You are invited to a Beyond Baroque reading on July 30th at 7:30 pm with Factory School Books poets including:
Diane Ward, Deborah Meadows, Kathyrn Pringle, Sarah Menefee, Allison Cobb, Brian Kim Stefans, Sueyeun Juliette Lee, and Catherine Daly.

The doors open for a reception and to the book store at 6 pm.

Beyond Baroque is located:
681 Venice Blvd.
Venice, CA 90291

Deborah Meadows teaches in the Liberal Studies department at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. Her sixth collection of poetry is from Factory School, Depleted Burden Down. Other recent titles include How, the means (Mindmade, 2010) and Goodbye Tissues (Shearsman Press, 2009).

Diane Ward was born in Washington, DC and currently lives in Santa Monica, California. She attended the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, DC and is studying Geography and Urban Studies at University of California, Los Angeles. She has published eleven books of poetry including, most recently, a collaboration with Tina Darragh and Jane Sprague at #8 in the Belladonna Elders series,2009, No List (no list) from Seeing Eye Books, Los Angeles, 2008, Flim-Yoked Scrim, Factory School, 2006, and When You Awake, New York: Portable Press at Yo-Yo Labs. Several of her poems have been set to music by the Los Angeles composer Michael Webster, including “Fade on Family” which was performed in 2005 as part of The Society for the Activation of Social Space through Art and Sound series at the Schindler House in West Hollywood. “InHouse,” a constructed poem, is forthcoming as part of Kindergarde, the First Avant Garde Anthology for Children.

Catherine Daly‘s book Chanteuse / Cantatrice was published in the Heretical Texts series in 2007. It is a book about collaboration and complicity during World War II and now; it can be read from the bottom of the page to the top and normally.

Allison Cobb is the author of Born2 (Chax Press) and Green-Wood (Factory School). She was born in Los Alamos, New Mexico, as were the first atomic bombs, and she now lives in Portland, Oregon.

Sarah Menefee is a San Francisco poet whose latest books are Human Star [Factory School] and In Your Fish Helmet [Transmission Press].

kathryn l. pringle has written RIGHT NEW BIOLOGY (Factory School), The Stills (Duration Press), and Temper and Felicity are lovers. (TAXT). she lives in Oakland, Ca.

Brian Kim Stefans lives in Los Angeles, California, and teaches digital media and literature at UCLA. His latest books are What is Said to the Poet Concerning Flowers (2006) and Kluge: A Meditation, and other works (2007). In manuscript is a short collected titled Viva Miscegenation. His digital text works and other art projects can be seen at www.arras.net.

Sueyeun Juliette Lee grew up 3 miles from the CIA. Her two books of poems include That Gorgeous Feeling (2007) and Underground National (2010). Juliette also edits Corollary Press (www.corollarypress.org), a chapbook series devoted to new work by writers of color.

Some real kick-ass work from the class this year. I’m bringing donuts and a few other treats, as are some of the students. Kick off the summer with some ambidextrous avant-gardism, Brooklynism performism, techno-spiritualism, Las Vegas shrimp-ism, disease-riddled factism, Mallarmean sestina-ism, and cacophonous Irish-Mexicanism, UCLA style!

The journal won’t be ready but here’s what the cover looks like:

We Control the Weather (cover)

If only for Grace Jones…

MEIGHTH DAY
A Mayday celebration on the 8th of May two thousandth and ten.

Pentagonal Monochrome (Tambourine) performance eventh by Scoli Acosta
and Area Sneaks Los Angeles launch

With: Scoli Acosta, Area Sneaks, Ara Shirinyan, Aaron Kunin, Alexandro Segade (the Universal Separatist), Pearl Hsiung & Scott Martin, Anna Sew Hoy, Gabriela Jauregui, Brian Kim Stefans & more

Featuring: DJ Jan Tumlir

Including: the levitating of the Pentagon, peddling of wares, vinyl records, skeins of homespun yarn yarn straight off the animal, ceramics, small press books, paper jewelry, dog balloon art, preserves and other foodstuffs, manifestations of poetry, the poetics of the manifesto

Date: Saturday, May 8, 2010
Time: 6:00pm – 10:00pm
Location: LA>< Art Street: 2640 S. La Cienega Blvd. City/Town: Los Angeles, CA View Map

Friend of mine from Bard and fabulous filmmaker… not to be missed.

