The lover waits by the phone expecting a call. The lover keeps the phone in sight, but attempts to distract him/herself. S/he is (not) waiting for the beloved to call. The clock ticks audibly. The lover checks his/her watch and recrosses his/her legs. Perhaps the beloved is delayed; something may have come up. The minutes drag on. The lover begins to wonder: what if the phone is out? Is there trouble with the line? Should I lift the receiver to check? But the beloved may try to call while the phone is off the hook (however briefly -- the lover is thinking hysterically, not rationally, now). The phone rings; the lover snatches it up. Betrayal, it is not the beloved, but rather some nuisance tying up the line. The lover has been waiting hours now; s/he begins to fantasize: perhaps the beloved has been in an accident, is possibly dead ...
The lover's scene of waiting is familiar to us because the stereotype of romantic love has currency in our culture. We see it repeatedly in books, films, and on TV; we experience it ourselves. It is an image to which we respond with recognition and identification. Each of our specific image-repertoires consists of such general images. Zin/ography, as a way of writing, shows us how to stage this repertoire for ourselves so that we might better explore how our identifications are working in us.
Because it toys with our identifications, zin/ography has affinity with the electronic writing of entertainment culture more so than with traditional academic writing (which asks you to be objective). Zin/ography, however, as a writing practice might occur in many mediums (for example, hypertext, video, or paper) -- both electronic and print; regardless, it's logic remains the same. Because zin/ography draws its material from you, from your life, the preliminary exercises listed below are designed to solicit this material from your experiences. Be sure to save all of your work as the class progresses; you will revisit all of it when producing your final project.