The Project

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

“Serene was a word you could put to Brooklyn, New York. Especially in the summer of 1912. Somber, as a word, was better. But it did not apply to Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Prairie was lovely and Shenandoah had a beautiful sound, but you couldn’t fit those words into Brooklyn. Serene was the only word for it; especially on a Saturday afternoon in summer.

Late in the afternoon the sun slanted down into the mossy yard belonging to Francie Nolan’s house, and warmed the worn wooden fence. Looking at the shafted sun, Francie had that same fine feeling that came when she recalled the poem they recited in school.

This is the forest primeval. The murmuring
pines and the hemlocks,
Bearded with moss, and in garments green,
indistinct in the twilight,
Stand like Druids of eld.

The one tree in Francie’s yard was neither a pine nor a hemlock. It had pointed leaves which grew along green switches which radiated from the bough and made a tree which looked like a lot of opened green umbrellas. Some people called it the Tree of Heaven. No matter where its seed fell, it made a tree which struggled to reach the sky. It grew in boarded-up lots and out of neglected rubbish heaps and it was the only tree that grew out of cement. It grew lushly, but only in the tenements districts.

You took a walk on a Sunday afternoon and came to a nice neighborhood, very refined. You saw a small one of these trees through the iron gate leading to someone’s yard and you knew that soon that section of Brooklyn would get to be a tenement district. The tree knew. It came there first. Afterwards, poor foreigners seeped in and the quiet old brownstone houses were hacked up into flats, feather beds were pushed out on the window sills to air and the Tree of Heaven flourished. That was the kind of tree it was. It liked poor people.

That was the kind of tree in Francie’s yard. Its umbrellas curled over, around and under her third-floor fire-escape. An eleven-year-old girl sitting on this fire-escape could imagine that she was living in a tree. That’s what Francie imagined every Saturday afternoon in summer.

Oh, what a wonderful day was Saturday in Brooklyn. Oh, how wonderful anywhere! People were paid on Saturday and it was a holiday without the rigidness of a Sunday. People had money to go out and buy things. They ate well for once, got drunk, had dates, made love and stayed up until all hours; singing, playing music, fighting and dancing because the morrow was their own free day. They could sleep late — until late mass anyhow.”

You could describe Brooklyn, New York as serene. In 1912, you could describe it as somber. But Williamsburg, Brooklyn was not somber. Other words didn’t fit, either. Serene only fit to describe summer Saturday afternoons.

The sun shined down on Francie Nolan‘s yard. She remembered the poem she read in school.

This is the ancient forest.

The pine trees and hemlock trees talk.

They are green and have moss,

under the twilight,

they stand like judges and priests.

The tree in Francie’s yard wasn’t a pine tree or hemlock tree. It was an Ailanthus tree. It had pointed leaves and it looked like a lot of opened umbrellas. Some people called it the Tree of Heaven. The seeds didn’t grow easily. They grew in cement. It grew well, but only in poor neighborhoods with old and narrow houses.

The tree grows somewhere first. If the tree grew in a rich neighborhood, everyone knew it would become a poor neighborhood. Poor people would move in. Then, the look of the neighborhood changed. The tree grew well. The Tree of Heaven was always around poor people.

The tree in Francie’s yard covered her fire escape. Francie imagined she lived in the tree every Saturday afternoon in summer.

Saturday’s were wonderful in Brooklyn. Everywhere was wonderful because people had money. They ate, drank, dated, and had sex. They sang, played music, fought, and danced all night. They could sleep late. They only had late church on Sunday.

How Gaming Turned a Hindu Concept Into the Internet’s Most Common Feature

Video games have redefined what it means to be your best self with in-game “avatars,” or characters.

Video games changed how we see ourselves. This is because of the rise of  “avatars” or characters inside of games.

 

Grand Theft Auto Online has more than 4,000 clothing items, Animal Crossing: New Horizons lets players custom design their own outfits, and next-generation titles like Cyberpunk 2077 are going to give players the power to customize their character’s genitals.

A player can wear 4,000 different clothing items in Grand Theft Auto Online. A player can design outfits in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. A player can create their own private parts in Cyberpunk 2077. 

 

Gamers have long referred to the in-game representation of themselves as “avatars.” These virtual embodiments can take any form, so long as the player has at least some influence in how they look.

Gamers call their player characters “avatars.” Avatars can look like anything. The gamer just needs to influence how they look.

 

The concept of molding a role-play character to one’s preferences has been a part of gaming since the earliest table-top role-playing games, like Dungeons & Dragons were released in the 1970s. But modern games have given players near-endless options when it comes to editing avatars.

Making an avatar look however you want is an old feature of games. Since Dungeons and Dragons in the 1970s. New games have many more ways to change an avatar’s look.

 

Today, thousands of gamers proudly post their video game alter egos online and ask other users to “rate my avatar,” whether they play first-person shooters, RPGs, or a pixelated sandbox game. What began as a niche video game term for retro dungeon crawlers has been reincarnated into a word used to describe any visual representation of oneself online, including 100×100 GIFs to intricately designed characters in games like Nioh 2 and Fallout 76.

Today, many gamers post their avatars online and ask others to rate it. It can be from any game. Avatars started in old dungeon games, but now it’s used for any player’s self-character. This can include tiny characters or fancy characters.

 

Avatar then coincidentally crept its way into literature after a science fiction author in the 1990s used the word to describe how he imagined a virtual reality-enabled internet, which exists today. This led other adaptations of the concepts in popular fiction, like James Cameron’s Avatar and Ready Player One. From there, avatar became the term for pretty much any depiction of oneself online.

