Engraving a rose.

I paused, grief pitched.

It was leaking, ground up.

It was decaying, sky down.

Its canvas was crumpled.

Its fly sheet was fraying.

 Its frame was haggard.

All shrieked of decomposition.

I salvaged a bag of pegs.

The A's, I kept, as keep-sakes

I took four photos.

Its was an unwilling engraving.

It, however, had already become something else.

engraving.

a rose.

Foul Brood.

They were the "Monsters", a curious assembly.

"What are you doing Simon?"

"I'm playing with the Monsters."











Monsters All.

The gang leader, Yip, was a pink poodle who only stood.

His side-kick was Little Bear, a small, rather insignificant looking, orange eraser bear with lopsided ears.

The main body of the monster crew was made up of rubber dinosaurs of varying vintage.

Brown Brontosaurus, Bronto, was a good deal smaller than two yellow Ankylosaurus who had developed abilities of flight - hence Wings and Little Wings.

Over time, each creature had revealed individual gifts and talents however unlikely.

There is no respect for paleontological accuracy in child's play.

The only concession to probability was the monster who drove the Jeep.

Only Yip could do that.

The dinosaurs wouldn't fit into the driver's seats due to issues of anatomy.

Little Bear was just too goddam little to reach the pedals.

For whatever reasons, these inanimate creatures became heroes to months of incongruous adventure.

Their heterogenity, the very unlikelihood of a pink poodle being friends with:

• Stegosaurus
• Tyrannosaurus Rex
• Horns the Triceratops 

stimulated creative thinking and made for interesting battles.

Child's play is nothing if not inclusive.

Shock of the scale.

I stood there looking up.

I was dwarfed and not a little disappointed.

The brontosaurus skeleton saured above my head and took up a large part of the Natural History Museum's ground floor gallery.

Scale mattered now.

There was no sign of any Jeep.

There was not a pink poodle to be seen.

I put away childish things.

Natural History had murdered the monsters.

I returned home to play with Action Men.

The monsters were dumped in a box.

None of the Action Men could drive the Jeep due to issues of anatomy.

Monsters All.

"You want a whip?"

"We have a whip."

"You want Marxism?"

"We have Marxism. We do a special offer. You can have Trotskyism for only 30% extra." 

"You like dinosaurs?"

"Come to Dinopark."

"Out now! Steven Spielberg's Jurassic World."

"BUY THE TSHIRT!"


Foul Brood.

"Well why the hell can't we have dinosaurs with poodles?"

"NOOO!! The Tyrannosaurus Rex will rip off the bloody poodle's head!"

"You can never trust a carnivorous dinosaur with pets."

After a good deal of soul-searching the monsters decided that they could live happily together.

The Tryannosaurus was simply misunderstood.

He might be a bit clumsy at times but you just had to avoid the slashing tales, the claws, and the vicious teeth. 

After much wrangling they decided on a name for their tribe.

They would be the "Foul Breed."

It gave them an outlaw sort of mystique.

It recalled swarms of bees.

Well, a rather sickly swarm of bees.

Even this sickness was turned to something positive.

They were a virus.

Viruses are powerful.

Outlaw viruses spread.

The Foul Brood group took on a heroic importance.

It was quite out of scale with reality.

From another perspective...

They were only toys.

Their arguments, their battles, their icons, their likes, their dislikes, their victories matttered not a jot.

“Let us do something, while we have the chance! It is not every day that we are needed. Not indeed that we personally are needed. Others would meet the case equally well, if not better. To all mankind they were addressed, those cries for help still ringing in our ears! But at this place, at this moment of time, all mankind is us, whether we like it or not. Let us make the most of it, before it is too late! Let us represent worthily for one the foul brood to which a cruel fate consigned us! What do you say? It is true that when with folded arms we weigh the pros and cons we are no less a credit to our species. The tiger bounds to the help of his congeners without the least reflexion, or else he slinks away into the depths of the thickets. But that is not the question. What are we doing here, that is the question. And we are blessed in this, that we happen to know the answer. Yes, in the immense confusion one thing alone is clear. We are waiting for Godot to come -- ” Waiting for Godot. Samuel Beckett

A vantage place.

There are a hundred and one things...

There are a hundred and one places...

That makes two hundred and two.



This time.

It counts for nout.


There aren't a hundred and one people.


