"Now let me say it to you[~]simply as I can: the search for an art . . . . either in the making or the appreciation . . . . is the most terrifying adventure imaginable: it is a search always into unexplored regions; and it threats the soul with terrible death at every turn; and it exhausts the mind utterly; and it leaves the body moving, moving endlessly through increasingly unfamiliar terrain: there is NO hope of return from the territory discovered by this adventuring; and there is NO hope of rescue from the impasse where such a search may leave one stranded."(The Brakhage Lectures |Stan Brakhage |ubuweb | via woods s lot)

:: note :: . . . what an incredible read . . . thanks again to the brilliant wood s lot . . .

"Oh this curse of the theatre[~]to continue and continue - to improve a little and slip back again, to find the precise formula and not to be able to pin it down - that is our cross, we wretched mummers." - John Gielgud, letter to Dadie Rylands, Dec. 31, 1944

(originally posted by terryteachout @ Wednesday, May 26, 2004)

:: note :: . . . another curse . . . seems like I'm collecting curses . . .

" every window is a curse, / something to break that shatters. ( maisonneuve|Barnett's Into Perfect Spheres: Depth Without Daring by Jenny Boully)

"Nothing like Canner's video has been seen here before. Using the theme of aboriginal justice, she placed tiny surgical cameras on two people who spent some time together dealing with troubled youth. The two people are Donna Heimbecker of the Saskatchewan Native Theatre Company and Const. Keith Salzl, an aboriginal police liaison officer. "(Spasm public art|The StarPhoenix Active Paper)

(pretty sure the Star link needs subscription registration and in the LifeStyles table of contents link - you need access email me)

"Suggesting that a student take ownership of their own words is not a matter of empowerment; it is a suggestion that they pay close attention to their potentialities. Power is always exercised socially; but potential is always collected individually."(this Public Address 3.0 | Ownership)

:: note :: . . . a powerful statement . . . at times students must exercise exchanges of power, particularly in institutions listening only to the powerful before acting in any way . . . Paolo Freire in Pedagogy of the Oppressed contributes to the dialogue on this ability to distinquish between power and potentiality . . . vigilant attention is required . . . and yet when connections are made between the pedagogy and theater of the oppressed I have been unwilling to study power as an ideology . . . the question which haunts is does viewing social exchange in terms of power create the power structures and if other templates like gift exchange were adopted what sort of structure would evolve . . .

"Two points: First, the professionalization and specialization that has affected all of American academe has affected the profession of the theater practitioner as well. While this has provided the American theater with a huge pool of trained talent, it's also shut out those practitioners who may not have those academic credentials. Graduate schools are not merely training grounds; they're also informal communities, networking opportunities, not to mention indocrination centers for the ideological and aesthetic shibboleths of the current reigning academic stars. (Honestly, I don't mean this in a negative way; any community tries to instill common values. It's in the nature of community itself. But it can be stultifying to those who are outside of the community or to those who may disagree with the common values of that community.) You learn to walk the walk, talk the talk. There is privilege to this."(culturebot | The Economics of Theater |From George Hunka)

:: note :: . . . priviledge yes . . . practitioners practice whether watched or recognized . . . communities exist and training occurs outside the reigning stars . . . look&find . . .

" To "disappear," the actor must undergo a rigorous training that Oida describes in minute detail. Actors must be thorough, disciplined, hard working, and self learning. "When I speak about self-learning'" he says, "I am not talking about an intellectual program of training, rather a general openness and willingness to move onwards. It is responsiveness, not rigidity." Openness is the key to understanding one's inner and outer life, one's physical and mental apparatus; openness is committing oneself to learning and struggling with the complicated techniques needed to become "invisible.""(CROYDEN'S CORNER by Margaret Croyden BOOK REVIEW: "THE INVISIBLE ACTOR" BY YOSHI OIDA with Lorna Marshall (Mentheun) Foreward by Peter Brook)

:: note :: . . . need to explore much more about openness . . .

"Wide agreement in such matters is probably impossible so, no matter how much one might wish, as I do, for a terminology upon which we are all agreed, that is not going to happen. Therefore, rather than one dead term sometimes used dismissively, let us have a range of terms, challenging us to consider the meaning of what we are reading and what we are saying. Mine, for now, is restless."(Finding another word for "experimental" / Lawrence Upton)

:: note :: . . . very restless . . . following Robert Lax led to Harry Gilonis and to the above . . .

