DREAD.

Pas dans le couloir.  

DREAD.

Avait-il été oublié?

La porte s'ouvrit.

Coup après coup.

Il frémit à chaque coup.

Il y a eu une pause.

Un coup.

Ensuite, une pause.

Une pause.

Puis la porte grinça.

Jusqu'à la prochaine fois.

Footnotes

A blog page awaits, has it been forgotten?

It had been so long.

That's how it felt.

Something really odd happened.

The page, started flickering.

English had been translated into some sort of  French.

These are not my words.

One word:

DREAD remained in English.

There were one or two weird translations.

I edited it a bit.

I left the rest as it had appeared.

Nomadic ruminance.

Preamble

A multivoiced conversation springs from an afternoon picnic with Terry Elliott, shepherd.

https://vialogues.com/vialogues/play/37391

Amble

I can feel the movement slowing, I concentrate on breathing, I feel my muscles relax.  

I am focused on that field.

My fingers hesitate.

RUMI-NANCE

The page backgrounds.

My attention is fixed on time.

Or heart beat?

Seconds...blinking in a cursor.

A lie?

“The timeless in you is aware of life's timelessness. And knows that yesterday is but today's memory and tomorrow is today's dream.” 

Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

Now. 

Slowed. 

-N-O-W-

LIFE

S-P-A-C-E

Bird Song

RECORD

ONLY

SILENCE

-N-O-W-

The sheep field has become a means to read?
Or to listen?
Or to see?
Or to hear?

"Each field tells a story." 
Terry Elliott

A means to read?

A means to care?

A means to wonder?

A hollow yearning is that?

No! There is joy.

LIFE


"There's another story there: you live in a system that essentially defies understanding."
Terry Elliott


"I can go out on my farm every day and find a mystery."
Terry Elliott

A reason to mourn reason?

"Around the ninth hour, Jesus shouted in a loud voice, saying "Eli Eli lama sabachthani?" which is, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"


"Nature has a way and if nature doesn't want to produce grass you have to get rid of sheep."
Terry Elliott

To throw up one's arms and surrender to the evidence.

"Eli Eli lama sabachthani?"

What counts is not visible, is around us, but beyond us and binds us all.

LOVE

"Nature will make you decide things that you don't want to decide."
Terry Elliott

I decide to do this while I can, while I want.

That sheep field has me write this.

It's the nature of it.

WRITING

"You want a little bit of everything in a field."
Terry Elliott

I am not sure

I pull up a few weeds.

I walk the lines.

LINE

"We have no faith in nature." 

Do you have any faith in human nature?

I have resistant faith.

For if not, what?

It's been raining.

LIFE

I have space to think, to wander, to meander...
 ...to get where I shouldn't be, to vagabond...

FLOW

Je me la coule douce.

VAGABOND

The word breaks up.

"There's another story there: you live in a system that essentially defies understanding."
Terry Elliott

VAGA BOND. 

Vague - Vague - indefinite (English) 

Vague - Wave (French) Sea - Waves - Rhythmic - Tides - Influence of moon - Seasons

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tide

Animation of Tides as Moon Goes Around the Earth With the Sun on The Right

Animation: Todd  Timberlake

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tide#/media/File:Tidalwaves1.gif

Tides are the rise and fall of sea levels caused by the combined effects of gravitational forces exerted by the Moon, Sun, and rotation of the Earth. The semi-diurnal range (the difference in height between high and low waters over about half a day) varies in a two-week cycle. Approximately twice a month, around new moon and full moon when the Sun, Moon, and Earth form a line (a condition known as syzygy), the tidal force due to the sun reinforces that due to the Moon. The tide's range is then at its maximum; this is called the spring tide. It is not named after the season, but, like that word, derives from the meaning "jump, burst forth, rise", as in a natural spring. When the Moon is at first quarter or third quarter, the sun and Moon are separated by 90° when viewed from the Earth, and the solar tidal force partially cancels the Moon's. At these points in the lunar cycle, the tide's range is at its minimum; this is called the neap tide, or neaps (a word of uncertain origin).

Va - Go (French) 

Bond - relate to people - make deepening connections (English)

Bond (jump French)

VA-GAGA-  Go GAGA.

Silly; crazy.

