Love the way you lie.

"It's not what you say, it's how you say it."

I have learnt that so many times.

Out of the box

"To my utter amazement, on experiment with various 'sales pitches' to various 'client streams', I realized that what sold was not the script but the connection of excitement, the acceleration of a heart beat, the comic tone, the sudden absurd eruption in the life of another."

Lesson learnt: entertainment sells (total crap).

http://tachesdesens.blogspot.fr/2014/09/out-of-box.html

Courtiers

People will defend the undefendable if their interests are at risk.  

Courtiers close to power and  privilege  will maintain a charade to farcical lengths.

"A vain Emperor who cares about nothing except wearing and displaying clothes hires two weavers who promise him the finest, best suit of clothes from a fabric invisible to anyone who is unfit for his position or "hopelessly stupid". The Emperor's ministers cannot see the clothes themselves, but pretend that they can for fear of appearing unfit for their positions and the Emperor does the same. Finally the weavers report that the suit is finished, they mime dressing him and the Emperor marches in procession before his subjects. The townsfolk play along with the pretense, not wanting to appear unfit for their positions or stupid. Then a child in the crowd, too young to understand the desirability of keeping up the pretense, blurts out that the Emperor is wearing nothing at all and the cry is taken up by others. The Emperor suspects the assertion is true, but continues the procession."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor%27s_New_Clothes

"Journalists who have access to highly placed government and corporate sources have to keep them on their side by not reporting anything adverse about them or their organizations. Otherwise they risk losing them as sources of information. In return for this loyalty, their sources occasionally give them good stories, leaks and access to special interviews. Unofficial information, or leaks, give the impression of investigative journalism, but are often strategic manoeuvres on the part of those with position or power (Ricci 1993: 99). ‘It is a bitter irony of source journalism … that the most esteemed journalists are precisely the most servile. For it is by making themselves useful to the powerful that they gain access to the “best” sources’ (N.Chomsky quoted in Lee and Solomon 1990: 18).

http://theinternationalcoalition.blogspot.fr/2011/07/noam-chomsky-top-10-media-manipulation_08.html

Facing facts

Let's face facts, they mostly count for nothing...unless they are officially sanctionned.

What counts is power.

Power: "the capacity or ability to direct or influence the behaviour of others or the course of events."

Power is either the art of entertainment or an iron fist.

Distraction.

Entertaining lies have value.

Just make your crap fun!

LOL

"Maintaining public attention diverted away from the real social problems, captivated by matters of no real importance. Keep the public busy, busy, busy, no time to think, back to farm and other animals” (quote from text Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars). N.Chomsky

The art of the deal

Educational takeaway

I thought for an instant of #rhizo14 and its first week's theme: "Cheating is learning." 

Perhaps we need to extend this theme in our classrooms to include "Lying is knowing." ?

Perhaps we need to study navigating power structures in classrooms, gangs, mobs, tribes, institutions, corporations, nations cliques?

Perhaps we need to study celebrity, fame, rich rewards?

Perhaps we need to study the seven deadly sins, and dominant  beliefs?

You can not be serious.

No of course I'm not serious!

Honestly!

You couldn't believe that could you?

I know you love it when I lie.

Campbell's soup.

My father was addicted to Heinz tomato soup. 

Warhol only painted Campbells'. 

It will do. 

It will have to do.

A can is a can is a can.

There were cupboards full of cans:

• Of Heinz tomato soup

There were cupboards full of jumble:

• Of unworn , previously worn clothes: oversized shirts, trousers, suits, jackets, coats, a round leather box of greasy oversized dog-collars.

The shoes, socks, belts (being adjustable) would still have fit.

The slippers (no longer needed) were under the bed.

He was no longer eating.

It was a morning like this morning.  

So many years on, I find myself mourning yet.

Morning mourning.

It was a morning like this morning.

All horizons were reduced to grey, all was drizzle.

"You can go upstairs, you'll probably be shocked...."

Was it my sister who said those words? 

I may have imagined them.

They will do.

What is truth?

My mother was pottering in the kitchen.

There wasn't much left to do...

I went up the creaking stairs.

I went along the creaking corridor.

I passed the embroidery on the greying walls, the sheets and spare blankets in the chest of drawers.

The door was half open.

I stepped over the threshold.

The room smelt of decay.

The curtain fabric was shredding, its geometric patterns fading, its colour a mourning green.

I don't know if I touched him.

I would like to think I did.

I don't remember if I said that I loved him.

I would like to have thought that I did.

I honestly don't remember too well now.

I couldn't write this when it was raw...when I would have remembered.

It was too raw.

I couldn't face it.

I couldn't face this scene.

I didn't want to go back into the room.

It was his final resting place.

It was the noise which shocked me.

The inflatable mattress to avoid bed sores groaned as it was inflated, as it was inflated.

His head was at an angle, his mouth half open, his eyes shut, his lashes barely flickered.

He groaned, breath by breath.

No continence, no continence, no continence.

It was the smell which repelled me.

His face was more skull.

His smile was more rictus.

His hands, I must have touched him, I must have touched him.

His hands were bones.

There was little softness left.

There was no recognition of my presence.

I must have touched him, I must have touched him.

Didn't I?

I looked at the trouser press.

I looked at the television, its screen covered in dust.

I looked through the steamed up window panes. 

It was autumn.

It was autumn wasn't it?

It was autumn in spring perhaps.

It wasn't winter surely.

It surely wasn't summer.

I backed out of the room.

I walked along the corridor.

I passed the embroidery.

Saying nothing.

My sister and my mother were sitting on the sofa.

Were they sitting on the sofa?

We said nothing.

All was drizzle.

A corpse is a corpse is a corpse.

I never saw the corpse.

My father lives differently.

He is not a corpse.

Are we to be landfill?

I would like to think not.

I saw the rainbow stretch out over the levels.

I saw it arc over Glastonbury Tor.

All was drizzle.

I wept.

A can is a can is a can.

It was Heinz not Campbell's.