JENNIFER REEVES: WHEN IT WAS BLUE
with a live score by Skúli Sverrisson
Los Angeles premiere
“Reeves’s captivating tour de force explodes all preconceptions about both experimental and environmental film.” The Globe and Mail

2008, 68 min., dual-projection 16mm

This double-projector film performance by New York artist Jennifer Reeves pays rapturous homage to the endangered beauty of our blue planet. Composed in four parts to represent the four seasons and cardinal directions, When It Was Blue traverses the globe and its diverse ecosystems from New Zealand to Iceland, the Americas and beyond, rejoicing in myriad fauna and flora, mountains, forests, oceans, the splendor of seasonal change—in short, the expanse of life as it exists on earth. Reeves hand-paints frames and optically prints other images to create impressionistic textures in what critic Mark Peranson calls “a wide-ranging play on the notion of ‘blue’—the color, the sensation, the sinking realization that the natural world (and 16mm film) must be captured as much as possible before it disappears.” New York-based bass player and composer Skúli Sverrisson—who directs music for Laurie Anderson—plays his soaring score live.

In person: Jennifer Reeves and Skúli Sverrisson

Curated by Steve Anker and Bérénice Reynaud.

I’m going… I’ve only read one of his books but it was really great.

The Korean Cultural Center and Green Integer/Douglas Messerli
invite you to a reading and reception
for the noted Korean poet, Ko Un
on Friday, April 23rd, 2010 at 7:30pm

Location: The Korean Cultural Center, 5505 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90036
(parking is located behind the Center)

Ko Un will be reading in Korean, Douglas Messerli in English

Born in 1933 in southwestern Korea, Ko Un grew up in a Japanese-controlled land that was soon to experience the horrors of the Korean War. In 1952 he became a Buddhist monk, and began writing in the late 1950s. Since that time, Ko has been recognized as one of the most notable of living Korean writers and has regularly been nominated and short-listed for the Nobel Prize for Literature. In 1982 Ko Un published his Collected Poems in Korea. The Los Angeles Publisher, Green Integer, has published two volumes in English by Ko Un to date, Ten Thousand Lives, selections from Ko Un’s 25 volumes of poems about people he has met during his life, and Songs for Tomorrow, selected poems from 1960-2002.

Friday May 7, 2010, 1-3 pm: Noah Wardrip-Fruin, “Meaning What We Play: Games, Fiction, and Expressive Processing”
(5826 Mathematical Sciences Building)

Today’s games have well-developed models of spatial movement, combat, and economics. But their models of fiction barely deserve the name. Even those supporting the most ambitious games are burdensome and bug-prone for authors – while providing the player quite limited ranges of meaningful choice. This talk discusses examples of more dynamic approaches to fiction, considering lessons past work presents for designers wishing to craft models that express their visions for playable fiction. At the same time, the talk argues that critics need to begin to interpret the computational processes of computer games (and digital media generally) and connect them to an understanding of audience experience.

The event will be open to all, but because seating will be limited, please RSVP to David Shepard (dshepard@ucla.edu) if you will be attending.

Additionally, on Monday, May 10, 2010, 4-6pm, in Humanities Building 193, Wardrip-Fruin will present some of his more recent, unpublished research for discussion. All are welcome to attend.

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I’d love to take total credit for the Bank of America’s decision to get rid of overdraft fees for purchases on a debit card. Revolutionary prose can set the heart of corporate America quaking. Thank you, Tom Paine!

Of course, it was just good timing. My piece went live on January 18th, and they made their announcement on March 9th. I sent their CEO/President, Brian Moynihan, a copy of the text on February 2nd, and their Customer Advocate, Jorge Pinedo, sent me a longish letter dated February 17th. They did refund the overdraft fees, which was nice. I also got a phone call which I never returned (purely because I was too busy — I’ve since lost the number).

No mention was made in the in the letter of the forthcoming policy change. The only reference to my text (which was more concerned with the website and its presentation of information) was noting that a bank website cannot keep track of checks written on paper. I mentioned that in the text, of course — I don’t expect a computer, even one with a camera above the screen, to be quite so panoptic. He did write that the Ecommerce Channel division were going to review the text — I wonder!

Anyway, I’m working on a new, shorter version of the document that only addresses the website and not issues with credit and debit. As it turns out, the Wells Fargo site is even less informative than the Bank of America site, but I haven’t tested matters such as how holds and other forms of pending debits are represented.

In case you missed it the first time…

Press Release

Bank of America Online Banking: A Critical Evaluation provides a detailed, easy-to-read critical evaluation of Bank of America Online Banking. It argues that the great portion of the bank’s revenue accrued through overdraft fees is often the result of the deceptive and confusing nature of the online banking site.

