I’ve had Woody Guthrie’s “Hard Travelin’” drifting in and out of mind for the last week. I don’t think I’d ever heard it before the 35th Reunion of The Johnston Center for Integrative Studies at the University of Redlands, which I attended over the long presidential weekend. Johnston’s a small alternative school (originally separately accredited as Johnston College) and reunions happen every five years for all graduates (not just those from certain years). It’s great meeting people who attended Johnston years before or after me. I was reminded, over the weekend, that I still find the Johnston model of education inspiring — and I had the opportunity to publicly thank Prof. Bill McDonald, who taught me the method of organizing class discussion around a student-created agenda that I’ve used in almost all my teaching. The weekend also saw one of my more unusual publications. I made two contributions to Hard Travelin’ and Still Havin’ a Good Time: Innovative learning and living at the Johnston Center, 1979-2004, the just-released followup to the history of Johnston College. (By the way, if you know anyone who is smart and creative and looking for an undergraduate institution, I’d be happy to correspond about why I’m happy to have chosen Johnston.)

Now I’m in Providence, where I participated in the very successful E-Fest 2004 organized by Talan Memmott and Bob Coover. Unfortunately, I started feeling sick on the plane ride out here — and now I’m hearing “Hard Travelin’” in a different way, lying in bed and trying to recover from bronchitis. I hate the feeling of my lungs bubbling as I draw each breath. It’s worse than the coughing.

Assuming I recover, I’ll be down in NYC this Friday, briefly, where NYU’s ITP program will be throwing a book party for First Person and Alex Galloway’s new book, Protocol.

Come celebrate the release of two new books on new media:

“Protocol: How Control Exists After Decentralization” by Alexander R. Galloway

“First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game” edited by Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Pat Harrigan

when: Friday, Feb. 27, 6:00pm where: Japanese Room, ITP, 721 Broadway, 4th floor, New York City.

refreshments, book signing, Q&A w/ the authors, the works!

Sponsored by the NYU Department of Culture and Communication, NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program, and The MIT Press.

Now back to sleep…

My mom’s heart stopped last month. It was an accident. They were testing to see if a pacemaker would help her. She says being dead is nothing. Just nothing.

They shocked her with paddles. They gave her a double dose of adrenalin. She says it felt like they were bringing her out of a warm, bright, peaceful place. Like a beach in Hawaii. Something was happening there. A woman’s voice was saying, “Wake up Carolyn. You’re alright. Wake up.”

This doesn’t appear to have yet reached the online catalogs. So I thought I’d post it here.