May 13th
May 14th
May 15th
May 16th
May 17th
May 18th
Total for this week: 39.5
Books this week:
Insidious One(your best friend and enemy)
I know you, I have known you, I will you know you
Cruel Black Dragon
You slayer of kings
You sinker of ships
ride me low
till the tide breaks
and I am forced to flow
The longest journey With every footfall I’m learning to walk again I’m learning to talk again I’m learning to be silent…
Kno me?
Know one, can know me
unless they get to know me
unless they get close to me
so these judgments
I toss them out.
These words are fables
Spoken to attack me
I am the one who must know me
(re)relapse
Frozen defense mechanism
striped me bear
learning to flow
taught me to repair
growing out
not turning it
Shadows now rise to try and take me back again
\Growing Wings/
Arrogant Adolesence find pride in what they can
To build up
little egos.
To Block out the sky
Afraid to fly.
Its to high! they say, but they will pay with their blood
should they stay on the ground
for this is where the tigers stalk the living
already dying
weeping sores hidden under ragged clothes
punctuate the verbage
Arrogant Adolescence shake the youth from your eyes
your wings hide under layers of old flesh
Learn the struggle and the joy that is flight
W o r k
My job
My duty
is to accept
the un
expected
which so
defines my reality without
thesetethers
The Shaman Way
trance states, dance and drumming
transmutation: the mundane into the magical
surreality as true reality
Feeling is the most important compass
Playing with the moment
Exercises in Flow
Summon a fire breathing pit demon
and ask it for dancing lessons
Playing with your future
like an REI switcheroo
make like a kangaroo
and bounce
watch, listen, learn
words to shift by
driving yourself crazy
with haze
its only a phaze
if your react to your plight
don’t fight, if you don’t want a snake bite
that slither in stomach
needs your to speak
Parsletongue
New Beginnings
Caterpillar crawling on a leaf
cant see past its next bite
wants desperately to melt away
so it consumes its weight in words
till it unfurls
from its cocoon, now a tomb
…and flies away
to a bright and sunny day
Siren Calls
I refuse to be drawn off course by the sirens calls.
They taunt me and tempt with false incantations
So that I may smash myself upon their rocky shores.
Stop. Wait. Listen.
Do you hear my soul?
Its beat is heard just below the surface
Where the waves cant reach.
Cult-aural Paradigm
Cultural Scion guard the keys to society
dictating what can leave and enter that tall keep.
Look down on those with fleeted feet not walking in lock step’s wake
and the meek shall inherit the dust
These fleeting moments
Wise words exchanged on backs of birds
We tie our minds and
Weave our wills
to common goals
we reach
at priceless artifacts to make sense of
our internal landscapes
Pen as my feet, feet as my pen
My feet make marks upon the ground
A whispering willow does not make a sound
Moonlight trickles between the leaves
A breeze brushes the land shaping it
by its hand
shackled———-totheshackled
Rigidity is death
Nature can attest to that
she teaches with the hand of experience
gentle at first
but with increasing fervor
till all is laid low
before her mighty breath
she speaks words of power
resonating with those who will listen
sending children to do the work
we pile the weight of ages on the back of the youth
with breaking back we pick up the pieces, but do we have time
to unravel this tattered tapestry of glitz and gold
Renee Ingersoll
as poetry recycles neurons
week 7
calculated poem
5-17-13
“The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity. Surely some revelation is at hand. Surely the second coming is at hand..” (Yeats, The second coming)
Passionate immorals hold innocence under the water until no bubbles of hope resurface. The admirable and kind hide in apathy and an unwillingness to try. Hopelessness spreads like an airborne sickness as the sinners, heathens and demons of this world take up arms of ambition. May Armageddon be a tilling of this dry and used dirt, surely the good have planted in secret, the seeds to grow this earth anew
the idea of quantum poetics is a fascinating one, but I was having trouble thinking the idea through. Maybe it’s something to do with the uncertainty of a poet’s meaning–a poet says something, and you feel what they try to convey, but as soon as you try to rationally approach a well-written poem for the sake of its material element–the words–alone, it ceases to make sense to you. The millipede wonders how it’s able to coordinate its legs, and trips itself up immediately. This could, in a sense, be related to the “particalizing” of quantum waves; we measure it, and realize that it’s not really there, and that all measurement is uncertain.
Interesting. But I was having trouble articulating the thought. Then Jesse decided he had to steal my thunder. To paraphrase what he said in class on Wednesday: “A word can have infinite meaning–the moment you subjectively impose meaning on a given word, you particalize it.” This goes back to our Tuesday seminar about the total subjectivity of signifiers–the word “tree” could signify a Doug Fir, Oak, Birch, etc. yet the very specific phrase “the tree” is usually understood in context.