This vantage place.

It is yours.

It is his, alone.


So, Sod it.

So be it.

So will it.


Those flames are lapping around his perch.


Concentrate on his bloody lot.


Retreat is hopeless.

Take solace in this burning heart.


Dry tears. Fix grin. Walk precarious. Breathe, breathe...Falter not. Pace, stride. Sway perilously.

Along line...


Mine that burning heart.


A vantage place.

Let it burn.

Sorry this isn't easy.



Foot note

This incongruous piece willed to be written.

I let it out for a walk.

It said its piece.

It left said and done.

Aside

I was taken up with a curious presentation of Bret Victor's shared by Terry Elliot.

I share it here as this is somehow, (or may be later,) I feel, weirdly tied up with it.

http://impedagogy.com/wp/blog/2015/08/01/bret-victor-a-revolutionary-look-at-embodied-dynamic-cognition/

There is something here which touches me on a number of intuitive levels.

What is it which attracts us to the tight-rope walker?

Is it pain and joy which draws us out?

Is it pain and joy which beckons us?

I have no idea what that might mean.

I shall leave it here for reflection.

Not sure why.

Being here...

Where shall we start?

There's a dog barking in the garden, black-birds singing in the trees, the French lunchtime news on TV...

And here I am.


...................................................


I am contemplating lines, strata, circles, points...

This is all getting rather too mathematical or geographical.

Perhaps it is historical or biological?

Blimey!  It may even be ecologically philosophical!

Oh bloody hell!
Why worry?

How many more -cals can I find? (oh don't answer that)  

If I knew, would I understand more?

"Why do we acknowledge only our textual sources but not the ground we walk, the ever-changing skies, mountains and rivers, rocks, and trees, the houses we inhabit and the tools we use, not to mention the innumerable companions, both non-human animals, and fellow animals, with which and with whom we share our lives?"

Tim Ingold.

And then I was no longer alone.

Where are we?

This is a personal question.

I am rather aware that I am a flow of contradictions.


Should I be listening to the TV news?
Should I ignore the dog?
Should I put a photo there?


There's you and I and i and you and...

You are coming at this from a completely different angle..

Why stop at angles?
Why not dimensions?
Why not time zones?
Why not depths?
Why not stories?

What a bloody right tangle this is...being...written... here.

Completely Random Aside:

Why is Stephen Clarke speaking about Buffalo Bill?
(he was on TV that instant)

I have been getting to think a lot about native Americans these past few days.

This line of study was retriggered by an exchange with Dave Cormier on Twitter. (Oh gawd...)

@davecormier on reading your post on myth of content. #rhizo15 pic.twitter.com/ovyOLZOvev

— Simon Ensor (@sensor63) May 3, 2015

@sensor63 yeah... as you might imagine, I don't entirely buy Campbell's magical energies arguments...

— dave cormier (@davecormier) May 3, 2015

We have been talking interminably about the myth of content.

It is the word myth that is intriguing me more.

The word content is beginning to feel like a pervasive prison.

We have all the content in the world but we appear to be unhappily self-contained.

I suspect that is why we speak so much.

Wonderings...

I am coming to the impression that the concept 'content' hides a distinct world view...the politics, the economics of enclosure, of appropriation, of extraction, of individual isolation/wealth/poverty/identity, of identifiable authors, of 'scientific progress', of superiority over nature..

WE SPEAK So... How MUCH? 

And listen oh...How little!

It seems to me that this is about religion versus spirituality, ambition versus becoming.

I tweeted a throw-away remark:

@sensor63 I love this question. I'm not sure it even needs an answer. #rhizo15

— dave cormier (@davecormier) May 3, 2015

There seems to be at the heart of my wonderings a question....

as regards our relationship with space.
(our environment?)

as regards our orientation within what we call society.
(or should that be in what we call life?) 

Ah yes, I had forgotten that I had posted this tweet here:

Individuals, Content and containers detract from learning in the flow. #rhizo15 pic.twitter.com/GYRDhcpF3K

— Simon Ensor (@sensor63) May 3, 2015

Wanderings...

I am quite sure that it is no coincidence that I have come across (is that the word?) the writing of Tim Ingold, notably a book entitled Being alive.

I bumped into him (as it were) when investigating how to connect Deleuze and Guattari's rhizome with religion (as one does).

