" . . . a group called the Eric Dolphy Project, and the results are better than anyone could have predicted: joyous, profound, well organized."(nytimes: arts: Joyously Reviving Difficult Music)

The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards defines pedagogy as follows:

Content pedagogy refers to the pedagogical (teaching) skills teachers use to impart the specialized knowledge/content of their subject area(s). Effective teachers display a wide range of skills and abilities that lead to creating a learning environment where all students feel comfortable and are sure that they can succeed both academically and personally. This complex combination of skills and abilities is integrated in the professional teaching standards that also include essential knowledge, dispositions, and commitments that allow educators to practice at a high level. (See http://www.nbpts.org/) (Pedagogy Does Matter!)

:: note :: . . . the term begins . . .many gifts of dignity, respect, courage and joy to all learners in every phase of learning . . . it does matter . . . learning is meaning . . .

"It is suggested here that it is more beneficial to research the intentionality of teachers rather than their values. Values, for example 'dishonesty', can be understood through consequentialism to have no intrinsic worth. They are valued (or not) by educators who create and make sense of such principles from a basis of personal intentionality. Therefore research into values requires an engagement with the intentionality of teachers."(Valuing Teacher Intentionality Over Values : Scott Webster)

"Instead they are "pictures" in the most radical sense - rapidly shifting, frequently abstract, usually silent images that have less in common with the world we commonly look at than with the "closed-eye vision" that comes upon us when we're drowsing in our darkened bedrooms."

"Brakhage found deep-seated emotional, intellectual, and spiritual wisdom in these dream-like apparitions, which tap into parts of conscious and unconscious thought we (literally) overlook in the course of our everyday lives."(A director who painted on film | csmonitor.com)

" Lasker No, it's just that it's useful in the sense that it creates a threshhold into something pictorial. If you use an abstract image to talk about the notion of making a picture, then you think more about how you make a picture than about the picture itself. It's a way of protecting yourself against fully engaging the narrative of an image. Creating a narrative which is more analytical than it is fictional."

"Herzog In what sense?"

"Lasker I think that abstraction prevents you from fully entering a fiction. A picture is a fiction. Abstraction keeps you away from that fiction and gives you a means of approaching a narrative in an analytical manner."

(a place to work, nothing fancy: Excerpt from an interview by Hans Michael Herzog with Jonathan Lasker from Jonathan Lasker Gemälde | Paintings 1977-1997)

"Certainly the shapes in these early paintings seem like actors. Actors with fragmented bodies; lost wraiths. Such theatrical metaphors are inherent in American painting: Rothko wrote in 1947, ìI think of my pictures as dramas; the shapes in the pictures are the performers. They have been created from the need for a group of actors who are able to move dramatically without embarrassment and execute gestures without shame."(Sperone Westwater: Jonathan Lasker: the dialectics of touch )

:: note :: . . . remarkable following chris ashley in a place to work, nothing fancy . . . the work . . . the daily studious practical and articulated research . . . the body of work is much appreciated . . .

"but the origins of the work are really based in recording memory, story, place, nature, color and space, the need to have a regular art practice during a time when a studio practice is difficult to maintain, my interest (commitment? belief? desire?) in abstract painting (a kind of romantic minimalism, I guess). I've learned over three year's time the potential of the weblog as a personal work space, a time-based portfolio, that is a place of production, exhibition, and archiving, being both an individual space and a node on a network(s)."(email to Tom: August 26, 2003)

Snake-in-the-Grass Lover

"2003 ART THEME: BEYOND BELIEF "What is any religion? A little ritual, a little superstition, and some magic. It's not a strictly spiritual affair; it has psychological roles to fulfill. You might not want it to be a religion based on your own experience but that's like wanting to clean up your dreams" -- Gary Snyder"

"Beyond belief, beyond the dogmas, creeds, and metaphysical ideas of religion, there is immediate experience."