The average citizen has no choice but to rely on debit and credit cards for many transactions, which are impossible to track on paper due to the ubiquity of virtual transactions. The BoA online banking center, despite its fluffy tutorials and FAQs, does not make this task easier, but rather conceals the increasingly complex nature of virtual transactions.

This analysis, while informal, integrates the new fields of software studies and data visualization with perennial complaints about the abuses of the banking industry. It argues for a complete transformation in how online (and other forms of virtual) banking is conducted rather than the cosmetic policy changes of recent years.

Contents:

Introduction
Chapters
1. “Perhaps I am not good enough”—the new guilt paradigm
2. A response to bad press—the Clarity Statement
3. The InfoCenter—style without substance
4. The search function within the banking center—formless information
5. Selective education—no “cascading fees” in the search results?
6. Online bill pay—where are the pending checks?
7. Divide and confuse—related information is spread across several pages
8. Overdraft fees—the criminalization of the U.S. citizen
9. “Reviews” of online banking sites—extensions of public relations
10. Conclusions

Appendix I: Screen Captures from Bank of America websites

Appendix II: “The Card Game: Overspending on Debit Cards Is a Boon for Banks”

Appendix III: “5 Sneaky Overdraft Traps”

Appendix IV: Escalating a Complaint and the Executive Email Carpet Bomb

Appendix V: Final Chat Session with Bank of America Customer Service

Endnotes

More L.A. Poetry stuff…

Big City Forum invites you to a conversation with poets, writers, and seers about literal vs metaphoric space, inscape/landscape, the visible/invisble world,liminality — “betwixt and between”– & proximity in motion…

Saturday, March 20th, 2010
4 – 6 pm

Honor Fraser Gallery
2622 S La Cienega Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90034
(310) 837-0191

Featuring:
Mathew Timmons
Elena Karyn Byrne
Vanessa Place
Teresa Carmody
Brendan Constantine

Mathew Timmons is a writer, curator and critic in Los Angeles. He is the General Director of General Projects at various locations including Outpost for Contemporary Art and The Ups & Downs, an installation series, at workspace. He also co-edits/curates Insert Press (w/ Stan Apps), LA-Lit (w/ Stephanie Rioux), Late Night Snack (w/ Harold Abramowitz) and he is the Los Angeles editor of Joyland. A chapbook, Lip Service is recently out from Slack Buddha Press. His first full length book, The New Poetics (Les Figues Press), his micro-book collaboration with Marcus Civin, a particular vocabulary (P S Books), and a chapbook, Lip Music (By the Skin of Me Teeth), are forthcoming. His work may be found in various journals, including: P-Queue, Holy Beep!, Flim Forum, The Physical Poets, NōD, PRECIPICe, Or, Moonlit, aslongasittakes, eohippus labs, Area Sneaks, Artweek and The Encyclopedia Project.

Elena Karina Byrne. Former 12 year Regional Director of the Poetry Society of America, Elena Karina Byrne, is a collage artist, teacher, editor, Poetry Consultant / Moderator for The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, Literary Programs Director for The Ruskin Art Club. Her publications include, 2009 Pushcart Prize XXXIII Best of the Small Presses, Best American Poetry 2005, The Yale Review, The Paris Review, APR, The Kenyon Review, Ploughshares, Poetry, Volt, TriQuarterly, Colorado Review, Denver Quarterly, Painted Bride Quarterly , Barrow Street, Volt and Verse daily. Books include: The Flammable Bird , (Zoo Press /Tupelo Press 2002); MASQUE (Tupelo Press, 2008) and the forthcoming Burnt Violin (2011), and a collection of essays entitled, Beautiful Insignificance.

Vanessa Place is a writer, a lawyer, and co-director of Les Figues Press. She is author of Dies: A Sentence (Les Figues Press, 2006), La Medusa (Fiction Collective 2, 2008), and Notes on Conceptualisms, co-authored with Robert Fitterman (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2009). Her nonfiction book, The Guilt Project: Rape, Morality and Law is forthcoming from Other Press/Random House. Information As Material will be publishing her trilogy: Statement of Facts, Statement of the Case, and Argument. Statement of Facts will also be published in France by éditions è®e, as Exposé des Faits.

Teresa Carmody is the author of Requiem (Les Figues, 2005), Eye Hole Adore (PS Books, 2008), and the chapbook Your Spiritual Suit of Armor by Katherine Anne (Woodland Editions, 2009). Other work has appeared in such publications as Bombay Gin, Fold Appropriate Text, American Book Review, emohippus greeting cards 1-3, and Drunken Boat. An organizer of the original Ladyfest and co-organizer of Feminaissance, Carmody is co-director of Les Figues Press and co-curator of the Mommy, Mommy! Reading Series in Los Angeles.