Avatar was then used by writers. It was first used to describe virtual reality in science fiction. Then, James Cameron used it in the movies Avatar and Ready Player One. James Cameron is a popular director.

 

However, it was gamers that took the word, which was traditionally used in mostly religious contexts, and disseminated it throughout modern culture.

The word was used in religion first. But gamers were the ones who spread the word. Now it’s always used in today’s world.

 

Gamers by no means invented “avatar” on their own. The term is derived from avatarana, the Sanskrit word for “descent” and first made its English debut in 1784 to refer to the earthly incarnation of a deity, like Vishnu in Hindu mythology. But you can thank a lone Dungeon & Dragons fan with aspirations to become a video game developer for propelling the word to stardom within the gaming community.

Gamers didn’t invent the word. It means “descent” or “to come down” in the language Sanskrit. It was used in 1784 to mean a god as a human. It’s from the Hindu religion. But a game maker made the word spread in the community.

 

Richard Garriott is one of the four founders of Origin Systems, the developer of the open-world fantasy RPG series Ultima (1981). The franchise was heavily inspired by classic tabletop games where customization is key, which led to Garriott continuously pushing to add more attributes and character details to each installment.

Richard Garriott partly founded the company Origin Systems in 1981. Origin Systems made the game Ultima. Ultima wanted players to edit their avatars a lot. Richard made sure to give more options for avatars every time the game updated.

Project Description 

After learning about plain language and its best practices, I had to translate an excerpt from A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and then translate a homework assignment from another class. It had to be a reading more difficult with specialized language.

Documentation 

The homework I decided to translate was from my Interactive Narrative class. It’s an excerpt from an article called How Gaming Turned a Hindu Concept Into the Internet’s Most Common Feature.

It had a lot of gaming terms and religious terms but I’m a bit familiar with games so I decided it would be a good yet not-so-hard challenge. Like the first excerpt we worked on, it was easy to simplify paragraphs into a few sentences, however I was leaving out some important details and could have expanded on some sentences. I was simplifying too much. I also wasn’t sure if some words were too difficult and if I needed to break down singular words, such as “flats” or “representation.” I think I was able to translate the poem well, even though I had to look up definitions. I just took every sentence literally, thought about how to make it subject first and an active sentence, then replaced hard words with simpler ones or simple phrases. I made sentences choppy on purpose, and straight to the point. It was a fun project to work on, and it felt like I was writing for a younger child to understand. Personally, plain language does help me even if I don’t necessarily need it—I read way faster and understand way quicker. I kind of wish all writing was this simple!

Reflection Questions

What is the theme of the work?

• The theme of the work is to show the work it takes to translate a written text into plain language. It’s not as entirely easy as it seems, and everyone has different needs. But it’s a way to help even more audiences understand a piece of writing, therefore increasing literacy in whatever field. Art and information should be accessible for everyone, and plain language even helps those who might not necessarily need it. It’s a part of accessible design that is often overlooked, but it’s just as important as making something low-vision friendly or low sensory.

How is that theme particularly expressed through the modality of the week?

• The theme is shown through plain language as I believe maybe people think plain language isn’t necessary or useful since it feels like writing for a child. However, this modality requires deep knowledge of the subject being written, and even deepens understanding of the person writing it.

Which elements of the work are beautifully/wonderfully/perfectly expressed through the modality?

• I think especially for those intellectually disabled, the straightforwardness of the tone and meaning is well expressed through plain language. It’s not confusing but easily understood by everyone. This allows for everyone to experience the authors ideas to the fullest, without having to be confused or feel bad for not understanding.

Which elements are lost or inexpressible through the modality of the week?

• I would definitely say the little details that some people appreciate are lost through plain language. Some details are too complex to keep in or not expressible for plain language, and that’s inevitable and okay. However, these details do enhance and create the experience for people. Translators should try their best to create the same feeling the original work evokes, but it’s not always successful.

Who does this project exclude? Who would not be able to interact with this work? Who is this modality not accessible for?

• This modality might not be accessible for low vision or blind people if the text itself isn’t accessible for screenreaders. It might also be inaccessible for older folks or tech illiterate folks that can’t find the plain language version of texts. Usually accessible features are hidden in sight or hard to find on the internet.

Now that you’ve identified who is excluded, what is one way you could remix this piece to include another population? (You don’t have to make this part, but think about it and write about it).

• Maybe make plain language versions of submitted text in funded places mandatory and paired with the original clearly, so that it’s easily accessible for those who aren’t tech literate. And while you’re at it making it screenreader friendly is also not optional.

Additional Modality (if applicable) 

What modality did you apply? 

• I added creative captions on a visual video as well as a voiceover. 

How did you decide on this modality?

• I decided on this because those who use plain language may have cognitive or intellectual disabilities so having an additional video with visuals can also help with retaining information or even attention span. The creative captions as well as the voiceover make the project more accessible for more audiences, and I thought it could make a super project.

What does the beholder gain from this additional modality? Why? 

• They would gain visual stimuli that isn’t just boring captions, as well as audio stimuli from the voiceover and the sounds in the background. It’s an easy to understand, calming experience with the slow clips and gentler sounds. They can also gain a deeper understanding of the content because people learn and process in different ways.

Does the beholder lose anything from this modality? What? 

• They might lose details from the original text as it’s translated into plain language, or they also might get distracted from things from the video or the audio. Since there’s a lot going on, some details might be lost just from the amount of stimulus going on.

Show documentation of this modality, and describe it if it’s not accessible on a screen (ie, if it’s tactile if it’s a scent) 

Video