Completely absorbed, infatuated, or excited: They were gaga over the rock group's new album.

Senile; doddering.

BOND - James

Charles Dickens, in "The Old Curiosity Shop" has a character say: 

"a gentleman's word is as good as his bond, sometimes better, as in the present case."

"Agriscience and agribusiness is so apposite to agriculture."
Terry Elliott

"There's another story there: you live in a system that essentially defies understanding."
Terry Elliott

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing 
and rightdoing there is a field.
I'll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass
the world is too full to talk about.” 

Jalaluddin Rumi

Image 

Isle of Skye

Richard Ansdell

1865

Oil on canvas.

183 × 108 cm (72 × 42.5 in)

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ansdell_Richard_Isle_of_Syke.jpg

Tales of drear.

The leaves are rotting on the ground.

A mountain of firewood blocks the street.

A group of sepia men carry logs into a house.




Time itself, it appears, has slipped backwards.

Voices are muffled, pitch is lowered, meaning is mangled.

These are tales of drear.

I feel each word like a step in a bog.

I am, wading, arms flailing, getting nowhere.

I sink deeper.

The dog is barking at imaginary intruders.



What the hell are these bloody photos?

The phone is taking them without my knowledge.

They become my memory.




I slept badly, my mind polluted by Donald fucking Trump.

Gonad Skunk: Make America Hate Again

Facts became a wearisome wordplay at two in the morning.

Fact
Fuck.
Fake
Facile.
Facetious.
Flunky.
Fraction
Fact
Faction
Fart.

And so on.

Ad infinitum.

Then I slept.

Sea monster.

Nick Cave.

I am unable to write.

I am unable to draw.

I am unable to speak.

I am unable to sing.

I can barely breathe.

I cough compulsively.

"I still am."

Men in iron masks.

"We show the room where the man in the iron mask was imprisoned for seventeen years, it's quite big, has a vaulted ceiling and is lit by a single window. It is perhaps the only place on the island which is dark and cool, at the time of the year when we were visiting, we could appreciate the shade all the more, but the contrast of this darkness with the startling light which floods the bay and the wonderful amphitheatre of the Var mountains, must have worsened the sadness of the poor prisoner."

http://provence-historique.mmsh.univ-aix.fr/Pdf/PH-2003-53-212_07.pdf

Hang dog.

He sat there alone, a beaten dog, his whole being was caving in on the chair. Each time he attempted to verbalise, his eyes welled up, his shoulders dropped, it was all that he could do not to sob.

He could see no further than the bars.

We were his jailers.

He was waiting for the bullet.

Burning in hell.

"You were in a bad way." she said.

I knew that to be true.

I let it bleed.

I could say it.

Who might listen, I didn't care.

I could say it.

I could shriek it.

It was a first step.

Hang dog.

"It's OK to cry," I said,  

"I spent months unable to do more than weep."

"I know it is not OK."

"It is shit."

"It is worse than shit."

"That is where you are."

"I know."

While we can, while we are not threatened in our candour, let us weep.

In that box.

There was a dark stain on the faded wall-paper.

We sat watching the stain, it did not move.

We looked at the the place where the TV had been before its repossession.

We became suddenly aware of the poverty of the decoration.

Angular, low ceiled, square windowed, we saw the ugliness of "social" architecture for what it was.

We were in the box marked: "Trash".

"Things can always get worse," I said.

All amusement had been stripped away.

Chains of sorrow.

I read the bleakness of my friend's words.

http://impedagogy.com/wp/blog/2016/11/19/chain-of-sorrow-a-life-rope-not-a-noose/

"I been brought down to zero, pulled out and put back there.
I sat on a park bench, kissed the girl with black hair
And my head shouted down to my heart
“You better look out below!”
Hey, it ain’t such a long drop don’t stammer don’t stutter
From the diamonds in the sidewalk to the dirt in the gutter
And you carry those bruises to remind you wherever you go."

It had taken a while to summon the courage, to return there.

We insulate ourselves.

We hope for better.

Until the train crash.

They record the facts.

We are the small print.

On the railroad.

I am propped up, my face gazing at reflections, stuck to the pane of the carriage window.  Condensation mists my view, water drops slide down the glass like so many tears. 