Brendan Constantine is an ardent supporter of Southern California’s poetry communities and one of its most recognized poets. He has served these communities as a teacher of poetry in local schools and colleges for the last fifteen years. In addition to this, he has lead similar classes in hospitals and shelters for the homeless. In 2002 Mr. Constantine was nominated for Poet Laureate of the state.

His work has appeared in numerous journals, most notably Ploughshares, The Los Angeles Review, The Cortland Review, RUNES, and LA Times Bestseller The Underground Guide to Los Angeles. New work can be found in the Spring editions of Ninth Letter and The Boxcar Poetry Review, as well as the anthology Bright Wings, forthcoming from Columbia University Press and edited by Billy Collins. His collection, Letters To Guns, was released in February 2009 from Red Hen Press.

Mr. Constantine is currently poet in residence at the Windward School in West Los Angeles and the Idyllwild Arts Summer Youth Writing Program in Idyllwild, California.

My weird little update on the Los Angeles poetry scene is in this new issue of Lungfull! This launch, of course, is in New York.

***

The time has come. Lungfull! 18 will be unleashed upon an unsuspecting world in a carnival of never-before-seen acts of…poetry. &c.

LUNGFULL! 18 RELEASE PARTY & READING EXTRAVAGANZA an all-caps evening of excitement

6:30pm Saturday 4/24
Zinc Bar 82 W 3rd NYC
Between Sullivan & Thompson
Subway ACEBDQF to West 4th RW to 8th or Prince

Join us for an evening of poetry. Poetry. & poetry.

HEAR marvelous poems read by marvelous poets!
WITNESS astounding water-defying demonstrations of Lungfull!ism!
BID on indescribable items of vast allure & untellable value!
PURCHASE a brand-new copy of Lungfull! Magazine!
TAKE HOME fabulous volumes of poetry, rough drafts, art, world news reports, cranky letters, & MORE!

$5-15 sliding scale fund raiser. $20 gets you in, plus a copy of the magazine. A pair of sparkly pants & fiery hoops will earn you our unending awe.

Want to read? RSVP & we’ll secure you a spot. Plan on 1-2 poems or 2-3 minutes. Many people will be reading—prepare to be brief & awesome.

Want to contribute a fantastic something to the auction? RSVP & the wondrous TRACEY will contact you with details.

Want to see your friends there? More importantly: want to help Lungfull!
make budget for the year? It’s up to YOU to spread the word! Paper the city with wheat paste. Make your mark on Facebook. Or do it the old-fashioned way: email!

Still reading & eager for more? Visit the death-defying www.lungfull.org.
You won’t be sorry. Or perhaps you will.

Questions? Contact us at lungfull@rcn.com.

Hoping to see you there in your spangly best, LUNGFULL!

The Poetic Research Bureau presents…

ROD SMITH & MEL NICHOLS

Sunday, March 14, 2010 at 4:00pm

@ The Poetic Research Bureau
3706 San Fernando Rd.
Glendale, CA 91206

Doors open at 4:00pm
Reading starts at 4:30pm

$5 donation requested

ROD SMITH is author ofDeed (University of Iowa Press), Music or Honesty (Roof ), The Good House (Spectacular Books), Protective Immediacy (Roof), In Memory of My Theories (O Books), and a CD of his readings, Fear the Sky(Narrow House Recordings). He is editor/publisher of Edge Books and is also editing, with Peter Baker and Kaplan Harris, The Selected Letters of Robert Creeley (University of California). Smith is a Visiting Professor in Poetry at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop for the Spring 2010 semester.

MEL NICHOLS is author of Catalytic Exteriorization Phenomenon(National Poetry Series finalist), Bicycle Day (Slack Buddha), The Beginning of Beauty, Part 1: hottest new ringtones, mnichol6 (Edge), and Day Poems (Edge). Other recent work can be found in Poetry, New Ohio Review, and The Brooklyn Rail. She teaches at George Mason University

I’ve had a small handful of radio and live appearances (that have been boobtubed) appear happen over the past year. Here they are:

***

The iotaWeekly
February 16-21, 2010

Clip of the Week: “January 2010 iotaSalon Q&A with Brian Kim Stefans”
by iotaCenter
Site of the Week: The Rio Carnival 2010 Guide
Artist of the Week: Audri Phillips

