The professor stared. "Have you," he said, "really spent your time in studying such nonsense?"

(Haha, no, I don't actually think this is entirely nonsense; I was looking as I read for a good quote about study and research from Frankenstein that I could use as the title, and I found this one somewhat comical.)

In my revisiting of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, (I've only reached the letters and beginning chapters thus far) one thing that particularly stood out to me in the terms of remix was the use of  the captain's letters at the beginning. These letters don't necessarily pertain to remix in the sense of remaking something already done into a new version, but rather in the sense that it pieces together different media to tell a story, something which remix also does. Having the two different perspectives of the captain's letters and then Dr. Frankenstein's firsthand account adds a greater depth and texture and meaning to the story than it would if it was just Dr. Frankenstein's perspective or just the captain's letters. I think remix has a similar effect in that combining multiple pieces of media together give a new and different feel and meaning to the combined piece than any of the pieces have on their own.

I see this for example in my personal favorite remix, which I know I've mentioned in class before, but have never actually posted or showed to you. Here it is, the U2 music video to "Window in the Skies" which remixes countless examples of other music video footage to make something completely new and wonderful. I never get tired of it:

In combining each of these videos together, we get a completely different story and feel than each of the other music videos would have separately. Frankenstein does the exact same thing. Furthermore, this video shows that remix can be used  for things beyond often stupid parodies, but rather can be used for beautiful art.

As I  branched out further in my research, I encountered another remix video which I  also really like and which fits in quite well with our theme of remixing classic literature. This is a beautifully done remix combining footage from the PBS TV mini-series called "The Dust Bowl" with text from Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath.

It helps to bring Steinbeck's words to life and makes the text more accessible to a wider audience, and in turn his text adds greater meaning to the images that it's juxtaposed with. Again, this shows how remix can be used for something positive, useful, and even educational instead of just for comic entertainment.