I found this article, entitled Rhizomatic Animism.

I immediately fell in love with the title.

It sounded lordily, seriously, scientific to me.

I felt immediately more intelligent.

It was incomprehensible but tripped joyfully off the tongue.

'TicMism' I have caught a 'Ticmism'.! Is that a sort of insect? 

I rather have the impression that if there are many who have stopped believing in GOD, we have been left with the cells of monks and a rather nasty empty space to fill.

Contradictions...

(I have no idea what this means - I am sorry)

(It's art - it doesn't have to mean anything.)

(Oh shut up!)

(Won't!)

Vivisection...

What was it that I read the other day about science killing life in order to dissect it?

I can't remember now.

I hesitated to go and look but the the dog barking distracted me.

Then I noticed a tweet of Aras

@JeffreyKeefer Look what I found...#rhizo15 http://t.co/R52z4nLKJ7 pic.twitter.com/8DRWKnJBQP

— Aras BOZKURT (@arasbozkurt) May 5, 2015

I immediately noticed the tiny spot accorded to GOD.
I immediately noticed the angled arrow of modern scientific progress.
I immediately noticed the tangled mess of Post-Modernism.

OOOH lovely another ism.

What does one have to do to become an ism? (don't answer that)

From animism to Post-modernism and back again. (if we are lucky)

Meanderings...

I am reminded of this is water.

This is water. This is water @cogdog we have to learn to live with it. The man says http://t.co/0MQXmzMqs4 #ccourses #rhizo15

— Simon Ensor (@sensor63) May 4, 2015

I am reminded of Alan Levine's ever-changing perspectives...

CogDogBlogged: Juxtaposition in the Viewfinder http://t.co/L94VKOJO3O via driftwood thoughts by @sensor63 it ended up #rhizo15 wondering

— Alan Levine (@cogdog) May 3, 2015

I make a note to read Aaron's post on what counts.

A wonderful post about what counts for #rhizo15 by @imagineacircle http://t.co/mInH2hcPVI

— Sarah Honeychurch (@NomadWarMachine) May 5, 2015

I am reminded of Terry Elliott's work...inside...outside boundaries.

May Day, Not May I Day: Where is the Practice? http://t.co/ovRZjWS8ag

— Terry Elliott (@telliowkuwp) May 2, 2015

A light breeze is dancing on my skin.

I can feel the hairs on my arms moving.

I can hear the leaves in the trees...

There is an ad break on TV.

The news program is surely not finished...

The exams are.

I have finished counting.

Perhaps in #rhizo15 we are not learning so much.

I am not counting.

Perhaps we are rather learning 'being here'?

A wind is blowing.

Are myths a means of orientation in the wild or the walls of a lonely cell?

And at just that moment...

@sensor63 How can we explain tree and forest mtaphor 4 rhizomatic learning #rhizo15

— Aras BOZKURT (@arasbozkurt) May 5, 2015

@sensor63 @arasbozkurt https://t.co/vWKZ0QOPc1 #rhizo15

— Sarah Honeychurch (@NomadWarMachine) May 5, 2015

Blinkers & socks.

All is white.

We wear blinkers to protect our eyes.

Scarlet flows with a cut.



Savage stories survive out there.

There is a pair of Eskimo socks.

I have had them since I was five or six years old.

Where did these socks come from?

Who made them?

Childs-play

I played with a little girl in the sandpit.

She knew where the socks came from.

She lived with her missionary parents.

She lived with the people who made the socks.

She was brought up in a place where all is white.

I look around at my comfortable home. 

I am  surrounded by objects coming from other places.

The objects are made by people whose lives I cannot imagine.

I have been thinking about those Eskimo socks recently.


An eye-opener.

The little girl is long since gone.

She went to India to travel.

It was an eye-opener.

She saw people dying in a street.

Nobody seemed to care.

She cared too much.

She came back home.

She took her life.

Blinkers.

I think of the Eskimo socks.

I think of the Eskimo blinkers.

I am glad that I see so little.

Order from chaos.

As I walked into the room, I became aware that my appearance was unwelcome.

The hostility was palpable.

There was no suspicion of a smile.

I was greeted with hatred.

While over the months the outright hostility seemed to lessen, my presence was never accepted.

I simply had to accept the fact that as a man, I was the enemy.

We become blind to all possibilities of reconciliation.

