Mr. Plimpton's Revenge and Tailspin

Electronic literature is a part of digital humanities containing a combination of interaction and story.  E-lit can also be defined as “a genre of literature encompassing works created exclusively on and for digital devices”.  The first story that was studied this week was “Mr. Plimpton’s Revenge” by Dinty Moore.  This was a story made using Google Maps which was very interesting.  It was about a college student junky journalist that was in charge of chauffeuring his idol, famous writer Mr. George Plimpton, to his desired locations in Pittsburgh.  Later both characters met at various locations throughout the story.  This journey was an interesting one and the title is a little misleading.  There wasn’t really a revenge involved at the end.  The revenge was that Mr. Plimpton forgot who the student was.  He just thought that the student was a junky that went to school.  It was not really a revenge, and for some people it doesn’t count as a revenge.  Overall the plot was simple and very enjoyable.

The next story we read was “Tailspin” by Christine Wilks.  The purpose of this text was to simulate what it would be like to have a disease called tinnitus.  The usage of various images and sounds made the text swirls connect to the overall theme.  It did not matter which order the swirls were viewed in, as the story made sense in either direction, which was neat.  Wilks remembered that her father had tinnitus and that inspired this story.  He refused to get a hearing aid to soften the noise, and kept getting angry at Wilk’s children for being too noisy.  The noises do get annoying after awhile, but that’s all part of the simulation.  Tinnitus is a condition where sounds will be heard without a cause. It’s usually caused by constant exposure to loud noises. The father, being an aircraft fitter during WWII, most likely obtained this condition from being around loud planes so often.  Each layer of this piece gave hints to the father's condition and annoyance towards noise.  The visuals were amazing to look at and brought the essence of the children and sound through various images.  Overall the noises can get annoying after awhile, but the overall story and simulation make the noises fit.