(Burning Man: Theme Camps & Art Installations)

"Conscious of our failures, we are obliged, as poets of the space in which we live, to construct what not yet exists."(The epic of Haroldo de Campos)

"Ultimately, the Atlas is more than just a database of knowledge about simple abstract systems. It is an experiment in building 21st century scientific communities."(About the Wolfram Atlas of Simple Programs)

"The sociological theory that the loss of the support of objectively established religion, the dissolution of the last remnants of pre-capitalism, together with technological and social differentiation or specialisation, have led to cultural chaos is disproved every day; for culture now impresses the same stamp on everything."

"Films, radio and magazines make up a system which is uniform as a whole and in every part. Even the aesthetic activities of political opposites are one in their enthusiastic obedience to the rhythm of the iron system. The decorative industrial management buildings and exhibition centers in authoritarian countries are much the same as anywhere else. The huge gleaming towers that shoot up everywhere are outward signs of the ingenious planning of international concerns, toward which the unleashed entrepreneurial system (whose monuments are a mass of gloomy houses and business premises in grimy, spiritless cities) was already hastening."(Adorno:The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception from Dialectic of Enlightenment)

What post/link/day is it
No don't tell me what it is. . . .

It is good you are there
and listening
We are a conspiracy
- t.burnhard (from the missing persons)

(from Ftrain.com: 'Log Frenzy (Abstract)

"Theatre director JOHN JULIANI dead at 63 / VANCOUVER - Director, producer and performers's rights advocate John Juliani died Thursday morning. He was 63."(CBC News Online with files from Trevor Hughes, The Arts Report)

:: note :: . . . yes a performers's rights advocate in a country that so rarely speaks of the rights of the performer . . . speaking with courage&conviction&vision . . . saw only Juliani's shadow and am sad to see it pass . . . always inspired working at the grassroots . . .

"The barrier which Sontag feared might fall, has fallen. And still, we are lost in endless interpretations. However, I do accept and believe wholeheartedly her final words in the essay."(this Public Address 3.0: Against Interpretation: Jeff Ward)

"This is the first in a series of entries devoted to Susan Sontag's book, On Regarding the Pain of Others. Links to the next entry can be found at the bottom of each. There are a total of 20 entries for this book, each one illuminating and reflecting on a selected portion of the book. The process of writing these entries became a particularly personal journey as I worked my way through concerns and questions that have haunted me in my own work in art for many years."(artrift.blog-city.com Now Reading: Regarding the Pain of Others: Rick Visser)

"We begin as a mineral. We emerged into plant life, and into the animal state, and then into being human, and always we have forgotten our former states, except in early spring when we slightly recall being green again."(Rumi AD 1207-1273 found as a citation at the beginning of When the World Was Green - Joseph Chaikin and Sam Shepard)

DECONversation performance Toronto/ Maurice Benayoun, Pierre Levy, Steve Mann, Derrick de Kerckhove

"The JavaArtist of the Year Award will be given this year again to one or several outstanding artists working with Internet based media. The winners will be selected not only from the artists participating in the competition, but can also independantly nominated by the jury members."

"The award will be given this year for the first time in physical space during the award ceremony of Computer Space Festival Sofia in October 2003."

"Award winners of the previous years are: JavaArtist of the Year 2002: Calin Man, media artist from Romania. JavaArtists of the Year 2001: MEZ - Mary Anne Breeze (Australia) Jody Zellen (USA) and late Tiia Johannson (Estonia) who died at a young age nearly one year ago in Tallinn (Estonia)."(JavaMuseum: NewMediaArtProject2003)

"How can a culture become so creative so suddenly, and then, as suddenly, dry up?"(Guardian Unlimited | Arts features | Yankee doodles)

"David Byrne uses PowerPoint in the least likely of all applications: a medium for creative expression."(New York Times: Arts: David Byrne's Alternate PowerPoint Universe by Veronique Vienne. )

Sebastian Fiedler in Seblogging shares metalogues from "Steps to an ecology of mind" by Gregory Bateson . . .