More info at The Iota Center

***

Free Verse: Digital Poetry with Oni Buchanan and Brian Kim Stefans
Walker Art Center
Hosted by Eric Lorber
November 11, 2009

More info at The Walker Art Center

***

Macramé (Mexico City)
In Spanish and English
Hosted by Jorge Betanzos
Introduction by Román Luján

http://www.codigoradio.cultura.df.gob.mx/index.php/programas/45-programas-2/1171-macrame-sept-oct

Septiembre 7 – Tenemos la primera sesión netamente internacional en Macramé. Nos acompaña el poeta estadounidense Brian Kim Stefans, quien ha publicado varios libros de poemas, como Free Space Comix (Roof Books, 1998), Gulf (Object Editions, 1998, descargable a través de ubu.com) y Angry Penguins (Harry Tankoos, 2000), entre varios más. Su más reciente título publicado es What Does It Matter? fue editado en Barque Press. Es el editor de /ubu (”diagonal invertida ubu”), una serie de libros en www.ubu.com/ubu y es creador de arras.net, sitio dedicado a la poesía y la poética de nuevos medios. Su arte en internet y sus poemas digitales, como el caso de The Truth Interview (with Kim Rosenfield) y Flash Polaroids aparecieron en Ubu, Rhizome, How2, Jacket and Turbulence. Como podemos apreciar, la carrera de Brian Kim Stefans cuenta con una basta producción y es reputado en Estados Unidos como uno de los poetas de nuevas generaciones con mayor propuesta en el nuevo panorama de la poesía. No te pierdas esta charla, la primera bilingüe en Macramé.

***

Ceptuetics Radio
Hosted by Karreen Estefan
June 18, 2008
http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Ceptuetics.html

Unless 4 feet of snow rain down on Santa Cruz a week from now, I’ll be appearing at this conference with a few others you might know, such as Vanessa Place, Kasey Mohammed, Juliana Spahr, Craig Dworkin, Karen Yameshita, Walter Lew and David Buuck. (At least, those are the ones I know.)

Tree-tall man Charles Olson was not invited, but I promise to doodle some circles on my PowerPoint slides.

Here’s the propaganda:

This conference invites participation in a series of dialogues about the role of the poet-scholar. As a practitioner of poetry or other “imaginative” writing and more theoretical or critical work, the poet-critic or poet-scholar works both inside and outside the university. How do these two activities come together to affect the reading and writing practices of poet-critics and their readership? Since many poet-critics are read within college classrooms or are themselves professors or teachers, we are interested in the pedagogical implications of their writing practices. The conference is an occasion for dialogue across genres, disciplines, readerships and pedagogical practices and focuses on the ways writing practices can encourage creative and critical thinking.

The conference consists of six panels with three papers and invited respondents; a pedagogy colloquium; and poetry readings. Respondents will consist of invited guests and UCSC faculty.

Conference Schedule

[Hmmm, just realized I’m not reading. I guess that means I’m not getting paid!]


Daytime Panels: Humanities 210, UCSC

Friday, March 12
9-9:30am:Welcome address by conference organizers

9:30-11am: 

Panel 1: Historicizing the Poet as Intellectual: Respondent David Lau
Evan Kindley, Juliana Leslie, Jacqueline Weeks

11am-12pm:Lunch and Informal Poetry Reading

12-1:30pm:
Panel 2: Poetics and Reading Methodologies: Respondent Juliana Spahr
Amanda Lim, Alta Ifland, Surya Parekh

2-3:30pm:

Poetry in the Classroom: Pedagogy Colloquium: Moderated by Kasey Mohammed. Confirmed Panelists: Micah Perks, Karen Yamashita, David Buuck, Emily Carr

4-5:30pm:

Panel 3: Poetic Epistemologies and Alternative Forms of Scholarship: Respondent Sina Queyras
Stan Apps, Zachary Caple, Alex Papanicolopoulos

7:30-9pm:
Evening Poetry Readings: Felix Culpa Gallery, Downtown Santa Cruz
Place, Dworkin, Wilson, Mohammad

Saturday, March 13
Please bring a lunch to campus as food vendors are closed or have limited hours. (See blog for suggestions.)

