What the break of coursework implies to me – possible “extra-curricular” reading! Β Hoping to weave my way through a LOT of the following…
What I’m buried in this week or this moment
What the break of coursework implies to me – possible “extra-curricular” reading! Β Hoping to weave my way through a LOT of the following…
some more possible insight into the processes of “forming…” Through somewhere somehow recently I was alerted to the works of Eugene Gendlin – probably through the work of Mark Johnson, Andy Clark, or Don Tucker…but could be elsewise. Β Embedded experience, embodied minds, enminded bodies – the whole mess of entanglement our simplyΒ being consists of.
and how that might apply to “writer’s block” or that reaching we experience when creating –
that feeling that we canΒ feel it – knowΒ more than we’re able to articulate or organize or perform…
This article helps elucidate some of that, perhaps. Β It has certainly stimulated my imagination and attention in attempting to writeΒ more than I seem to know how to….
“All thinking involves the bodily … to some degree. Β Take for example any ordinary sentence. Β In the middle of it you have an unfinished sense of how … You don’t know the end, and yet, all through it, as the sentence wends its way … “
Eugene T. Gendlin
PLEASE READ MORE TO FIND OUT!
“I am in words, I am made of words, of the words of others, what others, this place too, the air too…”
As the semester’s projects begin to disintegrate into final clumps of submission…my innards yawn and stretch and struggle awake, expressing a yearning to search…spill forward instead of re-searching…explore and extend…
to construct and create without resources – to invent from the miscellaneous stockpiles of information and data accrued through intense weeks of devouring and ingesting…
This essay, from Maurice Blanchot, regarding Samuel Beckett –Β “Where Now? Β Who Now?” – captures that no-place of beginning – amid a chaos of signs and sensations – knowledge and ignorance – words and emotions concocted from immersion in information sources and recorded knowledge that constitutes “higher learning”…
please engage!
Wanted to plug a new Youtube channel I’m following…
I am currently readingΒ Samuel Beckett: Anatomy of a Literary Revolution by Pascale Casanova, introduced by Terry Eagleton
Beckett has always been a favorite of mine – for economy, humor, profundity, examination and exploration. Β The following exemplify elements of this – quotations from simply the Introduction (by Eagleton) of this study…
“His work, in short, presents us with the scandal of a literature which no longer depends on a philosophy of the subject”
“every sentence of his writing keeps faith with our sense of powerlessness”
“nothing is quite as real as nothing”
“sublimity includes that which is barely visible as well as the immense and immeasurable, since both are equally ungraspable”
“there is no more truly historical phenomenon in art than form – which is quite as much saturated in social signification as so-called content”
Beckett presents “questions addressed by texts to themselves, queries about their own procedures and conditions of possibility”
“clear-eyed attempts at an exact formulation of the inarticulable…the extreme scrupulousness with which it sculpts the void”
“writing itself becomes for Beckett the very signifier of the failure which so gripped his imagination”
“places the very impediment to writing at the center of his writing, transforming the question of failure into the very form of his art, telling incessantly of the failure to tell”
Thanks Samuel.
…A decision after examination, a judicial sentence,Β esp.Β that of an arbitrator or umpire; the document embodying it….
…To examine a matter and adjudicate upon its merits; to decide, determine, after consideration or deliberation.Β
The action or fact of flowing in; inflowing, inflow, influx: said of the action of water and other fluids, and of immaterial things conceived of as flowing in. AlsoΒ concr.Β flowing matter.Β
…trans.Β To exert influence upon, to affect by influence….
Etymology:Β < FrenchΒ influenceΒ (13th cent. in Hatzfeld & Darmesteter) emanation from the stars (also inflow of water; affluence)…
(Oxford English Dictionary)

In the first place, I thank you Madeline ScribesΒ for honoring me with this blogging award – I would think that any blogger is happy to hear that they have influence somewhere, somehow. Β As concerns its meaning – its effect in ongoing flow – I am thinking that our passing these awards along through the blogosphere is an aspect of recognizing that the world around usΒ mattersΒ – that what we encounter continuously throughout our days effectsΒ the flow of them. Β ToΒ award such influence must mean that, upon consideration, deliberation, we consider that influence to be of benefit or merit to the flow of our lives. Β To diminish the function and roles of these eminently reusable and transferable images by querying the authority, justification, compensation or some other arbitrary criteria of significance or import seems to me to miss the point and ideologically dismiss their networked purposes and potentials. Β I am very honored and very thankful for the effort and gift of recognition and assessment.
That being said – all of these awards (as with any gift) bring responsibilities…This particular badge indicates:
1. Β What makes you happiest?
developing attachment with my wife and children; inquiring and creating new knowledge.
2. Β Do you love mountains or oceans more?
mountains
3. Β What has been a special moment in 2013?
reading has provided millions of them
4. Β What is your favorite quote?
Today?: βI love quotations because it is a joy to find thoughts one might have, beautifully expressed with much authority by someone recognized wiser than oneself.β
βΒ Marlene Dietrich
5. Β Do you like yourself?
sometimes
6. Β Do you stay up until midnight on New Years’ Eve?
rarely
7. Β Is there something you wish could be done ASAP?
global peace and cooperation
8. Β What is/was your favorite class in school?
philosophy/social science coursesΒ
9. Β What musical instruments do you / have you try/tried to play?
piano, saxophone, organ, drums, trumpet, harmonica, guitar, voice
10. Β Anything you wished you would have learned earlier?
the world’s complexity and the constancy of change
11. Β Do you like to do crafts, drawing or painting?
the effort extends and challenges me uniquely
And, given the reflective caveat above (that ALL we encounter influences us), I pass the award along to these fellow bloggers –
My maker-wheels or whatever complex machinery sometimes con-fuses to generate documents of creative writing are apparently on the fritz. Β In lieu of some relatively originary textual flow (idiosyncratic dip into the semiotic waters of the resource of language) I forward along a poem that stands out to me from this weeks’ readings, and a plea that interest-piqued readers immerse themselves in a particular book regarding our co-creation and involvement with the rest of the world and one another…
First, the poem – from Bob Hicok‘s “Elegy Owed” – a fine collection:
and second a plug for a compelling study by Ian Hodder – “Entangled: An Archaeology of the relationships between humans and things”
I’m currently reading Too Big To Know by David Weinberger and quite intrigued by his observations – Lane’s account is a cogent analysis of why.
If David Weinberger is to be believed, the Internet hasnβt just changed how we access information, it has altered the very meaning of βknowledgeβ. In a recent interview with The Atlantic, Weinberger claims that βfor the coming generation, knowing looks less like capturing truths in books than engaging in never-settled networks of discussion and argument.β Supposedly, the networked, collaborative, and social nature of the Internet has changed our very understanding of knowledge to the point that knowledge is no longer tied to concepts of truth, objectivity, or certainty. Instead, as Weinberger argues in his recent book, Too Big to Know, βknowledge is a property of the networkβ (p. xiii). That is, the Internet has profoundly changed what it means to be a fact, to be true, or to be known. This book has been making the rounds among librarians, so I thought it might be a good ideaβ¦
View original post 1,765 more words
Music, Musicology, and related Matters
a photographic pilgrimage to Orthodox Christian monasteries across the continent
Meandering Through a Literary Life
Orthodox Christianity, Culture and Religion, Making the Journey of Faith
Erik Kwakkel blogging about medieval manuscripts
"That's the big what happened."
Networking the complexity community since 1999