I’m intrigued–metaphorically speaking, how does a poetic “particle,” in the form of words and syntax, take shape according to its aesthetic “wave?” I reference back to the week 2 reading of Bringhurst, the chapter from “The Elements of Typographic Style.” He shares an interesting theory of the relation of certain patterns and how they stimulate our senses. Certain geometric patterns correspond with the spacing of words and the overall material presentation of a book. These patterns, which occur everywhere in Nature, are, for an indefinite number of reasons, pleasing to the eye. There is an entire web of correspondence here, from smells to the notes of musical intervals. Different patterns–of notes, of layouts, of any aesthetical presentation–evoke different emotions in different ways, depending on how the stimulus in question is perceived. I have a very strong feeling that the hippocampus is strongly associated with this whole process.
So basically, different styles of expression, such as those experimented with by Queneau, must evoke things differently. Thus they are, in a sense, certain means through which certain semantic/aesthetic (my use of those two words are arbitrary more often than not, though the difference is something I hope to further understand) “waves” can “particalize.”
Thanks to Jesse for triggering my neurons.
“Further, as we have seen in chapter 2, evidence from brain scans or other neurobiological tests does not ‘speak for itself’ – it must be spoken for. Images do not convince by means of their own intrinsic plausibility: interlocutors are required, and expert witnesses such as the clinicians who have requested and interpreted the brain scans of the accused must make the claim that the scan shows relevant anomalies”. (Abi-Rachad, Rose pp.178)
Neurolaw. Neuroethics. Neurocriminology. My mind projects a possible permutation a la Philip K. Dick. Imagine a future, where psychic mutations have led to a new kind of science – a new model – complete with its own questions of human ethics. Imagine, a clinician (government employed totalitarian style) analyzing the dreams of three coma-induced precognates – three oracle-gods whose powers must be harnessed for the ‘good’ of humankind. Imagine a world, where a crime can be seen before its inception (seemingly at least). Imagine this poor clinician, so set in the model of the current times, whose world is shaken to the core when he sees his own reflection, scryed in the mirror of the sleeping demiurges. Questions arise: Is he responsible for a crime he has not yet conceived. Does the medium and the image preemptively diagnosis criminal behavior and abnormality or does it call it in to being. Is this evidence inculpatory? Exculpatory? Psy-law. Psy-criminology. Psy-ethics? Are we playing God? Haven’t we always?
Doom is the house without the door.
Insanity is the house
in which all doors lead to doors
leading to doors and doors
and doors.
Now and then
we come across the Only Mirror,
a lotus in that howling jungle
that is too wide and too narrow.
We tend to stumble past this.
Now and then
we stop and look and see reflections glimpse ourselves
eye to eye
pupil into pupil
and something in us mutters,
murmurs,
“I’m looking at you looking at me looking at you looking at me looking at you
looking at me looking at you looking at me looking at you looking at me looking at you looking at me looking at you looking at me looking at you looking at me looking at you”
On the edge of the jungle there is a remedy for sadness
that wanders like the Elk of the temperate rainforest
with a key to the asylum around his neck.
And he often stops to wonder
at his reflection in still waters.
His eyes black with passion,
a golden key around his neck
dangling.
A tattered lab coat hanging from his antlers,
blowing in the wind like a white flag of surrender.
Reid KenKnight
Sempass Wk. 7
Word Count(not quoted): 288
“This is an element in a wider shift in strategies and policies in many societies toward preemption of unwanted incident, including criminal offences. In criminal justice systems, especially in the English-speaking world, this has focused particularly on certain types of offending behavior involving violence, impulsivity, repeat offences, danger, sexual predation, and the like. We term the diagram of control taking place ‘screen and intervene.’”
Do you ever wonder what it means to be labeled?
The terms used against us like swords bathed in our blood
Used by our loved ones and those we trust
But, should we because every word that would define us draws us further away from our true self
But what of the blood of those innocents that are spilled in the cold
Dripping through the cracks of societies weakness
Are we not obligated to protect our families and friends?
At what cost?
Would you have me give up my arms?
How about my legs? You may as well take them too
You speak to take from me my freedom
My freedom to change to find happiness free from societies labels which there are so many of already
And set them on a child one so young and youthful full of potential and the will of the wild
These labels last a lifetime they do not fade till they are cast away like so many unwanted worlds
These chains will not break unless I break them, so I say again
Do not put your wordy collar ‘round my neck, but let me be free to live and learn and change
This is my wish for all of humanity
Still the blood of the innocent will flow, but the cost of the label will be greater still. These consequences will be devilish indeed far reaching into unseen hollows and hide away valleys. There will be no escape except through liberation. To the dead I offer this libation: Though you die today from some murderous madman, chosen in the infamous lottery of fate, we could not save you for to forestall your death we would have to take away your life.