10:30am-12pm: 

Panel 4: Writing and Thinking Between Genres: Respondent Vanessa Place
Lily Robert Foley, Emily Carr and Erin Wunker, Adrian Acu

12-1pm:
Lunch and Informal Poetry Reading

1-2:30pm:

Panel 5: Poetic Conceptualisms and Poetic Productions: Respondent Craig Dworkin
Brian Kim Stefans, Keegan Finberg, David Buuck

3-4:30pm:

Panel 6:
Poetry and Pedagogy: Respondent: Rob Wilson
Rebekah Edwards, Walter Lew, Eireene Nealand

6:30-8pm:
Evening Poetry Reading: Felix Culpa Gallery, Downtown Santa Cruz
Lau, Spahr, Queyras

I’m particularly excited about this as I’ve been a fan of Poundstone’s work for years (and even interviewed him for the Iowa Review Web), and Mancini, who I first met quite recently in Vancouver, is a very interesting artist and smart guy. So go.

A Reading
at Beyond Baroque
27 February, Saturday, 2010 – 7:30 PM
http://www.beyondbaroque.org/
facebook link

GREGORY BETTS, DONATO MANCINI, VANESSA PLACE, WILLIAM POUNDSTONE and CHRISTINE WERTHEIM

Hosted by Mathew Timmons in association with Les Figues Press.

GREGORY BETTS is a poet, scholar, editor, and curator from St. Catharines, Ontario. His books include If Language (Book Thug) and The Others Raisd in Me (Pedlar).

DONATO MANCINI, hailing from Vancouver, B.C., is author of two books of procedural and visual poetry, Ligature (New Star) and Æthel (New Star), both nominated for the ReLitAward and will publish Buffet World (New Star) in 2010. He co-directed the world’s first in-world avatar documentary AVATARA (2003).

VANESSA PLACE is a writer, lawyer, and co-director of Les Figues Press. Recent and forthcoming books include The Guilt Project (Random House), La Medusa (The University of Alabama), and with Robert Fitterman, Notes on Conceptualisms (UDP).

WILLIAM POUNDSTONE has written 12 nonfiction books, most recently Priceless and Gaming the Vote (Hill and Wang). His electronic literature has been featured in The Believer and many web publications.

CHRISTINE WERTHEIM is the author of +|’me’S-pace (Les Figues), 4 LUV ALONE, and Corpus (Triage). She has edited the anthologies Feminaissance and with Matias Veigener, Seancé, and The /n/oulipian Analects.

This event is supported by Poets & Writers, Inc. through a grant it has received from The James Irvine Foundation.

Language Arts Live: Bates’ series of literary presentations offers a reading and performance by Brian Kim Stefans, a poet, professor of English and creator of acclaimed Web-based work that influenced new-media poetics. Sponsored by the English department, the Bates Humanities Fund, the Learning Associates Program and the John Tagliabue Fund for Poetry.

February 4 at 7:30 pm

Chase Hall Lounge
56 Campus Avenue, Lewiston

An algorithmic poem/painting by Brian Kim Stefans
Music by Leo Ornstein
Played by Marc Andre Hamellin
Text derived from the New York Times

Download (recommended):

Mac | Windows

Depending on your OS, please click the application “Suicide on an Airplane 1919” to start. The piece should run for three and a half minutes.

This piece is best viewed on a monitor with a 16:10 aspect ratio. If your monitor does not have this aspect ratio, then it is not advised that you go to full screen mode. Adjust the viewing window accordingly to approximate this ratio.

Browser version:
http://www.arras.net/scriptor/suicide_in_an_airplane_1919/

I recommend the downloaded version only because I haven’t debugged this on a lot of different computers, and so have no idea how the different browser versions look.

Screen Captures:

(more…)

I’ve created a new (free) WordPress blog for the contents of Bank of America Online Banking: A Critical Evaluation. I’ll keep it on Free Space Comix, but I wanted to free up the home page to start being able to post other things. Here’s a screen cap of the new blog.

If you are going to link to this online essay, please link to the other site.

Press Release

Bank of America Online Banking: A Critical Evaluation provides a detailed, easy-to-read critical evaluation of Bank of America Online Banking. It argues that the great portion of the bank’s revenue accrued through overdraft fees is often the result of the deceptive and confusing nature of the online banking site.

The average citizen has no choice but to rely on debit and credit cards for many transactions, which are impossible to track on paper due to the ubiquity of virtual transactions. The BoA online banking center, despite its fluffy tutorials and FAQs, does not make this task easier, but rather conceals the increasingly complex nature of virtual transactions.

This analysis, while informal, integrates the new fields of software studies and data visualization with perennial complaints about the abuses of the banking industry. It argues for a complete transformation in how online (and other forms of virtual) banking is conducted rather than the cosmetic policy changes of recent years.

