But no actual cats. I saw this animation the other day, and something in it resonated so deeply that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. It’s viral, I think, in an infectious way. The only thing that’s left is for me to pass it on.

(Crossposted from MediaCommons.)

I’ve hinted over the last several months that big things were afoot for MediaCommons, but haven’t been able to be terribly specific; at last, however, the haps:

Our friends at the Institute for the Future of the Book have today announced their new institutional partnership with New York University (which NYU likewise announced recently).

Happily, the first fruits of this partnership directly benefit MediaCommons; working with the NYU digital library team, we have received an NEH Digital Startup Grant that will enable us to build the social networking backend for the fully-functional MediaCommons network we’ve been planning.

As Ben notes at if:book, we’re all enormously excited, and we’ll be looking forward to announcing more such developments in the future.

Alarmingly, we’ve hit the midpoint of spring break already, and this is the first time I’ve managed to post. I’ve meant to post every day — really, I have — but what with one thing and another…

• One thing: a really nasty cold that began settling in, of course, last Saturday.
• Another: the knowledge that these few days are the only bit of time to work on my chapter-in-progress for the foreseeable future.

Between having a head full of ideas about my project and a head full of best-left-undescribed other substances, I haven’t really given posting a second thought. The chapter is rocking along; I think I’m moving into the home stretch with it. And the cold is beginning to recede, thank goodness.

For now, though, just a quick update on my whereabouts for the coming weeks, partially by way of preemptive excuses for future lulls:

• Thursday and Friday, March 20 and 21: Fresno. I’m giving a talk at a colloquium on the future of the book at Cal State, Fresno, which is drawn from the chapter I’m madly trying to finish; fortunately, the talk will primarily focus on the background materials, which are firmly in place.
• Wednesday to Saturday, March 26 to 29: New Orleans. I’m giving a talk at Tulane on Thursday afternoon, drawn from another chapter of the project, and moderating a panel on Pynchon on Saturday at the Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival.
• Thursday to Saturday, April 3 to 5: San Francisco. I’m giving a presentation at the NITLE Summit on my uses of Drupal and other web technologies in my teaching.

I’ll hope to blog some of the other talks at these events, which promise to be great. In the interim, however, back to preparing my own…

For the last couple of years, I’ve been a member of the executive committee of the MLA’s discussion group on literature and media (a group name that makes me a little bonkers). Each year, we sponsor one panel at the convention; this year’s call for papers is below. If you’re working on Second Life, please send Matt your proposal ASAP!

Session sponsored by the MLA’s Media and Literature Discussion Group
for the 2008 convention in San Francisco:

Second Lives: Reading and Writing Virtual Worlds

Second Life and other persistent virtual worlds, with preference to topics other than pedagogy. 1-page abstract and short vita by March 15 to Matthew Kirschenbaum, mgk AT umd DOT edu.

The symposium was a smashing success, I’m happy to report; the talks were all pitch-perfect and, for a Saturday, we got a respectable turnout. Honestly, though, I’d have been fine if it had just been me in the audience, at least on a certain level — I felt as though I’d thrown myself a day-long party, and if other people wanted to come, it was that much more fun.

All that said, I still feel like I’ve been beaten with a two-by-four for the last several days. It’s going to take a bit for me to recover — and given that I’m flying off to Philly for SCMS at oh-dark-thirty on Wednesday, I’m not going to have much opportunity.

Hopefully there’ll be more blogging, though, recovered or not; I’ve got a serious itch to get back to work, and want to post about it…