickly turned to find something they never expected.
They came to the crest of the hill and looked out over the landscape.
They decided to go out for some fresh mexican food.
But he bounded away into the forest before he was seen.
he climbed on his back and began to climb
They were gaining; she ran until her breath came slow and deep.
Suddenly the dog started barking.
Their cat had the face of a human man and giant strong human hands to match.
Down the bleak road a cat scurried across the path.
They stood there for a short while, letting the rain soak them.
They wandered around the marketplace in search for the perfect pear.
Where we’re going, we won’t need eyes to see.
I was completely incredulous; had that actually happened?
Watching t.v. while relaxing and having a drink.
In the corner of his eye was the reflection haunting him.
They’ve never felt sadness and emptiness like this before.
The man went into the dark room and faded away.
The screams echoed throughout the night

Taroko Gorge – January 18, 2019

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“Taroko Gorge” is a fascinating form of writing that is generated randomly from a bank of words. It may have a deep meaning, or it may have no meaning at all. Perhaps it was done for the sake of doing it, but, much like any form of writing, the great thing is that a meaning can always be found within. For the original piece, for example, the elegant word bank that exists portrays beautiful images of nature with words like “hum”, “crags”, “ripplings”, and “pace”, that can evoke calming, wondrous images. Alternatively, a piece like “Hey Gorgeous” follows a narrative of word banks that describe the story of people at a club. The beauty of this digital art is that no matter what environment is inserted into the code, it seems as if the emotion of that environment is present throughout the piece.

Although there is no true narrative due to its randomness, this technique gives these pieces of writing a feeling as if they are snapshots of what is occurring in the world of the story. It is as if each line of code is equivalent to a person within this world blinking.

The code feels oddly akin to how a program like Twine functions, jumping around from bubble to bubble, creating a sense of controlled chaos. In the words of Scott Rettberg, it is “calm, almost zen-like poetry.” Zen-like can even mean unsettling, however. “The Dark Side of the Wall” generates lines of lyrics from the band Pink Floyd, taking the often dissonant feeling of the band’s lyrics and continuing it via technology. It can be argued that this is not true writing, but this does not seem to be what Taroko Gorge and its varations are trying to accomplish. What it is trying to accomplish is shared with writing, however. It makes its reader think.