May 5th – 11th
5 hours – reading Number Sense by Stanislaus Dehaene, Dali by Robert Descharnes
3 hours – video; The Dali Dimension by Joan Ubeda et. al, and Zero to Infinity: A History of Numbers by Edward B. Burger
1 hour – listening to Radiolab episode Numbers
4 hours – Calculated Poetics
3 hours – writing and revising term paper
This week got into some beefy stuff of the origins of mathematics and art produced out of exploration into the frontiers of mathematics today. I began the week by watching The Dali Dimension: Decoding the Mind of a Genius about Salvador Dali and the vast depth of knowledge he kept current with throughout his life about the great scientific discoveries of his time. He attempted to represent abstract ideas like Einstein’s theory of relativity and ideas from quantum physics as well as biological ideas like the discovery of the double helix as the structure of DNA. This continued late into his life with his last painting The Swallowtail which was inspired by the equations of catastrophe theory. Earlier in his work, he depicted 4th dimensional objects 2 dimensionally on canvas, relating the transcendental nature of these concepts to a spiritual or religious experience. His techniques and interest in fusing art and science to visualize concepts will serve as a main example of tapping into our instinctual math abilities as well as aiding in learning the typical concepts of our math curriculum. This may relate to the Waldorf philosophy and curriculum of math as well.
While in the school library searching for The Dali Dimension, I stumbled across a DVD lecture series called Zero to Infinity by Edward B. Burger, a professor and mathmetician from Williams College. The lectures are pleasant and delightful. Edward B. Burger makes the concepts easy to follow and his passion radiates through the screen. In it, he covers how the concept of number differs from that of numbers, explaining the numbers are to number as humans are to humanity. In the introduction, he explains how hard it is to actually define number and that no consensus of a definition exists. Numbers are abstract as they are concrete. He then begins explaining the history of numbers, and how concepts and counting systems evolved and led to great philosophical changes in people’s relation to the universe. It is a great, comprehensive suppliment to Number Sense and provides many concrete examples of alternative and historical number and math systems. His explanation of the Babylonian counting system fit perfectly with my story of passionately learning it in my 4th grade class from a wonderful teacher.
I also scheduled a sit in and interview with Tim Morrissey and his 4th grade class at Olympia Waldorf School this next Friday. I’ve also begun an interview by email with Anita Lengus, faculty member here at TESC, about the history of math education in the United States. She’s been quite willing and helpful despite a busy schedule, as has Tim.
May 6th
20 minutes: Morning Transcendental Meditation session, first session with chosen Mantra “IM”
1 1/2 hours: Reading Neuro
1 hours: Writing Neuro Reverie
3 hours: Readings Rosenthal’s Transcendance
30 minutes: Evening Meditation session (turned into 30, supposed to be 20)
1 hours: Researching Glassblowing history
(7 hours 20 min)
May 7th
20 minutes: Morning Meditation Session
1 hours: Susan Gevirtz Lecture
2 hours: Reading Rosenthal’s Transcendance
1 hours: Reading Weekly Calculated Poetics PDFs
1 hour: Revising/posting Neuro Reverie
20 minutes: Evening Meditation Session
( 5 hours, 40 min)
May 8th
20 minutes: Morning Meditation session
11/2 hours: Writing/Posting Calculated Poetic poem
2 hours: Reading Yogi’s Science of Being
2 hours: Drafting Poetry
1 1/2 hours: Queneau Style Exercises
20 minutes: Evening Meditation Session
(7 hours, 40 minutes)
May 9th
20 minutes: Morning Meditation session
2 hours: Reading Transcendental & Science of Being
4 1/2 hours: Meeting with Glassblowers at Pratt Art Seattle, Didn’t get to do any work but watched a Glassblowing class work and met a few of the Glassblowers.
20 minutes: Evening Meditation Session
(7 hours, 10 minutes)
May 10st
20 minutes: Morning Meditation session
1 hours: Drafting Poetry
11/2 hours: Reading Bachelard’s Psychoanalysis of Fire
2 hour: Drafting/ Posting Glassblowing/Bachelard Reverie
20 minutes: Evening Meditation Session
(5 hours, 10 minutes)
Totals
This week: 33
Cumulative Total: 33
Reading List:
Transcendence Dr. Rosenthal
Science of Being, Art of Living Mahesh Yogi
The Psychoanalysis of Fire Gaston Bachelard
“Indeed, I do not think I lit a fire myself before
I was eighteen years old. It was only when I lived alone that I
became master of my own hearth.
(Bachelard, The Psychoanalysis of Fire; 9)
Like a drop of rain, my mantra forms and orb
iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiyyyyyyaaaaaaaammmmmm
It feels like my mouth forms a bead with each repetition
Each drop a synapses
My mind finds meaning in only a sound
In this dim stairway I mind tingling sensation of sound
Have I become this sound if I am what my mind experiences?
Can I stay like this forever?
I wonder if people could get addicting to meditating,
and left my trance on that thought.
Like beautiful tears from melancholy god’s
The glass oozes from the fire’s touch
Blushing a bright orangey red
at each lick of flame
Watching all this sand and flame brings
of course, only one thought to my mind,
Am I the sand or the flame?
Are you the blistering heat I bend and droop away from?
To form something beautiful after the burns?
Or am I your flame,
shaping you to your best interest
without a thought to my own fuel source…