All is darkness.

Little lights, 

Of little lives, 

Of little homes, 

Rush by.

I catch glimpses of family life.

I catch glimpses of bedsit life.

I imagine, fights, parties, laughter, anger, birth and grief.

My mind reaches out an instant, and then they are gone, gone into the darkness.

We never meet.

We never meet.

We never meet.

We are never met.

Men in iron masks.

There are those who have a black heart, who revel in a living death.

“Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone.” 

Dorothy Parker

Wealth is just deserts.

Poverty is indigestion.

You are the shit.

You don't like it?

They don't like it.

It's an annoyance.

"Be happy to live, dog!"

"Your fucking misery is polluting the mediterrenean."

"Die, drown, weep but not on my fucking beach."

There was a time, their gloves were velvety Dolce and Gabbana.

Now their gloves are off.

They have iron fists.

They have iron hearts.

They have iron souls.

They have iron bars to ruin any view.

Weep, so that they may rust and rot...

A hidden message.

Three hundred years later, we walked into the cell.

We saw a little hole in the painted wall. 

We stretched up, poked a stick in the hollow. 

Pulling the stick back, we drew out a bundle of manuscripts tied up in string.

The bundle belonged to an Irish prisoner.

We took it out into the light to inspect it.

Half written in English, half written in French.

The words of Andrew Mac Donagh spell

"FREEDOM"

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” 

Maya Angelou. I know why the caged bird sings.

“Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.” 

Virginia Woolf.  A room of one's own.

Steel my poem friends.

Beating about the bush.

He destilled his pain repetitively.

It might have read pen.

He had scratched that out.

He distilled his pain...

There was no point.

Just a dull throb...

Was there no way to rub that out?

Just pain,

Which kept him up,

And she let it drop.

No borrowed blades.

No resumption.

No conclusion.

Dorothy Parker

No beating about the bush,

Dorothy,

Don't you go and dress it up now.

Only colour,

Only colour,

Will do.

Let it bleed
...

Never write 'out a gain.

"In spite of everything, I still believe people are really good at heart."

Anne Frank 1929-1944

Never write 'out a gain.

A void.

Writing.

No thing doing. 

Writing.

All the same.

Reverberation.

Is it fortune not to be driven?

He left the line in suspension.

Preface.

Emergent Reflection on Transcendence in Critical Digital Pedagogy.
A submission to Hybrid Pedagogy.

Act 1.

Starting points…

“IT” was only ever a draft, a doodle.

Given what emerged, only questions felt satisfactory.

He listed them as they appeared:

What space would these words take up?

How might they move?

What would be their destination?

How could they shape reflection?

Meaning was only forever fluid.

I, er You, We are forever fluid.

He wrote  ‘our reflection’ knowingly while thinking of his selves: those selves who carried the text forward and those selves who had fallen silent to enable it.

“IT”, it appeared, insisted on “ITs” voice(s) being heard.

“Who would populate this space?”,  he thought.

It was doubt that drove his curiosity.

It was not text as product which intrigued.

It was text as vehicle of discovery.

“Might such text be possible without the digital?”

We thought not.

“I think knot.” he added, annoyingly.

“How might one plan.?”they thought?

It would be “IT” which would count...

“That is what this is”, he thought: “We (i, I, and I’s) are silent.”

“Then there was the word.”

He boldly wrote “TRANSCENDENCE” as a challenge and let whatever “IT” was shape the act.

It gave them hope that “IT” wasn’t finished.

There would be no full stop, no period, for now, space would be pitifully punctuated.

Would “IT” be space for others to draw breath?

Act 2.

Footnotes.

He had kept it secret.

It was a secret that only a few had seen.

IT (Act 2) gnawed away at him.

Release.

Release

IT (Act 2) was not a thing to be framed.

IT lost its potential.

IT was no longer there.

Sarah came and wrote there.

He looked at it.

No that felt wrong.

IT was ruthless.

He tried writing in the space himself.

IT was resistant.

He had sent the “proposal”.

He had waited for a response.

How could anyone depict transcendence?

He sent out a message asking for help to some friends on Twitter.

Terry had understood.

He shared the ineffable.

Those questions haunted him.

What space would these words take up?

How might they move?