"The critic and historian Leonard Feather explained Mr. Jones's significance this way: "His main achievement was the creation of what might be called a circle of sound, a continuum in which no beat of the bar was necessarily indicated by any specific accent, yet the overall feeling became a tremendously dynamic and rhythmically important part of the whole group.""(NYTimes | Obituaries | Elvin Jones, Jazz Drummer With Coltrane, Dies at 76 By PETER KEEPNEWS)

:: note :: . . . didn't want to miss this . . . John Coltrane Quartet opened my ear to a completely new dynamic sound . . . it played with my ear the way Jackson Pollack played with my eye and both ultimately played deep in the place of creative consciousness . . . listening to the Quartet was like a love affair which breathes huge freedom into the improvisation called passion . . . layers & layers of complex exploratory meeting . . . the moment Coltrane engaged two drummers the creative tension exploded . . . have really learned to embrace resistence . . . when forces work and I wish to turn away and flee then I recognize now is the time to turn and listen . . . keep playing Elvin . . .

:: note :: . . . Goldsworthy in New York . . .

"School teaches basic skills. It used to do a pretty good job, but now we have a crisis. Starting i n the 20th century, school also provides socialization and, more importantly, also babysitting while parents go to work. School teaches test taking behavior. And school teaches about authority: teachers know more and have more power; students have no power. Students' ability to express agency is limited to "petty transgressions" or "achievements of excellence" within the structure provided by the school."

"Even where there is play in school, such as in sports, play carries the same hierarchical rule -based structure. Laurel argued that the teaching of hierarchy is the primary function of public education in America -- designed to create an efficient underclass (even if there's not a conspiracy to do so). School trains kids to be good workers and buyers, which is, in Laurel's opinion, BAD NEWS."

"Laurel pointed out that schools are incredibly immune to change. Gaming can't change schools. The kind of learning kids need is not going to come up in schools. When used in classrooms, games become an accessory to the same hierarchy; they don't puncture the spectacle of culture of politics."

"Laurel waxed pessimistic about educational games. "I have never seen a good educational game," she said, "It's crap for 30 years." Public education does not teach young people to meaningfully exercise personal agency, to think critically, to use their voices, to engage in discourse, or to be good citizens. We don't need computer games in the schools, said Laurel, we need "affordances for young people to exercise meaningful personal agency." We need to engage in a kind of discourse and critique that can be make them creative, culture makers, and future citizens."(Ian Bogost | Water Cooler Games | Education Arcade, day 1)

:: note :: . . . this type of statement has been repeated over and over again for decades . . . the grassroots teacher striving for discourse and creativity is more than often disempowered and shunted to the fringe . . . as the heiarchy factor demands . . .

:: note :: . . . the muse sleeps . . .

"Edwin Rosskam, a close friend of Ben Shahn's who was instrumental in constructing exhibits and maintaining the file at the FSA, confessed in his final book Roosevelt New Jersey:

     "That's why I'm no scholar, probably, because I believe in the feel of things and in the stories that people have to tell rather than the facts that are only bones. As Ben Shahn used to say: "Most facts are lies; all stories are true."(1972, p. 4)

The aim of documentary work in the 1930s was often specifically targeted at telling stories. I must confess my sympathy to listening to those stories as they were intended, even while picking at their flesh to find the bones underneath."(Moving Ahead |Towards a Rhetoric of Word and Image | Jeff Ward |pdf)

:: note :: . . . wonderful concluding words . . . thanks for uploading the thesis, congratulations & will spend more time on the words . . .

"7. I understand that collaboration, both in art and in politics, may be the most important means of bringing this vision to fruition. I must discuss and share my thoughts and ideas not only with the artistic community, but also, as importantly, with those in other disciplines, not just in my own locality but throughout the world. I may neither disregard my most immediate community nor ignore the most distant."(Seven Challenges for a 21st Century Artist |ARTRIFT A WeB LOG by Rick Visser )

:: note :: . . . go to a meeting tomorrow about standardization of classes . . . angry&fearful . . . recognizing the emotions they must be transformed into challenges . . .

"The stories people tell have a way of taking care of them. If stories come to you, care for them. And learn to give them away where they are needed. Sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive. That is why we put these stories in each other's memory. This is how people care for themselves."(Barry Lopez | found at wood s lot)

:: note :: . . . Lopez is a brilliant, evocative writer . . . all the talk about writing in this format . . . write to stay alive and to care for ourselves . . .

"The quantity of the knowledge increases with geometric progression and the corresponding body of records grows even faster. Transferring knowledge and pertinent information has become a vigorous activity. An increasing need for de-specializing the knowledge, due to an increase in inter-disciplinary communication, calls for more friendly i.e. more detailed, hence even more voluminous, communication. Definitions are fundamental bricks of knowledge: however it appear that the notion of definition itself is not sufficiently explained."(A contribution to Defining the Term 'Definition' | Sead Spuzic and Fons Nouwens Central queensland University, Rockhampton, Australia | pdf file)

(via Edu_Rss)

:: note :: . . . firstly if you don't please subscribe to Edu_Rss . . . really a must read for any educator/learner . . . definitons have been the bane of so many misunderstandings . . . find soft definitions more valuable in general communication than as specifics are demanded the definitions become harder . . .