Contents:

Introduction
Chapters
1. “Perhaps I am not good enough”—the new guilt paradigm
2. A response to bad press—the Clarity Statement
3. The InfoCenter—style without substance
4. The search function within the banking center—formless information
5. Selective education—no “cascading fees” in the search results?
6. Online bill pay—where are the pending checks?
7. Divide and confuse—related information is spread across several pages
8. Overdraft fees—the criminalization of the U.S. citizen
9. “Reviews” of online banking sites—extensions of public relations
10. Conclusions

Appendix I: Screen Captures from Bank of America websites

Appendix II: “The Card Game: Overspending on Debit Cards Is a Boon for Banks”

Appendix III: “5 Sneaky Overdraft Traps”

Appendix IV: Escalating a Complaint and the Executive Email Carpet Bomb

Appendix V: Final Chat Session with Bank of America Customer Service

Endnotes

Brian Kim Stefans is a professor of English and Digital Humanities at the University of California, Los Angeles. The observations and opinions as expressed in this pamphlet are solely that of the author and do not reflect the views of UCLA, nor were any funds from UCLA used in the research or writing.

Note:
This post is a section of Bank of America Online Banking: A Critical Evaluation. This essay is also available as a book which can be downloaded for free at Lulu (where an inexpensive, not-priced-for-profit print edition can also be purchased) and at Scribd. The table of contents for the blog version of this essay can be seen in its entirety here.

“I go on to the bank
and Miss Stillwagon (first name Linda I once heard)
doesn’t even look up my balance for once in her life…”
—Frank O’Hara, “The Day Lady Died” (1959)

It’s no secret that the Bank of America, like all major banks in the United States, relies on income from overdraft fees for the maintenance of their business, and perhaps their growth. Some revenue and profit figures appear later in this report, but this material is available on the internet [endnote 1].

My concern is with a detailed analysis of the Bank of America’s online banking center and how, despite the great amount of money they put into it—it is commonly rated very high among bank websites, despite the flaws in these general evaluations—the concern with BoA is with furthering advertising their product (or products, including items for sale) than for creating a streamlined, accurate experience for their users.

My belief is that the BoA is aware of the amount of “fluff” that is on their site, not to mention the very contradictions inherent in its construction—that is to say, useful information about using the site is buried within it, while the less useful fluff is put forward.

My theses are the following:

A. The information on the website is presented as a continued form of advertisement, not in the spirit of instruction. Warnings about possible mistakes are not highlighted, as would be in any commercial software package.

Graphics are distracting, and page layout is used to emphasize the “positive”—how easy and attractive each feature is—rather than the “negative”—where you can make mistakes and the repercussions which, in this case, unlike in Adobe Photoshop or Facebook (or even free, very simple software programs on the web), can be detrimental to your bank balance. As an additional contrast, medical items such as insulin pumps—I use one—always emphasize the possible dangers of misusing the software.

B. The information presented on the website is incomplete where it could easily be complete, given the availability of this information on other websites (I’m using the Wells Fargo website, as well as social networking sites—the types of sites that set the standard for most young people today—as comparisons). Examples of the incompleteness of this information include:

     1) only providing records of transactions for the past 6 months (or, on the “Available Balance History” page, 3 months), which, of course, is not enough information to permit review of previous overdraft charges to contest a history by the bank of abuses, or to cite precedents for seemingly reasonable behavior by a customer in regards to handling of funds

     2) not providing information on checks that have been paid through Bill Pay on the site that have not yet been presented to the bank,

     3) spreading information about debit card purchases over several screens, reserving information about PIN purchases to the main accounts page and reserving information about signed debit purchases to the Accounts History page (misleadingly titled as the information presented on that page is often more current than that on the Accounts Information page), and, finally,

     4) as a corollary to thesis A, there are no complete tutorials or user’s manuals available on the website, despite the preponderance of attractive multimedia materials, 24 hour chat help lines [endnote 2], and other items that suggest an awareness of the complexity of the site and the budget to address this complexity.

C. The emphasis on style and ease on the website often operates against easy usage. This argument is a bit more esoteric, but relies partly on the arguments of information visualization specialist Edward Tufte, whose short book, The Cognitive Style of Powerpoint [endnote 3], goes so far as to state the poor presentation of information in evaluative meetings led to the disaster of the Challenger space shuttle explosion. He writes on his website:

In corporate and government bureaucracies, the standard method for making a presentation is to talk about a list of points organized onto slides projected up on the wall. For many years, overhead projectors lit up transparencies, and slide projectors showed high-resolution 35mm slides. Now “slideware” computer programs for presentations are nearly everywhere. Early in the 21st century, several hundred million copies of Microsoft PowerPoint were turning out trillions of slides each year.