Filled up with fog: Daddy, why don't you use the other three-quarters of your brain?

Throwing stones at it: This is another great paragraph from Gregory Bateson's metalogue "How much do you know?"

:: note :: . . . delightful . . . throwing stones in the fog . . . feels like what i do to the screen . . . sometimes windows get smashed . . . sometimes just a ricochet off the wall . . . you can tell by the sound . . . how to respond/react . . . hope the metalogues keep coming or I'll be forced to find a copy of "Steps . ." or better yet get others to write some . . . that's how I know I love being an educator . . . first impulse - how to generate others to create what I love (beyond the imaginable) . . . transformative rather than or maybe along with doing it myself . . . dangerous but fun . . . like paper shields

:: note :: . . . classic before&after . . . how I spent my summer vacation . . . many posts this month have been brief . . . did a lot of the above alone . . . notice all the windows . . . before they were boarded up (apparantly some kind of gang intitiation in the neighbourhood resulted in window smashing) . . . a nice studio with new attic insulation . . . heating costs went through the roof last year . . . maybe tomorrow some side shots . . .

Thornton Wilder Passes a Tough High School Test. Scott Hamilton Kennedy's modest, moving documentary follows the effort of two teachers to mount a production of our town at a high school in Compton, Calif. By A. O. Scott. (New York Times: Arts)

:: note :: the above post stirred a memory . . . a few years back directing a high school adaptation of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 . . . found myself spending the easter break running lines with a grade 12 student . . . no experience he had earned the part through bold enthusiasm . . . that day he lacked concentration and I inquired . . . he very quietly told me his dad had gone into his room yesterday and taken his stereo system speakers and all . . . six months work at a fastfood chain saving for the equipment . . . dad was an alcoholic and it was end of month and they needed rent . . . he was promised that they would buy the equipment back soon . . . he didn't look hopeful . . . i wondered what the hell was I doing running lines . . .

Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked : Maria Tatar, professor of Germanic Languages and Literatures at Harvard University, and author of "The Annotated Classic Fairy Tales" & Catherine Orenstein, author of "Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked" (the connection : npr )

:: note :: . . . need this blink for a forth coming project . . . it bothers me all the linkrot . . . check through just last years binks and find so many dead . . . google is great and a help . . . still what is the life expectancy of a link . . . i'm gulity . . . watching my radio site slowly deconstruct . . . lots of little bugs i don't know how to fix . . . oh well decomposition nurtures new growth . . .

Still Wildly Gyrating After All These Years. Iggy Pop reunited with members of the Stooges on Friday at Jones Beach Theater to plunge back into rock's primordial flux. By Jon Pareles. (New York Times: Arts)

. . . things to look at both on&off line . . . invisible cities (via Language hat) . . . Regarding the Pain of Others by Susan Sontag

. . . in an earlier messenger dialogue today the question of connections surfaced (obliquely) . . . visited the new Ftrain (a graph narrative) and was curious about graph theory . . . took a web tutorial . . . wondering will it take . . . on another node read an eminem essay (via TeachingBlog) . . .

Off Directing: Cost-Cutting Tip for Theaters: Delete the Art That's Lost Its Meaning (Part I) & Staging Makes War on Scripts, but What's the Battle About? (Part Two) by Michael Feingold (Village Voice)

:: note :: . . . why theaters should do away with directing . . . misses how performance researches texts . . . still many departures for discussion . . . both parts should be read as one . . .

THE IDEAS OF STEWART BRAND: Founder of the funky The Whole Earth Catalogue, Stewart Brand was a hero of the counter culture before he entered corporate boardrooms. He talks with Paul Kennedy.(cbc: radio one: ideas)

:: note :: . . . a merry prankster futurist listening to the grateful dead . . . the well . . . the long now . . . the media lab . . .