:: note :: . . . signs of spring . . . kite tangled in a power line . . . demolition . . .

"Do others have these experiences where an intellectual and emotional event is manifested physically? "(North Coast Cafe | The Chagall That Took My Breath Away)

:: note :: . . . places are definately endowed with energy . . . the Pompidou Center has an enormous energy . . . a modern sensibility . . . energy of place shapes the art work itself . . .

from Loki Is Buried at Smoky Creek
Fred Wah

MOON DOG

the dog barks
on another street

two dogs bark
& the one in the sky

the stars
all bark at

the moon

stop yapping
and it hides in the mountains

THE CANOE, TOO

there is all that talk about northern waters
lakes with canoes sliding silently over the cold glass surfaces
      in the moonlight
and a mountain rising to the moon in its ice and snow
the rocky shore and its cold dry branches of driftwood waiting
for you to return alone in the still night
shimmering darkness

there is all that talk of this
and the mind wanders there in a canoe language carries
like a picture framing you in the black ice water

there is all this kind of talk and you listen to the words

the nothern lakes freeze
over the ice snow covers the valley
      and all the trees

HOW TO BE SOMETHING

dream about it
get the head back
into the body into
remembering
skin
imprint of shape
into inside
and look at what you do to yourself
say "mmmm"
remembering
don[base ']t move
let yourself be caught
catch
move
very fast
as fast as you can
as you can
(more & more & interview)

:: note :: . . . gave these words to workshop participants . . . it seemed to fit the work . . .

from
IGNORANCE OF THE LAW IS NO EXCUSE
John Ashbery

...
We went down gently
to the bottom-most step. There you can grieve and breathe,
rinse your possessions in the chilly spring.
Only beware the bears and wolves that frequent it
and the shadow that comes when you expect dawn.

(via Languagehat | The Bee's Hymn)

:: note :: . . . spring seems hardly here but last week stood by the river at twilight with a small group of four to watch a fire of burning masks . . . the geese honked wildly figuring something was up . . . the embers were sucked into the bog/mud of the riverbank . . . grieve&breathe . . . climbing up the bank our heavy breathing and the moon penetrated the silence . . . looked back . . . always looking back . . . not expecting dawn but hope . . . hope dies last . . .

The last light at the end of the branch, 1-12 is a beautiful collection.

:: note :: . . . the whole branch creates a piece more powerful than the individual details . . .

"Rail: In a way this work marks a return for this space to theory Richard Schechner put in practice some thirty-five years ago with the Performance Group. Grotowski was a major influence on Dionysus in 69, the piece that brought widespread attention to what was happening here at the Performing Garage. But the Wooster Group emerged out of the Performance Group in part as a rejection of that ritual orientation. Was any of this history discussed?"

"Fliakos: There's not a lot of talk, really. We watch a lot of TV. So we watched Dionysus in 69, a videotape of that. We watch a lot of material before we get going, and then once we start generating material we continually revisit the videos and pictures. We watched Dionysus in 69, and we watched Jim Carrey, Buster Keaton and Acropolis. It's just accumulating information. There's not a lot of analysis."(The Brooklyn Rail | in conversation: Poor Theater in SoHo? The Wooster Group[base ']s Ari Fliakos with David Kilpatrick)

:: note :: . . . last summer a friend met the wooster group in poland at a workshop . . . they couldn't finish the workshop for, as they said, it went against their work . . .

"having said: "

"'Go in this direction. To the south you will strike the river called the Irtysh. Go down the Irtysh. On its upper bank there are black trees, on its lower bank there are yellow reeds. Between these two is the ford called Mani. Ford the river there, and search up and down stream on that side. Should nothing be found there, go directly upstream. On the evening of the next day drink water and rest. There is a black mountain there with a marshy spring called Saddle's End Yellow Reeds. Search around there, and should nothing be found there. You will come to the sources of the two rivers Baji and Ginjili, which come close to that mountain and then diverge. Search around there, and if nothing is to be found in these three places, then come back. If you can, bring back a prisoner for questioning, but if you cannot, then look yourselves and come back. Whether you find them or not, go diligently for eight days, and then return and bring news. Well, my friend, do your work well and come back safely.' "

:: note :: . . . days of isolation over . . . 5 day workshop concludes . . . lots of movement . . .