At each turn we look for patterns of aggression. 

We become in our turn defensive.
We become in our turn aggressors.

Forbidden fruit?
I see an apple; this is food.
I see an apple; this is temptation.
I see an apple; this is love.
I see an apple; this is poison.

Flailing around in our darkness, we look for security, we look for patterns.

The Red Lion, was just along the road, each time we drove past it was presented as a den of iniquity.

This was something to do with alcohol.  I didn't understand that word.  I wasn't at all sure what it was.

I do remember that I didn't like the smell of beer on my grandfather's breath.  I didn't like beer-smell.

I do remember that his trips down the road to the pub were greeted with scorn.

I had no means of understanding the emotional subplot.

We forget or we are unaware of the reasons for the patterns chosen for us.

We are told stories, we are given histories, which bring some sort of order to our chaos.

 "History is that certainty produced at the point where the imperfections of memory meet the imperfections of documentation."
Julien Barnes

I have just realised that the multitude of constraints with which I was educated increased the opportunities for me in my life to have adventures.

Going to a pub, normal for many people, for me became a heroic adventure. I was going into a  beast's lair, a mythogical creature's den.

The Red Lion might just have well been Hades.

When we are educated with what for us are an absurd multitude of meaningless constaints it is at times easier to start again from scratch.

Chaos for my parents for me seemed like freedom.

Meaning for me was to go beyond their fearful framing to imagine a new culture...my own remix.

I was fortunate, my parents were forgiving, their hope, their love never lessened.

They had faith.

I was able to spare them the gory details of my quest for meaning.

They wouldn't have understood.

It was not their fault.

Veils of freedom, veils of tears.

I am struck with how a veil might be seen by some women as submission but to others a declaration of freedom.  I am struck with how a veil might be seen by some as a weapon.

I met a friend of mine at a conference.

She seemed distracted, like me she was frustrated by the conference.

We agreed we didn't fit in.

We went out to talk.

How can one be scientific when one is confronted by impossible choices?

Her parents had prepared a homecoming for her - an arranged marriage.

Her parents were unaware that she already had a home, a love, a hybrid culture of her own.

She was presented with an impossible dilemna, she was torn apart by love.

An inflexible frame is a corpse.

A religion for some might be seen as a means of self-determination for others as a prison.

I have been thinking about 'objectivity' in 'human sciences', and I am struck at how a 'scientific lens' may be be used as a tool for repression or used as a tool of liberation.   

Seen from afar, people are objectified, they have no means to evidence complexity of their interaction of their behaviour of their belief.

The scientific perspective of the world has risen us, some of us, up onto a/our/their pedestal of 'progress'.

'Progress' is our  apple.

We see a 'truth' we are blind to 'our lies'. 

Playing away.

There are days like this.

The washing up is piling up.

The dish-washer has gone RIP.

One plate is left and the ladle.

Out of fashion victim

The last shirt in the closet is the one you wished you'd thrown away in the 90's.

You really loved that shirt.

That is so sad.

It was groovy then.


Road-trip

The car battery has lost all charge.

It's raining.

The jump cables won't leap so far.


Festive road.

The people in the street have lost all will to live.

They had to walk to work.

The jump cables weren't long enough.

They are all wearing your shirt from the 80's

They look embarrassed.

You feel their pain.

They look groovy.

Economic crisis

The tax-form just arrived.

Erratum.

The tax-form arrived two months ago.

You'll be making an extra effort for the state this time.

That will make the people in the street smile.

Will they give you back that shirt?


Curtains

The kitten is climbing the curtains.

The kitten is climbing the new curtains.

Amazingly sharp little claws make little holes.

You love net curtains.

You can catch kittens.


Black dog

Churchill talked about a Black Dog.

He was wrong you don't have a black dog

The Tibetan spaniel puppy is pulling at the curtains.

The kitten is clawing on for dear life.

Nature is so beautiful.

The curtains were so beautiful.

Oh! Curtains beyond repair!

Despair ad infinitum!

There are days like this.

It all piles up.

You forgot to mention the piles.

POW!

It only took a well-aimed punch-line to bring you to your senses.

"If you lose a sense of play, you have lost, nearly it all."

@cogdog

There are days like this.

They are a joke.

They are the straight man in a pile-up comedy.

Play them away.

Have the last laugh.





.