. . . after recording the dream (read below) goto wood s lot and discover the final picture of my dream . . . so now my favourite blog blinks into the dreamscape . . . wierd . . .

i sleep
. . . on a quest . . . an initiation for entry into an ensemble . . . after much travelling found myself at the edge of a water hole surrounded by lush tropical rainforest . . . my companion, an unidentified woman, and I are facing a final decision - a huge argument ensues as to whether we should continue - we have just been subjected to a scathing personal attack from one of the ‘leaders’ of the group . . . this leader, an imposing, presence has not only criticized our abilities but she has also delivered a ultimatum which I don’t understand . . . my companion is vehemently requesting that we leave and go our own way . . . i turn away . . . enter the forest . . . a path opens which closes behind me . . . ten ‘stations’ challenge me . . . remember only the last where i am faced with a masked warrior who disappears as i walk through him . . .
i awake

"In the solitude of the work . . . The infinite nature of the work . . . The solitude of the work has as its primary framework the absence of any defining criteria. . . . The work is solitary: this does not mean that it remains incommunicable . . . "(pith... an ezine of poetry, prose, art. Maurice Blanchot excerpt from the Space of Literature via wood s lot.)

:: note :: . . . even in disciplines, that from the outside look so public (education, theater) . . . the work is solitary . . . demands a solitude . . . and an awareness of dangerous memories . . .

"Another aspect of memory as dangerous is its relationship to nostalgia. Connecting memory with ruins, dreams, and the past casts memory in the seemingly romantic light of nostalgia. The result of this casting could be to rob memory of its danger, to smooth the rough edges of memories not so much to fit them into continuous narratives but to offer the possibility of resignation given the distance and irrelevance of the remembered past to present concerns. Metz, for example, worries about "memories which bathe everything from the past in a soft, conciliatory light" from which "everything dangerous, oppressive and demanding has vanished" because they are "deprived of all future..."

"Milan Kundera provides an example of the shock of nostalgia at the beginning of The Unbearable Lightness of Being. In the course of discussing Nietzsche's notion of eternal return, Kundera writes, "Not long ago, I caught myself experiencing a most incredible sensation. Leafing through a book on Hitler, I was touched by some of the portraits: they reminded me of my childhood. I grew up during the war; several members of my family perished in Hitler's concentration camps; but what were their deaths compared with the memories of a lost period in my life, a period that would never return?" The "lesson" Kundera derives from this experience: "This reconciliation with Hitler reveals the profound moral perversity of a world that rests essentially on the nonexistence of return, for in this world everything is pardoned in advance and therefore everything cynically permitted." "Nostalgia" is the refusal to let the past be simply past while resisting its incorporation into the present. There is a future content to nostalgia that can be dangerous."(Confino and Fritzsche/The Work of Memory. Epilogue: Dangerous Memories)

arnet: Oriental Breeze by N. F. Karlins (via a place to work, nothing fancy)

. . . the tree missed most . . . a decade ago a magnificent aged chokecherry tree filled the backyard . . . had always thought chokecherries grew on bushes but this was a huge tree . . . at the end of august each year three full days were set aside to scale the limbs and branches to pluck the tree clean . . . a joyous solitary act accomplished with song and summer reflection . . . buckets & buckets of chokecherries transformed into over forty gallons of chokecherry wine by christmas . . . the wine making was passed on to me by my father . . . one summer the tree fell sick . . . no fruit . . . leaves shrivelled and the trunk split . . . what followed was a painful removal and burning . . . next summer I left . . . the bottles that once contained the wine are reused . . . they form a base for the heads of the puppet making project . . . the hands pick raspberries now when visiting my mother . . . the memory has that same bittersweet ‘choke’ of the chokecherry . . . traces left in this cycle of retrieval, recording and reassembling . . . the tree missed most . . .

(for&thanks Ecotone: Writing About Place: TreesAndPlace