What would be their destination?

How could they shape reflection?

Better read then dead.

"They don't bloody read anything these days."

We are clearly not alone in Clermont Ferrand. 

Here is some throwaway data:

Reading for Pleasure

Teacher guided question to students: 

"What do you read?"

Student guarded answers to teacher: 

"I don't read. I don't like reading."

"I read l'Equipe (sports newspaper.)"

"I don't really like reading much."

"I never read."

"I never read."

"Ad infinitum."

Weird Student answer to teacher [2% of class]:

"I like Science Fiction."

"I love Harry Potter."

"I like Manga."

Outlandishly weird student answer to teacher [probably an Alien]:

"I like Wittgenstein."

Reading for Academic Purposes.

Student remark to teacher:

"I don't understand why I got a bad grade."

Teacher response to student:

"Did you read the instructions?"

Student answer to teacher:

"But it's all in English."

Teacher retort to student:

"But this IS an ENGLISH class."

Student reply:

"....mgrammggrrr........[mumbles something.]" 

Student goes off.

Teacher sighs.

Student writing for Academic Purposes.

Teacher question to student: 

"Did you write this yourself?"

Student response to teacher:

"Yes of course. I used Google translate."

Teacher comment to student:

"Ah, yes that is why you translated 'collant' with 'sticky'....

 The girl is not wearing stickies. They are tights."

Student response to teacher:

"Oh! But it took me a lot of time to type that."

Teacher response to student:

"....mmggrmmgrrr[mumbles something]"

Teacher goes off.

Student goes off.

Student writing for pleasure.

[No data.]

Remarks on data.

OK, so this data is clearly not representative of all groups of students everywhere and all that.

These are French undergraduate sport science students (except the Alien who was a maths student)in Clermont Ferrand [in France not very near Paris].

I am sure that we can find small pockets of geek participatory fan fiction fanatics somewhere hidden in the campus. 

I haven't come across this rare species to date.

It could be a research project.

Atlantic Data

I thought I had better go and find some more data. 

I thought the Pew Research Centre might provide me with some cool data.

I found an article in the Atlantic entitled "The Decline of the American Book Lover."

I recommend it. 

It is a cool read.

It has cool data.

Transatlantic Data

I thought about this with my colleague after reading or should I say listening to Terry Elliott in Kentucky raging.

Here is a link to his rage:

"Rage, rage, rage, beat, beat, beat, Soar..."

I love repetitive RAGE.

You can rage with him on hypothes.is

I added some David Bowie rage.

He is all the rage again now he is dead. (note cool graphic effect - very The Next Day):

"People are so fucking dumb. Nobody reads anymore, nobody goes out and looks and explores the society and culture they were brought up in. People have attention spans of five seconds and as much depth as a glass of water." David Bowie

I recommend you go and rage with David and Terry. 

They do it so well.

Books. Who needs them?

We were doing video projects the other day. 

One of the girls came in to show me a couple of videos that she had made to publicise a night-club.

She was really proud of her work. 

She had done both of them following the practice she had had in English class in video making.

Maybe we should give up crying over books or at least books with writing.

Do people cry about scrolls?

Do people cry about parchment?

I suppose they might.

It is sad.

I must not lack empathy for their predicament.

They might beat me with their scroll [and hidden truncheon].

That would hurt.

Better read then dead.

I thought of all the books that I had read.

I thought of all the books that I cherish.

I thought of all the books we took to the second hand shop.

I found another David Bowie raging quote (note cool graphic effect - which makes it illegible):

"I'm a real self-educated kind of guy. I read voraciously. Every book I ever bought, I have. I can't throw it away. It's physically impossible to leave my hand! Some of them are in warehouses. I've got a library that I keep the ones I really really like. I look around my library some nights and I do these terrible things to myself--I count up the books and think, how long I might have to live and think, 'F@#%k, I can't read two-thirds of these books.' It overwhelms me with sadness." --David Bowie, quoted in the Daily Beast in a 2002 interview with Bob Guccione, Jr. David Bowie

Not having a large library like David Bowie makes me less overwhelmed with sadness.

I am sad that David Bowie died.

I shall not need a warehouse.

That is my fate.

God Bless the Kindle.

What they eye doesn't see...