Alas, slideware often reduces the analytical quality of presentations. In particular, the popular PowerPoint templates (ready-made designs) usually weaken verbal and spatial reasoning, and almost always corrupt statistical analysis. What is the problem with PowerPoint? And how can we improve our presentations? (The boldface are mine.)

Of course, he is arguing against Powerpoint in this case (other books of his offer more detailed assessments of the presentation of information), and the Bank of America website presents more information than a Powerpoint slide (though not, tellingly, much significant information about how to use or traverse it).

However, the argument is the same: the Bank of America’s online services discourage the kind of synthetic reasoning that makes for an effective management of funds. The “cognitive style” of the Bank of America’s website discourages any sort of deep, specific and wary engagement with its data, assuring you that it is all ok. In contrast, the Wells Fargo site offers several ways to accurately synthesize one’s banking information and is no frills in terms of how it presents information—it asks you to be serious about your money.

These theses are scattered around the following arguments and analyses concerning specific aspects of the website and its relationship to virtual transactions.

Note:
This post is a section of Bank of America Online Banking: A Critical Evaluation. This essay is also available as a book which can be downloaded for free at Lulu (where an inexpensive, not-priced-for-profit print edition can also be purchased) and at Scribd. The table of contents for the blog version of this essay can be seen in its entirety here.

When the bank does settle down to present the nitty-gritty about overdraft fees—though still in the spirit of fluff—it rather audaciously begins the discussion with an emphasis on the failures of its clients. The page on the InfoCenter portion of the BoA’s site (not, technically, part of the banking center) concerning credit cards begins with these words:

“We’re all guilty of over-spending from time to time, even though we know we shouldn’t. In this section, you’ll find out why it’s so important to stay within your credit limit.” [endnote 4]

Later in this page [endnote 5], one of the headers, “Think before you spend,” suggests that the bank’s primary concern with its web page is to help you think. However, with the amount of fluff on this page—including an annoying woman, “Janet,” who steps out on to the page to address the visitor through audio and pretends to want to assist you [endnote 6]—the disingenuousness of this cautionary line are clear.

The version of this page concerning overdraft feels on debit cards starts a little more modestly, with the statement: “Ever written a check for an amount larger than you had available in your account? Ever overdrawn your account? Learn how to avoid these missteps.” However, “learning”—at least in terms of how to manage your money, and especially in terms of how to navigate their website—is not the goal here.

The section called “Defining Overdraft and Insufficient Funds” tells you what any customer of the bank knows—you are charged $35 for an overdraft. It does explain some details which one might not garner from experience—though, in fact, my experience contradicts this statement: “When we determine that your account is overdrawn $10 or more, you will be charged $35 for each overdraft item.” I thought the fee was triggered by much less than that. In any case, once the overdraft is charged, then any further purchases—they can be for a dollar, even less—will charge a further fee.

Following this statement are plugs for “Overdraft Protection,” which, as many know, involve getting a credit card (but not borrowing against the credit card according to plan of normal credit card spending—it has to be repaid within two weeks, and charges higher interest [endnote 7]) or maintaining a savings account with BoA—in other words, an advertisement.

What then follows is a section titled “Why you’re charged,” which, as in the credit card page, does not explain “why”—the costs to the company, the purpose, etc.—but what. We do learn here that higher items are deducted first, apparently as a courtesy, though as those of us who have had larger items deducted first, only to have smaller items—bottles of coke, for instance—trigger a series of $35 dollar charges, this is hardly courteous. (This phenomenon is called “cascading fees,” and is described below.) Why, with the sophistication of programming in our present time, an algorithm can’t be written to juggle the order of payments and minimize the costs to the customer, I don’t know.

They then tell you about the “Extended Overdrawn Balance” charge (first I’ve heard of it) which is applied when the balance is not fixed within 5 days. The purpose of this charge—clearly, it is punitive—and the cost to the bank—the “why” of these charges—is not discussed. As for their advice on how you can “help”—what a strange word to use here, as if the bank is simply helpless in enacting these charges—there are three themes: Online Banking, Alerts and Overdraft Protection. Of course, all of these either increase your reliance on the web or require additional activities with the bank.

In the middle of this page is a clearly highlighted link to the “Clarity Statement.” I will address this in the following section.

Note:
This post is a section of Bank of America Online Banking: A Critical Evaluation. This essay is also available as a book which can be downloaded for free at Lulu (where an inexpensive, not-priced-for-profit print edition can also be purchased) and at Scribd. The table of contents for the blog version of this essay can be seen in its entirety here.